Sinking into the Ordinary

Things have been quite busy in Japan!

In the past month since my last post I've been diligently working away as a teacher, taking 3 day weekends due to national holidays, eating Thanksgiving dinners, baking like a madwoman for Halloween lessons, studying Japanese, and eating bowls of ramen.

Things, although quick, are also starting to become more routine and home is finally seeming to be my little town here ;)

For starters though--

I took part in a festival in my town. Known as the Acki Matsuri (Fall Festival) it's a harvest festival where people carry around huge shrines all day, collect money, and hoist it above their heads ;) Lucky for me, I was fortunateto be included by the wonderful people of a nearby neighborhood, and took part in a full days worth of carrying the shrine, lifting it up when donations were made, and dancing a little back and forth with it on my shoulder. All I can say is, sweet, but "ouch." Although the first day was quite neat, I passed on the second day of strenuous carrying and opted to watch the finale in the Elementary School playing field.

While this was simply really impressive to watch (everyone cheers and the men yell "Yasai!" to attract attention as they hoist this megaheavy shrine above their heads,) it was also really cool to get my whole town together in one area, to do one thing. Reminded me of being home in SD a bit!

However as it's festival season, I also got to a couple of other bigger festivals in the area. For instance, Himeji does a similar fall festival to ours. However, in this festival (the Nada Fighting Festival) men crash the shrines into each other. One of the most dangerous festivals in Japan (one man died last year) it's quite a sight. Lucky for me, when I went, a group of us were invited to sit in the private booth ofthe Kobe Shinbun (Newspaper) andwatch from a very close spot on the field! I got a couple of videos of this as well!

The next day I was off to a MASSIVE Canadian thanksgiving dinner with others from Canada, the US, Australia, Scotland, and New Zealand. The dinner turned into a potluck, with equally matching international dishes. Although when I came, I thought I would be meeting Japanese people, and probably other Americans, I never guessed that I would alsobe meeting people from so many countries! Anyways, my first Canadian thanksgiving experience was great!

For traveling, I've done a bit this month, but not two much! I did however, make two trips to Osaka (one for shopping, one for a concert recently) which introduced me to the big-city life of Japan. Osaka, the second biggest city in Japan, is a bit crazier than my town of Ikuno. Although only two hours away, it's a completely different world. The big city not only has a ton of people, but also has things like live music, major shopping districts, and a few too many Starbucks and McDonalds. I made one trek down to see John Butler Trio play a concert in a small venue.

In other news, nothing too much has changed in Ikuno! However, there are a few interesting changes before I leave you.

It's gotten cold! Last week it was down to 6 degrees celsius which makes it freezing in the classroom.

There are bears about. The summer was so hot that many bears are coming down from the mountains surrounding my house. One man was attacked a few weeks ago (eek). Buying a bear bell.

Happy reading ;)

Miriam

Japanese!

So we all know that Japanese is hard(むずかし) ;) But enjoyable (たのし). I thought I would share with you some small quirks that I've encountered on my not very extensive diving into the Japanese language.

First, the order of the sentence is opposite in every way you could imagine from English.
For example.
In English, you might say....... ...................................The pen is in the bag.
In Japanese, however, it becomes literally..................Pen (particle that we dont have in english) bag in is.
or..............................................................................Borupen wa kaban no naka desu.
ぼるぺんはかばんおなかです.

Second, the writing is way way way different.
So there are 3 ways of writing things.

A. Hiragana= a phonetic alphabet of around 50 characters that you use for spelling Japanese words.
B. Katakana= a non-phonetic alphabet of around 50 characters that you use for spelling FOREIGN words.
C.Kanji= Chinese writing system. Non-phonetic, semi-logical but really not. And a bout a bajillion characters. :)

I can now read Hiragana and Katakana. I can also read a few Kanji which is really helpful ;) But advice, if you're going to choose one for survival in Japan, Katakana should probably be it. With Katakana, you can read things like

Hamburger (literally, Hanbuga) ハンバーガー
and
Toast (tosutu) トースト
and
Cheese (chisu) チーズ

This is especially helpful for ordering food, although sometimes its a bit tricky to interpret ;)

Third, there are a million ways to count in Japanese, which matter when you're trying to communicate.

For example, here is a list of the categories of objects that there are and a few counting words.

Categories:

Numbers; 1=ichi, 2=ni, 3=san etc.

Normal Shaped Things; 1= Hitotsu, 2= futatsu, 3= mittsu etc.

Persons; 1=hitori, 2=futari, 3=san-nin

Machines and vehicles; 1=ichi-dai, 2=ni-dai; 3=san-dai

Age; 1= is-sai, 2=ni-sai, 3=san-sai

Books; 1=is-satsu, 2=ni-satsu, 3=san-satsu

Thin and Flat things; 1=ichi-mai, 2=ni-mai, 3=san-mai

Clothes; 1=it-chaku, 2= ni-chaku, 3=san-chaku

Small things; 1=ik-ko, 2=ni-ko, 3=san-ko

You get the point ;)

Lastly I'll leave you with a list of kanji that I like and/or know and can read so far.

山= Yama or San= Mountain

人= Hito or Ko= Person

実= Mi= Beautiful (Also it's in my name ;)

上= Ue or Kami= the upper part, a higher place, the top

田= Ta/Da= A rice field
水= Mizu or Sui= Water (Wednesday is Water Day, Sui-yobi, 水)

Welcome to my infinite confusion and never being understood :)

Peace.