Yana's Language Progress: December 2015

She's combining words and using phrases with more and more confidence. She can also reply to a lot of basic questions. If someone asks her if she's cold, she'll reply, "samui ja nai yo!" [I'm not cold!]. She's also quite bold with talking to people. She always asks people what things are ("kore nani?" or "nanda kore?").
Early in November, she came along to the culture festival at the JHS. Typically Japanese, there were lots of speeches. I was super impressed when she picked out the word "undoukai" [sports day] from one speech. It can be hard for even me to pick things out of speeches.
Interestingly, she tends to default to Japanese when meeting new people - regardless of their actual country of origin/language. I think because the world outside our house is completely in Japanese, she just automatically switches to Japanese mode.
She's still using "hattata", whatever that means. And she often Japanizes English words she can't translate yet, for example, "monkey-u".
One of her favorite things to say now is, "Oops! I machigatta-ed!", which is her weird way of applying English verb conjugation to Japanese verbs (adding -ed for past tense).
She also seems to be getting good at learning from her peers. For example, one day at the store we were looking at toothbrushes. One of her friends was with us, and asked, "kaemasuka?" [are you buying that?], and she answered, "kaemasu yo!" [i'm buying it!]. I'm not even sure she knows that verb, but she clearly knew how to use the same verb her friend had used to respond.

Some new words that I've noticed her using recently:

• boshi [hat]
• kudasai [please]
• kosumosu kumi no yana desu. papa to kaerimasu. [yana from cosmos class. leaving with papa.]
• machigatta [i made a mistake/i was wrong]
• kyouryuu daisuki [i love dinosaurs]
• kuma [bear]
• sore nani / nani sore [what's that?]
• kore sugoi/ sugoi kore [that's awesome!]
• isshou ni asobu? [shall we play together?]
• undoukai [sports day]
• ribon [ribbon/bow]
• mitai [looks like]
• te [hand]
• donguri [acorn]

Haikarashi 2015

A guy let Yana sit in his retro car. Foreigner perks.

Every November, my town has a great "time slip" festival, called Hikarashi. I have no idea what the name means, but basically the main events are retro cars and a historical costume contest and tons of little vendors line the streets. It's quite a big festival - probably the biggest of the year.

Last year we went out for the 9:00am opening car parade, but this year we decided to skip it and left around 10:30. We wandered around the streets, and Justin got some local deer burgers. Yana and I came across some friends, and Yana sweetly gave them some of her candies of her own accord, stating, "I just didn't want them to hunger." I died of cuteness.

We crossed the bridge into the main area of the festival, and met some of my co-workers from the elementary school. They asked if I was going to wear a kimono, and told me it was in the same place as last year. So we slowly made our way there. Along the way a noticeably drunk fellow asked for photos with Yana, proclaiming about how cute she was. His friend eagerly nodded in agreement. Later we picked up two of my 5th grade girls, who were going to get their obi re-tied. Yana and I went up with them to get changed into kimono. They played with Yana while I was getting dressed, giving her piggy back rides and playing tag.

We came back out, and started checking out the festival stalls. Yana and I shared a mango float. We met a bunch of my coworkers from both schools. We also came across the drunk fellow several more times - each time he asked for more photos. At one point he even picked her up and pretended to carry her away. He was totally harmless, but after several photoshoots, Yana was getting a bit irritated, and had to be coerced into several other photos with other folks who just had to get a photo with the "kawaii" foreigner.

We also went up to the shrine, where there was a mini hemp festival. There's a bit of a revitalization going on here, using traditional methods to make traditional things out of hemp. That's about all I've gathered about it.

By this time, Yana was getting a bit cranky, so we let her get changed and took her to play on the steps of the elementary school, where it was quiet. Then we went back to the kimono rental, and I got changed. We stopped at a stall to buy some wood-fired pizza. While we were waiting, some random old guy gave us a package of takoyaki. I'm not sure why people always give us food, it happens freakishly often.

We slowly headed back towards home, stopping on the bridge, where the costume contestants were giving speeches. My two students dragged us over and made us vote for them, even though we had already done it before. We watched for a bit, and then headed home.

Finding Furusato

The photo studio is the tall grey building on the right.

A few days ago I went into the local photographer's studio to get passport photos taken of Yana. Her passport expires in December, so I wanted to get things taken care of well in advance.
I was nervous about going in. Even though I know the head photographer and even though his son is in Yana's class and even though his daughter is my number one fan at the elementary school. To be honest, I was kind of dreading the awkwardness and I was concerned about them being able to properly take a Canadian passport photo.

After I finished work, I headed towards Yana's school and met her and Justin there. The photo studio is just around the corner from her school, so we walked there. The shop is typically Japanese and packs a lot into a small area. The building is taller than it is wide. Inside were two older ladies. The head photographer was absent, but I was pretty sure these two ladies must be family members of some kind. One was busy editing photos on a computer and the other came behind the front desk to help us. I handed her a translation of the photo requirements and she seemed confident enough and went about setting up the background and lighting. Yana and I stepped up behind the desk, leaving our shoes behind. After some fiddling, we managed to get a good photo. Then came the difficult part - cropping to the correct dimensions. Meanwhile, Yana was curious about everything in the shop, but the ladies were completely unfazed - and even welcomed her to try reeling the white background up and down and check out the flash and reflectors.

While we were trying to get the photos to the right size, in came the head photographer, A (his son), N (his daughter), his wife, their new baby, and an old man (the grandfather?). N's eyes lit up when she saw me and Yana, and the three kids quickly went to the table and began playing with little bear figurines. The photographer came behind the counter and helped with the photo sizing. Then we painstakingly translated his address, to be written on the back on the photos.

And at that moment, there was something so warm and comforting inside the tiny photo studio. All of us squeezed inside the small room - the grandparents watching on; the kids playing together; me, Justin, and the photographer trying to write a Japanese address in English...And I thought to myself, this is Chizu. Warmth, community, and kindness. People here are so friendly and welcoming. Though I may at times complain about the stifling feeling of living in a close-knit, tiny town - my students living below me and everyone knowing what I'm doing - the truth is, I really love this part of Chizu.

I thought of it also, when I discovered that the local bakery makes fresh bread for the school children to eat as lunches or snacks. The wonderful thing about Chizu is that people stick together. It may be a small town and the population literally dwindles every day as the elderly pass on. But it is a town with a mighty heart. In another town, a small independent bakery might flounder into bankruptcy. But here the life of the bakery has been ensured.

Here in little Chizu, I've learnt the word furusato. It can be translated as "hometown" or "old home". But it carries a deeper connotation, a longing for warmth and refuge, a place that recalls nostalgia and childhood memories. Furusato is connected to the rural past of Japan, one that references countryside communities. And I feel that now, I'm finally beginning to find furusato.

I chased after rabbits on that mountain.

I fished for minnow in that river.

I still dream of those days even now

Oh, how I miss my old country home.

Father and mother―are they doing well?

Is everything well with my old friends?

When the rain falls, when the wind blows,

I stop and recall of my old country home.

Some day when I have done what I set out to do,

I'll return home one of these days

Where the mountains are green, my old country home,

Where the waters are clear, my old country home.

- English translation of Furusato, composed 1914

Suwa Hoikuen Undokai

October 3 - Suwa Hoikuen Undokai
Although September seems like the most common month for sports days, the second Monday in October is actually the national Sports Day holiday. Accordingly, Yana's preschool had their sports day on the first Saturday of October. It was only about 3 hours, so not nearly as long or intense as the elementary and junior high school sports days I've attended so far.
Like all good Japanese events, the day began with opening speeches by important people. Then all the kids (there are 3 grade levels) spread out and did a dance-based warm up routine.
The first event was called yoi don, and was basically a relay. First was the 3 year olds, and then Yana's group (4 year olds). After the five year olds was this rhythm thing...basically it was just what the kids do every day for their organized exercise.  For example, they run around pretending to be fish, gallop like they're riding a horse, and do hopscotch. Each grade level did theirs a bit differently. So for Yana, it was kind of like a class battle, with her class (cosmos) and the other middle grade class (dandelion) marching up to each other in different ways.
Then the 3 year olds did a dance thing and we had a break for snacks.
Each grade has 1 event they do with parents, so the 5 year olds did that after break. Next the 3 year olds had a race. After that was Yana again. The kids wore their tengu geta and did a little skit with one of the teachers dressed as a tengu.
Then the 3 year olds had a fun little triathlon relay and the 5 year olds had another event. After that, the 4 year olds did a routine with a big parachute.
The 3 year olds did their parent and child event, and then the 4 year olds ran a relay. Yana was in the lead, until she stopped to see where the kid behind her was. But in the end, her class won!
After the 5 year olds did their relay, the 4 year olds did a pole race with the parents. Yana tripped while running, and made a spectacle of herself by dangling from the pole as the other 3 ran, so that was great.
The day ended with the 5 year olds doing their soran dance, which they also performed at the dance festival in August.
At the end, all the kids got "gamabari medals", which was super cute, and Yana was so thrilled about it.

JET Income and Expenses

I'm not sure how useful this really is, but for anyone who finds these things interesting, here's a rundown of monthly income and expenses here in Japan.

Income

The Paycheck
My pay varies a bit depending on how many days I've worked in a month. During my first year, my base pay was 280,000 yen per month. I get a bunch of taxes and insurance taken out of that. I usually ended up with around 230,000 take home salary. For my second year, I get a pay raise, so my base pay became 300,000 and I take home around 250,000 yen.

Rent Subsidy
Additional to my salary, I also get 27,000 yen every month for rent subsidy. It is direct deposited into my bank account with my salary. So I'm not technically getting my rent reduced, I'm just getting extra pay to help cover the cost.

Child Benefits
Even though we're not Japanese, Yana gets child benefits here! It's no secret that Japan has a rapidly ageing population, so this is one government incentive for couples to have children. The whole thing is a bit mysterious to me, to tell the truth, but I think I'm being paid 40,000 yen in a lump sum every 4 months.

Bills

Energy - 11,000 - 46,000 yen every month
Energy, or in other words, electricity. We pay monthly. The cost varies widely, depending on the time of year. Our highest costs were in the winter, when we had electric heaters running nearly 24/7. In the spring and fall our costs are quite low, because we use neither heat nor air conditioning. Again, there is a small spike in summer, because we use fans 24/7, and the air conditioning during July and August.

Water - 2,000 - 5,000 yen every month
We pay a water bill monthly, and it is automatically withdrawn on the 30th or 31st day of the month. Of course it varies depending on usage, but we've never paid over 6,000 yen. Usually we pay around 4,000 yen.

Sewage - 4,320 yen every month
In addition to the water bill, we also pay a sewage fee every month. It is automatically withdrawn from my account on the same day as the water bill, so the 30th or 31st of the month. It is always the same amount.

NHK - 2,520 every two months
There is a law (albeit one with lots of loopholes) in Japan that just by owning a TV, you must pay a fee to NHK. This comes from a belief that all TV owners/viewers should share the cost. There are several different billing setups, but we pay 2,520 every two months, starting from December.

Rent - 57,900 yen every month
For rent, we pay 57,900 every month. But again, I receive a rent subsidy of 27,000 as a separate deposit from my paycheck. So the idea here is that we only pay 30,900 for rent.

Apartment Maintenance - 3,500 yen every month
I started being charged this halfway through my first year. Not going to lie, it irritates me a bit that this fee was randomly imposed, and I can't see any evidence of the apartment being better maintained for it. But as they say here, "shouganai" - it can't be helped.

Cellphone - 15,506 yen every month
When we first arrived we signed up at Softbank for a smartphone plan with 5GB of data. However, with two smartphones the cost was an insane 20,208 yen each month. We went and changed our plan to the lowest data plan of 2GB. Now we pay 15,506 every month for both phones. To be honest, a phone for Justin is probably a bit superfluous, but we find it useful during outings and to stay in contact during the day.

Internet - 4, 644 yen every month
There was a setup fee of around 10,000 yen. Now we pay 4,644 a month, and that's for unlimited, fiber optic internet. It's actually even better than what we had in Canada!

Phone - 2,376 yen every month
In order to install the internet, we also had to get a phone line. This comes to just over 2,000 yen a month. It's also a fancy TV phone, so you can video call and I think it's actually free to use within Chizu. It also shouts announcements throughout the day, which I kind of wish it didn't.

Kyuushoku (School Lunch) - 1,200 - 3,000 yen x2 every month
I pay what I owe to each school. The cost varies depending on how many days I'm at each school and which days actually have kyuushoku served. Usually the ES is 1,600 or so and the JHS is around 2,500. The per lunch cost is 275 yen at ES and 315 at JHS. I'm not sure why it's a different cost, because it's the same lunch and the same portions...

Preschool - 3,800 yen per month
Yana goes to a municipal preschool (hoikuen) here, which is traditionally meant for children with two working parents. However, Chizu is so small and population is declining, so they let Yana in even though Justin stays at home. Preschool here is ridiculously cheap! Especially consider this price includes a hot lunch! At first we paid 4,000 yen a month, but after January it somehow switched to an even cheaper price...not complaining!


So that's it for mandatory expenses! I'm not going to include other expenses, because it just varies so much. We spend most of the rest of my paycheck on food, as well as train rides into Tottori-shi, clothing, random school expenses (me and Yana), work parties, eating out, etc. To be honest, we don't have a lot left over each month. But we aren't purposefully frugal either (though we're trying to crack down!).

Recent Events

I know I haven't been writing here so often. I think a large part of it is that life is just life. Things here aren't so new or interesting anymore. So I don't even think to write here. But I want to keep records of our time in Japan. Here are some short stories about what we've been up to over the summer. It's not  much, but it's something.


June 27 - Preschool Cleaning
All the parents had to get together to help clean up the school grounds. We were divided into groups based on our kid's class. I ended up weeding around the swing set, which was basically pulling up perfectly nice grass and making the area into a mud pit. I didn't get it at all, but okay.


July 4 - Preschool Class Meeting
Early in July, Yana's class got together on a Saturday for a class meeting. Basically it's an event for the parents and kids to get together and do something. I think they hired some lady to instruct us and we did some exercise thing together.

July 11 - Yana's Birthday
For Yana's birthday we took a trip out to the sand dunes. She really enjoys it there, but it was a blisteringly hot day and we all got a little sunsick. We ended the day by letting her play in the arcade at Aeon, which she begs to do everytime we're there.


July 18 - Sugikko Matsuri
Yana's preschool has a small festival, which is basically a fundraiser for the school, I think. Anyway, it was fun for the kids and Yana enjoyed seeing her friends. She also did a dance with her class, which was cute to see. I enjoyed eating kakigori. We had bought tickets for Yana to play some traditional Japanese festival games, but accidentally missed bingo.

July 26 - Tottori Prefectural Museum
There was a special dinosaur exhibit going on, which Yana was pumped to see because she's super into dinosaurs lately. The exhibit was actually fairly small, but this is Tottori after all. And Yana didn't seem to mind at all. She was especially afraid and intrigued by the robotic T-rex they had. We spent a bit more time exploring the museum, and came across a special event where you could build things with colored pieces of cardboard, so Yana really enjoyed that too.

August 2 - Kodomo no Kuni
The first weekend in August we met up with my PA and her kids to visit Kodomo no Kuni, which is basically a small amusement park for kids. The great thing is that kids get in for free, but the activities all cost extra. We saw some animals, played in the wading pool, and rode some bikes and cars. Yana had lots of fun.

August 13 - Shan Shan Matsuri
Probably the biggest festival in Tottori City is the Shan Shan Matsuri. It's a traditional festival which involves a rain dance. It's especially known for the iconic umbrellas. Basically, a bunch of dance teams line up and dance through the main streets of the city. It's pretty awesome.


August 20 - Special English Lesson at Suwa Hoikuen
Near the beginning of August, I was contacted by Yana's preschool about doing an English lesson. In the end, I decided to do it with just the 5 and 6 year olds (not Yana's class) to keep the class size reasonable. I was pretty much left completely on my own for planning and executing the lesson, which was kind of terrifying. I decided to focus on songs and games, which the main part based on body parts. I started out with some hello songs and dances. Then we played hello hello goodbye, a variant of duck duck goose. I taught them some body parts with some fun flash cards I made and then they played a game where they had to be doctors and wrap their partners up with toilet paper. We ended singing head and shoulders. By the end of it, they seemed to know head and knee, so that's something for some preschoolers, I guess! Being on my own, there were some awkward parts and things were kinda messy, but in all, I don't think the kids were old enough to notice or care, and they seemed to enjoy the singing and dancing and did tell me they had fun. So even though I would have changed some things knowing what I know now, I think it was a pretty good attempt for what was basically my first time teaching (on my own)!

I actually was able to spend the whole morning at the school, too. So I brought Yana and played outside with the kids for a bit. A bunch of them came up to me and were telling me their names, their moms' names, their dads' names, their brothers' and sisters' names, and their grandparents' names. After going inside, I spent some time in Yana's class. I was able to watch the morning meeting and I went to the library with them, where about 6 kids wanted to read books with me at the same time. Next the entire school gathered in the gym for the monthly birthday party. Lots of singing and clapping. There was also a fun performance by the teachers to advertise their upcoming sports day, and the 5 and 6 year olds did their yosakoi dance for the school, which they also performed at Chizu's dance festival, Kinsai Minsai Odorinsai.

August 29 - Kinsai Minsai Odorinsai
When we attended this festival last year, we had been in Chizu for less than a month. This year it felt good to feel at home. I was able to recognize and say hi to a bunch of my students, some of whom were watching, and some of whom were dancing. Since I'm more aware of what's happening now, we were able to go watch the opening parade through the streets of Chizu. After the parade, we bought some food and watched the main stage dances by Yana's preschool and my elementary school 3rd and 4th graders. Unfortunately it was raining pretty steadily by that time, so we opted to head home and watch from our living room window instead. It was a bit far to see, but we got a nice full-day concert of yosakoi music from it anyway, and some pyrotechnics at the end.

Yana and I doing the treasure fishing event.

September 5th - Chizu JHS Sports Day 2015
It was the first sports day on the new school ground! Last year we had to have it at the townsmen's ground because the school was still under construction.
Even though we JUST returned from summer break at the end of August, the students spent most of the time between then and the sports day practising. In the week before, there were two full-day practises. Intense stuff. It meant I had barely any classes, but I kind of don't enjoy this time because there's no real job for me to do and I constantly feel awkward and annoying. I was supposed to help with set-up the day before the event, but there was no job for my group after all, and we ended up weeding. It's also strange because they sit me, Justin, and Yana in the special guests section, which is filled with city officials and stuff - the mayor even comes!
Anyway, these things are largely tradition, so I had a good idea of what to expect this year. The day began at 9:30am, with the students marching onto the ground with their class flags (and also the school flag and flag of Japan). Then the mandatory introductory speeches by everyone possible. As a teacher, I also had to stand out in front of the students during the speeches, national anthem, and school song.
The morning included events like the ball catch (1 partner launched a ball, the other caught it in a bucket), treasure fishing (Yana and I went together, and Justin on his own), and running. It ended with the girls' dance, the boys' gymnastics, and the all-school best relay (which I also participated in, on the staff team).
There was an hour for lunch. After that was the mukade relay, tug o' war (which ended dramatically with the rope snapping and a boy getting hurt and taken off the field on a stretcher), catching inner tubes over heads relay, big pants relay, and the white rabbit relay. The 3rd graders had a special relay where they dressed up members of their classes. This year one class was minions and Lupin the 3rd, and the other class was Death Note. After that were more class relays, and I ran in another on the parents' team. The day ended with the class jump rope competition.
After the closing ceremony and awards, it was clean up time. The vice principal was nice, though, and let me go home early.

Yana's Language Progress: September 2015

5 years old!

Seems like it's about time for another update!

Recently, during a meeting with the principal of Yana's preschool, I was told that Yana is really funny. Apparently she speaks with a bit of a Chizu dialect, which the principal found hilarious . She's also practising selective hearing by pretending she doesn't understand Japanese when it's convenient for her (I guess her teacher told her to come back to the classroom and she decided to spend time looking at goldfish instead).

I also had the chance to spend some time with her at school. She has really picked up the Japanglish, which is both hilarious and terrible. She's learned that when the Japanese try to speak English they like to put -u on the end of words. So if Yana doesn't know how to say something in Japanese, it comes out something like, "Mama shoppingu baggu asobu gaymu hatata." (Translation: my mom has a game in the shopping bag. She likes to add "hatata" to every sentence, but its basically a meaningless placemarker she uses). I'm kind of terrified of what she might say if she meets an Asian in Canada. I'm not sure she'll understand that they can probably speak English. Here, nearly all her social interaction outside the home is with Japanese-speaking Japanese people.

Continuing on from the above comment, I'm feeling more and more that I'm missing words from this list. I think she picks up a lot at school, but we don't hear it so much at home. I'd bet there are also a lot of words she understands, but can't speak yet, too. For example, I'm sure by know she knows all the basic commands from her teachers at school, but they're not things she would really say at home. That said, she does slip in some Japanese every now and then. Recently at home she's been saying "itadakimasu" before she eats.

She appears pretty comfortable speaking Japanese, though (wish my students felt the same about English!), mistakes and all. Sometimes she gets a little shy or upset because she doesn't "know how to speak Japanese", but generally she is quite fearless about blurting out some strange mix of English and Japanese. She also tends to throw in Japanese words regardless of who she's talking to (Japanese or foreigner). She's really starting to have her own hybrid way of speaking now.

So here's the list of new words I've noticed:

• mizu [water]
• chiisai/chiichai [small]
• kusai [smelly]
• kiiro [yellow]
• samui [cold]
• aa sou ka [oooh, is that so?] - she said this to her friend with such perfect intonation, I could not stop laughing
• pan [bread]
• ochita [fell]
• aka [red]
• sugoi [awesome]
• nikko [a counter for two of something]
• mada [not yet]
• mou ikai [one more time]
• okaasan [mother]
• otousan [father]
• dekita [did it]
• nani shorun da [something like "whatcha doin'"]
• tabechatta [informal for "ate"]
• iterasshai [said to someone when they are leaving]