Recent Events

Chizu Tanabata Festival

Fireflies
In Tottori-shi, there is a park called Ochidani Koen, where people have been breeding fireflies. In mid-June, you can go there at night to see them. Apparently there are thousands of them, so I thought it would be neat to go see. We got there before it was dark and also had to leave early around 8pm, but we did get to see some fireflies. Yana had lots of fun, and we even befriended a family, so she enjoyed running around with their kids. It was definitely a cool experience, I just wish we could've stayed longer! (Train schedules stopped us)

Parent's Day at JHS
On June 18th, there was a parent's day at the JHS. I had regular classes in the morning and then the actual demonstration class after lunch. I'm pretty used to people hanging around in my classes by now. I think it went alright. The JTE wanted me to talk about electric power sources in Brazil, Japan, and Canada, so I had to do some hasty research. I think a lot of it went over the kids' heads.

Tanabata Festival
Tanabata is celebrated on July 7th, but it was a weekday, so Chizu had the festival on the night of the 9th. Yana's grade was invited to showcase their naruko (wooden clapper) dance, so we brought her and were able to see her dance in costume for the first time. She did really well! We also saw the dentist there, who was dancing with the local yosakoi team, as usual. After the dances, we hung around with some of her friends, ate kakigori, and did kingyo sukui (but for plastic toys, not goldfish). Afterwards, we walked back home with our neighbours, and they gave Yana a gift, which was really kind! It was a Japanese fan and a pretty flower hair clip.

Life with a Preschooler in Japan

Now that we're starting year two in Japan, I want to reflect a little on what it's like having a kid in the Japanese school system.

As you might know, Japan places incredible stress on community. I find that schools here generally act like a family or parent would - they focus on teaching children how to become a successful piece in society after graduation. That means kids learn things beyond academics - things like cleaning, serving others, obeying and respecting elders, morals, and other uncountable social norms. These are important things for children to learn if they want to fit in - a key point in Japanese culture. And on top of that, once kids reach junior high school (or possibly earlier), they spend the majority of their time at school, so its not surprising that they learn a lot of their life skills there.


Daily Life
Schools have a lot of influence on the lives of children. I can't say about high school, but all the way through junior high school at least, the students have daily journals that they write in. In preschool the teachers write in the journal and every night I read and stamp it. We also use it to communicate. Like, if Yana was feeling sick and had a fever, I'll write that down so her teacher knows. Inside the journal there is also a chart, and every morning I must fill in what time Yana went to bed, what time she woke up, if she's feeling healthy, if she pooped, if she ate breakfast, and if she washed her face and teeth. A few months after starting school, we were given a talking to by Yana's teacher. Apparently she had been going to bed too early (around 8pm) and waking up too late (around 6:30 or 7am). I was told that she has to go to bed around 9pm and be up before 6:30am. This makes her more "genki" (energetic) for school and also helps her sleep during naptime. Poor Yana has never been a napper, but I guess the teachers need their downtime, so even the 4 and 5 year olds nap (not sure about the 5/6 class).
We also have parent-teacher meetings several times a year in order to discuss any issues and periodically we have to fill in questionnaires about Yana's daily life (does she eat meals, how long does she watch tv, etc.). They do this in elementary and junior high school too, and I saw at the elementary school that they actually collect the data, make a booklet out of it (ranked charts and everything), and all the teachers meet to discuss the results. Unlike North America, the students put their names on the questionnaires, so the teachers were talking about how "John" plays way too many video games and how did he even do that, or that "Mary" gets up very early.

Parent Duties
As is usual in Japan, schools don't have janitors and might not even have groundskeepers either. So every year in the spring all the parents have to go to school on a Saturday and help clean the grounds. Some of this was legit cleaning, like cutting tree branches and cleaning the outdoor pools, but my group's job was to rip up grass. Why? I have no idea, but I'd guess it had something to do with looking busy. Anyway, there's now no grass around the swing set and a nice place for kids to get into a big, muddy mess.
In a country where many mothers don't work, parents are expected to participate in school life. There are parent-child field trips, parent-teacher meetings, Saturday class activities, school meetings and events, and the PTA. It's also just a lot of work making sure Yana has everything she needs ready (see school baggage).

Food
As Japan does, the school also likes to stick by the rules. Every child eats the same lunch from the on-site kitchen. Every month the school sends home a meal plan. I'm always impressed - I think about how kids in North America would feel about eating miso soup, fried sardines, or seaweed salad for lunch. Like most school lunches here, they typically consist of rice (sometimes bread or noodles), soup, a vegetable dish, and a protein dish. They also give a piece of fruit at every meal (not so at elementary and junior high!). In the afternoon, the kids have a snack, which is often a sweet with a milk box (I'm a little less impressed by this). There is a huge emphasis on calcium here, so the daily milk box is a part of school meals up through junior high school.

School supplies: change of clothes, notebook, towel, hand towel, shoes, gym clothes, library bag, cooking clothes, swim bag

School Baggage
It never ceases to astound me how much stuff Japanese kids carry around with them. For Yana, every Monday she brings to school: her backpack itself, water bottle, bagged cup and toothbrush, bagged pajamas, bagged gym shorts, change of clothes, pillowcase, library bag and book, hand towel, and parent-teacher notebook. In the summer she also has to bring her hat, swim bag (suit, cap, towel, and tshirt for wearing outside), and a towel as a naptime blanket. She keeps multiple changes of clothes at school as well as a pair of indoor shoes (which they don't wear during the summer). During the week she leaves most of these things at school, but every Friday she brings them home to be washed (including the shoes!). If there's some kind of special activity, she'll have to bring extra stuff, like her apron, mask, and bandanna for cooking.


Health
In Japan, schools also take part in the medical health of their students. Every month the preschoolers have their height and weight checked. Twice a year their chest circumference is also checked. This is marked on a card, signed by a parent, and returned to the school. There are also special checks throughout the year. In May they check for pinworms and dental health, have a urine test in June, check for pinworms again in July, have a medical check in September, a stool parasite egg test in October, another urine test in November, and a final medical check in March. Additionally, there is development screening for the kids at certain ages - we just did one for five year olds. Questions included if she can understand the rules of rock, paper, scissors (SO Japanese) and if she could go play at a friend's house on her own. This kind of thing continues throughout a child's school years - and possibly longer - even I am required to get an annual comprehensive health check, along with all the other school staff (although I don't have to put a sticker on my butt to check for pinworms!).

Photos
This is just a small thing, but something I really appreciated and felt was so thoughtful! Throughout the year, the teachers take loads of photos of the kids. Every few months they send the photos home in a little envelope and we pay for them (a very small amount). I really loved getting to see what Yana was up to at school and being able to have these memories. We have photos of field trips, hikes, tea ceremonies, swimming days, cooking, birthdays, etc. By contrast, in North America you don't really get photos from your child's time at school.

Getting a Wisdom Tooth Extracted in Japan

A few months ago I woke up one morning and realized I had a lot of pain around my bottom left wisdom tooth. In fact, the pain was caused by what appeared to be swelling and infection. I decided to leave it for a few days, hoping it was something my body could fix on its own.

It wasn't, as it turned out.

Conveniently, my daughter was already seeing the dentist, so it was easy for me to add on an appointment for me. The dentist confirmed that I had infection and prescribed me antibiotics.

After finishing the antibiotics, I went back for a check up. The infection was definitely improved, but still there and the area was still tender. The dentist had to cut out the infection. It was fairly quick and simple, but pretty painful, as she had to press hard to get the pus out and I had a fairly deep cut to heal afterwards. Again, I was given antibiotics to try and finish off the infection for good.

Things were improved by cutting the abscess, but my gums were still painful at the next check-up. The dentist took some x-rays and showed me that what I had was pericoronitis - an abscess caused by my wisdom tooth having erupted only partially. I was nervous about extracting the tooth, so the dentist told me to try brushing it really well - under the gums - with a small brush and we arranged another check-up.

But there was still no improvement. She advised for me to have the tooth removed. But the tooth was horizontal and impacted, so it would be a bit of a difficult surgery. I'd never had a tooth removed, let alone surgically, so I was quite nervous to do it. She told me it would be for the best, because otherwise the tooth would continue to cause infections, which would melt the bone underneath. I agreed to the surgery. She wrote a letter of referral for a dental surgeon at Tottori Hospital.

I went to the hospital first for a consultation. The dentist explained mostly the same things as my own dentist had. She then sent me to get full x-rays taken in the hospital. I did that, came back, and finished the consultation. She showed me that the tooth was almost entirely horizontal. We booked an appointment for after Golden Week. But because there was still pain, first I had to take another round of antibiotics (yay...). The antibiotics seemed to work well this time, and I was able to have a nice Golden Week with no discomfort (phew!).


On the day of the surgery, I was super nervous. I went to work in the morning, rushed home to eat by noon (I wasn't allowed to eat after noon), and then left with my supervisor at 1pm for my appointment at 2. When we got to the hospital there wasn't much of a wait before they called my name. The dentist sat me down and re-explained what she was going to do. She gave me a consent form to sign, which she had helpfully translated into English.

They lay the chair back and administered the local anaesthetic into several areas. It didn't take long to kick in. They covered my face with a cloth to protect me and went straight to work.

First, she cut open the gums. Then she began to drill away at the bone and tooth. It was very loud and the vibrations were quite strong, but I didn't mind that half as much as the next step - actually getting the tooth out. It may sound ridiculous, but up until this point I had no idea the surgery had actually begun. I somehow thought the drill was just a cleaning tool (I don't know why...denial? At least the anesthetic was working!). So when the dentist said, "Okay! I push your tooth!" and jammed her finger into my tooth with a sickening crack, I nearly jumped out of the chair! I was expecting a little more time for mental preparation!

The next part took the longest, as the dentist drilled and pried at my tooth. A few times she had to inject a little more anaesthetic, but the tooth removal itself didn't actually hurt very much. It was the pressure, sensation and sound of breaking tooth, and taste of bone dust which bothered me the most. I also recall the sensation of the roots being pulled out, like a huge release of pressure. To my ears it sounded like it must have been shattered into tiny splinters, but in the end, the tooth had been broken into about 6 pieces (as they showed me afterwards).

The dentist told me it was done (I weakly gave her a thumbs up) and that she would stitch the gums. There was some uncomfortableness as she pulled the thread tight, but I still couldn't really feel much at all, thankfully. Overall, I was quite impressed and relieved at how well the local anaesthetic worked.

They put gauze in my mouth over the stitched gums and sat me upright. Immediately I felt dizzy and called for the dentist because I honestly feared I might pass out. After some confusion they realized the issue and quickly lay me back down and propped up my legs with some towels. A nurse took my blood pressure. I felt ridiculous - a few tears grew in the corners of my eyes and I hyperventilated a bit, but I guess it was just the shock. After laying for about 5 minutes I felt better, so slowly sat up. The dentist gave me a translated paper about aftercare. One thing I thought was interesting is that I wasn't supposed to use cold because it apparently slows healing; seems quite opposite to the Western advice of using ice packs on your cheeks to help swelling). I felt pretty awful and exhausted at that point, and I was drooling a lot. I was also beginning to every so often feel a dull ache in my jaw.

Once I felt alright, I went out with my supervisor, collected my documents, and went to pay. It cost me Y4,700 to have the one wisdom tooth out. About $55 CAD at the current exchange rate, which is quite the deal!! Part of why I decided to have the surgery here was because of the great insurance coverage.

Overall, the whole thing took about an hour.

My supervisor drove me back to Chizu, and we stopped at the local pharmacy to fill my prescriptions - one for loxoprofen (painkiller) and another for more antibiotics.

The next day I went to my local dentist for sterilization. I'm pretty sure she just blotted my incisions with iodine (tasted awful). It was quick and painless.

I had my surgery on Thursday, but by Monday I was still having pain and had finished my painkillers. So I stopped at the dentist in Chizu to ask for a new prescription (as they had instructed me to). The usual dentist was out, so some old guy dentist looked at my mouth and wrote me a prescription.

On Thursday, exactly a week after the surgery, I had to go back to Tottori Hospital to get the stitches removed. It was actually quite painful because the dentist was pushing on the gums. The removal of the stitches themselves didn't hurt much, it was just the pushing that did. I told the dentist it still hurt and she checked and said I still had an infection. So she prescribed me MORE antibiotics and more painkillers. She said if I still had pain by Tuesday, I should contact her. She also sent a letter about it to my local dentist in Chizu. It cost me 350 yen for the stitches to be removed.

[Addendum: It took a while, but eventually my infection went away and my jaw seems to have been healing well. I visited the dentist here in Canada about a year after the surgery, and there was still a deep pocket around the gums of the tooth on the end, but they said that should continue to heal. One strange thing is that while still in Japan I developed oral candida around the site of the extraction. My dentist prescribed me anti fungal gel, which seemed to do the trick, but sometimes I notice it recurring when my immune system is stressed - odd, since I've never had it before in my life.]

Suwa Jinja Hashira Matsuri

Every 6 years, Chizu holds the Hashira Matsuri for Suwa Shrine. They cut down 4 cedar trees in the forest and starting at 3am they bring them down from the mountains, parade them all through the town, and rebuild the shrine. It's pretty important and has been a tradition here for hundreds of years. We were lucky enough to be here for this festival, since it happens so far apart.

The night before it was ridiculously windy, thanks to a big storm blowing in from the south. I checked the weather and saw that it was supposed to rain in the morning, possibly until noon. So it was disappointing, but not surprising to see the rain blowing down (yes, blowing - it was crazy windy) when I woke up this morning.

The first pillar procession started at 7:30am, but it was still pouring rain and awful outside at that time. We decided to kind of wait it out a bit, since there were 4 processions and they didn't get to the shrine until after 11am.

I was just starting to get ready when Yana spotted her friend, M-chan, out the window. A few minutes later our doorbell rang, and M-chan, her sister, and her mom were all there at our door, asking Yana to come down with them. And there we were all in our pajamas still.

I got Yana dressed in record time, managed to brush her hair, and sent her out with M and her family. They were watching pillar 3's group, which happened to include M's dad. It also happened to go right by our apartment building, so we went to the window and watched them go by.

Afterwards, Yana didn't come home. So we got dressed quickly and headed out to the train station, the next stop on the map (each pillar makes a bunch of pit stops along the way). Luckily we met up with Yana, M, and family there. And even better, the rain had stopped and the sun started coming out! And so we began a long morning of following around a bunch of drunk guys carrying a big log.

At each stop the men would put the pillar down and stop for refreshments (lots of beer). The local yosakoi dance group would also perform several dances while we waited. Our dentist is a member, so she came over and said hello.

Just past the post office, we made another stop. There was a big cask of sake which was ceremonially meant to be opened with mallets...unfortunately it wasn't effective. The guys holding the mallets then just started full-on beating the top of this cask, and....nothing. Eventually one guy just went at it with a big knife and finally - pop! An explosion of wood and the strong scent of sake. They served the sake in wooden cups to everyone there (yep, at 9:30am). An old lady told me it was special sake and brought a cup for me and Justin. I don't like sake much, but I could tell it was quite nice. It was incredibly clear and fresh tasting.

Meanwhile, Yana and some other kids managed to get themselves let into an old video store, where they were terrorizing the cats that live in there.

We started following the pillar again, but Yana needed a toilet break, so we went ahead and made a stop at the townsman ground. There were some food stalls there, and we got some doner kebap and Turkish ice cream, randomly enough. It was run by a pair of Turkish guys. The guy doing the ice cream was pretty funny, and I enjoyed watching him trick my students, who were also there buying ice cream.

It was near 11am now, so we rushed up to Suwa Shrine to catch the end of the procession. We watched pillars 3 and 4. We watched them carry the pillars up, but it seemed like we weren't able to go up to the actual shrine building ourselves, so we headed home.

And that was the once in six years pillar festival!

Yana's Language Progress: March 2016

It's hard for me to known Yana's level of Japanese, since I rarely see her at school (where she is really using it). But she is getting really proficient. In fact, at this point I'm not even going to include a list of words she's learned, as there's just too many. She's also quite fluently speaking in sentences now, as opposed to the beginning, when she could just speak single words.

She is using Japanese more and more at home and legit full-on sentences, too. She'll often play with her toys in Japanese or sing little songs (ones she learns at school and ones she makes up). One of the funniest things was, one night I heard her speaking Japanese in her sleep!

She is engaging in conversations with people quite easily. She often can have a real back and forth with the cashiers at the grocery store. She always likes to tell them which foods she picked out. One day we were walking home and a group of my students were in front of us. Yana went up and joined them, and just natural as anything, started chattering on and on in Japanese. Also, recently she's had to have a lot of dentist visits. She's able to go in there on her own and communicate with the people there.

She seems to be doing great at school. In February they had a recital. Yana's class sang several songs, did a bamboo drumming routine, and did a play. I'm super impressed that she managed to remember all that!

And, most impressively, she even translated Japanese for us when we couldn't understand! Often, she'll tell us that [word] is "called [this] in Japanese/English]. It's quite amazing that she went from an oblivious four year old to a third culture kid who understands about different countries and languages.

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.