Japanese New Year's Eve

It's almost New Year's in Japan. New Year's Eve is an important holiday in Japan. The end of the year is celebrated with parties all through December, but New Year's Eve is celebrated with family.

Most people travel to their parents or grandparents home. The day is spent together, and there is often a trip to a shrine at midnight. Special buckwheat noodles, toshikoshi soba are eaten. There is also a famous television show that everyone watches: kohaku uta gassen. On this program famous singers, both new J-pop, and traditional Japanese singers compete on two teams: Red vs. White.

Most Japanese will visit a shrine within the first three days of the new year, and many people will purchase a fortune.for a few hundred yen (a dollar or two). There are many levels of fortunes. Good fortunes are kept all year, but bad fortunes are left at the shrine and tied to trees, where they will be unable to follow you all year.

This year, I am traveling to Hiroshima to celebrate the new year. I have about 10 days off from teaching English, so I will visit the peace musuem, an onsen, and the city of Hiroshima during my free time. Most exciting for me, I will be celebrating this important holdiday with a Japanese family my roommate knows well. I will be sure to post more when I return! Happy New Year: Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!

And another fun Japanese expression is: Kotoshi mo yoroshiku O-negai shimasu! Which roughly translates to: please be kind to me, as i will to you, this year too!

Kyoto in Autumn

A few weeks ago myself and two friends traveled to Kyoto to along with seemingly the rest of Japan to view the temples and shrines so famous in Japan. As promised by guidebooks and locals, the temples were beautiful bathed in the colors of fall. We arrived at the Kyoto train station at 9 a.m. First we explored Gion, the old district of Kyoto where Meiko train to become Geisha, then we winded our way down the Philosopher's Path, a beautiful tree and brook lined dirt road, leading to the Silver Temple. A beautiful temple set amidst trees and sky. We lunched somewhere in there, and on our way back we explored random temples off of the Philosopher's Path. We concluded our day with another stroll through Gion where we spotted a Geisha being ushered off by her house mother into a taxi-cab. The taxi-cab was a good ways from her house and she had to run to hop in, avoiding the throngs of people who were chasing after her trying to get her picture. Seeing a Geisha in person was a really awesome experience!! All in all a great day in Kyoto. Kyoto is such a huge city that I know I'll have to go back time after time in order to see everything!!

Ja mata ne!!

Engrish

Engrish, or the mistakes in English on advertising or on products, can be found all throughout Japan, from T-shirts to backpacks, and music to Christmas cards.

It is curious that English is so popular and so prevalently incorrect in Japan. There are of course, many Japanese who speak perfect English, but the majority are not fluent for sure. Thus, the accuracy of the English found on products is not so important. As kanji is cool to westerners, English is very hip in Japan.

As an English teacher I hear it all day, and sometimes even slip into broken English or Engrish when I teach to make the language easier to understand. In the best of cases, sentences are entirely understandable, but word choice is just a little off and possibly hilarious. This has been evidenced by one student who told me his business was Pachinko - a sort of Japanese gambling game almost like a slot machine but with balls (needless to say, I have not yet tried the mysterious machine). I interpreted his sentense to imply that he was a professional gambler, but later discovered he actually managed a Pachinko parlour.


The best Engrish is usually found on T-shirts.
This shirt was sized for a little girl, yet has the most depressing message for children I've ever seen. Poor lonely giraffe. There are also some pretty outrageous misspellings on the shirt.

One of the best things about living in another country for so long however, is the ability you gain in interpreting meaning from scrambled English and gestures. In my first few weeks teaching, I was constantly at a loss for what my students were trying to tell me, but now I almost know what they are trying to say before they do. It is good to know I will be a master of both charades and taboo. Challenge me if you dare!

Japanese Service

Courtesy is of the utmost importance in Japan. Japanese even uses a special tense to show respect for teachers, bosses, customers, or bosses. When it comes to service all attention must be shown to the customer.

To the Japanese, this is natural, but to a foreigner, entering a store in Japan can be a little intimidating. Most times, a friendly employee will shout out "irasshai" (welcome) and perhaps a whole lot more. In many shops, the staff will sound as if they are doing their best imitation of a recording. Other times it is simply a warm and friendly greeting that politely acknowledges your presence in the store and their interest in helping you. It is rare to find a store where you will be ignored.

Two days ago, I discovered a new and rather hysterical occurrence of being politely recognized in Japan. I was busily running on the treadmill at my gym, when I heard a voice say "konbanwa" a few times. I ignored it at first as it is perfectly natural to say good evening to people as they enter the building. However, after a moment I noticed the voice getting louder, until I saw behind me a young man who quickly konbanwad me! He was a new staff that had to greet all the people in the gym as he came in. I almost burst out laughing at the poor guy, forced to say "good evening" to everyone sweating and working hard in the gym. He didn't notice, and I was shocked to see that no one else found this amusing. I guess for ¥9,000 per month, the gym can afford to have its employees personally welcome us all, and for this I do feel like I owe my gym a certain allegiance.