A month from today I will be on a plane to Canada! It's only a 12 day trip, but it will be nice to go back to a "normal" country for a few days. Life here is just bizarre... most of the time in a good way, but still it will be nice to go back to what I know. Speaking of what I know, tonight me and some friends are going to Denny's for some good old American dinning. I once went out of curiosity just to check out the menu, and it seemed like your neighbourhood Denny's with a side dish of sushi rolls. We are going tonight to celerbrate my friend Jason's 3rd month in Japan, the longest he has ever been out of his country of the United States. So what better way to underline this event but by going to this all-American establishment. Anyway, Ill see if I will remember to take a picture of my meal tonight and I will post it.

Of all my friends here I am the one that has been here for the shortest time and because of that I think it is strange that I seem to be the one that seem to lead and organize most of our outings and get-togethers. At home, for the longest time I seemed to follow what my friends were doing. Sure I always had some kind of input in what we would do, but it was rare when I was the one completly in charge. I am the youngest of all my friends here and I seem to be the one that takes care of all the party planning. I guess it feels good to be the one in control and to have people think highly of my ideas. So last week-end it was my friend Leslee's b-day and I thought of having a little party for her at the last minute since no one had thought of it. My friend Donna and I spent the whole day planning the little shindig and we had a lot more people coming then we thought. I never had so many people in my apartment before! It was a success! Here are a few pictures:

Here is Leslee opening up some of her gifts surrounded by two of my closest friends in Japan: Donna and Diane. I hang out with these two so much that I always get their names mixed up. I guess its because their names are almost the same, or maybe its because I am just a horrible person for not getting their names right.








Here is Taishin, Kume and myself. You are maybe wondering what we were watching on television. My television and DVD player are also known as my CD player. I think I was trying to introduce my friends to the musical greatness of The Dears that night. Kume, the one in the middle, is a very interesting character. We all love him because he is "Kume." You know these people that everyone likes because "he is just the way he is?" Well he's that kind of guy. He is just this crazy Japanese guy that does really crazy unexplainable things. Well last Tuesday night, Donna, Jason, Kume, Rio and I went Karaeoke singing until 3am because the next day was another Japanese national holyday. Anyway on our way back home, Kume thought it would be funny if he would do some wild tricks on his bike. Unfortunately for him these little stunts would lead him to a really bad biking accident. The bike skidded and Kume took a really bad hit to his head as his bike fell over him. Donna, Jason and I just froze in disbelief! We couldnt believe how badly he fell off his bike. We parked our bikes in the middle of the street and ran to get him out of the way of the cars. He lost consciousness for a few seconds, shattered his glasses and had blood all over his face. After gtting him up he started mumbling something about going to the "bomb" because he exploded... We are still wondering what the hell he was talking about. We were nevertheless suprised to how well he was speaking english after getting such a big hit to the head! We called our friend Rio for some help and as we were talking to him to get us a taxi to the hospital, Kume just got back on his bike and took off! It was the strangest thing... I guess he was going to that imaginary Bomb place that he was talking about. The problem is that he felt really ashamed and he didnt want us to help him! I guess that is something else about japanese culture that I dont quite understand. They think that these kind of accidents are their fault and they dont deserve any help for their mistakes. No one could ever understand the impact of this fall unless they were there with us that night! It was very scary and we all panicked a little bit more then we would have usually because of the language barrier. We couldnt call a taxi and if someone stopped to help us we wouldnt know how to explain what happened. Speaking of which, no one who drove by that night stopped to see if we needed any help. I guess that maybe because it was the middle of the night they thought we were a bunch of holligans playing some kind of prank, but no one even slowed down to check out why we were flarring our arms standing beside our bikes! This whole incident ended with Rio picking up Kume to go to the hospital. Luckily for him, he was not severely hurt and everything was fine. But that was my tuesday night... I guess this made the evening a little bit more interesting. It sure gives Kume a good story to tell! I still wonder what that bomb place was all about...

Ok back to Leslee's b-day party!

Here you have Jason, myself, Matt, Kume, Dean, Rio and leslee at the bottom. My friend Matt sitting behind me is another Canadian living and teaching here in Fukushima. He studied film at Carleton and lived in Lanark in first year: "its a small world after all!" Crazy!

On a total different topic, I always thought to myself before leaving for japan that maybe living there could give me an idea for some kind cinematic project: a documentary, perhaps. This might never happen, but I was thinking of doing some kind of documentary on the Japanese education system. I would have to be perfect in Japanese and learn everything about the subject, and that could maybe be a little too much work with my busy work schedule, but there is nothing bad with throwing a few ideas around. I just never thought that I would be interested in making a film before. I always thought I belonged behind the scenes, but I just keep on getting all these creative ideas for shots and a script, and I really think it could be a really interesting project if I ever find the guts, time and energy.

Before I end this entry, a few week-ends ago my friend Diane and I went to this art exposition of the works of Seiji Fujishiro, a Japanese artist. Here are a few pictures I took before I was asked to put my camera away. You be the judge of what you see. I liked some of it, but I find it a little infantile to my taste. I like the cats and all, I think its cute, but its not something I would put up in my dinning room.

OK, one last thing before I go. It is almost impossible to know about new bands or new songs in Japan unless you are really into J-pop, which I still have a hard time taking seriously. But here are a few tracks that I found on my quest to finding some new tunes and artists:

Spoon - I Turn my Camera On

Sufjan Stevens - Chicago

John Vanderslice - Exodus Damage

The Fiery Furnaces - Evergreen

Architecture in Helsinki - It'5

Aquaduct - Hardcore Days and Softcore Nights

Death Cab for Cutie - Soul Meets Body

If you guys think im missing out on anything good and new back home, please let me know.

well better get all dolled up for my evening out at Denny's! I wonder of they have gritz...

e.

I think the cold season has finally hit the North of Japan. When I first arrived here, I couldnt believe how tropical the weather was in mid september, and I started thinking that maybe Japanese winters were just a myth. But after feeling like a gigantic ice cube all day, I am now becoming to realize that winter is on its way... unfortunately. The good thing is that winters here are not as cold as the ones in Canada. The only problem with Japan is that they have no idea how to heat or isolate houses... So in order to be warm, I need to seclude myself in one room of my apartment shut all the doors and close all the screens, put on my fleece suit, turn on my heater, cover myself with a blanket and make sure that the heat does not escape the room. But then again, this conventional Japanese technique leaves other rooms in the cold, and so I stay stagnant all evening isolated in my living room with nothing to do but try to stay warm. I read books, watch movies and wait by my cell phone to see if any of my friends would like to join me in my fight to stay warm. When I have friends over, there is not much of anything to do indoors or outdoors, and so we just talk and talk about nothing and everything for hours on end. I have gotten to know amazing people that way and so maybe Japanese winters are not only good for skiing, but to stay in the comfort of your own house with friends discussing the meaning of everything. So now you probably have a better idea of what setting I am in as I am writing you this entry.

Last Sunday, my friend Rio and I decided to host a Gyoza Party at my house. Gyozas are like dumplings usually stuffed with spiced pork and vegetables that you dip in soya sauce and garlic. Since Rio once went to cooking school in Vancouver, he knows all of these recipies and wanted to show us different kinds of Gyozas. We invited a few people to come over and all together we started making homemade gyozas from scratch. The first ones we prepared were boiled gyoza stuffed with shrimp, sake and onion and the second kind was fried stuffed with tofu, soy beans and carrots. Needless to say, it was all very delicious. Here are a few pictures of our party:

This is Rio, our cook and gyoza teacher for the evening. He just loves cooking for his friends and showing us tradional Japanese foods, and I love to eat, so he is one of my favourite people I have met here so far.








Here you have Donna and Ryuta carefully making the yummy dumplings.
This is what the dumplings look like before they get cooked. Unfortunately, I dont have a picture of them cooked, even though it wouldnt be very interesting since they dont really change that much...
But here is some of us eating them.. oh so good. This has nothing to do with Gyoza but in this picture you can see something typically Japanese. In this country, people are obssessed with their cell phones. They check it all the time, write intensive long text messages anytime anywhere. In this picture you see Ryuta taking a break from eating to read a text message from a friend. I have to admit that I even find myself writing many long messages a day. Im becoming pretty quick on the dial! I wonder if that is a good thing...

The Gyoza Party People: At the top you have Jax and Donna (both wonderful girls from Australia.) At the bottom you have Chef Rio, myself, Ryuta making a devilish sorta face and my neighbour Jason.

Now I know that some of you are interested to know how my apartment looks like. Well even though you cant really see much of it, all of these pictures were taken at my house, but this next picture is a picture of my living room where I spend most of my time (and where I am right now.)

And for a last picture before I go into my ice cold bedroom, here is a picture of the group hanging out in my bed. You see I am one of the rarest foreigner here who has a western style bed and I think that the only reason why people come over is to re-live the comfort of a normal bed even if it is for 5 minutes. This is the same group again for the exception of Michelle (the girl in the blue shirt), who will also be referred to as my swimming partner from California.

Well time for me to hit the sack. Hope you enjoyed these photos! I know it has been a while since the last time I posted some and I will try to send you some more that I meant to post before. Ihave been quite lazy and I apologize for that.

Hope all is well with everyone and cant wait to see some of you in December.

e.

P.S. by the way, I have good news for some. I have been able to extend my trip by a day. I know its only a day, but it is better than nothing :) I cant wait to see you guys!

Before throwing myself in this experience, I remember doing some research about other people's experiences in teaching abroad, especially in Japan. Some were positive, but most of them were just filled with criticism about the school they worked for and the culture. I said to myself that I wouldnt be like them because I would feel too blessed of doing anything like this to be complaining. And well, it turns out that I am not any better than these teachers who I have criticized for being too negative or closed minded. My last two entries have not exactly given a good impression of this place where I have been able to rejoice one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and I would like to apologize for such negative feedback. I guess it is true, that even for a positive person like myself, the negative side to anything always prevails over the good.

Japan has been great to me so far. My honeymoon months here are over and I guess it has finally hit me that this is not a 2 week vacation but my place of residence for the next year and maybe the next one after that. Home sickness has hit me early. I think of my family and my friends more than anything. I never felt so close to them, being so far away. But I also have made great friends here, deep friendships which I never thought I would be able to make again after the ones I made in Canada. However, because I have such amazing friends at home I have been very picky with the ones I woud meet here. I would not let them in unless they reminded me of the ones i had at home and fortunately I have been lucky to find some that have reached me in ways I never thought was still possible. I think of Diane, Jason, Leslee, Matt, Donna, Rio, Michelle and Jacqueline.

Other than meeting wonderful people, making new friendships, and discovering this beautiful country, Japan has been a soul-searching place for me. I have only been here for two months but this country has changed me and has made me grow quite a bit. I almost feel like a different person. I compare my life in Japan to a retreat where people go to to shut down the rest of the world to be better able to get in touch with themselves and to discover what they want, who they are and where they are going. Each day these three things are becomng clearer in my mind. Sometimes when I wish I was home, I ask myself the question "what would I be doing if I was still in Canada?" And I can see myself living under the safe and comfortable roof of my mom's luxurious apartment, working in a clothing store, going out with my friends on Friday nights, watch movies and just talk about what i want to do about my future without ever doing anything about it. But by being here, Im doing something worthwhile, living a life and an experience that wont equate to anything else I will ever do. All of a sudden, my aspirations have never been so clear, I feel extremly motivated and I am not scared to risk it all for my future. I guess what I am trying to say is that the day I come back home I will know exactly who I am and where I am going, and fight for what I want no matter what it takes. Why settle for less when you know you have the potential to be so much more.

Here is some news: life in Japan is different. No really, it is! So different, that sometimes I have to slap myself in the face a few times to realize that life here is actually real. From going for a pee, to greeting your neighbour, everything here is done differently. This country has rules that you wouldnt even think of in Canada. For example, here are my 2 favourites.　First off, I was always wondering why so many kids were walking back home from school. At around 3:00 in the afternoon, sidewalks are packed with young elementary students in their little navy blue uniforms. Well it's been said to me that no parents are allowed to give their children a ride to or back from school, because appearantly it is unfair for other kids that dont have a ride. But what happens to the kids that live an hour walk away compared to the ones that only need to roll out of bed to get to school? How is that "fair?" Elementary school students are not even allowed to ride their bikes and no schools are ready to make exceptions for different age groups. Another rule that I dont quite understand is that you cant wear a sport watch in public swimming pools, BUT you can wear your locker key around your wrist. And so what is the difference? and should I even dare to ask? Is there even a logical reason behind all of these senseless rules?

It seems to me that everything here is ruled in such a way to control people any way they can, from implementing a silly rule to maintaining their traditions. It is a country made out of boundaries, not only internationally speaking, but emotionally, psychologically and physically. You can't freely express your feelings, you cant state your opinions and P.D.As are frowned upon. Its a culture of restraints. I even had a student friend who asked me once, ''is it not hard for you to breath here?'' And she wasnt referring to the environment. I consider myself lucky to be a foreigner in these parts of the world, because the japanese do not expect me to be like them, so I can act as wildly and openly as when I was in canada. But dont get me wrong, I do have to tone it down a bit because of the respect I have for these people that are not used to a more open-minded carefree atttitude.

So yesterday I tried out this pool for the first time. It took me a while to go, because I was waiting for someone to come with me. It is always intimidating to go to these kinds of places alone. People here stare at you even more when you are only wearing a two piece swim suit; they seem to want to make sure that you have the same body parts as they do . Anyway, it felt great to do something that I was used to do back in Canada. I have never felt so good then after my swim yesterday. Unfortunately, my friend Michelle and I wanted to go back today after work, but the pool is closed until the 15th. Just when I felt so motivated to work out, this had to happen!!

In other news, something that happened last week on my dad's side of the family made me feel very far from home. Two fridays ago, my grand-pa, my dad's father, passed away. I got the news from my mother who called me one late night. I think I was more saddened by the thought that my father and my brother would have really liked me there with them for support. Im usually always present for these kinds of events and I felt like I let my them down. Also, I really didn't know how I was supposed to grieve, and at times it didnt even feel real. Of course, there was no way for me to be there, but it also made me feel really nervous about the thought of having someone else in my family pass away or get really sick while I am so far away. I couldn't bear it if I was here. It would be too hard. So please stay out of trouble while I am in Japan and take care of yourself.

Love you all,
e.

For many years, Japan was an island secluded from the rest of the world. For three centuries, no foreigners were allowed to come to the island and it was almost as hard for Japanese people to leave their own country. It was only a century ago that Japan decided to open its borders to other nations. Today, the country has modernized itself in a western fashion by letting in infuences from North American and European cultures. However, Japan has never lost its strong traditions, and conservative values and has one of the strongest traditional cultures in the world. This is one of the main reasons why I became so interested in coming to live in Japan. I wanted to see how it would be like to live in a culture so different from my own. However, because of this, Japan has many advantages and disadvantages, for me and for many other foreigners.

Let me explain...

Japan can either open up your mind or shut it down. It has been hard for me to be on the same page of many of my Japanese friends because of their attitudes on the world and general social issues. I don't think they are non-interested, I just dont think that they have a slight idea about what goes on in the world around them or have a strong social stand-point. I have always been very interested in world's social problems, I'm always interested to know what i can do to make a difference either in my environment on a day to day basis or within myself. Japan is so extremly rooted in tradition, that the world around them hardly exists. The rest of the world is like a big blur that most of them has never seen or heard of. They cannot even compare their culture to another, because they have hardly ever been in contact with other nations. Therefore, how can they become involved on a global stage if they do not even ackowledge the rest of the world they live in? I am not making this up. My students have admitted this to me a few times. For example, have you ever noticed how the Japanese travel? They are always signed up in these ridiculous organized tours that travel through 5 major big cities in 3 days. They dont even get off the bus to take pictures, how can they grasp anything from another country or another culture in their whirlwind tours of the world? Even the education system avoids any classes about world cultures, social or political issues, and even art... because they are not considered important enough in the educational development of a child.

I know this must seem as though I am criticizing the japanese and their culture. Ive had many people telling me before I leave, that Japan has a culture that might be frustrating at times because it is so hard to understand and so different from my own. Their strong ties to their customs are in a way very admirable. But... there is just one thing... many of them are ignorant of the world they live in, of the atrocities that happen day by day in the country next door, of the Aids victims in Africa, or of the poverty situation in the world, or of the aftermath of war and so on. Its been said to me that younger generations are more aware of these situations, but do they do anything to solve these social realities or even educate others about them? Maybe my town is too small to really see if something is getting done, so I dont want to jump to conclusions right away. But I can assume that a country like Japan that has a strong economy and a seemingly stable society, can have an important impact on the rest of the world, if only they knew what the real matters were and how to fix them. Unfortunately, at this time their only international involvement is in the Iraq war and you can be sure that it will take a while before you hear about a Japanese missionary group in Africa helping Aids victims.

When I started working here, it didn't take me a long time to realize the closed-mindedness of my students. So right away I had the idea to not only teach them a foreign language, but to also incorporate interesting discussion topics and maybe slowly make them aware of social situations of the world they live in. Well my friends, I have tried and I have tested the waters and I think that maybe my efforts here were useless. I dont know if here, the saying "Ignorance is bliss" is a moto that many Japanese unconsciously live by, but I can confidently say that it will take more than one socially conscious foreign teacher to make them aware of what the world today is really like.

I am not saying that all Japanese are oblivious, in fact just their strong interest in acquiring a new foreign language is a big step in the scheme of things. Learning a new language opens many doors to different cultures and different attitudes from around the world. Especially, if the language is English, the most commonly spoken language in the world, you can be sure that they will be in contact with people and ways of thinking that they never faced before. Other people believe that the Japanese only learn English because their company asks them to or that they see learning another language like some sort of hobby, like knitting!

I also made friends with many Japanese people who agree that their society is closed up from the rest of the world. A few of my Japanese friends are frustrated that since in Japan it is wrong to show emotions, public displays of affection or to debate or have strong opinions, they are forced to do the same even if they feel differently.

With that being said, I guess I should take one step at a time: introduce them to a new language first and then maybe slowly take them into the harsh reality of our world.

I am writing this entry because today at school I received a phone call from a student that told me that the topics I bring up in class are too difficult for them to discuss. I assumed that since it was a class of women students it would be easier for me to bring up interesting topics about Japanese culture with a twist of Women issues; like divorce or even fashion. It really seemed as though they enjoyed my class and that they were interested in my topics. I always ended this class with a good feeling; with the thought that maybe this time I got through them. Their English is not perfect, but I am certain that they are well aware of what goes on in class. There is nothing too complicated in my lessons, but I do like to put in a little social reality twist to all of my discussions, and I guess they are just not ready for that yet. But listen to this: they would prefer talking about food and colours! Colours? Is it even possible to talk about colours for a whole hour? "what about you? what is the colour of your bathroom mats?" give me a break...

I hate the idea of having to dumb down my lessons because they don't want to discuss worthy topics, but it is true that my purpose here is not to change the world, but to teach a language, and hopefully that will lead to something positive.