Right Hand Drawn by Miki Huynh

Late last night, I took it upon myself to become ambassador for the great city of Chicago. To supplement the next day’s sannensei class (8th/9th grade class in Ameriterms) on asking/giving directions for trains and buses, I harked back to my own train traveling experiences and whipped up a map of my former home. Gettin’ my rotten vegetable shield ready… go ahead and click on the image to expand:

Believe it or not, I’m actually quite proud of the result. (Boo! Hiss! go the native Chicagoans.) Yes, I even made sure to include the world renown Lake Michigan whale. Only just a few train stops… and perhaps some major train lines… have disappeared in translation. You do remember the Bob stop on the Orange Line, at least? Cause my feeble brain didn’t recall any of the other ones between Midway and downtown despite so many past commutes. Blame aging. You might also as well assume that Wrigley Field (née Stadium to further abet translating) is two stops from my old place rather than one, as the students did. And yes, really, Adams is that far north on the Loop.

I have this uncanny sense of accuracy when I do maps around 11:30PM. Secondly, I have no shame.

As the seed of an idea was planted from the late night online conversation with reaching-notorious-status friend, Wendy, I continued mapping and drew directions for how to get from my house to our junior high school, Icchu. So, here we have it. Some trans-Pacific directions for you as well.

I wish that in the end the class had been left with more than ten minutes for these two photocopy masterpieces. Just so I could gloat over the awesomeness of inventing a Mystery Road (named after the other teacher) that leads from Tokyo to Hamada. Just to have no one in the class make any comments about the fact or about anything else for that matter. And boy is that becoming a familiar teaching experience. But I simply would not have cared because when my students recite in their bored stacatto English, “Could you tell me how to get to Midway Airport?” I’d holler right back, “Heeeeells, yeah!”

Move over CTA. In Hamada, I am the transit authority.

Puddin’

Today was also Pudding Day for school lunch. Halloween pumpkin pudding to be exact. Yum yum! This meant that all the junior high thugs who normally ditched school to beat each other up came round campus to collect on dessert cups. That further meant that teachers were sent out to man their stations amongst the salivating, custard-deprived students, so all was quiet in the teacher’s room during noontime, and I was left to eat alone and wonder where the hell everyone went.

After the end-of-lunch bell, one of the English teachers finally returned. She explained the whole situation to me, and then described some of the fights that broke out over dessert, just as anticipated. Nothing like the holidays to keep Japanese instructors extra busy.

So remember kids: pudding is a right, not a privilege.

Strollin’

The best afternoons are the ones where you get off work and the weather is so perfect you have to allow for a little meandering before going home. This particular autumn day required especial savoring, and I decided to send my bike down the less-explored small streets and alongside the river so I could spot orange coy fish and the sunlight gleaming off ordinarily dull water. I still had Halloween and witches on my mind for one of my classes, so I stopped in on a small shop that sold brooms among other various household knickknacks. It ended up being a fortuitous stop; the owner of the shop saw me browsing and approached me to ask something I couldn’t understand, so I responded with my hopeless “Wakarimasen,” and he then asked me if I spoke English. It turned out that he was an English tutor in Hamada who had lived and worked in San Jose, CA back in the ’70s. Wow, small town and small world. He then introduced his wife, also an excellent English speaker, and they chatted with me a bit before sending me away with a phone number and invitation to stop by again one day for lunch.

I swear, as much as other JETs tell me how commonplace this becomes, it never ceases to brighten an already decently lit day. However, I really do want to start equalizing my Japanese usage with my Japanese acquaintances’ enthusiasm and exercise of English. Maybe then I can start giving more accurate descriptions of the places I come from. Just in case my map making skills ever falter.

First, a semi-late announcement: I have a car! A beauteous.. cough… white, soccer mom friendly Toppo BJ. Uh, that stands for “Big Joy” for all the easily amused out there (which includes me. *snicker*). In honor of Alejandro Jodorowsky, I call it El Toppo. This actually works perfectly with the Japanese mispronunciation of the spelling.



Soon after the car, I bought myself a plug-in radio device for my iPod, so El Toppo has officially become a fully equipped roadtrip vehicle. I christened it on its first day with a 2 hour drive (at 50km/hour mind you) to Izumo City to see some Afro-Japanese drumming,

and then two weekends ago to Hiroshima for the Sake Festival in Saijo. More fun and shenanigans to mention in depth later on.

Just yesterday, I was listening to the radio during my drive on the way back from Masuda, the southern neighboring city in Shimane prefecture, and I tuned into one of the only two stations I’m able to get. Luckily, I caught a public radio-type interview with a French accordian player. The music in his segment was dubbed “French cafe music” and sounded very much like the stuff you hear in Amelie or in French music compilation CDs you buy for your mom during Christmas. Anyway, I liked his stuff. What I liked better was listening to the dialogue in French and Japanese with the guy speaking in French while one of the Japanese ladies translated and discussed his comments with the other two DJs. No bragging of any sort on my own language abilities, but it’s amazing how much you can piece together from fragments of multiple languages. I guess it also doesn’t hurt that English has invaded so much of both, at least in terms of music. Le Francais can’t get too snobby ’bout that one. Kind of cool to realize that much comprehension could happen.

I’ve also been Halloween lesson planning these past weeks, raiding the local Trial (think Nihon no Walmart) and hyakuen shops (think dollar store but WAY better) for potential Halloweeny goods. Normally I’m talking the death out of the holiday like two months in advanced, but I really haven’t had much time to think about it this year. What?! Horrors and sadness! Damned this general busy-ness and work-related fatigue! It’s really not the most outstanding holiday in this part of the world, to be sure, but we do teach it to the little kiddies as part of their English education. So at least lesson plans keeps my beloved #2 holiday within my realm of things to do, even if I’m not plotting my own costume with the same intensity. Thus, I still get to mention it here. A couple of group-related themes are in the talks with other JETs, though. Might not be too late for me. I’ll keep you posted.