Cultural Exchange

You know, this experience is making me realize just how long cultural exchange has been happening. Though I tended to think of cultural exhange being a product of post-1600 age of exploration (can you tell I was educated in America) and building up until what I thought was the cultural explosion known as globalization (amazing how I write on occasion of contemplation - ooh yeah!), that's not the case. So much of what is loved by the children in Japan, soccer, baseball, basketball, band, tennis, (yes that is what everybody does after school) these are all European (and American)! Except sumo, that's huuuuge here, I think even bigger than baseball (oooh, unintended pun! - I'm clever without even knowing it booooyaaah!) Especially when it comes to sports man - I mean cricket is huge in India, I was looking into games in India, Badmington is huge both here and in India. That developed from a game in England called battledore and shuttlecock, basically the same thing as badmington. The piano is huge here...I try and think of songs to teach the kids, simple songs I grew up with, "London Bridge is Falling Down," "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" - nope, "already heard of it" the music teacher tells me - "they are going to learn it next year of actually, btw it's already been translated into Japanese." No way! Luckily they didn't know duck duck goose. Sorry to the next JET.

But it goes beyond that I realize. I was talking with a friend who described to me how the Italians got noodles from China. I mean, I did learn that (Marco Polo, but it was just one sentence is sixth grade social studies), but I never thought about it. Italian pasta comes from China!!!! What!!! But, pasta is the basis of Italian culture. To BE pasta is to BE Italian (o.k. all Italian friends - do I even have any? - now hate me). That means to BE Chinese is to BE Italian is to BE PASTA!!!! (O.k., all Italian friends now want to shoot me). It goes for Japan, Buddhism - China. Where did China get it - Ahem...Siddartha is not a Chinese name. Even Kung Fu (I gotta say this because I love Kung Fu, and Asian culture in general - but I'm Indian so I represent) got one of it's biggest boosts from the Bhoddidharma - a buddhist Indian monk who traveled to China. When I say a boost I mean some people (not proud Indians but other KungFu-o-philes) consider him the founder of Kung Fu - I don't know enough about it yet. If you do Kung Fu, and then take yoga in college like I did, you would feel what I felt - Kung Fu does all the exercises that yoga does!

I'm not trying to say all the cultures are the same. Cultures are radically different. Chinese culture is all about Confucianism and Yin and Yang, the I' Ching and chinese society and other things which form the basis (I've never taken a class on any of this, sorry to all my chinese friends - except Steve and Simon who I would never say sorry to) Chinese culture but come only from China. And even if Bhuddism did come from India, well, there's not a lot of Buddhists in India. But the writing of Japan came from China, so much of Japanese culture comes from China (ssshhhh, I haven't taken any classes on Japanese culture either - Koji and Franz don't use any swears in your comments - my mother reads this), but of course, Japanese society is so different from Chinese. It's just crazy though, I mean, Roman civilization - the Olympics, that's Greek, American education, I had to learn Latin in school, Japanese education, modeled after Prussia as is most places!

The more you think, the more you realize how much and for how long cultural exchange has been happening. The list just goes on and on, I mean think about it. Exchange is really nothing new at all.

Of course, the conclusion and basic thesis of this manifest is that all culture comes from India. Everybody and everything. All of you reading this, you are truly brown under the skin; - somewhere in the middle of your epidermis. That would be your medium-dermis. We also have the hottest women.

Disclaimer : the information in this scholarly manifest is correct to the best of my knowledge, except for the Indian women and cultural part which is an absolute truth, like God is an absolute truth, and any mistakes will and should be taken with a genial laugh and hey at least you didn't have to deal with Apu from the Simpsons while you were growing up...

Duck Duck Goose!

How could I forget Duck Duck Goose!! That's the perfect game for 1st graders!! Heheh. Now you know the life of Rishi.

Kindness

It's just incredible. Something happens, on average, every day to make me think that this has to be the kindest culture the world has produced. I know I'm a foreigner so I get special treatment, but I see how they treat each other, and respect is even built into the language, just as it is in India. But, unlike India (at least how I felt sometimes), it's not subservient respect (at least in our current times it isn't, I know some Japanese history), but a "I respect you because your a fellow human being" type of respect. "O shiawase ni", shiwase means happy so something like "please remain happy!" - imagine in America saying casually to someone you met recently, "I hope you remain happy for the rest of today!" as you guys parted. The person would turn and run in the other direction, thinking "who is this freak?" It's just not in our (my - American) culture. I'm not saying I haven't met ridiculously kind and giving people in America, God knows He has blessed me with friends who set the bar, but you gotta admit, you're afraid to give in America for fear of being a sucker in the end. Maybe it's my own immaturity. But I love it here, meeting people whose kindness make my day, help me to be a better person, and just in general let me be a happy human being. Kind, that's all I want people to be, I don't think I need much more from them than that. I don't care if you're perfect, just as long as you aren't this big ball of selfishness.

I'm not trying to over-sweat Japan; though I obviously sweat it a little because I came here - but it's just amazing, something happens every day where people go far out of their way to help me with whatever. They actually like to give. I think Asian cultures in general have more respect and kindness built into their language, India definitely does. Of course, I do have the omnipresent foreigner identity here. Once again, I wonder what it would be like to be Japanese.

I'll remember these things the most fondly once I leave. What inspired the post today waaaas...hghuuuuuh, deep breath; the guy on the train who helped me get home, the owner of the local sushi bar's father who saw me carrying the tripod I just bought along with a camera case and was carrying home and we started talking about photography and he asked asked me if I wanted to see his pictures and it turns out he's this ridicuously amazing photographer and his artwork is actually hanging in my elementary school and junior high school and all over agematsu and he let me take home 5 if his photographs that I want to put up right now because they're so amazing but first I want to frame them because they are so nice and I don't want any dust to get on them he even had these amazing photographs of china and Mt Fuji and they're old because he's 91 and so they're like priceless classics I even have a picture with two models in it and it looks like the fifties that's gotta be a classic he also has tons of other antiques (like 20 cameras including a pentax that looks like a boxc and a german camera that weighs 10 pounds at least) and if he watched antiques roadshow in the U.S. he's be a millionare and I should tell him that and he ended up saying I could take home as many photographs as I want (he started at 3) but I just couldn't so I took five :) and then after that I got a ride home from somebody else who saw me walking and who invited me over their house for dinner two nights ago and I had a 6 course meal with him and his wife who of course packed me lunch for the next day as well as two free t-shirts why didn't I bring more omiyage (gifts) from home for the people here!!!...that inspired me to write this post.

Can't wait to put up my photographs. The apartment may start finally feeling like MY place!

-Rishi

Nezame Gakkuen

One of the most rewarding experiences of my JET...ahem, experience (redundant), so far has been going to the Nezame Gakkuen. My fellow JETs in the area first told me about it a couple of weeks ago, and that's when I learned that bi-weekly visits were basically the norm amongst them. What is a gakkuen? It's basically an orphanage, though it feels a little different because you don't understand the circumstances that brought them there. They obviously have all been abandoned by one person or another, but my fellow JETs tell me that sometimes they would go one week and see a child there, and then go another week and that child is gone. I guess the same may be true in America. Maybe they got adopted? I'm not sure how it works, but after hearing of how high literacy rate is here and how low poverty lines have traditionally been, it was a reality check to see the kids there. Most surprising was just how many of MY kids were there. So many kids from the elementary school, so many kids from the junior high school. To see them in school in one environment, and pretty much assume that this environment is there normal life (especially since the kids spend so much time here if you include the after school activities!), but then see them there in a totally different world...man, I wonder how much as a teacher you really know your kids. Not at all right now.

Teachers from my school basically do rotations in going there. That's awesome, as we as teachers need to know the students we are teaching. That's one way that can help us assure their academic success. Honestly, in all schools, there should be more outside the school interaction between teachers and students. I think parents should even invite teachers over houses for dinner once a while, that should be some sort cultural tradition, as that bit of time can make a huge difference. I've always felt that teachers are mentors, role models, and will not have as much of an impact as parents but may and probably should be next on the list. Just think, you spend so much time in school. With 2/3 of your waking day spent here, especially in Japan, it's got to be more than just your subjects. That's why I like Japan, they treat it that way. Moral education is first period tomorrow, a couple of kids just came into the teachers room (where I'm writing this) to ask for some materials they are going to take with them to the local nursing home. They all have home economics and stuff like shop (remember shop class, I only had that once - i.e., one day in my lifetime, and I liked it a lot). Maybe schools in America still have that, and my school experience was just different, but the concentration on rigorous academics that I had - it takes the lifeblood out of you. Personally, I wish we did less of that, and I don't feel like I would be less intellectually developed. If you guys only knew how bad I did in high school, because of how unispiring it was, you would know I'm telling the truth. But that's a different subject, and just as much about me as about school. I'm not saying school will ever be perfect, but I'm very interested in finding out more about what works and what doesn't, especially across nations.

If your going to have school be such a large part of kids lives, especially in our day in time where parents seem to be working much of the time (I know it's problem in America and believe it is in Japan as well), then school should be more about all around character development. That's not really all that tricky or cultural nuanced (sometimes it is, but I'm not asking the UN to make educational policy, obviously intra-national government). Stuff like volunteerism, phys ed, should all be part of the experience. At least in the high school that I went to, that was pretty much cut out, and I wish it wasn't.

Back to knowing your kids, it's like playing soccer with the Agematsu Junior High School team. I told the coach I wanted to join, as people have told me a million times to make sure I get involved in the clubs if I want to feel a part of the team, and yesterday I went to my first practice. It was as if I was talking to different people. Many, (but not all) were much more willing to talk and just interact with me. Not only was soccer practice maad fun, I didn't even suck too bad, but when I see them in school I feel like I know them better. You see so many kids in school but it's very hard to get to know the kids your just by teaching. It's all about feeling a part of the community that you're in.

The gakkuen has been the best experience though. The kids were soooo happy to have us 6 crazy looking foreigners come (read: wild) and it was a shot of reality I needed. I don't know how to explain just how rewarding it was.

Hmmm...I wonder what it would be like to BE Japanese.

Go visit an orphanage with your friends wherever you are in America (or in the world). Find out how and when you can.

Love,

-Rishi

I have internet!!!!!

It has been the greatest accomplishment of my JET career so far. Even greater than climbing Mt. Ontake. My life is now complete. It is bad that I cannot function without internet? Shouldn't one be able to survive without it, after all, people got things done before without it. Whatever, survival means getting internet and getting it fast. Now it's easier to study japanese, go shopping, figure out the train schedule, prepare for teaching...aaaah, I love internet. Word. Word to the internet yo.

School and Mt. Ontake

Again, thanks to my buddies for your support. You guys (and gals) are awesome.

It's weird. I'm a foreigner in Japan, and I haven't taught at all before, but it's almost as if everybody thinks I have. Is that a good thing? They don't tell me anything, so I guess that means they're treating me like an adult, but they don't even think to tell me where my classrooms are beforehand, I have to ask these things, so sometimes I'm like, "whaaaaaaaaat the goofy?" I guess they are "inside" their culture, so they don't even know what I do or do not know. Oh man, cultural learning can get tiring sometimes (Do it my way fool!). But it's worth it in the end.

I've wanted to write this. As of today, I have taught 7 classes, climbed the tallest mountain in my area (Mt. Ontake), been to 5 parties, went on a school trip to Nagoya and an island where I played with jellyfish and had octopus curry (yummy! - no really, when it's cooked in a curry octopus tastes good, but when it was steaming hot and purple and fully intact (though dead) later on during dinner it isn't so good - too chewy), played in a teachers volleyball tournament, been to a barbeque...yeah, who should be getting paid here? It will get busy but right now...btw, I think I should have internet in a couple of days.

Classes are good. I just want to get to know the kids. I know that will be the most rewarding part of my experience here. Since the teachers room in the chugakko (junior high school) is so uptight, the kids are a relief. John, the ability to play with kids is probably more important than some "miraculous teaching." When it comes to learning English, it seems that just getting them comfortable and liking the langauge is the main point. So if you can play with kids who speak English, the language can't be all that bad. The other thing is that in Japan it's all about the self-introduction. I have to give a small self-introduction speech at every welcome party, and have had to give real speeches at the schools. My first lesson for every new class is a self-intro lesson. It makes sense, that is the most interesting part for the kids (who is this hairy Indian man, and boy are they amazed at the amount of hair I have.) So at the elementary school, I've been doing Kung Fu. I do a quick form, which really sucks to anyone who knows Kung Fu, but the kids give me props. It's just because I jump high and make loud sounds while screaming like Bruce Lee. Well, I don't scream like Bruce Lee, but I do take my shirt off like him. The female teachers go nuts. O.k. I wish.

Mt. Ontake was yesterday. It's our resident volcano (pictures up soon) but the last explosion was many many years ago. So it was safe. It's 3067 meters high, but...well, I'm not going to lie, we took the gondola half-way up and half-way down. But still, it was a hike. I'mn kind of proud, I thought I was tired on the way down, but today I woke up very genki (full of energy), so I'm more healthy than I thought I was.

John, I need to call you to see how you did on your MCAT, Steve, how is Nuvowire, Aaron, when are you coming to visit? Rocky, please send my stuff, Mom, send me stuff, and Dad, yeah right, Dad doesn't read this blog.

Much love.