Fukuoka, Japan: September 2006

SCHOOL DAYS

After living in Chikugo, Fukuoka for a few weeks and working at the Minami Chikugo Board of Education, I finally began teaching at my three schools. My schedule varied, but I typically spend each  Monday at Minami Setaka elementary school and I alternated between Tachibana and Yamakawa junior high schools each week from Tuesday through Friday.

I fell in love with my elementary school immediately. Everyone was so friendly, and the kids barely noticed that I could not yet speak a word of Japanese. I was assigned to first and fourth grade, which I loved because it gave me the opportunity to experience different age groups. In Japan, teachers are shuffled around from grade to grade each year and even relocated to different schools every few years, so teachers never enter the profession thinking, "I am a first grade teacher and that's all I want to do". Now that I am looking for a full time teaching position in Chicago, I find it odd when I am asked what grade I want to teach. I have fallen in love with every grade I've had.

Uniforms are an important part of school culture in Japan. Students have summer uniforms, winter uniforms, gym uniforms, matching backpacks and hats, and sometimes even lunch uniforms!

At lunch time, all students eat "school lunch" in their classrooms. At Minami Setaka, the teachers eat the same lunch in the staff room. At first I was a little skeptical, but I quickly learned to love the food and now I really miss it. My favorite lunch was the soup with quail eggs in it. I also really enjoyed the dried fish flakes (that clearly looked like whole tiny fish) that we sprinkled over rice for flavor. The only one I didn't like was liver, but we only had it twice all year. At Yamakawa, I ate lunch with the kids and the menu alternated between a rice-based meal and bread each day. The bread came in a plastic package and was served plain, which was really not appealing to me at all.

In Japan it is very rare for schools to have custodians, so every day the students (and in some cases the teachers) spend time cleaning. At my schools, cleaning time was right after lunch. Music played over the P.A. system for about 15 minutes, and everyone jumped to their assigned posts, scrubbing the floors, sweeping the shoe cubbies, weeding the garden, washing the windows, or cleaning the bathrooms. It was really quite impressive, and when the teachers also participate I think it's a great way to teach kids responsibility and respect for their school.

(Photo credit: tonybaloney100)

For the first few weeks at Yamakawa, I learned that all students would be missing the last two periods of the day to practice for "Sports Day" at the end of the month. On Sports Day, students participate in various athletic events, some of which are quite competitive, for an audience of teachers and families. Most of the practicing time was spent with the boys learning to build human pyramids and the girls perfecting a traditional Japanese dance. The younger students spent a significant amount of time practicing raising and lowering colored flags that were tied to their waists under the strict direction of the older students. They used these flags to make a sort of billboard backdrop for various dances and performances.

Once sports day arrived at last, I watched the wide variety of activities and realized that I was completely unfamiliar with many of the "sports". While the dancing, cheering, running, and tug-of-war were familiar, the very popular running-with-a-giant-block-of-ice relay race was a new experience for me. Likewise, I could not figure out what sport required students to have their faces pushed into a large bin of flour. However, it sure seemed like everyone was having fun!


The Way We Do It in Japan by Geneva Cobb Iijima is a book I purchased shortly after returning from Japan. I love how it describes so many of the differences between Japanese and American culture from a kid's perspective, including several I've mentioned in this blog entry. Although the story takes place in Tokyo, many of the cultural aspects depicted are exactly how I experienced them in small-town Japan. This is an excellent book to show young children how people who live far away may seem very different, but they are the same in all the important ways.

If you are considering starting a pen pal project with your class, this book would make a great introduction. I would highly recommend choosing a partner in Japan, since their English education program makes it possible to communicate with junior high school students and many of the teachers would jump at the opportunity. If you don't know anyone in another country who can help you out, there are a few websites that can put you in contact with interested schools.

Fukuoka, Japan: December 2006

WINTER HOLIDAYS

While living in Japan from July 2006-2007, I spent most of my time in rural Fukuoka. This gave me the opportunity to really experience the inaka ("country") culture. During the winter holidays, most of the foreign English teachers take the opportunity to travel to Thailand or Korea, but I chose to stay in Japan and participate in the various holiday traditions.

The first tradition I experienced was a mochitsuki ceremony (literally, "making mochi"). Mochi is a Japanese treat made from rice pounded into paste and then formed into balls. Many families and schools get together to make mochi as a way to celebrate the coming New Year. In December of 2006, I spent a day with a Japanese family in the countryside as they celebrated with this tradition.

The family cooked the rice over a fire before putting it in a large mortar called an usu. With heavy wooden mallets called kine, we took turns pounding the rice, quickly and repeatedly, until it no longer looked like rice at all. When we were finished with it, it was a big gooey ball of smooth white mush.

Once we had made several batches of the mush, we broke off pieces of it and rolled it into small balls. For several of the balls, we rolled some red bean paste into the middle for variety. In Japan this red bean paste is used in many desserts as it is considered to be quite sweet and tasty. I learned that there is quite an art to rolling these balls, as my new Japanese friends were quick to point out the imperfections in mine!

Later in the month, I was invited to Setaka Kindergarten School to participate in their version of the tradition. It began much the same, as the students watched the teachers take turns pounding the rice. A few students dared to take a turn, swinging the heavy kine as hard as they could.

While it seemed that everyone enjoyed this tradition, it was very time consuming and labor intensive. Surely it would take all day to make enough mochi for every student and teacher! When I asked how long it usually takes to make all the mochi, one of the teachers let me in on a secret... behind the scenes, they had a mochi-making machine!

I thought this was the perfect example of how old Japanese traditions seem to mix seamlessly with modern technology in rural Japan. This little kitchen appliance vibrates and spins to effortlessly pound the rice into the desired mushy consistency. The tradition was carried out for the children to learn about their past, while the machine quietly assisted in making the tradition more convenient and practical for a school environment.

Holiday traditions are observed a little differently in Japanese cities than in rural areas. Christmas has become very popular, but it not celebrated in the same ways as it is in Canada and the United States. I took a trip in late December to Fukuoka City, where I observed one of the most popular Christmas traditions: Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Apparently, KFC has convinced most of Japan that fried chicken is really the best meal to have for Christmas. I was told that many shopping malls in the country have their very own Colonel Sanders (just like how western malls have Santa), but patrons at the mall in Hakata, Fukuoka had to make do with a giant picture and a table piled high with chicken for sale.

For New Year's Eve, I followed several of my Japanese friends to a nearby temple just after midnight for hatsumode (the first visit of the new year). We waited patiently in a long line of people eager to ring the bell. Once we had each taken a turn, we entered the temple to light some incense, pray, and eat ozoni, the traditional mochi soup.

If you would like to teach your students or children about some of the Japanese holiday traditions, I would recommend Japanese Traditions: Rice Cakes, Cherry Blossoms, and Matsuri, by Setsu Broderick. The author wrote this book based on memories of her childhood in Japan, so the various holiday traditions are described from a child's point of view. However, readers should also keep in mind that her experiences are from many years ago so not all of the illustrations and descriptions are still current. Japanese Traditions would be a great addition to any classroom library to spark discussions about how other cultures celebrate year-round. The illustrations may seem to be geared towards a very young audience since the author/illustrator chose to depict people as cats, but they are so elaborate that even older readers will enjoy looking at them again and again to find all the interesting details.

Hawaii: February 2010

My husband and I visited Hawaii in February for our honeymoon, and it was a truly spectacular experience. Our first stop was Honolulu, where we stayed with my friend Matty. He was an extremely gracious host, and he greeted us at the airport by giving us each a beautiful flower lei. In Polynesia and Hawaii, leis are given for many occasions such as greetings, weddings, and graduations, often as a sign of affection.

The next day we headed to the beautiful island of Kauai. We hiked the Na Pali coast, where we saw many Ohi'a trees and learned the story behind the interesting red flowers found growing on them.

Hawaiian legend says that Ohi'a and Lehua were very much in love, but one day the goddess Pele saw Ohi'a and wanted him for herself. When he turned down her advances, Pele became jealous and transformed him into a twisted, ugly tree in revenge. The gods saw what Pele had done and were angry. They reached down to the distraught Lehua and turned her into a beautiful red flower, which they placed upon the tree. So long as the red Lehua flower remains on the tree, the weather will be sunny and fair; however, if someone plucks a flower from a tree, a heavy rain will fall since Lehua still cannot bear to be separated from her love.

As we moved on to the Big Island of Hawaii a few days later, we took a helicopter tour over Kilauea Volcano. Before the flight, we watched a video showing many people whose homes were destroyed by the volcano. Many of them stood waiting, watching as the lava very slowly -- but unstoppably -- moved towards their uninsured houses leaving utter destruction in its path. While in the air we witnessed this destruction with our own eyes as we saw roads leading nowhere that ended abruptly in lava rock. In some places the lava was still flowing, inch by inch eating away at more of the asphalt.

Our pilot and guide showed us the active bed and breakfast completely surrounded by lava rock and burning forest. He explained that while everything else burned and melted down around it, the bed and breakfast remained untouched. The owners still accept reservations, but the only way to get there is by helicopter!

On our tour we also saw some massive vents, where groundwater being heated by thermal activity causes steam to come pouring out. It made for quite a spectacular view!

Hawaii is a truly beautiful place, rich in culture and history. Since it is such a popular luxury vacation destination, students are often interested in learning about it. A couple months ago I had the opportunity to observe a student teacher in a fourth grade social studies class during a unit on Hawaii. Each group of students planned a trip itinerary for a pretend class trip to the state. Students needed to research the different islands and activities and choose different things to do for each day based on interest and cost. The groups all presented their itineraries to their classmates and several DePaul pre-service teachers, who voted on their favorite itinerary. While this gave the students great insight into what Hawaii is like for visitors now, I think it is important to delve into what life in other places is like for the people who live there. In Hawaii, the answer is found in its stories, its art, and its history.

In looking for great books depicting Hawaiian history and culture, I came across The Tsunami Quilt, by Anthony Fredericks. In this story, a boy discovers the reason why his beloved grandfather went to Laupahoehoe every year to place a flower lei upon a monument. He learns that his grandfather was present in 1946 when a huge tsunami devastated the Hawaiian city of Hilo and took his brother's life. Students can connect to this book by thinking and talking about their own relationships to their grandparents and perhaps even how it feels when someone they love dies.

The book is a great combination of fact and fiction, and the author included a historical note at the end that is very helpful for learners who want to know more about the disaster that played such a big part in Hawaii's history. Sleeping Bear Press has provided an online teaching guide full of activities and worksheets related to the story. Many of them use only lower order thinking skills, but there are a few interesting ones and others easily provide inspiration for great classroom or home learning. I would recommend this book for a read-aloud in grades K-2 or as a great addition to a classroom library up to grade 4.