Things about Japan: Brushing Teeth

When the bell signifying the end of lunch chimes, several things happen all at once. The quiet staff room suddenly becomes a bustling thoroughfare for teachers returning from their homerooms, students searching for So-and-So-sensei to ask about the homework for tomorrow, and staff members trying to both remove the food and start the tea in the lunch/post-lunch change-over. Still by far the strangest activity to me is this: within five minutes of the lunch being over, the kitchen sink is one of the hardest places to access in the staff room. Why?
Teachers are brushing their teeth.

As soon as the lunch trays are whisked away, toothbrushes appear from within desks and purses, often in small cases and accompanied by small tubes of toothpaste. These kits can be purchased in most dollar stores and convenience stores. Even funnier, though, is when lunch is had outside of the school - rather than brushing at the restaurant, a mass movement to brush occurs once everyone has returned to the school. While part of me is impressed by their dedication, the feeling is undercut by the fact that the toothpaste with which they brush, as well as the water from the tap, are both lacking entirely in fluoride.

"Call me!"

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogging for this stupid story these stupid stories (updated to include the second story).

Story 1
I was "signing in" at the front of the staff room around 3 when one of the 2nd year boys, a nice kid and good student, opened the door. The following all took place in English (his rather accented):

Boy: "Leslie!"
Me: "Yeeees?"
Boy: "Call me! *jiggles hand like a phone near his ear*"
Me: " ... "
Boy: "Joke, joke. Give me a break!"

Cue me to die laughing.

Story 2
Right at 4, another of my 2nd year boys who is nice and a good student opened the door to the staff room. Normally, when students enter the staff room, they say "excuse me" in Japanese - しつれいします (shitsureishimasu). They say this again, in past tense, when they leave - しつれいしました (shitsureishimashita). This student, however, decided to say it in English instead:

Student: "Excuse me!"
Me: "Yes?"
Student: "..."
A Teacher: "[in Japanese] HA! Thought you'd be cool and come in using English, but you didn't think about what you'd have to say after 'excuse me,' did you?"
Student: "Uhhhhhh..."
Teachers: *chortle*
Student: "..I can't speak English, but I can speak Japanese. 田中先生, 来てください！ (Tanaka-sensei, please come here!)"
Teachers: *burst out laughing*

You may now return to your regularly scheduled program.

Travels with hannah IV

My Reunion with Kyoto

When I first visited Kyoto last March, I wrote of it as being an old love, a place with which I felt a relaxed and comfortable connection. Still, as I afforded at the time, we were visiting Kyoto at the height of its splendor, and that a great deal of my love for the city was because I considered it such a gorgeous place. January, surely, would show me a drastically different city.

Somehow, even in the midst of a barren backdrop, Kyoto maintained its beauty. Perhaps my eyes were blinded by familiarity (or, worse, general travel exhaustion), but on the whole I found the city to please me as it had last year. I still find myself unable to talk about Kyoto in specifics. For some reason, the city eludes my ability to discuss it properly to this day. Perhaps the third time will be the charm, and I will finally write a substantial post on it after my trip there with my parents in late March. The two of us had only a day there, so we hit three of what I considered to be the most important places (by which, of course, I mean my favorites): Kiyomizudera temple, Kinkakuji, and Fushimi Inari.

Kiyomizudera temple is beautiful, a description it earns from me due almost entirely due to two things: the trees surrounding it, which alternate between being laden with cherry blossoms in spring and shedding beautiful leaves in fall; and the materials of structure itself. The wooden buildings are a rich brown, but with a tinge of gray from the weather - it's warm, old, and comforting. In some areas of the complex, stone replaces wood, and the moss-encrusted stones give as much character and appeal to the structures as the gray of the tinged wood. It's truly a beautiful place.


Kinkakuji, the "Golden Pavilion," is gorgeous on first glance but is somewhat lacking in substance as far as I'm concerned. It is perfectly situated and striking, but the fact of the matter is that it was made to be a vacation spot for an emperor long ago, and is in fact a replica due to the fanatically-jealous acts of a monk in the '80s. It's a place to walk at, ooh and ahh, and then move on.

hannah and Kinkakuji - which is more super-special awesome? No contest; it's clearly hannah.

Fushimi Inari is first impressive and then soothing. The sheer number of red torii gates is enough to intimidate, but the feeling of walking past gate after gate, the seeming rhythm they make as they pass by ones peripheral vision, is wonderfully relaxing. It really is one of my favorite places in Japan.


We spent the evening relaxing in our hostel, the Hanakiya Inn - I recommend it to any of my readers should they ever find themselves in the area. And the next morning we were up early and on our way to our celebration of hannah's 24th birthday...

Things about Japan: Mayonnaise, Corn, and Tabasco Sauce

When eating in Japan, three ingredients will often make a surprising appearance:

1. Mayonnaise
This is on everything, be it a Western dish or a Japanese one. I have had pizza with mayonnaise on top, rice balls with chicken-and-mayo centers - even sushi isn't safe from mayo's greasy grasp. In addition, Japanese mayonnaise is somewhat heavier and more ... "fragrant" ... than its American cousin. I avoid it whenever possible, which isn't nearly as often as I should like.

2. Corn
Though it is often paired with mayonnaise, corn is most commonly found as a staple topping for pizza. As my mother would say, "Why, we do not know." It is often the sweeter version than I'm used to finding in the South, to add insult to injury.

3. Tabasco Sauce
If you order a food that is somewhat Italian in nature (as in, pasta or pizza), be prepared for a small bottle of Tabasco sauce to accompany the meal. The Japanese are not as fond of spicy things as its being the home of wasabi would have one imagine, so I often find this quite amusing. Still, having suspended my belief long enough to add it to a pasta dish long ago, I do find the addition a pleasant one on both pasta and pizza.
What of the Mexican food with which one normally imagines Tabasco sauce? The cuisine is often passed over for several reasons - Mexico is too far, and most of the regular ingredients have to be imported at great expense. On top of this, as I mentioned before, the Japanese are not too fond of spicy foods. That being said, Mexican and South-Western restaurants can be found here, and even outside of Tokyo - one only has to be willing to search. Though be warned: the creamy sauce with your nachos, tacos, and burritos is neither cheese nor sour cream.

... It's mayonnaise.

Stories from the Staff Room

I have a random memory from 3rd grade: I was walking down the halls and went past two teachers. It was either before school, after school, or during class, as there were hardly any students in the hall, so the teachers were talking fairly freely. What were they doing? Gossipping about a student. I realized, with a start, that teachers might just be the worst gossips ever, having not only the camaraderie of there being many teachers in a school but also the rich fodder of students lives to fuel the flames.

Earlier this morning, the groundskeeper found a pencil bag while doing his rounds. As it was outside of the entrance the 1st and 2nd year (7th and 8th grader) students use, he showed it to the 1st and 2nd year teachers in the staff room, saying, "If any students say they've lost their pencil case, the one I found is here."

Saito-sensei took the bag and looked inside to see if there was anything to identify the owner. He fairly quickly stated it was owned by "a boy, and a suspicious one at that." This started a flurry of comments on the case - maybe it's a girl's; no, it's too big and manly; look at the inside, what's inside; it's definitely a boy, a girl would have cuter things; there are cartoon girl charms on the outside, couldn't it be a girl's? ...

And then Saito-sensei gave his assessment: "It's definitely a boy's. The charms just show he's got some perverted thoughts." He looked around at the male teachers in the room for support, who chuckled and nodded. Not being able to resist an opportunity to tease Saito-sensei, I told him he must be hoping to see the boy come to get it so he could point and say, "Ah! There's the suspicious boy!" He laughed, some others laughed, and the staff room's conversation flowed on to other things.

It all took about 3 minutes, but it's so indicative of how teachers interact and gossip in the staff room here. Students make up most of the conversation - so-and-so was acting the fool in class today, these students are causing trouble, I don't know what so-and-so's parents are thinking, this kid is a total pervert... the list goes on. I can't imagine that it's any different from the States. If anything, it's probably worse here, as the teachers here don't have their own rooms and thus always spend time in the "teacher's lounge" / staff room, affording them greater opportunities to swap tales.

When I was younger, the idea of gossipping teachers horrified me because I feared being the subject of their talk. In the end, though, it's probably unavoidable - we spend so much of our time interacting with students who will inevitably do stupid, immature, and funny things. I will say one thing for it, though: teachers being gossips certainly is an unanticipated bridge across the culture gap!

Travels with hannah III

Castles, Nakedness and Okonomiyaki

Our first morning in Osaka was a dreary one, unfortunately, but we braved the drizzle and made our way out to Osaka-jo, or Osaka Castle. It's a recreation, the original castle having been destroyed long ago, and the entire inside is devoted to enlightening the general public of the history of the castle and of the wars for the unification of Japan. Still, as English explanations were rare, hannah and I found ourselves making quick rounds, admiring the art and artifacts and passing over the plaques.


Osaka castle was interesting in that tourists were shuffled to the top level of the castle first, where one is afforded a view over the city, and then slowly make their way down, floor by floor, to the base again. It must be a way to encourage people to see the exhibits, although I found it to be somewhat anticlimatic due to my inability to read the history presented there. Oh well. At least we had ice cream outside!


After the castle, we made our way to an onsen, or "hot spring/pubilc bathing area," that had been recommended to us by the owner of our hostel. Now, when I say "we made our way," what I really mean is "I got us horrendously lost and we did about five times as much walking as we should have, for I am an idiot." Now, I've written a little about onsening before, but this time, things were a little different. On the one hand, I am now an onsen veteran - I've been onsenning with other ALTs, with teachers, and even once with an ex-student and her mother. My level of Japanese is also higher, so I'm fairly well able to navigate on my own. On the other hand, hannah has a tattoo.

Tattoos seem innocuous to most Westerners, I imagine. In Japan, howerver, tattoos have long been owned by the Japanese mafia. Even now, few people outside of the mafia get tattoos, and the gangsters flaunt their monopoly over the form with full-body coverings of dramatic art. It's beautiful in the same way coral snakes are - colorful, bright, and a sign of danger. Anyway, as there is nakedness involved and tattoos can be seen there, most bathing houses have a "no tattoo" rule in place as a way to keep out gangsters. (A cynical view of this would be that it is also to keep out foreigners.) I don't know why the gangsters would follow the rule, to be honest, because they know no one is going to fight them, but the rule is there in any case. I talked about the issue of hannah's tattoo before the trip with teachers and some Japanese friends, and the general consensus was that, as the tattoo is on her hip, she could "just hide it with the towel - it'll totally be fine." It was with that vote in mind that we headed to this onsen in the first place.

I've been to several bath houses, but never before have I seen such full plastering of a place in "no tatttos!" signs. They were in English, Japanese, and Korean if I remember correctly, and were not only displayed at the entrance, but also on every single shoe locker and as a sign at the front desk. My fears began rising dramatically, and I couldn't help but whisper "You've GOT to keep covered" and "Man, we need to be careful" under my breath to hannah, a reminder she probably didn't need to hear.

We anxiously made our way into the changing room, got lockers on the far side of the room where hannah could hide her tattoo against a wall while changing, and undressed. The elaborate schemes continued throughout our entire time in the baths - getting a showering seat where hannah could hide a little, seating in the baths themselves...it was almost like we should be humming the Mission Impossible theme. Still, we spent some hour or so there without any incidents, and in fact were able to relax quite well despite the fear over her tattoo. We celebrated quietly when hannah put on her jeans again, having completed our onsen mission fully and with flying colors. We spent a little time relaxing in the lobby with a bowl of noodles and cold milk in traditional, Japanese style, and then made our way outside.

We were still a little snacky, so we found an okonomiyaki-ya ("ya" means "shop" or "store") at which to enjoy the local favorite. People all over Japan talk about Osaka okonomiyaki - in fact, the wikipedia page for okonomiyaki says that the dish is referred to as "Osaka soul food." The place where we went was smoky, dark, and a little dirty, which is just the way you want your okonomiyaki-ya - it's like how the best diners have to be a little dingy. We ate, drank beer, and chatted under the watchful eye of the owner and cook who clearly didn't expect a pair of foreign women in his store. Then, with full bellies and relaxed bodies, we made our way back to our hostel to prepare for our trip to Kyoto the next morning.

Cute and Frightening

In Japanese, the words for "cute" and "frightening" can be easy to mix up. "Kawaii" (cute) and "kowai" (frightening) are mostly differentiated by emphasis; "kawaii" holds out the final "i" sound slightly longer than "kowai," giving it an added syllable. Otherwise, the two words are, despite the "o" and "a" difference, fairly similar in sound. It was hard for me, in the first month or so that I arrived, to make this distinction while using the words to others, though I could hear it easily enough myself. In any case, it's long been amusing to me that there is so little distinguishing the difference between these denotatively-opposed words.

Then again, maybe that isn't something limited to semantics.

Today, at the end of class, one of my 2nd graders asked me for my signature. This isn't uncommon - the kids like to watch me sign and like to see how crazy (and long) my signature is compared what they're accustomed to seeing. I later was eating lunch with this same class, and the same girl came to me with her notebook, opened to the page I'd signed at the end of class, and said, "Could you fill this page with your signature, just like that one?" Odd, but OK, why not? I signed the page an extra 9 times. (As I did so, I commented that it was like I was having "signing practice." As others laughed, the girl said without missing a beat, "You're an adult, so it's OK." I'm still not sure why my being an adult has anything to do with my signature practice, but her assurance that it mattered was pretty cute.)

After I finish signing, the girl excitedly took her notebook back and started showing it off to other students at her lunch table. Their responses of "wow, that's a lot of signatures" got her even more excited and, being revved to the max and in need of a new audience, the girl went running across the room, yelling "IT'S LESLIE POWER!!"

That's right - having 10 of my signatures is equivalent to being bitten by a radioactive spider, being male and having imbibed the Water of Life, or being under the influence of a sun different from the one of your home world.

While I was trying my best not to laugh too loudly at this (resisting laughing all together would require a piece of paper with 10 of my signatures on it), the skin on the back of my neck crawled just the slightest at this exuberance. It's somewhat strange to be that special to a kid when you don't know their name, don't have any strong or personal connection with them, and only see them once a month. It was clear to me that the only saving grace of this encounter is the girl's youth and gender - I would have been significantly more disturbed were she a boy, or were she older than 7 or 8. And yet, I have to admit that it was still pretty adorable.

Cute and frightening? The evidence is in. It comes in the form of a Venn diagram, and the overlapping territory is broad. If you go looking, I'm sure you'll find several things from Japan: Goth versions of Hello Kitty, Harajuku Lolitas, and a little 7 year-old with her notebook.