I’m freezing my ass off and it’s 20°C. This place has ruined my resistance to cold.

(20°C = 68F)

“The characteristics of foreigner criminals visiting Japan.” (”来日外国人犯罪の特徴”)
A handbook “sponsored by the Shizuoka-Ken Head Police Station, the Shizuoka-Ken Association for the Prevention of Crime”

Link to Zone81 blog where this masterpiece is printed in its entirety (though without Japanese you won’t get much out of it — the pictures are fun to look at though).

I’ve been looking around a lot for some form of confirmation on this one, but my Japanese sort of fails me. What I did find was almost as bad though. Practically every prefecture in Japan has a [prefecturename].go.jp (government dot japan) page which lists “visiting foreigner criminals/crime in Japan”, divided into racial heritage with cute little diagrams and such.

Before I came to Japan, I knew it would be one of the few places on earth that I could go to and be “mistreated” for being a white male. Not a lot of places where you can get that these days. I knew, and I came here anyway, because I am fascinated by the Japanese language, the people who speak it, their culture, and how they came to be as isolated and “we vs them” as they appear from the outside (and from the inside as well, to a great extent). If I had wanted good treatment and smiley faces and chirpy birds, Japan would not have been on my list of places to go.

Some days pass and all I am greeted with is friendliness, openness, a willingness to accept each other as brothers across the world, and such floweriness. Today, as I came home from my test-ride to my potentially new school (was timing it to see when I had to get up in the morning) an old lady walked across the street as I was buying a coke from a … uh … jidouhanbaiki (the fuck is that in English?). I looked at her and she looked at me for a sec, and then she nodded and smiled and I nodded and smiled back. I realized that the Japanese are big on greetings. Even if you don’t know a person, you might nod to them if you end up inadvertently trampling into their bubble — such as looking at them while they happen to be looking at you. I tend to turn my head away and do my thing in those cases, but I think a Japanese might have nodded or something to acknowledge the other’s presence.

Then other days I am baffled by the blatant racism and ignorance that permeates this place. Such as the above “handbook”. I think part of the problem is that 20% of Japan’s population are all above 65 years of age. Old people tend to forget about equality and understanding cultural differences and such things. Sadly.

Today, I went to my school (Nihongo Center, in Kyoto) to talk to the principal (Hideo Kurita) regarding “my future”. The deal is, for the last 6 months, I’ve been studying together with a group consisting almost exclusively of Chinese. The Chinese students tend to all have the goal of wanting to take the “Ryuugaku shiken”, a Japanese proficiency test aimed for foreign students wishing to enter university in Japan. It so happens that every single student in my class wants to continue to university after they’ve completed their Japanese studies — everyone except me.

Yes, I did at some point consider the idea of entering a university in Japan, weighing the good against the bad and so on, and came to the conclusion that what I can get here, is more or less the same — or not as good — as what I can get for free in Sweden. If I wish to work in Japan after graduating from the university, I will not be able to present a shiny graduation certificate from a shiny Japanese university, but at the same time, I somehow doubt I can get into a shiny university here anyway (unless I work my ass off studying for the entrance exam, which would detract from my studies of the language itself).

In any case, I am here exclusively to learn Japanese now, with the additional desire to learn the Japanese people, from a cultural, sociological, economical, etc. point of view. I am still sort of haunted by the clock in my head ticking and going “hey, happy birthday buddy, you’ll be 36 by the time you graduate from uni” but I’ll cope with that when that day comes. I also believe that having spent 2 years in a country so utterly different from my own will be a valuable merit on my curriculum vitae.

So back to today — I, being the sole student wishing to learn Japanese and ultimately take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (the level 1 one), among a group of around 20 people, am now without a class. The school originally informed me that there would be a separation of the class into two groups — those who want to go to university and those who do not — but as things stand, both groups will be “those who do”. Conclusively, the principal of my school offered to find me another school.

What a guy. He’s not only willing to let me go to another school (thus my school tuitions to his school end), but he’s also willing to find a school for me, and to introduce me to the school. This means a huge deal in the Japanese society — it’s a world of difference whether the student contacts the school and goes “Hey folks, I’d like to switch to your school” and whether the principal contacts the school and goes “Hey there, I have a student whose needs I am not able to accomodate, so I wanted to see if you were up for taking him in”. In retrospect, maybe he thinks I’m a pain in the ass, and can’t wait to get rid of me.

Here’s the funny deal though. When he first said he would look into other schools for me, I decided to do some searching on my own. Me and my girlfriend looked around long and hard and found the one school that we both thought would suit me the best. After I’d talked to the principal about whether or not I should actually switch schools (I was wavering on that one — still am, actually — because I only want to switch if it makes a big difference in the quality of my studies), he said that he had this one school in mind for me. I noted that I had looked around and found a school as well, and he asked me what its name was. I said I didn’t remember, but that it was located by the Imadegawa station. He grinned and said “Well, that’s the school I wanted to introduce you to.” That’s quite promising, I’d say.

So after he’d called the school (for the record, the school’s name is Kyoto Japanese Language School) and asked if the idea of me switching there was possible, he suggested I go there and take a look at the school for myself. I went to the new school, and spoke to one secretary-like woman about the school in general and various procedures required of me were I to accept, and then I spoke to one of the teachers about the possible classes I might end up in, and she even brought with her some school books that they were using in class right now. There would be an examination “placement test” deal which ultimately would determine which class I ended up going to. They had a lot of classes on various levels fairly close to where I feel that I am now, so that seemed quite promising.

The new school is actually a little more expensive than the one I’m in now (but only a few hundred $US per year), and I have to pay the examination fee (about $500US), which I have already paid for for my current school, but ultimately I have to look at it from a “where will I learn the most efficiently” point of view, so it’s highly likely that I will accept the offer and switch schools.

The new term begins October 16th, and I’ve asked for this weekend to think this through before I make a decision. I’ll tell both schools what I decide on Sunday evening, I’ve decided, so I don’t do anything hasty that I end up regretting.

Yesterday I took the 2006 JLPT level 2 exam, the same level that I’m going to take in December, to see where I’m at and what my weakness is. The test is divided into 3 parts — kanji/grammar (35 minutes), listening comprehension (40 minutes), and reading comprehension (70 minutes).

The kanji/grammar part was surprisingly difficult, but I ended up figuring the right answer out on a lot of the questions anyway. The listening comprehension part was shockingly easy. I had heard before that the listening comprehension part of the JLPT is quite easy, but I didn’t expect it to be quite this easy. The reading comprehension was a bummer, because as I was doing it, a big argument ensued outside my door, which I knew instantly would cause me to not be able to concentrate and thus fail.

So I stopped the timer, put the book aside, and walked outside to see what was going on. That’s another story. When I returned, I was still on “problem 1″ though, and it took me nearly 40 minutes to finish it, out of the 70 minutes I had at my disposal. Once I moved on, things moved a little quicker, but I still ended up running 20 minutes over before I had gotten to the last question in the test.

Because of that I of course failed the test. The required percentage is 60% and I got 56%. If I hadn’t gone 20 minutes over (i.e. if my answers to the questions I didn’t even get to when the time was up were to count), I would have gotten 70%, which would have passed me with a 10% margin.

Thus, my #1 problem right now is reading speed, though I can’t help thinking that I would’ve done a better job if I’d not been disturbed halfway thru.

Some stats:

- Part 1 (kanji/grammar) — 65/100 points.
- Part 2 (listening comprehension) — 74/100 points.
- Part 3 (reading comprehension) — 85/200 points
(Part 3, if we ignore the fact I ran 20 mins over — 138/200 points)

Total: 224/400 = 56%
(Ignoring 20 mins overtime: 277/400 = 69.25%)

Since I got here in April, a few people have gone out of mine and others’ lives, sometimes just as abruptly as they entered. Since we’re all here temporarily, with different set times of stay, friends depart as we stay, and we are reminded of when our day comes.

It sounds a little overdramatic, maybe.

The first person to go home was actually this twitchy little Swede who I briefly spoke to. He was here for all of 3 days, even though he had paid to be here for 3 months (paid the school tuition, and for the apartment he was to stay in). A day or so after I arrived, the landlord asked me to go “speak to this guy who’s from Sweden, cause I can’t figure out what his deal is”. The guy was 18, had just graduated from high school, and was completely terrified at the thought of being away from mom. He had called his mom the day after he arrived, and she’d immediately booked him a plane ticket back home. Stupid mom. In any case, he was now dead set on returning, and nothing I said would change his mind. “It runs in my family. We get nervous, stressed out.” That’s what he said. I can’t claim to be a psychologist so I’ll leave it at that.

The next people to leave were Daniel and Elin. They were here for 10 weeks (roughly 3 months), and although I didn’t actually know them very well, I had still talked to them a lot and felt like I sort of knew them.

After that came Jun, The Korean Guy, who left about a month ago if I recall. I didn’t know him that well, but Rojio (no clue on the spelling), a spanish girl, had begun to date him, so she was kind of devastated when he went home.

Then yesterday, Ricardo. Ricardo’s originally from Guatemala I think, but he’s lived his whole life in Sweden, so he was in the Sweden-group. He’s also one of the closer friends I have here so far, so him leaving was a bit of a bummer. Lee, a chinese girl who’s been dating him basically since a month after we got here, was and still is devastated about his departure.

I guess what affects me the most is seeing the one being left behind. I know that at some point I’ll be going back home, and I’ll be leaving everything that has taken on a meaning here during my stay behind. I will be leaving my girlfriend behind, and although we are talking about long term plans and what to do from here on, we will be apart for a long while, regardless. At least 6 months. Possibly a year. Possibly even more.

My original plan has always been to stay here for 2 years, but with my current level of proficiency, I may be ready to take the highest-level test in Japanese proficiency as soon as March, next year. If so, there really is no meaning in me staying here for another whole year. It would be a waste of money that I never had to begin with (student aid).

So now I’m looking at maybe only being here for another 6 months. We’ll see though. If I’m 100% sure that I can pull off that exam, I will go back in April. Otherwise I will stay another year. Decisions, decisions.

Alright, I’m done with the Nikyuu (level 2) kanjis (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). Now a short break in working on new kanjis and focusing on learning a shitload of words which have the kanjis I’ve studied up until now in them.

The actual exam is December 7th, so it’s not a lie to say that I’m on schedule. Then again, some kanjis tend to take me about a month or so before they actually “sit there”, so I think later than now could’ve been a mistake. And besides, my ORIGINAL plan was to be done with these little blobs in the beginning of September but I ran into a brain fart moment (it wasn’t pretty).

Anyways, 79 days left. Now to focus on vocab, grammar, and listening comprehension. I pretty much think I’ve got reading down, considering I score higher than a lot of the Chinese in my class but I won’t neglect that either.

The community house, aka “Kokusai kouryuu kaikan”, is a truly beautiful place in Kyoto and I recommend anyone visiting to go take a look. I’ve been meaning to take pictures of it but I only have my damn cell phone camera at this point so I haven’t bothered.

Anyway, some of the language students in my school literally go there every day. It’s quite different from the shoebox apartments we all have, and they have air conditioning and a café and so on. And besides, as I already mentioned, it’s a truly pretty place.

It’s got a number of things related to “internationality”, if that’s a word, among others a T.V. running american news channels, as well as a big posting/bulletin board where people can have notes set up regarding various things, such as English teaching lessons.

It so happens that I put a note up on that board today regarding English lessons. It wasn’t a very good note, so I doubt I’ll get many responses, but they only keep them up for 3 weeks anyway so I’m going to put another one up around the beginning of October.

In any case, I’m now looking for English students here in Japan. I know it may sound odd to some of you that a non-native English speaker is teaching English, but the mistakes I do make are on such a different level from these people (whose primary concern tends to be “where to put in an ‘a’ or ‘an’, and where not to”) that the mistakes I make are more or less completely unrelated to their current “education”.

In any case, wish me many happy and simple students who wants to pay me lots of money for doing very little. *grins*

“The origins of both the activity of barbecue cooking and the word itself are somewhat obscure. Most etymologists believe that barbecue derives ultimately from the word barbacoa found in the language of the Taíno people of the Caribbean. The word translates as sacred fire pit and is also spelled barbacoa.^[2] The word describes a grill for cooking meat, consisting of a wooden platform resting on sticks.” (from Wikipedia; [full article link])

My girlfriend’s work mates decided to have a barbecue last Sunday (two days ago, that is), and people were invited to bring their significant others’ with them. My girlfriend doesn’t like being with a lot of people and we rarely do “big group stuff”, so this was a bit of a rare occasion.

I had a lovely time. We went to Biwako, the biggest (freshwater) lake in Japan, where we set up a grill and cooked insane amounts of various meats and vegetables, drank beer (or coke/Japanese tea for those who drove or who don’t drink alcohol) and swam. I actually love swimming, but I rarely do it in Sweden — the water’s way too cold most of the year for my liking.

I was the only non-Japanese there, but that wasn’t a big problem. Everyone was super-nice and really relaxed and cool, so I felt right at home. We all kept eating as the group of people who were handling the grilling kept switching in and out at their leisure, and once I started to feel full, they were still pouring a bunch of meat and stuff onto the grills. I want to take a moment to relate to another story that happened right before the summer vacation, around early August if I recall…

School had arranged a barbecue. Actually, it was by the very same lake (Biwako), but on a different spot (lake’s big, and there seem to be camps riddled around the whole thing of various kind). Everyone paid 1500 yen each which in all honesty is dirt-cheap. We ended up being 40 of us going. There were two grills. And one guy had the bright idea that he was gonna bring his own meat and grill it there. And not share. Which resulted in everyone. Everyone. Standing around the grills waiting. Waiting. Waiting. After I got 3 slices of meat I simply gave up on “food” and went elsewhere.

Back to this Sunday, we all paid 3000 yen each. But comparing to the school barbecue, I truly realized what a lousy deal that had been. Never, ever doing anything with the school again, if it involves me paying money. By god, never.

Anyway, early on we were all just sort of drinking beer and chilling while waiting for the grill to heat up. I went to the bathroom at some point and when I came back, my girlfriend suggested I go wash my feet in the lake since I was barefeet. I’d already gotten into my swimsuit that morning and was wearing those and a t-shirt only, so once I put my feet into the water I couldn’t contain myself so I threw my t-shirt in the sand by the beach and dove into the water, and once I got back up, everyone was snickering at me. Wonder why.

Of course, since I’d set the precedent, everyone realized there was no turning back, so people went and got changed into swimsuits and the like (some people didn’t even bring any, but they were eventually thrown in by the rest of us anyway … no prisoners!) and we all went swimming. Since it’s September, it started getting chilly quickly, but being IN the water wasn’t cold in my opinion. Some whined more than others though (*eyes girlfriend*).

Unfortunately it’s September and it’s not exactly getting warmer as the days pass from here on. I’m definitely going to insist on us going back again next summer. Repeatedly. Once it gets humid and hot, I’m going to start whining like a fat little snot-pup needing his sugar-high.

So, today I went to meet up with the guy who had that English teaching job I was possibly interested in. In my previous blog post, I said that I’d had a rather odd conversation with him on the phone, and that I was a bit concerned over how this would all work out — if at all. Today I met up with the guy and was in for a few surprises. Well, one big one at least.

I met with Mr. O outside McD’s as we had arranged. Well, I was there but he wasn’t, so when I called him up, he had mixed the times up. As I said yesterday, the class began at 3.30 pm and we were supposed to meet at 3 pm (30 minutes before class). Well, he somehow ended up thinking we were supposed to meet at 3.30 pm. In any case, he finally arrived and as we walked to the “school”, we talked a bit about what kind of school this is. And here’s the surprise.

Me: So, what is the name of this school anyway?
Him: Kyoto Kids’ Academy
Me: “Kids’”? So does that mean I will be teaching children?
Him: Yes.
Me: Uh, how old are they?
Him: Between… 1 and 12 years old.
Me: Wah.

Well, that was unexpected. I’d presumed this was a regular old fashioned “drill English to bored adults who, against their better judgment, decided to give ‘that english thing another shot’” but alas, not that easy.

When we arrived at the school, I noted that it was, well, not a school. It was more of a house, but it somehow fitted with the “daycare center” atmosphere that this whole thing was starting to take on. At the school, I was introduced to an American lad who was the head teacher of the facility. He was nice enough, and explained to me that basically, I wasn’t really supposed to do anything other than to make them speak English as much as possible. Now that may sound simple to the untrained ear……. In any case, there seem to be very loose “rules” regarding the teaching itself. No strict guidelines and such, since the school is just an outside regular school hours kind of thing. It’s basically the parents who place their kids in school in order to give them a headstart in the oh-so-important subject of English.

Personally I think it’s a great idea. I just wish it didn’t have the upper-class stamp on it that it appears to have.

Regardless, the pay is all right, but it’s only 2 hours and 40 minutes a week, so it doesn’t exactly pay the bills, and I will be spending 15% of what I make on train fares alone, unless I can muster up the energy to take the bicycle there and back (not impossible but then again, I doubt they’d approve of me arriving drenched in sweat from a 1+ hour bicycle-ride).

Dress code. Now there’s a mystery if there ever was one, but I’m not allowed to wear jeans. That’s it though, but unfortunately I don’t seem to have any non-jeans pants with me to Japan. I may have to go buy some, worst case.

The kids were actually cuties. There are two classes. The Thursday class has 4 kids, 3 girls and a boy, all of them between 7-8 years old. Actually, I didn’t realize until they pointed it out to me, but two of the girls are actually twins. You know, the “same-egg” kind of twins (I forgot the word for that in English). And they’re turning 8 next Thursday. Go them.

My biggest concern really is how to stop them from spazzing completely and not get anything done whatsoever during the 80 minutes I have them in class. Today, I was admittedly unprepared, but for the 40-something minutes that we were actually “teacher-student”y, I managed to make them do something useful for maybe half of that time. In between sporadic bursts of “running in circles around the table” or “making paper planes and tossing them at each other” and so on. I wasn’t too concerned, really, but instead tried to catch the attention of individuals as I got the chance. I will definitely have to figure stuff out to keep them focused in the future or people will probably wonder why my pups aren’t making any progress.

All in alll, I’m both pumped and concerned about this all. It’s been a long time since I was “caretaker” for kids so I may need some warming up on this one, but eventually it might actually become something I look forward to. (Then fast-forward to a month or two from now, and watch my angst as I whine about the little brats… :))