Japanese School Life

One thing that has surprised me is Japanese students' liberal use of the "rock, paper, scissors" game, or "janken" as they call it. They use it as a catalyst for many other games, or to decide who out of a group has to do an undesirable task. Every JH student jankens at least once a day, I'm certain.

Once a day, at every Japanese school they have cleaning time called "souji". This is usually about 15-20 minutes of quiet, methodical manual labor. The purpose of this (according to the schools) is not so much to clean the school (although it certainly does the trick, they don't have any janitors as far as I can see) but to instill a sense of responsibility on the students. At the very least it teaches them to be the neat freaks that most Japanese have grown into. The cleaning tasks have a wide range from sweeping, to wiping tables, to weeding the grass fields, to cleaning chalkboard erasers. The teachers are of course expected to help, and everyone from the principal on down does their part. At Sakuragawa I usually sweep the classroom floors, and at Edosaki I help out the other ALT sweeping debris from behind the school.

As many of you know if you know me well, I am a picky eater. You may wonder then, how I am faring in Japan, a country whose cuisine I never really cared for while living in the US. There are mixed results. At the schools, you are pretty much required to eat the school lunch with the students in their classroom (there are no cafeterias) and there are no options. Whatever the meal of the day is, that is what we ALL get served, no one is allowed to bring their lunch, unless perhaps they have specific allergies or dietary concerns, but I have never seen that happen. They do publish the schedule of lunch a month beforehand, but of course it is in Japanese, so every day is like Russian roulette for me. Sometimes the entree is a nice slice of fish or a bowl of curry (which I have discovered in Japan that I really, really like) and sometimes the dish comes with miso soup with plenty of tofu and/or seaweed or a hard boiled egg saturated in soy sauce. One thing it always has though is a salad, usually chock full of pickles and/or slathered in mayo or vinegar, things I absolutely detest. The Japanese sure do love their mayo. I am expected to set a good example for the students and clean my plate, though that certainly doesn't always happen. I usually choke down the things I don't like and savor the bits I kinda sorta like. At least the school lunch is really cheap (less than $2.50 each), and I AM eating healthier as a result.

OK, done with that long-winded post, hope it wasn't too boring. Also, if anyone has any specific questions, please ask! We would be more than happy to answer them for you. Remember, ANYONE can leave a comment here. Later!