Also, Kansai Gaidai has this charming system of setting up classes so that the times and the rooms change every day. I admit, I’m not looking forward to that, but today I have Spoken Japanese and Sumi-e. I hope I can figure out where they are located before the class starts!
Here’s my (current) schedule:
Monday: Reading and Writing Japanese from 9-9:50, Spoken Japanese from 11-11:50, Culture and Everyday Life in Japan from 1:15-2:45.
Tuesday: Spoken Japanese from 11-11:50, Sumi-e from 1:10-2:45.
Wednesday: Spoken Japanese from 11-11:50, Reading and Writing Japanese from 12-12:50.
Thursday: Spoken Japanese from 10-10:50, Sumi-e from 10:50-12:30, Culture and Everyday Life in Japan from 1:15-2:45.
Friday: Reading and Writing Japanese from 9-9:50, Spoken Japanese from 10-10:50, Sumi-e from 10:50-12:30.
As you can see, I am very fortunate to not have any class past 2:45pm on any given day, and a partial 3-day weekend starting at 12:30pm, every week.
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A word to the wise: if you’ve never ridden public transportation other than a school bus before, riding Japanese buses is terrifying. I have a transit bus, which means I have to change buses at Hirakata City Station (Hirakata-shi Eki). As I said before, Okaasan drilled me through the steps, but this morning I was sure that I had gotten on the wrong one.
A bit of Japanese to learn: 「すみませんこれは、[place you’re going to] に行くバスですか？」or “Sumimasen, korewa, [place you’re going to]ni ikubasudesuka?” (Excuse me, is this the bus going to [place you’re going to]?” If you’re having trouble, there’re all sorts of nice, motherly Japanese women who will help lost-looking gaijin (if they know they speak Japanese).
On my transit bus to Kansai Gaidai, I was panicked, sure that the bus full of old people was taking me to the wrong place. I had only 15 minutes until my first class started. I was close to full out panic. Luckily, that wasn’t the case and I arrived on time to class.
My Japanese speaking teacher, Saigou-sensei has a good sense of humor. I think I’m going to like this class even though he says there is going to be a ton of homework and “we will think that Saigou-sensei is like the devil.” In both the writing/reading and the speaking Japanese classes, we have to only speak to our teachers in Japanese. It will be challenging, but worth it. I’m just proud that I could follow Saigou-sensei talking to us in Japanese. I think it’s in a teacher’s training to speak in the sentence patterns that you know your students know; I understand more of what Saigou-sensei says to me than Okaasan.
After Japanese speaking class, I called Mom and Dad. I keep on forgetting that to them, I’m calling from the future. They wished me a happy birthday and Dad showed me all the canning I was missing. Apparently at home it’s all tomatoes all the time. I almost wish I had taken a screen-shot to show Okaasan. Talking with them ate up all my lunch time, so then I was off to sumi-e!
Sumi-e is a type of brush painting course, created in China and then adapted by the Japanese. Katherine Scott is the sumi-e instructor. She seems like a very interesting person. Since most of us don’t know calligraphy (which is usually the base knowledge for sumi-e), she’s teaching us a little differently than she would someone with that background. This week we’re learning about the different materials, brush strokes, and tones with ink. Next week we start bamboo!
I met my new friend Marion in my speaking Japanese class. She’s a fellow Midwesterner from Chicago. Today we hung out after I got out of Sumi-e and explored Hirakata City Station together. We were looking for a certain department store where purikura were taken, but I couldn’t remember the directions, so we wandered around. It was there I finally got my lunch (around 4pm). You’ve read my previous rant of Japan and bread, as a breakfast food, and now, as a lunch food. I didn’t actually know what it was (but it was 100 yen, so it was cheap!) but I decided to take a leap of faith and try it. I was not disappointed. It was green and delicious. Okaasan took a look at the picture I took of the kanji on my phone and told me it was a “black bean and green tea” bread. I didn’t know such things existed in this world. Of course, Japan is known for its strange tastes in flavors.
Riding the bus home was still nerve-wracking, but I think I got it. I also think I have the “lost gaijin with a piece of paper clutched desperately in her hands” look down pat. I wasn’t swarmed, per say, buy old Japanese women, but I definitely got a ton of help from several old women. THANK YOU OBA-SANS!!
And now a word about being the only Caucasian in a sea of Asians: I’m starting to feel a might conspicuous. At Kansai Gaidai, I’m okay, because there are a bunch of people dressed like me and taller than me, however out of the bubble… I’m usually the tallest person (a novel experience because I’m the shortest in my immediate family), I’m dressed differently (right now the fashion is bulky-looking, ill-fitting clothing that just looks terrible on me! So my clothes are a little more tailored than the fashion norm), and I can’t understand the rapid-paced speak of anyone! Plus I’m white, white, white! If you pushed me into the snow and I closed my eyes, you probably couldn’t find me! People either stare at me like I’m in a zoo or ignore my existence completely. I’m sure there’s a happy medium somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet!
I need a way to figure out how to tell Okaasan that she’s feeding me too much. She feeds me more than I eat at home! I might need to start cutting down even more on my lunch! Dinner tonight was a “summer dish” of ramen mixed with toppings and ice cubes. “The Chinese invented ramen,” Okaasan told me, “but the Japanese made it delicious in the summer.” And indeed it was delicious. Also, in terms of food today, I had miso soup for breakfast! It tasted awesome.
Written September 6, 2011.
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