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Beware the Evil Monkeys
September 9th, 2010 | 
Author: From Japantoday.com
Shizuoka-
In a desperate bid to contain the escalating monkey problem in Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture, authorities are offering the public 200,000 yen to capture any of the Japanese Macaques causing problems. To successfully earn the bounty, citizens have to successfully lock a primate in their house.
There have been a series of reports of monkey incursions into homes in Mishima since Aug 22. As of Tuesday, over 80 members of the public had reported suffering minor injuries caused by the rampaging simians. Susono, Numazu and Nagaizumi towns have also reported growing primate problems.
It is believed that a single troop of macaques is patrolling over a vast area. Local police have been conducting search and capture patrols throughout the area but until now there has not been a single successful mission. This has led to the bounty, which local authorities are describing as a “desperate measure.”
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Middle School in Japan: Wacky
So I started my first few days at Minami Chuggako. Chuggako means middle school and I found out that Minami is just Japanese for south, so it’s not unlike where I worked in Des Moines, North High School. Thursday was my first day, and it was the official first day of the second semester (they do schooling year round), and so a ceremony was in order. Everyone piled into the gym.
The assemblies I have seen in my life, whether it was a pep rally, an honors assembly or something else, did little to prepare me for this well oiled machine of a ceremony. There are no seats or gym bleachers, every student is sitting on the floor. Divided by gender and grade. Because this is a uniform school, it all looks even more organized. The back of the gym is males and the front females, then they are split by grade, which is easy to tell because their uniforms are color coded; red, blue, green or white. All students were silent when the first teacher took the stage. Dead silent.
After several teachers spoke, next up was my speech, I proceeded to talk for about two minutes, of which I’m sure they understood very little and then Sano sensei translated for me. Then it was off to homeroom. During homeroom it was explained that there was going to be an earthquake drill. Every student has a seat cushion that they keep in the room (the students don’t change rooms, the teachers do), and the seat cushion opens up and doubles as a pillow hat. Every student was instructed to put their pillow hats on their head and we marched down to the exit. Teachers get helmets, students get pillow hats. On our way out of the building, every student has to change into their outdoor shoes. I pray they don’t do this in the event of an actual earthquake. After the drill came lunch time. I’ll get to interactions with the students after I talk about gender roles here.
Students preparing for earthquakes in their pillow hats
Lunch isn’t served in a cafeteria. There is a kitchen that cooks everything up and packs it into neat little boxes like airplane food. Students help each other and carry a box of food, and a crate of milk to each of their respective homerooms and most teachers eat in the teacher workroom. I’m fairly certain students are left on their own for lunch. Meanwhile in the staff room, the women are busy pouring everyone tea. Kou now knows which mug is mine and she makes sure I have tea every morning and for lunch. She also serves me my lunch. It’s crazy, I don’t have to do anything to get my lunch, and that’s just the way it is. I do have to bus my own food tray back to the storage crate but Kou makes sure I always am topped off with steaming hot green tea. Everyone does wash their own chopsticks though, but otherwise a few females pretty much make sure everyone gets fed.
My first few classes with kids have been pretty interesting to say the least. Everyone has said “hello, how are you?” or “my name is such and such, nice to meet you” to me about a thousand times, but conversationally that seems to be the majority of their grasp. I’ve been told they learn much more of the writing and sentence structure than actually speaking. For my first lesson I was introduced by Yamada sensei, I’m Steve sensei over here because most of them can say Steve easier than Perkins, which comes out more as Paakinsu. I had created a simply introduction paper with blank spaces in it. As I read the paper slowly, the students were instructed to fill in the blanks. They did pretty well with the written stuff, and nearly EVERY student volunteered to write their answers up on the board.
Next we did a question and answer session where they could practice speaking. Most questions were simple asking me what food I liked and what my favorite color was. One student asked if I loved Ms. Yamada, to which I replied, “she’s nice”. Otherwise everything went rather smoothly. At the end of every period, the students bow to the teacher and says something along the lines of, “thank you for your knowledge”. Awesome. Tomorrow I am bringing in my computer and will be showing a slide show of things in Iowa and Chicago. More stuff later, I’m hoping to begin posting at least once a week.
First Day in Japan
Most of my posts will be few and far between until I get set up with internet of my own, which will hopefully happen this upcoming week. For now I:m using the internet at my host families house for brief periods here and there. Also, I can:t find the apostrophe on this keyboard, so colon it is.
My first day started off without too much of a sense of nervousness, I was used to being around people speaking different languages. Even being one of about four white people on the plane didn:t phase me. It wasn:t until interaction with Japanese that I really realized how differenct, and tough this is going to be.
On the plane I put on the included headphones and turned on the movies on the screen on the chair in front of me. About a minute later the stewardess, Eba, said sorry, a bunch of words I didn:t understand and then nearly forced the remote from my hands as I took the headphones off. Noooo idea why as I looked and nearly everyone else on the plane had theirs on. A half hour later I tried again and was in the clear.
Upon landing, Karen and I got our bags and headed for the exit in hopes that there would be people waiting for us. Two gentlemen holding *kofu board of education* signs were waiting and helped us with our bags. (I can:t find the quotation marks at the moment). Matsuda and Tamura were very nice but spoke little english. On the bus ride we had lots of forms to fill out.
The airport is about 80 miles from Kofu City but it took 4 hours because you have to go through Tokyo and it was during rush hour. There wasn:t a ton of conversation but my go to subject has been sports thus far.
They knew that I had played and coached soccer so we were able to put together a decent conversation. Luckily I knew a little bit about the Japanese homerun king Sadaharu Oh, so that was helpful.
Once we got into Kofu we stopped at a high school so that Tameru could quickly make copies of our passports and then we waited for our host families. After a few minutes a Toyota Prius came for me. Toru Nonogaki is the son in my host family. He picked me up and we were on our way.
Upon arrival at Toru:s house I was introduced to his mom Etsuko and his aunt ikue. They also live with etsuko:s mom but she is very old and has alzheimers. Once I put my stuff in my room. I was given my first traditional Japanese dinner.
It started with miso soup, though the only thing I recognized in it was mushrooms. Then I had a slab of some fish, skin and all. I also had egg, white rice with fish eggs, green tea, and natto. Everything was good until the natto.
Natto is fermented soybeans. It is served in a little plastic case not unlike a lunchable container, only with two compartments, one large and one small. In the large part are the beans, which look very similar to baked white beans. In the other container is soy sauce. Toru told me to put the soy sauce in the beans and start mixing it. Though the beans look solid in the container, they are anything but. As I stirred the beans began to take on the consistency of melted cheese, only this wasn:t cheese, it was old beans. The goo began to stick to the chopsticks and anything else it would touch. My first day and I figure I:m already going to throw up. I tried a little bit; the flavor was weird and the texture was awful. They told me not to worry because most people don:t even try it and lots of Japanese hate it.
After dinner I went to bed. Crazy first day.
How to Get in Touch with Me
OK, so I’ve spent countless hours geeking out trying to get my communication methods set up to be as easy and as cheap as possible for my friends and family to get in touch with me, as well as making it cheap for me to call home. Here’s what I’ve got.
My email is still SPerk15@comcast.net . I’m thinking this will be my go to for most things.
My Skype name is SPerk15 so if you are on your computer this is probably the best option.
If you want to call me dial the same number you are used to calling. I now have it set up to forward my 630 number to a skype virtual number that is also a 630 area code. So this will not in any way cost anyone long distance, you are simply dialing my normal number and it just gets forwarded to skype. If I have skype open on my phone or computer I’ll answer; if not I have skype voicemail set up.
Texting: This is the one that has proven the most difficult. I don’t know how someone can text my skype and the call forwarding I figured out doesn’t forward texts. So I wouldn’t get a text to my cell number unless I put my sim card in which will result in big time roaming charges; maybe I’ll do that once every two months. Sooo…I just had Nick and Joe tell me about TextNow for iphone. I got set up and if you send a text to SPerk15@textnow.me it will show up as a text in the app. This is the only way I can cheaply send texts where people can reply…though to a weird email. Skype I can text for 11 cents a text but no one can send me a text back.
Anyways, uber long not fun post but this is the way to do it.
BIG Dilemma….
Where does the billfold go? I just made the switch from costanza sized wallet to billfold because I realized that most of what was in my wallet I would not need in Japan. As cool as having my blockbuster and GNC card on me at all times, it isn’t.
I’m completely aware that to 98 percent of the population of the world this may not seem like any sort of problem to worry about, much less blog about, but this is pretty big for me. Yes it is in the minutia of my life when compared to other things, but this is still a change that has never happened before and that I am unaccustomed to.
One question that I have is where you carry the billfold. Does it stay in the back pocket or does it move to the front? I feel like it is supossed to be in the front but that messes up the feng shui of my pant pocket predicament. My situation is always wallet back right, phone front right, and keys/change front left. Adding the billfold to either front pocket makes the front pocket too bulky. I also can’t put my keys in the same pocket as my phone at the risk of scratching it.
I guess if this is my big current dilemma then life is pretty good.
Memorial Day
Memorial Day means lots of different things to lots of different people, and I decided I’d explain the various forms of importance this holiday plays in my life.
To most people Memorial Day is a day for being with friends and family, enjoying the weather, and hopefully stuffing yourself with as many brats and burgers as possible. It’s a day of celebration and the idea of remembrance is lodged solidly in the back of most people’s minds, if it’s there at all.
And that’s totally fine, I’m not trying to be all high and mighty and act above anyone; I went to a friends house to imbibe, eat finger food and play catchphrase. But as I do this I also do keep in mind what the day is actually about, and I hope everyone else does as well. I am a very adamant patriot and am very proud of everything this country stands for, and all the people fighting now and in the past.
There was an excellent article was in the USA Today about how the other side celebrates Memorial day. The other side meaning those that have lost family members in the field of battle. It said that a dichotomy exists in that while the majority of Americans are putting condiments on their dogs, relatives of lost servicemen are more likely to go to the cemetery. I’m guessing most people don’t think about this when they are playing bags.
So I guess I just wanted to share my thoughts and make myself realize that there are all sorts of ways to “celebrate”, which is fine, as long as you take at least a minute to remember what Memorial Day is all about.
How I live my life….otherwise known as the homeless person manual
So the last three weeks I’ve been living between couches and sleeping bags. It has been real fun needless to say. My lease runs out May 31st and I am not done working until June 10th….which is a little bit of a problem. So Joe and Nick decided to let me stay at their place. It’s a nice little two bedroom apartment, both rooms are already spoken for. The couch is my bedroom and the lazyboy next to it has become my living room. Luckily for me they are not charging me rent for two weeks…though I have promised to make dinner; Grilled Cheese anyone? I’m whining and complaining but in reality I have no problem with it. If it really was a huge issue I’d have taken up offers for beds from Alyssa, Praveen, Melissa, and others…I may actually enjoy living like this. A capsule compartment in Japan may be a luxury for me.
Eating Like a King
I have been eating very healthy lately, and I’m learning that it doesn’t mean you can’t eat well. Opposite really, and much more rewarding. I recently bought a cookbook that lists some of the favorite recipes of the big food network stars. Basically I’m being personally taught how to cook by Ina Garten and Giada de Laurentis. I haven’t had a ton of time to cook during the week with coaching absolutely exhausting me, but this weekend went very well.
Friday I had Justin grill up an Ahi tuna steak that I bought. I put it on top of spinach greens, grilled potatoes and mushrooms I sauteed in sherry vigegar and garlic. Top the whole thing off with rasberry vinagrette dressing and I ate a meal that I will need to repeat soon. Awesome. Yesterday I bought two pounds of mussels and steamed them in a pot with lemon, thyme, c hicken broth, wine and garlic. Not quite Mussels in Brussels, but pretty awesome nonetheless.
I still have yet to make my own sushi, but I think I’m going to wait until I master some more recipes in the book.Sushi seems pretty advanced to me, I better not jump right in. Though I could see myself changing my mind and trying this weekend.More to come.
Mom’s Meals: Bringing out the Ace Rotation
Dave and I are both home on spring break at the same time, which happens as often as Haley’s Comet does what it does. As a result, Mom has been preparing the best meals in the rotation. I’m sure the main purpose is to keep us at home so we don’t go out to eat with friends every night, but I don’t care. And it’s worked; I’ve only missed one meal this week, Corned Beef and Cabbage, because I went out. It works out because I’m not a huge fan of that anyway, but since it was St. Patty’s Day, I think my mom feels obligated to make that. Here’s a short run down of the meals we’ve had.
Grilled Private Reserve Top Sirloin steak with scalloped potatoes and broccoli
Grilled Salmon with amazing leftover scalloped potatoes
Corned Beef and Cabbage
Roasted Turkey breast with stuffing and gravy and mashed potatoes
and Today I’m waiting impatiently for roasted garlic and herb shrimp over wheat spaghetti
Congrats Mom, I’m not going anywhere during dinner time.
Infomercial Gem: GT XPress 101
I have on odd obsession with late night infomercials, and I consider myself an expert in the field of infomerciology, a rapidly growing field in the scientific community. My education in the field has been extensive, but I decided to make my area of concentration food related products and tools in the kitchen. I have knowledge of but am not an expert in the cosmetic, fitness, and get rich quick infomercials.
The GT Xpress 101 is essentially a George Foreman grill that forces everything you make in it into an omelet shape. People that are really into this shape will love this product. It does everything that a George Foreman grill does and more. Having two deep cooking wells as opposed to a flat surface allows for liquids and other non solid food items to be cooked in the 101. Pouring egg beaters in allows for perfectly shaped omelettes every time, and she also pours muffin mix to make delectable, half circle shaped muffins.
Beef and other meats can also be cooked in the GT Xpress 101, providing for hearty, healthy meals. She wraps some leftover beef around some asparagus, something impossible in any other convential cooking method, to make a gourmet meal for one. Then she decides to throw in a variety of leftovers in the wells to make a wonderful meal the second time around. I may as well throw my microwave away.
This will likely be a weekly or bi-weekly series on the best and worst infomercials out there. Let me know what you think. I’m saving the best product, the Magic Bullet, for a little later when I’ve really refined my infomercial critiquing.