Changed domains

Hey everyone, New URL::::: http://sojournippon.wordpress.com/ Don't worry, this will stay up, but i won't post any more, Sorry! but i like wordpress better than blogger. Dakota M. Benjamin, JTD ダコタ　ベンジャミン Rotary District 7850 - Vermont, USA Hosted by Rotary Club or Rokkasho, Japan District 2830 - Aomori, Japan dakota.benjamin@gmail.com

Of Fish and Long Days

So spreaking of catching up, I actually caught a fish last weekend – with my bare hands! Unbelievable, eh? Well, last weekend was actually Rokkasho-mura's annual Festival – the Sangyo (Industry) Matsuri (Festival). One of the most interesting features of this Matsuri was the giant pool full of salmon, a fairly good portion of the industry here on the sea coast. Pretty much, about 200 people surround the pool, and on go they attempt to seize their own prize. The first five get a second salmon free. I got mine in the last ten seconds of the three minute farce. Did I mention the water was freezing? Here are some pics:

Me and Kento, Taneichi-san's youngest. By the way he caught his fish before me.

As you can see, I got wet.

Whoo! My prize.

Some other things I did was hack the sack with Gabe and Jon, some other gaijin living in Rokkasho. Both of them are supercool. Gabe, an ALT from the US has a giant cone, and tiny harmonica. Jon, an Aussie, is working at the International School; he can play the didgeridoo (sp.?).

Somehow Taneichi-san (the only Rotarian who speaks a spot of English, and even so it's not so great) got us a grill in the mash of a Matsuri, and so we had some amazing grilled salmon. I swearr that man runs thi whole town, as he got me in front of the line before the salmon catching. I definitely had a lot of fun, but I was lucky I didn't catch a cold.

One thing I didn't see at the festival, but was appalled to hear about was the dog fighting. I didn't know that it was not only legal, but there are tournaments and stuff every year in Toukyou. However, I cannot say anything about it; it is Japanese culture, not mine. What the Japanese think is right is right in Japan.

So I think it is ripe time to tell my dear readers about school, now that I've finally gotten the hang of the weird schedule. I think i might have had my first "regular" day this Tuesday. Every day at about 7:52 I walk to school (I live just a few hundred meters away) with usually three other guys, a first year whose name I can't remember, a second year (my grade) named Kota, and a third year, Nautaka. We are usually greeted at the entrance of the school, "Gozaimasu!" (short for "Ohayou gozaimasu") in which we reply the same, and then I change into my school shoes for inside, as per Japanese custom, and go to my homeroom until school starts, 8:20. Once school starts, I typically have 6 classes, 50 minutes each, with 10 minutes in between. 4 classes in the morning, a 45 minute lunch, and 2 (or 3, but we'll get to that later) classes in the afternoon. Here's my schedule:

		Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
	8:15~8:25	Reading	Reading	Reading	Reading	Reading
	8:25~8:35	Home Room	Home Room	Home Room	Home Room	Home Room
1	8:40~9:30	数学A Math A 品川 Shinigawa	体育 Health & PE 飛内 Tobinai	現代文 Modern Japanese 亀田 Kameda	英語II English II 田中 Tanaka	自習 Self-Study 図書館 Library
2	9:40~10:30	自習 Self-Study 図書館 Library	音楽 Music 宮里 Miyazato	ワープロ Typing 小笠原 Ogasawara	情報処理 Computer 小笠原 Ogasawara	体育 PE 飛内 Tobinai
3	10:40~11:30	音楽 Music 宮里 Miyazato	自習 Self-Study 図書館 Library	フードデサイン Food Design 川口 Kawaguchi	自習 Self-Study 図書館 Library	Reading 立崎 Tachizaki
4	11:40~12:30	体育 PE 飛内 Tobinai	地理 Geography 西村 Nishimura	フードデサイン Food Design 川口 Kawaguchi	音楽 Music 宮里 Miyazato	ワープロ Typing 小笠原 Ogasawara
	12:30~13:15	お昼時間　Lunch Time	お昼時間　Lunch Time	お昼時間　Lunch Time	お昼時間　Lunch Time	お昼時間　Lunch Time
5	13:15~14:05	自習 Self-Study 図書館 Library	Japanese Lesson at International Center	英語II English II 田中 Tanaka	体育 PE 飛内 Tobinai	Japanese Lesson at International Center
6	14:15~15:05	Writing English 田中 Tanaka	Japanese Lesson at International Center	化学 Chemistry 清水 Shimizu	LHR 田中 Tanaka	Japanese Lesson at International Center
	15:05~15:20	掃除　 Cleaning Time	掃除　 Cleaning Time	掃除　 Cleaning Time	掃除　 Cleaning Time	掃除　 Cleaning Time
	15:20~15:30	Home Room	Home Room	Home Room	Home Room	Home Room

Now, I get to buy lunch from one or two women (one of them is a friend of okaasan) who work down the street. They bring a variety of bento and sandwiches and pan which is Japanese for bread, but encases everything from sandwiches to pastries. I usually get a chicken sandwich and pan, and then either a Coke or Kochakaden (only the most delicious type of tea in a can) either hot or cold from the vending machine (yes, the vending machines serve hot drinks!). Then, as we don't have a cafeteria, I go back to my homeroom, or the one next to mine, and eat with friends.

So there are three grades in highschool, I am a second year. Each grade has 2 homerooms, making for about 50-60 kids per grade. Now, because the Japanese school year starts in April, and the age cutoff in in January, I should be a first year, but they (Rotary) wanted me to go on the School Trip, so they made me a second year. Therefore, all my friends are a year older than me at least. It's ok though, they don't seem to care all that much.

Now, I rarely have a normal school day. I have yet to find out why, but classes are constantly being switched around, changed, canceled, or even entire days switched (This week, Thursday was a Monday schedule, while Monday was a Wednesday, and Wednesday was just whacked). Because it is such a small school, (like 150 kids) it works. However, I often don't get told of these changes, and end up in the wrong class, like Modern Japanese for example. Mostly the teachers understand, after all, I've been here, what, 2 months and a week?

Another irregularity that constantly throws me off is BS. Don't know what it means, but it's a special 45 minute class after classes that happens two to three times a week. Sometimes it's Math, sometimes English (in which I have to do the work backwards into Japanese), or Kanji (yeahhhh, not even easy for the Japanese kids). And then at the end of every school day, we have souji. That is, cleaning! The students are the school's best unpaid janitors. Just imagine how quickly and easily, and thoroughly, 200 people can clean a school, then imagine 600 kids cleaning Harwood!!

So school officially ends at 3:30, or 4:15, depending on the day. The school day is finally over, right? (Trivia: Japan has one of the longest school days in the world) Weeelll, not so! If you aren't in a club, you are obviously a slacker. In spite of the long school day, clubs try to go for as long as possible. Thursday I got home at 6:30, whih is also when the final buses leave from school. This time of year it's already dark by about 5:30, and maybe 10˚C. Freezing. As you know, dear reader, I am doing archery. It's fun trying to shoot when you can't feel your hands !! However, when it's all said and done, after a ten hour total school day, I get to walk home and eat some wondrously delicious meal that okaasan cooks up. うめ！

As for grades, I have no idea. I'm thinking I'm probably gonna be able to get a credit from PE and Foreign Language (of course), and maybe English, only because I'm half teacher in class, but I'm not so sure. I'm totally ok with doing my Junior year over back home, because then I won't be rushed senior year, and I'll be able to take some elective courses that I have been wanting to take.

Well, I hope that didn't sound too gruesome for you, 'cause these are some of the best school days I have ever experienced. I have awesome, funny friends from whom I learn so much, and I have cool, sometimes crazy teachers, who are so helpful. One day I walked into my homeroom between classes and saw all these Japanese kids and I said to myself, "How the hell did you get yourself here, Dakota?"

Don't forget about me, Dakota M. Benjamin, JTD 勉蛇民舵誇太 ダコタ　ベンジャミン Rotary District 7850 - Vermont, USA Hosted by Rotary Club or Rokkasho, Japan District 2830 - Aomori, Japan dakota.benjamin@gmail.com

ahem.

Hello dear readers, if you are still reading. It has been a little over two weeks since my last post. I blame partly my laziness and mostly that I am so damn tired from all the stuff going on. Please forgive me. Anyways, here is an updated account of my life here in where the deepest hot spring of Japan resides and the salmon are all caught with your hands -- well, one a year that is.

But more on that later. Now, I will rewind my memory to two weekends past, within which I was swept over 1400 kilometers in a single day, without ever leaving the surface of the Earth. Yes, you guessed it, I took a ride (well, two) on the legendary Shinkansen! Jeez that sounds like a Pokemon... For those of you who didn't guess that, or don't even know what I'm talking about, that would be the Bullet Train. To where, you may ask? Well, to Tokyo, of course! And you'd think I would be so excited form that that I would want to post immediately! Well, dear reader, you must remember that I took the good 'ole Shinkansen there and back in a single day, barely leaving time for the true reason I went, to see the beautiful, and oft outrageous Kabuki theater. Yes, and what a show it was! Some key points of the 5 hour long performance: there are only male actors, even for the women's parts; men who specialize in women's parts are called "onnagata"; in order to become a Kabuki actor, you must be born into it, therefore, I was watching the great-great-etc-grandghildren of the original actors of the 1800s; there are usually four shows; there is often music, dancing, singing, chanting, and odd poses; it uses old Japanese, and many younger Japanese can't even understand it, fortunately I had a benri (convienient) headphone set with an English guide.

The first show was about a princess who had to move from Kyouto to Edo (modern-day Toukyou) to marry a prince, but she didn't want to. So, her handmaid brought in a young horse driver to play a game about Edo for her. Turns out this boy is the abandoned son of the princess's handmaid, but she must shun the boy out of duty to her princess, in order not to ruin the girl's reputation.

The second was about a dancer who came to a temple to celebrate a new bell. Really she was a demon who wanted to destroy it. So she was accepted into the temple (even though women aren't allowed, the priests were corrupt) In the middle of the dance, she is reavealed as a man, and at the end, he climbs up the bell, reveals himself as a serpent, and crushes it.

The third was about a man whose sister had been unjustly killed by her master, a samurai lord. He has taken a vow of sobriety, but in his distress drinks a whole keg of sake. He drunkenly storms into the samurai lord's palace in an attempt for revenge. He is stopped and tied up, and after falling asleep by his drink, put in the very same garden his sister was killed in. He was extremely lucky that he was not killed on spot for his behavior. When he wakes up he is sober. He is greeted by the Samurai lord, who admits that he had killed her in a drunken rage, and offers a hefty compensation. How ironic.

The final show was a dance to the fuji flower (not the mountain) also known as the wisteria. It shows the growth into maturity of the Wisteria Maiden through costume changes. Very impressive and interesting, but hard to explain in detail.

Ok, so I don't want to leave you hanging, but I'd rather give you little by little whats been happening. So I'll finish this post now and send the next one hopefully by tomorrow. if not, Please look at the pictures and you'll see most of what went down. .... Sorry!!!!!

Dakota M. Benjamin, JTD ダコタ　ベンジャミン Rotary District 7850 - Vermont, USA Hosted by Rotary Club or Rokkasho, Japan District 2830 - Aomori, Japan dakota.benjamin@gmail.com