02.28.03
Man, this has just turned out to be a janken kind of week. Today, as it's finals week at Jr. High there's no classes since everyone is busy flunking tests, so I went to elementary school again, this time with first-graders. Upon arriving, I was introduced to a Korean lady whom I was told I'd be teaching with today. Teaching English? No. Teaching Korean? No. Teaching something having to do with anything? Of course not.
We would be teaching janken.
The American and Korean versions of janken respectively. You see what I mean about them being obsessed with it, right?
We spent, no lie, an hour playing janken over and over and over and over. This picture on the left is the only view I saw all damn day. Then I got to each lunch with the kids and afterwards, guess what they wanted to do. Yes, they wanted to play some more janken. Over and over and over and over as a matter of fact. One girl would start jumping and yelling whenever I actually stopped to talk to someone about something other than janken. "Scott-sensei, hurry up!! Let's janken!!!"
I never thought my arm would get tired playing Paper, Scissors, Rock. Until today, that is. <sigh>
02.27.03
As part of my year-end review at 2nd grade elementary school today, we did janken in English. For those of you that aren't aware, janken is the Japanese version of Paper, Scissors, Rock and is ubiquitous in Japan, particularly in schools of all levels.
It's used to settle all kinds of disputes and make all kind of decisions (even those that are vital enought that they probably shouldn't be settled by janken, unfortunately). It's kind of an interesting look at the aspect of Japanese culture called the "Wa" (harmony). It almost makes a stupid kind of sense when you think about it: if someone makes a decision and others think they're brining personal motives into it, people are going to be discontent and challenge the decision. On the other hand, if you leave it up to blind chance, and mutually decide beforehand that you're going to do so, then no one walks away with hurt feelings.
So while it's unfortunately a little overused in schools, to the point that the kids never really learn how to make informed decisions (which they may need to do at some point in their lives), it can also be rather convenient, because no matter what the outcome, the kids always stick by it. Once the scissors have cut the paper, paper has covered the rock or rock has blunted the scissors, that's it. Discussion is over and everyone moves along with the outcome of the "decision." That part is amazing to me, that there is never any arguing. The judgment of the janken is immutable.
So anyway, given all this, I figured the kids would enjoy playing the English version and shouting "Paper, Scissors, Rock!!" at the beginning rather than "saisho wa gu(first is rock), janken-pon!!" And man was I right. They couldn't get enough. Anyway, what made my day was, afterward during lunch, there was a carton of milk left over and four kids all wanted it. So of course, they turned to janken to decide who would inherit the gyunyu(milk). But to my surprise, they didn't shout "saisho ha gu, janken-pon!!", they were shouting "Paper, scissors, rock!!" On their own!! Without any encouragement from me at all!! I can't believe it, the little bastards spoke English!!
Lo, after a year and a half, the JET Programme has finally accomplished something. Not much, but I'll take it. Now if I could just get them to stop calling me Sukotto.
02.23.03
Erg. Is there anything worse than waking up 10 stupid minutes before your alarm goes off? No... no, I didn't think there was.
So, as I'm coming out of the grocery store the other day, I notice a little old lady right behind me. I figure she's leaving too, so I hold the door open for her. She immediately starts bowing and apologizing and thanking me and follows me through the first set of doors. I get to the second set of doors and she's still back there, "Oh, thank you! I'm sorry for the trouble. Oh jeez."
I'm like, "It's no trouble." So, I hold this door open for her as well and she keeps bowing at me while she's walking (I still need to learn how to do this without looking like a tool), and spewing "Oh thank you, thank you."
Once she's out I follow and offer a slight bow and tell her goodbye. She gives a deep bow and once again thanks me for, what apparently was the tremendous effort of opening a door that I was going to be opening and going through anyway. I take a few steps to my bike and unlock it, then glance back to the door and the old lady... who's going back inside!!
Seems she came all the way outside even though she wasn't ready to leave the store, just because I held the door open for her and I guess she didn't want to be rude and tell me she didn't need it. Hee hee. I love this country.
Updated the Links section again. They're both sites I've mentioned before, but I only just got them up for your perusal. One is the endlessly amusing Japanders , which houses a vast repository of big-name celebrities in Japanese adverts, and the other is Tamir's Delorean Site which, while blatantly irrelevant to Japan, does quite a good job in showing why even you need one of these stainless steel beauties.
Deloreans.... mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
