February 2008 Archives

About a week ago my elementary students surprised me by inviting me to a performance they were putting on. Luckily I had the afternoon free of classes on that day so I decided it would be fun to see the kids sing or whatnot. So I arrive at the school at 1:30 only to find that all my 6th graders are gone. I'm informed its somewhere else. So the principal and I walked, in the rain, to the other location. Turns out the kids were not doing typical elementary school things, but in fact doing part of a traditional Japanese Noh play.

They did this in a really modern indoor stage. Oddly enough in a building I'd passed probably 100 times before. In attendance were quite a few teachers, parents, grandparents, and a TV news crew. It was quite the surprise for me, and I was thankful I had brought my camera along. Actually, everyone brought their camera along. The hall was filled with small beeps and clicks as the parents went picture crazy. Does no one ever think of putting their camera on silent?

The same play was done by both 6th grade classes, and in both cases I failed to understand anything. Something about a tengu and it being nice. I was told by one of my teachers that most of the kids didn't understand what was going on as the play was in 'old' Japanese and a bit confusing for them. I still thought it was cool and the kids looked so cute all dressed up. After the play everyone lined up for photos. I even got in on some photo action at one point (though I can't show those photos on this site due to school photo policy). But what I can show you is this video, which I assume is ok as a TV news crew was videoing it and probably showed it on TV.

I wish I could teach elementary school every day.

My home away from home is now gone. Cafe Rete has now shut down for good. When I first got to Japan I didn't have internet at home for over 3 months and so I spent time at my local internet cafe almost every night. I had tea there, ate lots of curry, and even made some friends. Even after I got internet at home I still went there quite a bit for lunch and dinner. Parts of various movies I've made were filmed there. I even took my parents there when they came to visit Japan.

About a month ago I noticed the little flashing light on the sign was off, and that there was no one in the cafe. I kept coming back thinking it would be open again soon, but it never was. About a week ago I noticed the owner's care in the parking lot so I went in to investigate. With tears in his eyes he told me that business had been bad lately and that he was forced to close down. It was really heart wrenching.

It gets worse, as I found out that my favorite downtown curry shop is now gone. I went to eat there on Friday and on Monday the place was just gone. Completely. You'd never even know it was there. So that make now 4 of my favorite eateries/ bars that have shut down in the past 9 months. Whats this city coming to? Where will I go for Taco Rice?

An old high school friend sent me a link to this article from my old hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I really enjoy the second paragraph.

Twenty-two-year-old Joshua Joseph Zimmerman of Renner is charged with soliciting a minor, following an online chat with a detective, who Zimmerman believed was a 13-year-old girl. It's the same tactic police used to arrest another man just two weeks ago, and something they say they will keep doing, because it works.

In case anyone is wondering I am in no relation to THAT Joshua Zimmerman. Yet another stupid Joshua Zimmerman out their spoiling my good name. I just know that some Japanese person is going to find it online and call my boss thinking its me. Sigh....

Japan produces a lot of manga, AKA comics. Theres manga for everyone from kids to adults, from humor to porn, from good to bad. Its one of those weird Japanese culture things that I really don't understand. But that doesn't mean I don't read some every now and then. There are great epic stories shown through hundreds of pages of beautiful artwork and captivating story lines. My all time favorite would be Akira. A 2,000 page story that went on for 8 years in the 80's. It changed the way comics were done on both sides of the ocean and greatly influenced the idea of 'cyber-punk'.

An animated movie was made which, although good in its own ways, only showed a small part of story. It would be like trying to fit the Lord of the Rings into one movie. The idea of a live action Akira movie has been kicked around for years but there have been no takers. Until now. Seems that Warner Brothers is taking it up and its being done in two movies. Hopefully they'll stick to the original storyline because its damned good. Though I do worry about it being made too 'Americanized.' I could honestly see Warner Brothers setting the movie in New York City with a whole cast of blond actors and somehow in the end Jesus shows up and saves everyone. Seriously. This could happen.

I'm always paranoid about data loss. My old 12in Powerbook had two hard drives die on it. The first time this happened the day after I returned form a trip, and thus I lost all my trip photos. I was not a happy camper. For the past three or so years I've been backing up all my data, as well as countless gigs of fun filled movies and music, on two external 250 GIG hard drives. One was for backup and one was for 'other' media. They treated me well. Until I returned form New Zealand and both hard drives started acting strange. One kept making clicking sounds, and one sounded like a 747 taking off. Both signs that I had major problems. If I was going to buy a new hard drive I might as well rock a terabyte of space (aka 1,000 gigabytes. About 14,000 times more space than my parents first computer.). So I go buy a Galaxy Metal Gear Box Raid system with one terabyte of space, USB 2.0, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800. Because I like firewire.

Plus it matches my desk and computer. Anyways, I had to order it online and have it sent to my parents in the US of A who then sent it to me. Even though there was about another $50 in shipping it was still cheaper than trying to buy a terabyte of space in Japan. I know. I've looked for a while now. All the Japanese external hard drives I've seen have sucked. Ugly, expensive, and USB 2.0 only. And as I said before, I like firewire. Especially firewire 800.

So I get this thing and move my data over. I'm happy because all my data is safe. Now I'm left with two external 250 gig hard drives. So I figure I'll see if I can set one up using Apple's Time Machine backup utility and use the other with an old laptop. So While doing this I find that one of the cases just needed its fan cleaned and its hard drive was fine. The second external drive's case was the problem and the hard drive was fine. So I go buy a super cheap external USB 2.0 case (the black thing sitting behind my super cool case) and now use that with Time Machine as my daily backup source.

A while ago my neighbor asked me to sell his busted 867 12in Powerbook on ebay. The computer works fine but has a busted hard drive, which is expensive to replace. This cupeled with the fact that 867 12in Powerbooks are selling for around $100 anyways led to it sitting in my closet for the past 3 months. So I decided to hook up one of the old hard drives to it, install OS 10.4 on it, and put it under my TV as a media server. For the low low price of a $20 TV adaptor I now have a computer dedicated to torrents and playing video on my TV. I hate seeing old computers go to waste. Every computer can be used for something. (On a sad note, I saw the first computer I ever owned at my local recycle shop going for the grand price of $35. I really wanted to buy it, just for nostalgia. But then I realized that I would have no use for it and that there was no way in hell I would be able to get it back on my bike.)

So there you have it. My fun filled computer setup. Now go away and backup your files.

I had more or less given up trying to find decent programs for my Mac to help in my Japanese studies, until someone turned me on to iKana. Its everything I ever wanted in an open ended Japanese language study guide program.

First off its really easy to use. In fact I don't know if it could be any easier to use. There are only six options to pick from when using this program (as shown below). Special props to the programers for their very Japanesy pictures.

Virtual flash cards are nice. I remember in college when I had ring and rings and rings of little flash cards. All of them in my horrible writing. Trust me, I still have horrible Japanese writing. Flash cards are there in an easy to use format. All you have to do is enter them into the dictionary and you can study your heart out. I also like their stroke order guides as well. Maybe it'll help with my writing.

Vocabulary practice is much the same. Add words in. Practice. Hide the English, show the English. Good times.

By default the diction doesn't have much in it. Which means you have to enter in your own vocabulary and definitions. Which makes sense and will probably take you a long time to do. But you're studying anyways, so get to it.

There are a couple of game you can play. Speed Recognition is just what it sounds like. You have a limited time to pick the right choice.

Theres also the option to Romanize Japanese words, which would be helpful for beginners.

So thats the rundown on iKana. Its simple and easy to use. In the right hands it could be a very helpful study tool. Provided that you want to type in all your vocabulary words. The only downside to this program is its price. Its billed at 14 Pounds, which is about $30 USD. Which is like of a lot for a study aid, especially if you're a student. But I guess it beats buying a whole lot of flash cards and extra books.

I'm sure I'll be giving it a lot of time come my school's Spring Vacation where I'll be sitting in an office for a week doing nothing.

The diver in me something sees things different than the regular Josh. The regular Josh would say "Global Warming is bad. Polar ice caps melting is bad. Coastal flooding is bad." The diver josh says "Maybe its not all so bad...."

I like how theres also a manta ray swimming by as well. I guess global warming also made New York into a tropical zone.

I've been in Japan for nearly three years now and I've never been to Korea. Its like living in South Dakota for three years and saying you've never been to the Corn Palace. Ok, so I lived in South Dakota for 5 years and never saw the damned Corn Palace. But thats not the point. The point is I've never been there, which is sad, because Korea is cheap to get to and even cheaper to do things in. Its like Japan's Mexico. You go over there to have a good time during a three day weekend. What happens in Korea stays in Korea sort of ordeal.

Anyways, Chris talked me into going to Korea for a three day weekend next month. I actually had a few sights that I wanted to see. Such as the 610 year old Namdaemun Gate. The same damned gate that I've been reading about for three years in my junior high school text books. So I'm thinking to myself "Boy Josh, now you can get some photos of you at the gate to use in class." Well, guess what. Someone went and burned the damned gate down. Fuck you Korea. One of your own burned down your most historic landmark a month before I come to visit (Special gate fact, it was the largest wooden structure in Korea). If I could I would go to North Korea just to spite the South.

Of me! I just signed a new contract for another year in Japan. Which means I'll finally be getting my lazy ass out of this country sometime during the summer of 2009. Until then I'll be enjoying more fun filled travels around Asia as well as a wealth of sushi bliss. I do have a few Asian countries I've not hit up yet during my world travels. And I'm kind of lazy. And all my stuff is here. Can you imagine moving all my stuff back to the US of A? What a complete and total mess that would be. I don't even know where I would start!

People always ask my why I keep signing new contracts and doing more time in Japan. Well, the video below kind of spells it all out.

I never said it made any sense.

In the past couple of months my blogging has been highly infrequent. Infrequent enough to cause several family members to write to me asking if I was depressed or had broken my hands. The problem started in October when my boss and called me into the back room for a meeting. It seems that a parent at one of my schools had found my blog and called my boss about it. The parent objected to my putting pictures and video of students on my blog, and thought they were a privacy and security risk. The pictures and video in question were from a post about a school sports festival, an outdoor event open to the public where everyone was taking photos. So my boss went through a whole lot of blog posts taking issue with quite a few things I had written as well as photos and video of students. This was a very friendly meeting and I was instructed to remove the offending material. The problem was that I was left very confused as to what was 'objectionable', especially when it came to things I had written about. Fast forward to this past week. After a meeting between myself, two other office ALTs, and my boss we finally were able to write up some blogging guidelines that were clear and easy for us ALTs to understand as well a some guidelines for the way our schools used photos of us. So it all worked out. (Also during these past 3 months a teacher found a youtube video I had posted of me teaching in a classroom, which I took down.)

But it could have gone the other way. Stories of ALTs getting in very deep trouble due to photos and comments posted on the internet have been a frequent topic of conversation amongst ALTs. Situations so bad that jobs were lost over posting innocent photos of students on a blog, or complaining about cultural differences in schools. I was lucky that my boss and office were quite understanding of me and my blogging.

The problem is two fold. One, almost every ALT posts photos online and many have blogs. Flickr, facebook, myspace, bloggger, or even comments on internet forums are potentially job enders. Secondly the rules about whats acceptable and whats not are almost always unknown by ALTs. Either it was never explained to the ALT or the school has no official policy, which can lead to schools reacting in a variety of ways. I personally think most schools in Japan have no internet photo or student privacy policy and thus when a problem does come up the reaction can be very severe.

One of the other ALTs in my office brought things into a Japanese legal perspective. Under the national civil servant guidelines we ALTs, as civil servants, are greatly restricted in what we are legally allowed to do and say. We are unable to speak ill of our workplace, which extends to whistle blowing. We must obey our superiors. We are unable to take part in political movements or protests. We may not share information gained while working, no matter what the situation. So for example, if a school was filled with cancerous asbestos, and my superiors were doing nothing about it, I would lose my job by going public with this information.

What I learned about my own situation is that every school in my school district has a different policy on what you can and can not post on the internet. One of my school actually has a rule where no photos of students, no matter what the reason, may be posted or publish. No PTA news letters, no school webpages, no hallway posters. Nothing. My other school has a more relaxed policy where photos are allowed in a variety of situations, as long as permission is asked. (Though it becomes a sticky situation when dealing with a public event like a school festival or sports day as these are public events open to everyone.) The guidelines that were hammered out between the ALTs and my boss more or less boil down to three parts.

1) We need to ask our schools what their policies about photos are. We also need to tell the schools if we don't want photos taken of us. (Which happens a lot.)
2) No photos inside school and no photos outside where students can be easily recognized.
3) Don't say anything bad about your schools online. More or less its best to write unanimously. (Keep things private as much as possible)

I'm writing about all of this because I hope that other ALTs will read this and change their habits. All it takes is a quick google search and you can find hundreds of JET blogs and thousands of JET taken photos. Any of which could get someone fired. I really hope that my prefecture, as well as every other prefecture, picks up on the events of this year and lays down a policy about internet privacy. If nothing else tell the new ALTs next year to ask their schools about what is acceptable. I was lucky. Others, not so much.

Somehow Japan has become home to a wide range of strange and unusual Kit Kats. In recent years I've seen white chocolate, apple, mango, cherry, strawberry, banana, pineapple, green tea, melon, and even red wine Kit Kat flavors. So when my mother asked me to send her some fun filled Japanese candy for her middle school mentor boys I figured what represented Japanese candy better than a couple fun bags of Sakura and Mikan Kit Kats!

Saukra being cherry blossom and mikan being a Japanese orange. While not the most crazy of flavors I've seen (the red wine takes the cake in my book) they're probably interesting enough to entertain some otaku middle school boys for a while. Plus they no doubt taste wonderful.

Listen, its not that I hate snow. Its just that I want to live somewhere where there is no chance I'll ever have to deal with it. Since being back from my filled trip to New Zealand I've had to put up with snow four times. Four. Only once was it even good snow. The first time it was more like the sky was raining down slush for the better part of the day.

One of the main problems is that you can't even enjoy the snow even if you wanted to. The ground is way too warm for that. Whatever hits the ground becomes slush, which then freezes at night, which causes everyone to have problems the next day. Then again I saw people putting chains on their car tires the day we got the snow pictured above. I think it was under an inch.

On the upside to this hellish snow is that I can observe the local Japanese populations response to the snow. Here are a few methods of snow removal I saw on my bike ride to work. A broom. A garden hoe. A garden shovel. A hand garden shovel. A real snow shovel (props to you). But the best thing I saw were the three different people using running water from a hose to clear the snow off the sidewalk. At first I thought to myself, "Maybe its just one crazy person." But then I saw two more people doing it. Somehow I think using running water on a sidewalk thats experiencing near freezing weather is probably not the smartest approach.

I once had to give a 10 minute explanation as to what a snow blower was and how we used it back in America. Now I understand why.

Last weekend was the annual Mid-Year Conference for JETs in the Hiroshima Prefecture. Unlike previous years the lectures were not a complete bore and I took some new teaching skills with me when I left. I even broke away from my tradition of not helping at all in these functions by giving a short talk on diving in Asia. Thanks to Talia and Phil for helping me out with their talks on Surfing and Bike Ridding in Japan.

Half the reason for this conference is to try and help us grow as teachers. The other half is to get all the ALTs together so they can have a good time. The combination of cheap drinks, a decent party scene, and a whole lot of ALTs who having been living in the middle of nowhere for the past 6 months causes some interesting results. Several nights in a row. Which leads to a very interesting second day of the conference.

But this post is not about any of that. Its about Speaker Gain Teardrop. Which, as I'm told by a Hiroshima City JET, is the "best small band in the city." A group of us went to hear them play, and they were indeed quite a good band, though most of their songs kind of sounded the same...

But you can judge for yourself thanks to the magic of my holding my camera steady for a good 6 minutes.

On a weird note I think one of the band members found my youtube video of them playing and posted it on their webpage. If you'd care to try and read the Japanese, go right ahead. Otherwise be confused with this online translation of it.

When you become aware, someone raising, it increases, it is thought that perhaps this day you have come it is customer of the foreign country, thank you truly, -! This angle is unexpected and fresh. With you say, or this tune lover of everyone would like to see, don't you think? is, -, being raised in "youtube," as for tune this is most, is, it is grateful truly, is. But laughing although don't you think? objectively any view become enormously study, it perseveres more unless, and you are your own , that the album comes out, unless title you acquire either this tune quickly... (the laughing which still is non subject).

I love Japanese to English translation.