January 22

I slept for about nine hours last night and still felt tired. My day went pretty normally until around noon; I met my friend, rode the chikatetsu, checked my mailbox, and went to class. In class, I learned about the Japanese educational system, only after being humiliated a bit. Our first session was held in the “listening lab,” where we studied moras and accents (pure review after taking Dr. Mertz’s class). After that particular part of the lesson, we were forced to sing a kids’ song that involved making frog songs and saying kekekekekeke. Afterward, the class was split (as is the case every day) and we had our other lessons (and got our homework returned). There were many marks (of incorrectness) on my homework, but luckily, we were spending most of the class period going over the answers. The revealing part of class was when my classmate asked about the grading of one of her questions (the assignment was to read a passage and then answer questions, all written in Japanese). As it turned out, her answer was right (and I believe grammatically correct), but since it was not the most direct, desired answer according to the grading instructor, it was marked wrong. It seems more and more that Japanese schooling is focused on memorization and convention. This is going to be hard for me, having come from a system in which individual thought, and essentially loopholes, are encouraged. I’m a bit concerned that memorizing will hinder my ability to learn practical Japanese, but I suppose, if it works for the Japanese, then it should work for the Japanese language.

After class, I went to the hyakuen Lawson’s with Keily and Mike to get lunch. I bought a bento (that was not hyakuen) and donuts (for hyakuen)!!! They weren’t great, but they were donuts, so I ate all four. After lunch, I went with a friend to find book off. Book off is a chain that sells used (and it looks like new too) books, games, CD’s, and DVD’s. If I was still into manga, I would be in heaven. I really wanted to buy some music, but I don’t know which Japanese bands I like (whose music I don’t already have).

Afterward, we tried to find a shortcut back to Nanzan, and ended up taking a big loop that got us nowhere. We had to ask an obaasan (who had to ask two otoko) how to get to Nanzan and none of them seemed to know. They kept saying it was pretty far away (touii), but I’m finding it hard to think anything is really far away, as long as there are sidewalks to get me there. I’m so used to having to take a car to get anywhere that being in the city, I don’t mind walking twenty or more minutes to my destination. Besides which, it’s a really easy way to get exercise.

On the way back to the eki, we stopped at a flower shop (overpriced) to look for a plant for okaasan and then at a second-hand store to see what they had. Unlike American second-hand stores, this one was rather chic and didn’t seem dusty or dirty. In the end, we didn’t buy anything, but I got a few good pictures and an interesting afternoon.

For dinner tonight, okaasan made fish and chips, but I misunderstood her when she asked me if I had eaten it before, so she was surprised that I said I hadn’t. The truth was that I hadn’t had it, but not because I had never had fish and chips. We are in Japan, so of course, it was not English fish and chips, but Japanese fish and chips; breaded and fried oysters, (English) chips, coleslaw (cabbage with nothing on it), miso soup, rice, squash (I think, as I did not eat it), and salad. It was very good, but I had never had oysters (let alone deep fried ones) before. Okaasan also taught me how to set the table like a Japanese person (as I had done it backward. The large plate goes in the middle (duh), but the rice bowl goes on the left and the miso goes on the right. For dessert, we had a rolled yellow cake with white icing, which, of course, was delicious.