Sakura

Erin and I spent our spring vacation up north in snowy Hakodate. While the weather was cold and windy, the view of Hakodate city from the mountain truly lives up to the hype.

This year the cherry blossoms came late and went quickly.  Erin and I found a canal lined with cherry trees near the station in Gifu two weeks ago.

We had to wait another week for the cherry blossoms to come out in Komatsu and Kanazawa, but when they did, it was spectacular! 

Weeping Sakura at Sunset

Rojou Park in the afternoon...

...and at twilight...

...and then at night!

Kanazawa Castle

The road to Kenrokuen

Stay tuned for a history of Rojo Park!

plans

The school year in Japan runs from April to March. One of my students explained that plum blossoms bloom around the time of graduation (early March) or the ending ceremony (late March) and the cherry blossoms start to bloom just after the new school year begins (early April). Granted, this is the Tokyo Standard Symbolism, so since our region's winters are a little longer, the blossoms are about a week late.

Spring break for the students is the two weeks after the old school year and before the new one. High school graduates have about a month total from when they find out they got into college to when they have to be in their first college class. Needless to say, the sales at IKEA-esque home shops are fantastic in the spring. A month may sound shocking to those of us used to a three month summer break before college, but that month is positively luxurious compared to the time period teachers have.

Every few years, teachers in Japan get transfered. The standard is three to five years at a given school, but if it's a good fit, the Board of Education might let you stay for as long as twelve. New teachers especially get transfered often, as they (probably) don't have families that would be uprooted. Transfers can be across the prefecture. In the case of my prefecture, someone working in a city in the far south could be transferred to a very isolated rural town on the tip of a peninsula a five hour drive away. They would know on--for example--March 23rd and be expected to be settled in and ready to work on April 2nd.

For Japanese teachers, the world flat out ends the last week of March and restarts the first week of April. There is no bridge between them, even at the same school. Need a computer fixed? Wait until the world is reborn next week. Who will you be teaching with? No idea. When will the welcome party be? No one knows. Who's your supervisor now? Get back to us on April 2nd and don't get into trouble.

During this time, all events and meetings and schedule changes happen on incredibly short notice, often while ALTs are on vacation. When we all meet up again to see the cherry blossoms, everyone talks about what their new teachers are like and shares stories of how their schools seem to have burst into flames and been reborn into amnesia-stricken phoenixes. It's weird, feeling like the only holdover...at least until July, when new ALTs land.

Very few of the people I teach with got transferred this year, but we have a new principal and vice principals. We'll see how this next year goes. In the meantime, it's off to Hakodate for me.

In Memoriam

With video chatting and email, it's easy for those of us living abroad to forget the distance we've placed between ourselves and our loved ones. Though I was able to talk with my grandmother before she passed thanks to these technologies, they couldn't transport me to the memorial service to be there with my family. I did send a speech audio file, which seemed like far too little. I've been told that people want to see the text, and since most of my readership is family--and in larger part, because my grandmother read my posts--I'd like to share it here.

New Year

Happy New Year!

Erin and I spent New Year's Eve with two good friends in Kanazawa, enjoying traditional foods like ozouni and zenzai* as well as some non-traditional passtimes, namely playing Minecraft or watching significant others play Minecraft. We went to a Oyama Shrine at midnight to watch the hordes descend on the physical shrine itself to pray. The line was several blocks long, so we moseyed along to the fortunes and charms that all shrines sell around New Year's. We paid 100 yen for a paper fortune, and all of us got the best ranking for fortunes. Hooray! I, however, was cautioned that high places would lead to failure. Good thing I already vowed to everything in earshot that I would never climb Hakusan again.

I think spending New Year's in Japan without a Japanese extended family to take you in would be like spending the latter half of December in the US without an American extended family. There are decorations and you're supposed to feel merry and you have a vacation, but you'll never quite have the same holiday experience. Then again, you probably also won't be drinking champagne and setting things on fire while watching Sherlock, so I'm not terribly broken up about it.

Erin and I will stay in Japan for another year and a half, until July 2013. We both love our students and have so much yet to see here.

Now, time for a Japanese lesson. This time, it's Ishikawa winter precipitation!

弱雨　jakuu/ yowa-ame  weak rain. Covers anything that is not like your shower

みぞれ mizore slush. Literally slush, synonymous with slurpy-esque beverages, but from the sky. It's also a flavor of shaved ice, if you want your shaved ice to taste like frozen coats and suffering.

氷雨　hisame small hail/ frozen rain. We have had an inch of this fall in half an hour. At least it kind of looked like snow.

雹　hyou "hail of a diameter greater than 5mm". Self-explanatory. The character components add up to "parcel of precipitation," which is telling.

湿雪 shissetsu wet and warm snow. Demarcated on tenki.jp by a sad, partially melted snowman.

吹雪 fubuki blowing snow or snow storm. Demarcated by an unmelted but extremely distressed snowman. In this part of Japan, it means a chance of thundersnow. Which is awesome.

Temperatures in Ishikawa change quickly, but you can count on something falling from the sky. I have experienced all of these weather conditions in quick succession within one four-minute walk to work. I keep an extra umbrella in my drawer at work in case something unspeakable happens to the one I take with me in the morning. Since the temperature hovers at about 29 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit, the roads aren't plowed; they are instead cleared with sprinklers. Which malfunction and sometimes gush several feet into the air, the terror of bicyclists everywhere.

There is a reason why people in Japan love spring. Not only is it gorgeous...it's not three categories of winter precipitation that aren't really snow.


*Ozouni is a soup made from traditional Japanese broth, greens, mochi (sticky rice cakes), and chicken...or in my case, tofu. Zenzai is a dessert-ish soup made from red bean paste, water, and mochi. There's a theme here. It's mochi.