Question Period/ My Life As An International Pop Sensation

In Japan, the school year starts in April, and with the year coming to an end, things are changing at school.

At my junior high, high school entrance exams are finally out of the way, meaning classes are getting a little less textbook and a lot more practical. For the last few weeks, my students and I have been doing a question-and-answer exchange. For 10 minutes a day, they write down a few questions for me to correct and answer, and hopefully teach them something about conversation along the way. The result has been a creative, bizarre, adorable glimpse into junior high curiosities often lost in translation, but thankfully not quieted by the fear of making a mistake.

Q: What Samurai do you know?

A: Excellent question. Before I moved to this fascinating country, everything I knew about Japan I learned from Hollywood. In fact, some of my favourite films and television shows growing up were centered around Japanese culture: 3 Ninjas. 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up. 3 Ninjas Kick Back. Sailor Moon. Unfortunately, none of those touched on samurai, so I'm going to have to go with Nathan Algren, as depicted by Tom Cruise in the 2003 blockbuster, The Last Samurai. Epic film, if I remember rightly.

Q: Who is love phantom for you?
A: The creativity of this one just blew me away. I don't even know how to answer. I tried approaching her in person for a bit of insight. This got me nowhere.

Q: Where are you going?
A: Right now? In life? I ask myself that question everyday.

Q: Lady Gaga is very beautiful and cool. How about you?
A: I am also very beautiful and cool. Thank you for asking.

Q: I like dog
A: Poor kid. Somehow her running out of ideas coincided with forgetting everything I've taught her about punctuation.

Q: How old do you want to marry?
A: I don't necessarily think about how I old want to get married - more like at what age will I no longer be okay with being a lonely old spinster who spends her spare time chasing cats in the parking lot and emailing pictures of them to her friends' digital picture frames despite being told to stop. I haven't narrowed down an exact number, but I'm not there yet, that's for sure.

This last one makes me laugh because of the order of the questions. He carefully planned each move, waiting for a green-light-answer before braving the next question.
- Do you like me?
 (Yes, you are a good student.)
- Do you have a boyfriend?
 (No.)
- How old do you want to marry? (Probably my late twenties or early thirties.)

- I want to marry in my late twenties, too!!!!
The uncharacteristic excitement he showed by the end of this is so cute, I just don't have the heart to tell him that by the time he's in his late twenties, I will be a 40 year old aforementioned psycho spinster, or remind him that I'm his teacher.

And of course, life is always exciting at the elementary schools. With varying levels of English/interpretations of my job description, Wednesdays and Fridays at the sho-gakko continue to get more bizzare. At my Wednesday school, I've been asked to teach the year 6 class "When You Wish Upon a Star." I agreed, partly because I knew I didn't have a choice, and partly because I thought I'd be lipsynching to a cd (wrong.)

One week, I'm a "guest speaker" in music class, giving a performance my kocho-sensei insists brought him to tears, the next week I'm blindly led into the multimedia room to give a concert with a microphone and a sound system. I always said that earning three quarters of my graduating credits in choir and vocal jazz would pay off one day, and here we are, world. 6 years later and I'm still reaping the benefits of my Mennonite education.

Thankfully, they did let me take a break from singing this week to do my signature holiday construction paper craft. Behold, Ms. Kuroee's Valentine's Day finger puppet. She'll look great next to my Jack-o-Lantern mask and Santa hat.

With all of the week's excitement, I enjoy a relaxing day at my Friday elementary school, where no one speaks English and everyone's too afraid to test my Japanese to ask me to do anything. This leaves me guessing a lot, but I'm never short on ideas for educational posters.



Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Shrimps and Barbies.

A trifecta of sandy beaches in Sydney and bush walks in the Blue Mountains. Surfing in Byron Bay and Wagga Wagga Zoo break ins. Alley way roof-top beers and Fitzroy hipster-watching in Melbourne. What was supposed to be a simple 2 week holiday in Australia turned into a whirlwind tour of the East coast, my itchy feet showing blatant disregard for the holiday I planned to keep low-key by literally planning nothing at all. But my open schedule was too easy to fill up - too tempting to pack with Jetstar flights, train rides and road trips. My "low-key" trip didn't stand a chance. Here are but a few highlights from my 2 weeks in Australia.


1. Parking myself on Coogee beach with a pear cider in hand within an hour of landing at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport.

2. Bush walks in the Blue Mountains with Johnny, catching up on the important things in life (ie: Hidaka, and the cricket) since we last saw each other in Japan.

3. Spotting a roo and her joey in the Blue Mountains.

4. Home-cooked meals and summer fruit salad from Johnny's southern mama.

5. Meat pies and cricket at the Sydney Cricket Ground for the Australia vs. India test match. Not knowing what was going on only added to the experience.

6. Byron Bay. Coconut sunblock, surfers and sun-kissed, Ray-Ban wearing beach bums selling strawberries on the beach. This place was paradise, and if my dying wish comes true and there's a 2012 remake of Point Break, it will be entirely cast by the people of Byron Bay.

7. Byron Bay's Backpacker Holiday Village. Like Koh Phangan's Coral Bungalows, with less vodka Red Bull buckets, but comparable numbers of Australians. This place reminded me of the joys of traveling alone, where all I had to do was sit next to a group of strangers, tell them I was all by my lonesome, and I was instantly in on a bucks weekend, sharing a bucket of goon cocktail over discussions of why the husband-to-be was wearing 8 pairs of underwear.

8. Bay Leaf Cafe, Byron Bay. If Winnipeg's Fresh Café and the Falafel Place had a baby, this would be it. Everyone here had piercings, tattoos, and unruly hair, and nothing could be heard of the chaotic yelling. I felt right at home.

9. Byron Bay's surfers. If I didn't have a job to go back home for, I could have stayed in Byron for the rest of my life — if only for the smoking hot surfers. At the risk of being too specific, my surf instructor, for example. Straight from the coast of California, with his sea-salt, sun-bleached hair and a vocabulary learned entirely from Surf Ninjas. We shared a high five and it was beautiful.

10. Melbourne. It's hard not to love a city where you spend your first night in Chinatown, at a BYO dumpling restaurant and drinking beers on a back-alley roof that I suspect doubles as someone's laundromat. Melbourne has everything I need in a city. Terraces at Federation Square, hipsters in Fitzroy. Street art, train stations, cafés, babes. It's no wonder I always like the locals so much. It's official. I'm going to have to rewrite my 5 year plan and move to Melbourne.

Doing What I Want To Do .

"I'm often asked, what do I do for a living? And I answer — I do what I want." Cee Lo

I went for an epic run last Sunday. The sun was out, I was feeling ambitious, and with my reappointment deadline having coincided with a sudden interest in my own future, I needed some time on the open road to think about where I am, what I’m doing and what I want. I parked my bike at Koma station and headed west, running alongside the train tracks and the mountains, stopping for temple-side breathers, mountain views, statues and scarecrows.

Just the backdrop I needed to contemplate life, love and other important things.




Without much deliberation, I'm renewing my contract for a second year. I love Japan, and not for the reasons I expected when I left Winnipeg 4 months ago. I anticipated sushi feasts and outrageous wardrobes. Wild nights in Tokyo, chaos and smoking hot Japanese hipsters.

And while I've found all of these things, they are not what keeps me here. I’m staying because I love Hidaka and the life I'm building here.

On the surface, Hidaka doesn’t have much. A cross between inaka (country) and suburbia, it's mostly houses and supermarkets separated by sidewalks and manicured trees. But I’ve grown to love my life here because of the little things that make me smile — forest bike rides to work; coffee conversations I pretend to understand; the pleasantly slow pace of life.

And the people I'm still getting to know — whose quirks and individuality I'm still uncovering beneath the language barriers. How I would miss my 3rd year girls who don't do their Thursday English homework because they know I eat lunch with them that day and am easily tricked into doing it for them; the joy I get from the 1st year boy who sits front and center and enthusiastically answers every question wrong — and I've only barely scratched the surface with my tofu salesman. He works out of the back of his van in my parking lot and blows a kazoo when he opens at 6 o'clock. What told him that was his calling, I will never know.

Some days I don't feel like facing the blank stares. Some days, I don't really want the only person I have a meaningful conversation with to be myself. And pretty much every day, I don't want to put on a Japanese accent so people will understand me. But there are too many things I would miss if I left in August, and that is what makes me sure that I am where I want to be, doing what I want to do be doing.

These are my thoughts on life. I will save love and other important things for another time.

Intro to Nommunication .

Nom-mu-ni-ca-tion: Noun. \ˈnō-ˌmyü-nə-ˈkā-shən\

• Definition: The Japanese practice of getting to know one's coworkers over a few (or many... or a weekend of...) drinks.

• Origin: A play on words taken from the Japanese verb "nomu" (to drink) and the English noun "communication."

• Purpose: to break down hierarchical boundaries, strengthen team spirit, and create embarrassing situations that no one will speak of ever again.

Forget Movember. It's been Nommunicember for the last 3 weeks, and my, has it been rewarding. Between nights out with the ladies and a staff trip to Gunma, I've been nommunicating like it's my job (which I think it is). Here are a few things I've learned through nommunication:

1. Whose favourite drink is a box of red wine.
2. Who is afraid of me, but only until we yell kampai (aka cheers). Then we're friends.
3. Which teacher is a "player" and "not good to the ladies." I can't tell you how strange this conversation was - mainly because said teacher was nodding in agreement.
4. Who loves hairy chests.
5. Who is disappointed her husband doesn't have one. (Hint - 4 and 5 are the same person.)
6. Who wants to get married (to the counselor who visits the school on Wednesdays, specifically.)
7. Who wears what colour of undies. Not something I necessarily needed to know, but after the first round, the yukatas got a bit loose.
8. Which teachers are too old for me to date (all except one, apparently, which suggests to me that the school nurse has an agenda.)
9. Whose children are certifiably insane.
10. That sake-pajama parties are probably the most fun anyone could have with their coworkers.

Of course, I always let a few of my true colours show for the sake of fitting in. Like the fact that everyone now knows my pajamas consist of Christmas bottoms and a fuzzy cat sweater. But you know what - I'm not even embarrassed about it.


In other news, it's getting a bit cold over here. Winnipeg's dry winters have not prepared me for this wet, cold air, and I'm not entirely sure how to deal with it. So I bought myself a wool sweater and a plane ticket to Australia. Just thinking about the beach warms me up!

My Life is a Series of Strange Questions and Answers

Every day I'm blown away by the weird things people say to me. I actually can't believe it sometimes. I just want to ask "does that translate to something normal in Japanese, or is this really what you meant to say?" When I'm not colouring or staring at the wall, I use my spare time at work to document all of the weird things that happen in my life. Here are but a few memorable conversations. Enjoy!

Do you like alcohol?
What a way to start a conversation - and a friendship! It's usually the first thing anyone asks me, and they say it just like that. Not "do you like sake" or "do you like beer." Just alcohol. It makes me feel like they're asking if I drink rubbing alcohol. Which I don't.

What is your hobby?
I hate this question. a) It makes me feel like I have to have one, and b) like I can have only one. And I think there's some kind of hobby standard in Japan, like it needs to be a craft with a significance rooted deep in my country's history. Lately, the only thing I do that even resembles a hobby is putting my pajamas on at 7 pm and listening to reruns of CBC News, but I'm not about to go telling people that. I also like to bake.

What sport do you play?
An endless point of embarrassment, this one. I don't play sports, and don't be fooled by my 8th grade shot-put victory. That was won purely by default. I lose interest quickly, I have no sense of team spirit, and I'm paralyzed by the fear of letting everyone down because I can't throw, catch or aim, and my 70 year old arches get cranky when I forget to bring my orthotics.


Are you going to a drug party?
Canadians have a bit of a reputation in Japan - apparently we like to dabble in illicit fun. But that kind of fun gets you deported over here, so imagine my surprise when the art teacher asked me if I was going to a "drug party" for Halloween. That was our first and only conversation. (Side note: I have since learned that she probably meant "drag party." My bad.)

What about the Freedom Penis?
WHAT ABOUT IT??? I thought as my face squinted, my head tilted and the power of speech escaped me. I'm not making this up. In a recent lesson about flags, countries and national monuments, my teacher threw this curve ball. I just stood there in shock while thirty 11 year olds erupted in laughter, who - if they're anything like my 6th grade class - looked up all dirty words and private parts the first time they got their hands on a bilingual dictionary. The mental image of him doing Statue of Liberty charades while repeating "Freedom Penis" are going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

















And then there are the questions that I ask which, more often then not, lead into a tangent almost immediately. Like the time I asked a teacher about the students going to the gym to prepare for the chorus festival. As soon as I said "gym," I triggered something he'd clearly been rehearsing for weeks, and he proceeded to explain the upcoming school relay, complete with a chalkboard diagram of a student running and passing off the team sash. It was like no chorus festival I'd ever seen. I'm only three months in to my indefinite stay in Japan. This is only the beginning.

My Life (Recently)

I have fallen off the face of the blog-earth in the last month.

In recent days, I have...

1. Watched the spider lilies come and go.
2. Visited Dad in Narita for matcha lattes and Hilton breakfasts.
3. Fallen in love (with a place called Nikko) and befriended all the town's buddhas.
4. Buried my face in my Genki Japanese textbooks in the hopes that I'll learn something.
5. Said goodbye to a dear friend, and learned that it is possible to cry so hard you puke.
6. Broken into the secretary-lunch-lady-counselor circle at school and scored myself a dinner and drinks invitation.
7. Become BFF with the entire grade 3 class of Koma Elementary.
8. Spent too much in Harajuku.

9. Given about 20 hours of my life to Ikea.
10. Witnessed a monkey assault a human.
11. Given up wheat. Then quickly gave up on that.
12. Tweeted. But only once.





13. Made it home for Canadian Thanksgiving via Skype.
14. Finished Breaking Bad Season 4. And yeah, it blew my mind.
15. Experienced the Japanese interpretation of Octoberfest. Thank you Yokohama.
16. Mimed my way through a medical exam.
17. Doubled my collection of plants, and this time not a single one turned out to be fake.
18. Religiously kept myself up to date with Miss Lonelyhearts.
19. Stayed up well past my bedtime so I could listen to CBC Radio's Symphonic Hour of Power with Julie Nasralla.
20. Rediscovered The Temper Trap.
21. Banned myself from the 100¥ Shop.
22. Survived typhoons and double-earthquake days.
23. Spent hours contemplating why everyone at work changes into gym clothes and random hours of the day. You're not all gym teachers. What's going on.


There she is. My life, as of late. Next stop: Kyoto.

Watashi Wa Nihongo O Benkyo. I Study Japanese.

I had a conversation with a praying mantis the other day. It was the best conversation I had all afternoon. No vague hand gestures. No awkward sound effects. And as it ambled away, there wasn't a fear in my mind that I had unknowingly promised to do something, be somewhere,or confessed to doing something I'd never done.

I've been in Japan for a month and a half, and I am slowly making progress with my Japanese so that I will stop embarrassing myself in public by talking to insects. Now I embarrass myself in other ways. I have reverted to Grade 1 Chloe, reading everything I see out loud, sounding out every character until I come up with something recognizable.

Every now and then I bust out a new phrase that blows everyone away. I get a big round of applause and a "Jozu desu ne! Very good!" (Except last night when I introduced myself to my principal's wife in Japanese. She gave me the old Jozu desu ne! and my principal was like "No really, it isn't." Oh kocho-sensei, there is just no fooling you.)

I've found friends in the 8 year olds I eat lunch with at school. Every day at kyushoku (school lunch) I'm surprised by new foods I've never seen before, which is a great opportunity for me to practice my favourite phrase: "Kore wa Nihon-go de nan desu ka? What is this in Japanese?" Now that we're over the "Oh my word, it speaks!" phase, rewarding conversations have followed.

My absolute favourite day for conversation practice is Friday. I sit next to a woman whose purpose in the office I have yet to figure out. She has no idea I can't speak Japanese. It's like she thinks I've lived here my whole life. She explains hand outs to me, goes over the contents of the office fridge, and she can talk to me for hours without a clue that I don't know what she's talking about. The way she often uses miming hand gestures while dramatically yelling out "cry! cry!" tells me I'm something of a therapist to her.

In other breaking news, the end of summer is around the corner and spider lily season is blooming. Life is good.