Looks like I’ve gotten a bit behind on my entries here due to being away for a week at a Japanese language and culture school for us first year JETs in Hiroshima prefecture. The classes were at Hiroshima International Center near Hiroshima University in Saijo, about an half hour train ride outside Hiroshima. Classes were to start late on the morning of Monday, August 23 and run through mid Friday afternoon. Unfortunately I had forgotten to ask the details of getting there (I knew how to do it by train, though that would be rather early) — I had heard I was being picked up, but was vague on more than that. I gave a slightly worried call to Geraldine, another Aikitakata JET, but she only knew her details and wasn’t sure if I was being picked up or not. After looking at the map, it seemed logical that they’d pick her and the others up first, then me since I was directly on the way there. So I showed up at the office the next morning and that proved to be the case.

The facility itself is pretty decent, sort of like a small hotel/convention center. Main problem is that its run a bit like a dorm/hostel and has junk like a 11pm curfew which rubbed more than a few of us the wrong way. :-/

Monday was the usual bunch of registration & opening ceremonies in the morning and the first 3 hours of language classes in the afternoon. I had been placed in the ‘B’ class, which I would have thought was a little harder, but I found the level of challenge a bit disappointing. I asked to look at the ‘C’ class materials so I could decide whether I wanted to switch classes. C’s book was all in hiragana/katakana and that was something that I needed to review, so clearly too hard. I was a little annoyed that too easy and too hard seemed to be the only two options, but I stayed with B.

The facility is a short shuttle bus ride from the center of town. Most of us headed in to get something to eat and look around. I went with a group to an Italian place that wasn’t bad (Jolly Pasta I think), but certainly wouldn’t have passed the Italian food authenticity tests that some people in Italy want. Went back to the hotel and hung around the billiards room until curfew closed the place down (yes, the curfew applied to inside the building too, inane as it sounds). Some of us attempted to lengthen our socialization time by doing a bit of room hopping.

Tuesday we were bussed over to the main university campus to watch a film and discuss it with a bunch of Japanese English Teachers who were having a conference there as well. The film, Waterboys, was great. It’s a well done variation of the “down-and-out sports team does good in the end” theme like the old Bad News Bears with a few amusing and novel twists. It follows the chain of events when a bunch of high school losers get suckered by their hormones into forming a synchronized swim team and their “sensei”, an animal trainer that really is just looking for free labor. Highly amusing and highly recommended. Apparently it was so popular here there’s now a TV series.

The discussion was a bit less entertaining. Alas it was a bit like pulling teeth for me and the other JET in my group to get our JTE’s to answer the questions we were to ask or generate much discussion. It was probably just lack of comfort with the language, but I wish they’d come up with some activity that worked better with the mix of participants than this did. I got to see a little bit of the campus, but not nearly as much as I’d liked to.

That evening was another run into town for dinner, can’t really remember the details, then hanging out in the billiards room again. I think while in town I made my hike to the local DeoDeo to pick up a ethernet cable since I’d forgotten mine at home. Found a cool retractable one that is normally a USB cable, but with adaptors becomes an ethernet cable. Handy! After curfew a bunch of us snuck into Geraldine’s room to watch the suspense/horror movie Ju-on, which would have been pretty creepy under the right viewing circumstances (moreso than The Ring, which didn’t really get to me). Recommended to those in TASS that were enjoying playing Fatal Frame II together.

Wednesday I decided to see if I could still switch classes. After looking at another person’s books, it looked like ‘A’ class was the one I wanted. It had the same conversation book as ‘B’, but also had one on learning the kana. Dunno why the levels seem to go ‘B’, ‘A’, ‘C’, ‘D’… We had a choice of movies in the morning and then three classes in the afternoon. The movie I watched was Twilight Samurai which my sister highly recommended, and I can do so as well. I was definitely happier with the level the new class and it seemed fun. Also the instructor was happy to let us slightly adjust the topics to suit what we wanted to know. Really liked that. Evening was the usual dinner in town, billiards room routine. Think I spent more of the evening getting online since I finally had the hardware and got the configuration figured out.

Thursday was three classes in the morning and a lecture in the afternoon. It was a really interesting one on the social aspects and context of language and how that impacts learning a new one. Most entertaining bit was an exercise about “Joseph & Rosemary” in which in groups we were to rank what we thought of the characters in a brief morality story. Quite a bit of disagreement there. However afterwards we found out that the exercise was about discussion styles, not the choices themselves, and comparisons were made to the styles observed in our groups and where we were from (”rugby-like” everything goes - England, “basketball-like” team interaction - most of the US, and “bowling-like” one person at a time - Japan) and how we did individually (I’m mostly “basketball” with a bit of a “bowling” leaning, like many from the Southern US apparently).

That evening a few guys had arranged for most of us to go out to a local bowling alley. We took cabs back and forth. Was pretty fun, though I continue to suck at the game. I joined a group at a Korean resturant (wanted something a little different that the Japanese fare that is everywhere). It was pretty good. More or less the same stuff after returning to lock-down.

Friday was the final 3 classes. After that, closing ceremonies and heading for the station to catch a train home. At the station I grabbed a few bottles of Saijo’s sake for gifts for coworkers back at the culture center (”omoiyage” is pretty much standard practice in Japan when you’ve been away from work on a trip). They have a sake festival in October that I will have to try to make it back for. Main other oddity of the trip home was a slightly strange Japanese guy that talked with and sketched one of the other JETs at the station and then wanted to do one of me on the train. No problem there, seemed he enjoyed doing it to interact with people or such. Results (see below) were a little Daliesque, but interesting (other guy in the pic was a JET sitting across from me).

Once home after being gone for a week, I barely had time to unpack a few things and clean up. There was a party for the Akitakata JETs a couple hours later at the house of Susan, a sorta permanent JET who has been here quite a few years and is now raising a family with her Japanese husband here. The cookout was fun, I got to play their telescope with Susan’s oldest son for a bit, and finally the bunch of us JETs crashed in a house that the town has available for local residents’ use. Apparently I didn’t snore too badly, since I hadn’t been smothered by the other half dozen the next morning. Most of the group took the train into Hiroshima, I headed home to get ready to go to the Setstock music festival in Shobara (but that’s another entry).

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