| Last Blog From Japan |
[Jul. 23rd, 2007|03:14 pm] |
Ya’ll’ve been asking for a blog, so here one is.
I’ll start in the past and work up until now. This will probably be my last blog in Japan as my internet will go before anything too interesting happens. I’ll write a conclusion blog back in the US.
I guess the first notable thing sense last I blogged was my class got to meet a Maiko. For those who don’t know, a Maiko is an apprentice Geiko (Geisha). To be a Maiko you must be under 20. This Maiko was only 17. She was dressed like you’d expect, white face, crazy Geiko hair, and a really nice blue Kimono. I didn’t take any pictures but other people did, so I’ll find one somewhere.
My fear was that she was just going to do her Geiko stuff, dancing slowly and what not, and bore us all to death. But she only did two dances and even though they looked really simple, they were quite complex when you saw how she did them in a kimono. But after the two dances, which were not too bad, we just got to talk to her, which was awesome. I think very few people get to just sit around with a Maiko and just talk to her about life. We found out that she saw a TV show about Geiko when she was young and then wanted to become one, completely against the will of her parents. She is from Gion, the old entertainment district in Kyoto, and is thus very special as being a Gion Maiko is very very rare. And although she costs ￥30000/hour (~$250) to entertain, she sees very little of it. She lives at the Geiko house, her food and clothes are provided for her, and she gets a little bit of spending money. She has a day off 2 Sundays a month. During that time she can wear a T-shirt and skirt or whatever like every other girl, but she has to keep her hair like it is, so I guess there’s no hiding that she’s a Maiko. She also said that the book and film “Memoirs of a Geisha” is complete fiction and any accuracies are coincidental. That it was made to entertain western audiences, not teach about Geisha. Sorry to anyone who read/saw it and thought they’d learned something about Japan.
Let’s see, not much after that. Just class. There was the big “F” scare. Last semester I got all A’s and B’s. I was told before I came to Japan that a study abroad is usually a GPA padder and not to expect grades to be a big issue. But this semester my grammar and writing Japanese class, my primary one, was way too hard. Not that it was above my level, but the way the class was taught was completely against my style of learning. Usually, if you always go to class, always do your homework, and study, you have no risk of failing. F’s are for the kid that never comes to class and juts doesn’t care. But I was looking at an F because of my bad test scores. In this class, tests made up 60% of the grade (usually tests only make up 25%-30% of the final grade). The other 40% was home work and attendance. Well, my scores on the first two tests were 52% and 50%, both Fs. I studied hard for both of them, but the detail to which we had to know everything, and the sheer bulk of stuff we had to know, on top of those confusing test style questions made me getting a good grade out of the question. For example, a question might be something like “According to the Japanese Meteorological Society, statistics and significant data collected during various experiments, including field and lab experiments, concluded that there is a (really/much/quite/very/subtle/usually/possibly) high chance of a major meteorological event taking place within the next 60 years.” I’d have to read that sentence, in Japanese, and choose which word in the brackets best fits. So I’d pick “very” as “really” doesn’t really sound as scientific or something, even if it means about the same thing. So yeah, hard tests. So I was looking at an F unless I could do better on the final test, for which I had no real reason to think I would do better. So I talked to the teachers who just said “study harder”. I wrote some letters to the program describing my disappointment with the program (not only was I failing, but I also wasn’t learning very much Japanese from the classes because the teaching style was, well, lacking in teaching). I was able to get an essay section put on the final test, which many students said they liked. And with some luck, I got a 74% on that final test meaning I didn’t fail the class, I didn’t fail the SKP program (which I would have had I failed that test) and I think I can still get my Japanese minor. I guess I’ll get a C in the class, which is really bad for my GPA, but hey, what can I do? The class average for that final test was 63.2% so I got almost 11 points more than the average. So yay for me. I’m still upset with the program, and I hope my letter writing makes a difference in years to come. My Japanese has improved a lot sense I got here, even though it doesn’t feel like it. I think just living in Japan did that, the class only helped a little. I’m pretty sure I got A’s in all my other classes, including oral Japanese, but I won’t know until October what those grades really were. Bottom line, I passed. Graduation is in about an hour and a half from now, I look forward to a party afterwards.
Oh yeah, and 3 of my friends came to Japan to visit me…..at the worst time possible. Haha, sorry guys, not your fault, just bad luck. So on the 4th of July I met my two friends from high school and boy scouts, Daniel and Jim, and Jim’s wife Lindsay who I know from Camp Royall (the Autism summer camp that I have been working at in the summers). The bad timing comes in that they left on July 17th and July 18th was my last final exam. Meaning all of my other finals, papers, presentations, etc. were all during the time my friends were here. I got done what I could before they go here, but it was still a really busy two weeks, but a fun two weeks. Here’s what we did:
We did the usual Kyoto stuff, temples, shopping district, down town, beers by the river, etc. We also took a few day trips. We went to Nara and did the Nara thing. You can read my blog about my parent’s trip to Nara to see what my friends and I did. There’s sort of a Nara trip you do. We went to Hiroshima, my first time there. It was great. We only did a day trip, but we saw the best two parts. First, the A-Bomb stuff including the famous dome that still stood after the bomb was dropped and the museum. After that we headed over to Miyajima which has the famous orange archway out in the water. We spent the afternoon and early evening there looking at beach stuff and deer. Great trip all in all, got some good pictures. The other big trip we took was to Tokyo. This was my first time back in Tokyo sense I was there as an AFS exchange student in 2002. I get the feeling I enjoyed it more than my friends. I had a nice walk down memory lane and took in a lot of the amazing Tokyo environment that I have read so much about. It was raining the whole day and I think that bothered my friends a bit as they didn’t like walking around in the rain. We made a loop around the Tokyo loop line, making stops at the Imperial Palace, Ueno, Akihabara, Shinjuku, Harajuku, and Shibuya. We had eel for dinner, my favorite, in Ueno. My favorite place is Harajuku because it’s so full of young life and expression. My friends liked the eel the best, maybe because it was good, or maybe because it wasn’t in the rain. Anyway, you’ll have to ask them how they felt about it, I can only say how I liked it. Jim and Lindsay also took a day trip to Nagoya to watch Sumo. They said that was the best part of their trip, but you’ll have to ask them about it.
On Saturday I had a big Osaka day. Got to Osaka around 3pm and was there until 6am the following morning. Lots of walking through the big shopping districts. Spent the night hanging out on the main nightlife road. Didn’t spend much money, but had a good time anyway. I’ll have to come back to Japan with a job sometime.
That brings us to now. One week of now class and lots of getting ready to go home. I have to say goodbye to people, pack, clean, and figure out what to do with all of my stuff that I don’t want to take home (other than everyday garbage, if you want to throw something away like a TV or a table or a lamp you have to pay. A TV is about $25 to throw away. I’d rather give it away than pay $25, and I’ll see if I can’t sell it first. Hard part is getting all of this stuff to a thrift store. Maybe by taxi). My feeling is this. I’m going to miss Japan and I’d really like to stay. It’s not that I don’t want to go home, I want to see everyone and I’m really looking forward to a year in DC, but that doesn’t make leaving Japan any easier. It’s the end of a chapter and seeing the end makes you realize all you take for granted.
Bad news about pictures. Yahoo photos is shutting down so I haven’t uploaded any new pictures. When I get back to the US I’ll find another photos program to upload my pictures to, but it will be an all afternoon project to do so I won’t do it here. But if you get a chance to see me while I’m home, just ask, I’ll show them to you. |
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