Gym, Sports Day, Formality!

Hello!

This weekend, I am taking a bike trip around Awaji Island, which is an island near Kobe. I have been there via bike in the past, but only ended up doing about half the island that time.

This time, I plan to go around most of the island, save for a small part over one night and two days.

Accessing the island is fairly easy - I can ride about 20-25 minutes from my home to the sea ferry, catch the ferry and ride it over to Awaji. I could also take a bus there, but with my bike it is easier to use the ferry because that will keep me from having to disassemble and re-assemble the bike.

The first day was roughly a 50 mile ride that had some tough hills towards the end. I had to walk my bike up some of them!

Sunday’s ride should be a bit easier - I may end up taking the bus home rather than finishing the ride, but will see how I feel that morning.

I will write about a few different topics in this update, divided by major headings below.

Going to the Gym

As I mentioned in past updates, I joined a gym shortly after arriving in Kobe. It is one on the way home from work, so it is convenient to access!

A lot of other teachers from my neighborhood use the same gym.

At first, while I was at the gym, I was fairly self conscious as I did not know what the Japanese gym “social rules” were. But, after a few months, things seem fairly similar to back home save for a few exceptions.

I run into a lot of other teachers at the gym and we also take the same main bus line from the local train station to our apartments.

Both the gym and bus usage has given rise to some thoughts about what it is like to be a foreigner in Japan. The thoughts that arise for me around this are ones that are probably similar to ones that foreigners or "non-mainstream" people feel in other countries.

I mentioned before that if you talk loudly while in the gym or on public transportation, that can lead to disapproving stares from locals.

It can be difficult because sometimes you want to be social with the other teachers but you also do not want to draw the ire of the local community.

Whether it is true or not, I have always felt a bit of pressure as a foreigner - like that if I broke any of the social rules, it would lead to complaints and us getting called out on it.

And, again, whether true or not - there is this mental feeling that you are more likely to receive complaints than regular Japanese people because you are a foreigner and it is easier to complain about you.

This mindset brings with it a degree of self policing that occurs within the foreigner community. For instance, if a teacher sees someone else talking too loudly on the bus, some other teachers feel compelled to talk to that person about their behavior so that it does not cause problems between us and the locals.

As I have mentioned before, talking on the bus, at least loudly is taboo. People generally stay very quiet on public transportation here.

Back at the gym, there is a manager there that speaks fairly decent English, he makes it a point to talk to me when I am there.

Whether it is justified or not, I sometimes feel bad, as I feel that he might receive complaints from locals about all the foreigners at the gym. Again, while this may not be true, it is something that you think about when you are living in Japan.

as I mentioned a few times, foreign teachers will sometimes socialize among each other at the gym. Talking and sometimes working out with one another. You do not really see this happen among the Japanese gym goers - there might be a brief conversation here, but there is usually not extended conversations.

Another interesting thing at the gym is how women dress. Women in Japanese gyms dress very conservatively - pretty much all skin from the head down (including arms and legs) are covered.

It is funny to think as an American that now when I see someone NOT dressed like this (maybe with bare arms or even showing their stomach), it can be quite shocking.

You immediately start to think that that person must be a foreigner (which, in most cases I have experienced, they are).

Speaking of skin showing, I also have not yet mentioned that tattoos are a fairly large "no-no" in Japan. I could probably write a lot about this (despite not having any myself), but for now I will just briefly mention that having tattoos will make your life more difficult, especially if they are visible while wearing normal clothes.

Historically, Japanese people associate tattoos with criminal gangs. So many gyms and public baths ban people who have tattoos. You also have to be careful if you are out in public with them, as they can cause you to be harassed.

Teachers who have them pretty much keep them covered at all times. If you have tattoos on your forearms, that means wearing arm sleeves any time you are in public.

School Sports Day

As I mentioned in other updates, our school’s sports day will be coming up this week.

I get the strong impression that the schools make use of these events to build teamwork both within the students and the teachers.

You see teachers within the grade working with one another a lot to do planning or host practices with the kids.

The competitions themselves are usually always team based. I think that one of the grades is doing a relay race while another grade is doing something that involves jump roping. A 5th grade teacher told me that his grade is doing a tug-of-war.

The first grade students appear to be doing a game that involves picking up different colored balls scattered on the ground and shooting them into an elevated basket.

It is kind of like basketball except that the balls stay in the net. One set of balls is red while another is white - there are a ton of them spread out on the ground, maybe 100 or more.

It is a funny activity to watch that is normally accompanied by music and dancing. There is also a lot of chaos as kids pick up the balls and try to shoot them into the hoop before the other team finishes.

I found this video of the activity - https://youtu.be/wC3zWzNeLsY​

Outside of sports day, I often see teachers from different grades intentionally working with one another. There are certain school responsibilities or projects (I do not have a good example offhand) in which teachers are purposely grouped with teachers from different grades to help ensure everyone has experience working with one another.

You will also see this with student club activities. I have not quite figured out club activities at the elementary level yet, but it seems like every once in a while students will meet during the last hour of school to do a club activity.

One example of a club is the sewing club (filled by all girls, no boys in this club). In these clubs, students from all grades work with one another which, again, I assume fosters team work and familiarity across grades.

Teacher to Parent Formality

Another thing I noticed at school this week was that if a teacher either calls a parent at home or talks to them near school, the teacher always calls the parent “okaasan” (mother) or “otoosan” (father) rather than using their name.

This goes with past examples where people in Japan tend to refer to people by their titles rather than their actual names.

I believe that I mentioned that this comes up between teachers and administrators at school (teachers always calling the principals by their titles rather than name) and among siblings (calling someone “older brother” rather than by name).

Also, worth noting that when I asked another teacher about this to confirm that they use the “mother” and “father” when calling home, I asked specifically about calling home and he essentially said “Yes, we use mother.”

He defaulted to mother as the first example because it is usually always the mother who is at home during the school day and the with whom the teacher speaks. It never seems to be the father (who is usually at work) - shows some of the traditional values that still hold steady in Japan.

Also, it is always the mother who comes to the school during the school day. You never see the father at school unless it is during a non working day or a special event like graduation.

Related to the “older brother” example, formality also usually exists when an age difference is involved.

I recently went on a hike with a Japanese friend (that is when we did the Suma Alps that I think I mentioned last week). In our group was also some other Japanese people that he plays tennis with once a month.

I was interested to see that among the group, the Japanese people seemed to speak somewhat formally to one another, using certain honorifics (like Tom-san, etc) and the formal Japanese tense.

I asked my friend about this, like that it seemed based on the way they talked to each other that they did not know each other very well despite playing tennis and going on this hike with one another.

He said that it was more about the age difference and showing respect for that. He is maybe 26 or so and at least one of his friends was in her late 30s while another was 40 years old.

One last story...

I will close this update by sharing a quick story about a kid at school. One thing about working at an elementary is how kids' interest in you as a teacher can develop over time.

Some kids you may not ever see that often, then all of a sudden they are coming up to you every day asking you about something, or wanting to play.

There is one particular third grader who always wants to interact. I did not really know him as a second grader, so I am not sure if he is new to the school this year or just was doing other things last year.

That is what I mean about students sometimes appearing out of nowhere - you sometimes will start interacting with one kid all of the time suddenly who you never remember talking to in the previous year.

It is also interesting to me how much is communicated between you and kids despite lack of language (they do not speak much English and I do not speak a lot of Japanese).

But, still, relationships are formed and they want to do things with you.

Anyway, this particular kid usually comes up to me and wants to play Rock Paper Scissors, give a high five or get picked up (Japanese kids are constantly asking you to pick them up). And usually it is all three things in succession.

On this day, the kid wanted to tell me in Japanese that during this summer break, he wants to go visit Chicago.

It was funny in my mind imagining this small Japanese kid who really only knows how to say “How are you” wandering around Chicago with his family. I wonder about how that conversation goes with his parents at home.

Hopefully he gets to do it someday.

Sorry, but no pictures this week - with the Awaji trip, I am cutting sending this newsletter out close to the time at which it normally gets distributed. So rather than rush and throw in some photos from the trip, I will save them for next week.

Until then,

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