Work Schedules, Politeness, Learning

Hi There!

It has been a fairly normal week at school this week.

Both of my schools have their "Sports Days" coming up soon - from what I have heard, it is a day of athletic competitions among the kids. The students spend gym class getting ready for it, practicing sprints and relay races.

One grade (4th grade) seems to be spending a lot of time doing jump rope. I am not sure if that is part of sports day or for something else. I will find out in a few weeks.

The event will be on a Saturday in an upcoming week, I will write about it after it happens!

On Saturday, I did some hiking in the "Suma Alps" region in Kobe. Various mountain regions split Kobe into different regions.

The Suma Alps is a ridge that I pass each day on the way into work. They about are about 30 minutes away from were I live.

The Alps work their way from inland right up into the sea. From the top, you can see both sides of Kobe along the ocean, including some of the city's beaches.

You will see pictures from the hike in this week's photo album!

For the rest of this update, I will write about a few different topics that have been on my mind recently.

Japanese Work Schedules

It has been interesting to learn about Japan's office work culture. A lot of friends that I have met work in jobs that require them to stay at the office until very late in the evening - seems like around 8pm can be a normal "quitting time" for a lot of people.

One person I recently spoke to even stays as late at 10 or 11pm on a regular basis!

Even though they work late, it sounds like they arrive at the office at normal times, maybe around 9am. One friend even said that it is normal for workers at their office to take naps at their desk during lunch.

For teachers, from what I have heard, I think they arrive into school between 7 and 8am and then usually will stay until at least 5pm, although I am sure that some teachers stay later to do work.

Train Politeness

A few things have surprised me about riding public transportation in Japan.

When riding the bus, people will usually wait until the bus is fully stopped before they get up to get off. From what I remember in Chicago, it seemed like people would stand up and start moving towards the exit before the bus stopped so that they would not hold up the bus.

Bus drivers also tend to wait until passengers are seated before they take off. This does not happen all the time, but I would say it happens quite often that the bus driver will wait until you are seated before they drive away.

I have been surprised, though, about some of the lack of politeness around public transportation - in some areas, it has felt like people in Chicago at least might be more considerate than the Japanese.

When getting off the bus or train, it is pretty much a free for all in Kobe - people don't really pause often to let people go ahead of them to exit the bus.

People in Kobe seem to tend to crowd around the doors on trains. I would expect that they would move towards the center of the car to get out of the way of people but it does not tend to work out that way.

When you are exiting the train, you have to weave your way around people to get off rather than them getting out of your way. Given Japan's reputation for having considerate people, I would have expected less difficulty in this area!

Bug in School

One of the kids in our 4th grade classes has what appears to be a big pet beetle. I first saw it as they were carrying it around on a large stick. Later on, I noticed that they keep it in a container and take it home each day.

From what I have heard, keeping beetles as pets is common in Japan. There are even stores that will sell them and you can find "beetle" supplies at local stores.

The one that the kid has has a shiny colored back - almost like a rainbow type color. The kids handle the beetle normally and even "pet" it. It is pretty large and calm bug - maybe an inch to two inches long.

New Teacher Assignments

I may have mentioned this in an earlier update but in addition to a few teachers changing what grades they teach, some teachers have moved into what is called "special" roles.

This means that they do not have a classroom assignment for the school year, but rather help as needed.

Sometimes they will fill in as subs if a teacher happens to miss (which rarely happens) or they will teach a particular subject for the grade, giving the other teachers a break period.

A few teachers who were in this "special" position last year are now regular classroom teachers. I can see that getting the "special" assignment gives a teacher somewhat of a break, or some freedom to develop skills or see how other teachers teach.

I call it a "special" assignment because that is how the other teachers describe it to me in English.

Language Learning

Language learning continues. I recently started attending a new class to help continue with my development.

Twice a week, there is a group that runs a language class in downtown Kobe, near the main train station. A lot of foreigners attend along with portion of English teachers that I know.

College students run the class - they pair you up with a Japanese speaker and you can practice regular conversation or study a particular grammar point. The good part about the session is that they speak almost exclusively in Japanese.

The teachers are able to speak English, but they will not let the conversation slip into English. If you do not understand something, they will work to find another way to explain it in Japanese and only use English as a last resort.

I attended my first session last week and will go again this coming week - it seems like a good method.

Other than that, I continue to study Japanese kanji most days.

The iPhone application that I use does spaced, flash-card like repetition system. You first learn how to say the kanji and its meaning, then the application displays that kanji to you multiple times going forward and asks you for the meaning or how to write it in Japanese.

At some point, the application will become satisfied that you have "memorized" the meaning and will not test you on it as often.

This is good to do during the commute to work.

I will leave it there with this week's update! I am planning to do a bike trip next weekend to Awaji Island, so I will hopefully have some pictures and updates from that trip next time.

Until then,

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Photos from this week!

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