Goodbye. Speech.

Principal, Vice Principal, teachers and students,

I can’t believe it, but I’ve been in Japan for almost 2 years, and in no time I’ll have to leave. Words cannot describe enough how wonderful an experience the last 2 years were. It’s something I can never forget. And I’m really glad that I was able to come to Ena Junior High School. From the beginning I’ve felt welcome, and I have enjoyed every visit to Ena.

Before I came to Japan, I thought I knew much about Japan already – sushi, manga, anime, salaryman, bowing again and again…but there was so much that I didn’t know. Experiencing ‘real’ life and traditions, sharing in your joys and pains, learning Japanese culture like Oyaji-gags…are irreplaceable experiences.

I’m not here to tell you to “DO YOUR BEST”, nor to tell you to “STUDY HARD”, but I simply want to quote a song I heard once in Japan.

きみは愛されるため生まれた (you were born to be loved)
きみの生涯は愛で満ちている (your life is filled with love)
永遠の神の愛は われらの出会いの中で実を結ぶ (God's eternal love is shown through our relationships)
きみの存在が 私にはどれほど大きな喜びでしょう (your presence gives me such a great joy)

I really felt your love for me. I’m grateful that you have treated me so well, just like family.

I want you to know that everyone is born to be loved, and hope that you will show other people the same love that you have shown me. You are always loved – by your family, by your teachers, by your friends, and by God in heaven.

I love Japanese people, I love Japanese culture and language. I want to keep studying Japanese, and hopefully I can make some Japanese friends when I go back.

I hope we can meet again some day in the future. I wish you a life filled with love and purpose.

Thank you.

Mah Crib

...or my £150 per month apartment, aka home/comfort zone/shelter/refuge for the last two years.

For those who didn't have the PRIVILEGE (or guts..) to come visit me here in Japan/Iwaki, I thought I'd show you all what you're missing out :P

First of all, my living room
(which is also used as the guest room when people DO visit...if people do visit....>_<)

Please excuse the mess.


Next, my kitchen. My typical Japanese tiny lack-of-counter-space and unreachable cupboards kitchen.

It's usually tidier than shown above...



Next, washroom.

This is where the magic happens. The magic that happens every morning where I transform from groggy messy sleepy pasty looking off-white girl to a less messy less sleepy less pasty wider-eyed looking off-white girl.

And last but not least, my 3rd favorite place in the apartment (after my bed and the shower)
- yes, the loo.

But it ain't no ORDINARY loo, if you look closer...or at the photo below...

Yes, it comes with buttons.
Buttons that will wash your..um..yeah.
As well as for girls, the..um...yup.
And buttons that adjust the temperature of the toilet seat
(warm toilet seat = BIG win in the winter )
as well as the temperature of the water that washes you.
And of course a 'save energy' button.


My bedroom is not very interesting. So no I'm not showing you my bedroom. Live with it.

So there you go!

What I will Miss. Or not. [School chapter]

It's quite random, but here it goes:

I will miss kids screaming "SAMANSA!!" or "HALLO!!" down the corridor when they see me.


And maybe even the them yelling "Suzanne!" (name of some idiot TV personality) by the 9th graders.


I will miss bumping into my former-students in downtown Iwaki and seeing their shocked look and their "OH! It's Samansa!".


I will miss kids writing "I love Samansa!" on little coloured paper for me.


I will miss kids yelling "I LOVE YOU!" to me in the corridor or in the mall downtown.


I will miss the kids' laughter in class after I've said something funny.


I won't miss the "I don't wanna be here" looks on most 9th graders face during a pre-lunch or an after-lunch English lesson.


I will miss certain competent English teachers who really know how to use me and engage the students.


I won't miss certain English teachers' bizarre/useless teaching methods which completely make me redundant in class.


I will miss staring out into the sparkling blue sea when the summer heat makes one day-dream every 4 minutes.


I won't miss the cold under-heated classrooms in the long freezing winter.



I will miss the funky poses and peace signs that automatically appear whenever I point a camera at the kids.


I will miss turning up to school on a Sunday and frightening the teachers (who are there to supervise sports activities) for going to school on a Sunday and then chatting to them for ages.


I will not miss going to Palace Iwaya for enkais. (3 times a year every year! Same place, same food, same overly-serious atmostphere...give me a break)


I will miss the Ena Junior High Principal teaching me Iwaki-accents/expressions.


I will miss the Ena teachers making fun of Mr Fujita for his 'cold' oyaji-gags.


I will miss the bland expression on the kids faces at Mr Fujita's feeble attempt at making a joke.

SAYONARA (Japanese version)

This is the speech I gave/will be giving on my last day at each school.
English version shall follow a bit later.

校長先生、諸先生がた、生徒の皆さん、こんにちは。

信じられないことですが、私が日本に来て、もう二年間も経ち、あっという間に帰国をしなければならなくなりました。　ほんとにすばらしい経験をしたこの２年間は、とても言葉にできないし、決して忘れることもできません。そして、この中学校に来れたのがほんとにうれしいです。最初からみんなが私を歓迎をしてくれたし、毎回の学校訪問もほんとに楽しかったです。

日本に来る前に、日本のことをいっぱい知っていたんじゃないかと思っていました。すしとか、漫画、サラリーマン、何回も何回もお礼することなど．．．しかし実は日本のたくさんのことをよくわかっていませんでした。日本の実際の生活や伝統を体験したり、喜びや悲しみを人々とわかちあったり、日本のおやじぎゃぐを習ったりしたことは掛け替えのない経験でした。

私は「がんばれ」とか「しっかり勉強しなさい」とは言いたくないです。ただ日本で聞いたある曲の歌詞の一部を皆さんに伝えたいと思います。

きみは愛されるため生まれた
きみの生涯は愛で満ちている
永遠の神の愛は われらの出会いの中で実を結ぶ
きみの存在が 私にはどれほど大きな喜びでしょう

私は皆さんの愛をほんとに感じました。皆さんが家族のようにとても親切にしてくれて、ありがたかったです。

私は皆さんが愛されるために生きていると覚えていてほしいと思います。そして、私を愛してくれたように周りの人々にも愛を注いでほしいと思います。みなさんはいつも愛されています。家族から、先生たちから、友達から、そして、天国にいる神様から。

私は日本人と日本文化と日本語が大好きなので、香港に帰国しても日本語を勉強し続けて、日本人の友達を作りたいと思います。

私はいつの日か、また皆さんに会えることを願っています。目的を持って、愛に満ちた人生を送ってください。

ありがとうございました。

My First Japanese Hospital Experience. i.e. TERROR

"Samansa Leezu, please go to exam room number 2"

I knocked, slid the door open, said good morning to the man in the white cloak and sat down. He gave me a brief glance, and turned back to look at his papers. He asked me how I got hurt, still looking at his papers, and I explained how I got that 1-inch long 0.5cm wide cut on my knee. He took a deep breath. He then turned to look at my knee, and I took off my make-shift wound-cover (which consisted of disinfected cotton for make-up-removal and a band-aid on either side to keep the cotton on my knee). He looked at it a bit, jotted notes, looked again, drew a picture of it, jotted more notes and sighed again. Throughout this whole time I couldn't see his facial expressions due to a massive surgical mask and a pair of thick glasses over his face.

"It says here....you got this cut...yesterday...!?"

"Yes."

He sucked his teeth.

"How did you do that?"

"I was running for the last train at the station, and fell on the stairs, and hit my knee on the stair." (But I caught the train! I didn't tell that to the doctor though.)

"Hm....since it's been over 6 hours since you did it, if we stitch this, there's a risk of it getting infected. It might fester. Pus. Ne."

"Oh......"

"But since it's the knee part unless we stitch it it won't really heal."

"OK...."

"So.....what do you want to do?"

I think this was the first time I ever got asked by a doctor what I want to do. Was he serious?

"Uh....I think it'd be good to get stitches. Can I get stitches?"

"Hmm........have you been disinfecting the wound since yesterday?"

"Yes."

"Hmmm....."

"So...stitches?"

"I think...that would be good."

FINALLY.

I was told to get on the narrow bed. I got on and lay down and waited while the nurse flustered around and faffed around getting the tools requested by the doctor, except perhaps she was being the Japanese subordinate and not being confident and authoritative and kept asking the doctor "is this it? No? How about this one?"

I rolled my eyes.

OK so we're finally ready. The doctor starts cleaning the wound. "Shodoku...ehh wound cleaning!" He said in wobbly English, pronouncing the 'ound' in 'wound' like 'round'. He pokes around my bruised and bleeding knee asking "does this hurt? Does this hurt? How about here?" And keeps asking even when I said YES to all those questions. He takes out a massive needle for local anesthesia and pokes my knee once, waits for a while, and then again, at which point I exclaim "woah again!?" (not expecting the 2nd poke). He replies, "oh, you felt that??" with a tone of surprise.

I was starting to get slightly more worried.

With my knee completely numb, it was stitching time. The nurse brought the doctor some stuff , and doctor replied, "is this all you have?...(mumble)..Hmm....(mumble to nurse)....kore, tsukainikui na - this is kinda difficult to use. But that's all we got? Oh well...shoganai - that's too bad."

I was nervous & in disbelief to the point of speechlessness and couldn't protest; and my knee was numb and wet with anticeptic so running away wasn't really an option.

With each stitch I tried to force myself to think of a different song so I can take my mind off what these so-called professionals are doing to my poor once-beautiful knee. But I couldn't. I felt defeated. I tried to accept my 'failure' and comfort myself and convince myself that it will turn out to be a 'cool battle scar' and/or a (slightly morbid) souviner from Japan. My knee was numb of pain, but I could still feel the pull of the thread through my skin. Doc tells me, "I can't stitch them up too tightly, as there's a small chance that it will fester. So....it's a little loose. OK?"

"Uh huh"

The ordeal was finally over. More anticeptic, then gauze, tape, and bandaged up. I hobbled back out to the reception and joined my friend Hi-chan who drove me to the hospital. I told her about what went on in that room, and we both gave each other looks of shock and disbelief. We vowed to never come back to a hospital ever again.

A week later I went back to the hospital to get the stitches out. That was not as bad but not good either. Next post.

Aunt Julie

I'm praying for you. Get well soon.

Backwardness of Japan (cont)

3. Perhaps I was a bit spoiled when in SSGC (my high school in HK), but even back then (8-10 years ago?) we had a PC in every classroom, as well as a projector, even though the teachers didn't really use them that much back then (I'm sure they use it more often now) . It was a bit of a pain in that first week when I had to do my self-intro presentations to the new 1st graders, that I had to lug my own laptop to school (in a tiny bike basket), drag the school TV across the corridor to each new classroom that I went to (all 8 of them), faff with plugging in the TV, the laptop, the connection between the TV & the laptop...in order to show students pictures of my countries and family and hobbies and so on. (But in that school they did have a spanking new widescreen flat TV)

4. No divisions in classes according to ability. Before they enter into Junior High School, kids have to sit a test to determine their academic levels, and then the kids are put into classes so that abilities are spread even across ALL CLASSES in the grade. These kids are then stuck with each other for every single class for at least one school year. So the kid who's slow at learning English or Math is taught at the same pace as the kid who's miles ahead in English or Math.

Side note (but related): In Japan kids don't properly start learning reading and writing English until 1st grade junior high (ie beginning of secondary school) (Although it is expected that most of them know how to sing/recite the ABC and read capital letters ABC). So last week in class kids were doing their "penmanship" book, writing capital & small letters in order. In this one class all kids were at around the letter 'm' or 'n', or at least supposedly. All was well until the teacher found a student who has finished tracing & writing all the letters all the way to 'z', and more (there were sections after to write simple nouns and sentences). Turned out that the kid did it all in Juku (Japanese cram school - attended by over 60% of Japanese kids, apparently). He was subsequently told off by the teacher in front of the rest of the class for, essentially, being ahead of the class. He was told that he had to get a new penmanship book - so that he'll have 1 for school and 1 for Juku. The teacher then told he rest of the class that they either follow the pace of the class, or they have to get a new book to do in their own pace/do in Juku if they want to be ahead of class. I suppose it's understandable that the teacher doesn't want some kids to be too ahead and finish the book themselves and end up having nothing to do in class and potentially disturbing others who are supposedly working hard.

But it also seems to send the message that being ahead of the class is not a good thing, that everyone should move forwards at the same pace. And this example shows exactly why classes need to be divided to accommodate the difference paces and abilities of each student.

I was walking around the class during of those penmanship lessons and spotted one girl with another open book underneath the penmanship book. IT was a notebook where she was already copying down contents of pg. 22 of the textbook (and that page happens to be on numbers, so she was writing down 'one, two, three...hundred' etc) while at the same time she was "following the rest of the class", writing aaa.....bbb....ccc.....ddd....

5. Back to toilets. In train stations or highway rest stops, there would usually be about 50% 'Western style' toilets (ie toilets as we know it), and 50% of Japanese style ie squat. Young and old alike used either. In less urban places (actually even in popular sight-seeing spots like big shrines and temples) it would be mostly squat toilets. 2 of my schools had 1 western style out of the 4 toilets. But 2 other schools had none. Even in the really nice, decked-out wedding hall/popular banquet venue (called 'Palace Iwaya'), squat toilets were carved into the washroom's marble flooring. (Although they did have western style too)

6. No central heating in schools, houses, pretty much anywhere. When winter rumbles in, so do the kerosene heaters are rolled out of their summer slumber in closets or garages, and there is an unmistakable scent of kerosene in the air. Kerosene brings me much comfort in the winter. Because it means the place I'm entering is warm. That (kerosene heaters) and / or the kotatsu.