K for Kimono

Awww, look at me enjoying my green tea ice cream. I'm so cute.

My host mom was surprised when she heard that my plans for the day were to go shopping with friends in the neighboring town, which is not a particularly interesting or touristy place. What she doesn't realize is that to my fellow exchange students and I, everything is interesting. The local 100-yen shop will keep our attention just as long as a castle. So off to the little shopping center we went, and spent the day there examining the interesting products Japan has to offer, taking pictures of almost everything and pointing out funny Engrish to each other. Here's one of the streets we walked on.

I found my way into a kimono shop and was drooling over the gorgeous silk kimonos hanging up on display. One of the shop attendants, a very tall young man dressed in traditional Japanese clothing, started up a conversation with me. Another shop attendant, a middle-aged woman, came over and suggested/commanded that I try on a kimono.
"What color would look good on her?" She asked the young man.
"Pink." He decided.
They found a beautiful pink kimono and white obi and the woman dressed me up in it, tying an elaborate bow in the back with expert moves. A couple other customers were watching her do it and smiling with approval. Boy were my friends surprised when they wandered into the kimono shop and saw me there all dressed up.

I know exactly what you're thinking: "Kelley looks so amazing in that kimono, I want to buy it for her for Christmas." Unfortunately, I'm not sure how much the kimono was, (and didn't want to ask, lest the shop attendants think I intended to buy it), but it was probably about $500, and the obi about $300. Sigh. They had polyester kimonos for a good price, but they weren't quite as gorgeous as this one.

On the way home we spotted this oddity. If you didn't know, Japanese vending machines sell beer and cigarettes. This decrepit, rusty vending machine apparently sells kegs of beer. Yes, it's a beer keg vending machine. Do they not worry about underage drinking here?


It was a great day for Engrish hunting, too.

Mmm, I smell curry cooking for dinner!

Pictures and words

Today I was sitting in the lobby of a campus building when two Japanese students walked up and started a conversation with me. At first I was suspicious: they must be trying to get me to sign up for something. And although I found out later that they were part of an international coffee night thing, they never tried to pitch it to me as I was expecting. They just wanted to meet foreign students. I enjoyed talking with them very much, as they spoke in short easy sentences but didn't baby-talk me like my host father tends to do. We went to the supermarket and got lunch together. If speech is kept simple and said at a fairly slow pace, I'm able to talk in Japanese fairly well. There was one time where a Japanese girl was asking me if I had ever taken the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) test. "TOEFL" is kind of a difficult word to pronounce for a Japanese speaker, so when the girl said it I thought she said "tofu." So we had this awkward conversation in Japanese:
Japanese girl: Have you ever taken the TOEFL?
Me: Oh yes, I ate it.
Japanese girl: ....you ate it?
Me: I...um...I have eaten it.
Japanese girl: You ate the TOEFL?
Me: Um...er...it was eaten by me?
It took a fellow exchange student to sort out the miscommunication. It was kind of embarrassing.

I have more pictures!!!
Here's one of the policemen on a pedestal I was talking about earlier. Sorry it's a bad picture- I was trying to take it without drawing attention.

My mom made okonamiyaki for dinner! It was delicious!

Safety Training Day

My day was pretty dull, except for the part where a Japanese policeman was wrenching my arm behind my back and walking me around that way.

...maybe I should explain.

Whoever invented the idea of school orientations should be shot. The last week of orientations at my college have been wrenchingly slow, repetitive, and full of the obvious. In other words, a typical orientation. Today we registered for classes then had a three hour break until the next segment of orientation. I spent the break with two new friends of mine, fellow exchange students from America. Over lunch we discussed how much we miss macaroni and cheese, mexican food, Reese's Pieces, and how we might obtain a turkey for Thanksgiving. Nicole bought french fries and we drooled over them together. "It tastes like home," someone said.
I was pessimistic about the safety portion of our orientation. Japan has a lot of earthquakes. Okay, I got it. The fact that Japan has 10% of the world's earthquakes was repeated to us so much that I began to think that the Japanese were proud of it.
Somewhat mystifying was the way the orientation leaders seemed determined to dispel the very common myth that Japan is a safe place. "You may have heard that Japan is a very safe country," they would say. "It isn't. The number of crimes has been steadily increasing in recent years." This would be followed by plenty of helpful instructions such as don't walk down secluded alleyways alone, don't walk alone at night, and if you see a suspicious person, run away. Then this would be finished with "Welcome to Nanzan University." (How Japan's crime rate compares to the U.S., I don't know, but I really doubt that it's more dangerous than the US. So relax, Mom.)
Things got interesting when an earthquake simulator was brought out for all the study abroad students. You know, just in case you don't know what an earthquake feels like, they have this handy simulator so that if an earthquake does occur you won't be running around screaming "WHAT IS THIS? MY WORLD IS UPSIDE DOWN!!" It was basically a three-walled box on the bed of a special truck. Inside was a table and four chairs. You sit in the chairs and the box is shaken to the point of a 7 magnitude earthquake. It was funny when in one group of four a guy called out, "Oh my gosh- guys, it's an earthquake!! Get under the table! UNDER THE TABLE!!" and threw himself beneath it.
Next was the self-defense seminar. Some policemen came in and repeated all the don't-be-stupid warnings in Japanese, which were then translated into English by a somewhat inept interpreter who would say things like "we want you to move so or you feel pain." A larger policeman (who looked kinda like Uncle Paul) started demonstating some self-defense moves on a smaller policeman, often pinning him to the ground with painful-looking arm wrenches, hilarity ensuing. Then we each grabbed a partner and practiced some of the moves on each other. My partner, Nicole, was kind of a dainty girl who wasn't very enthusiastic about practicing the moves. The police officers were walking around the room helping everyone, and that's when the large one came over and showed Nicole how to properly twist my arm behind my back. "I-i-i-i-i-itai itai itai itai!" I'm sure he was careful to use only a tiny fraction of his power, but it was enough to walk me around the room with. My shoulder was sore for a little while afterwards too.
So that was my day.

Sunday

"What are your plans for today, Kelley?" Host mom asked on Sunday.
"Actually I'm going to church this morning." I said.
"Oh really? YOu found a church? Are you sure it's not a wedding chapel?" She laughed.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure." I said. I was a little hesitant to go all by myself to an unknown church, but (with a little encouragement from Jasson) I went anyway. It was a short train ride from my home.
Needless to say, at the entrance the two greeters were pretty surprised to see me. I suppose it's not every day a girl with curly hair and a nose the size of Mt. Fuji arrives at the church door. "Is this your first time? Do you have friends here or did you come alone? Your Japanese is really good, where are you from? America?? TWO WEEKS AGO?? Sugoiiiiiii desu neee!"
I had arrived at the church a little late, and was seated in the middle of worship. Boy did I feel like a gaijin. There were about sixty or seventy people there, almost everyone Japanese. A cute little boy, about three years old, would stand in front of me and just stare at me with a smile.
The church was small but nice, with a cross at the front, a small stage, a pulpit and a little stained glass window above the cross. The worship band consisted of two singers, a guitarist, a pianist and a drummer. The lyrics were projected with PowerPoint, and since they were mostly in hiragana I was able to sing along even though I didn't understand what I was saying.
I was very happy to hear that the songs sounded very similar to the ones we sing at home. People sang surprisingly loudly (all that karaoke practice, I guess) and a few people raised their hands slightly. We also sang the Japanese version of this song:
Lord I give You my heart,
I give You my soul,
I live for You alone.
Every breath that I take,
Every moment I'm awake,
Lord have Your way in me.
Later we also sung some more traditional hymns. After worship people greeted each other (lots of "konnichiwa" all around), and then the pastor gave a message. Though it seemed very interesting, his sermon was a little too difficult for me to understand, so I occupied myself with trying to locate the Japanese Bible verses on the screen in my English Bible. If I remember my Shogun movies correctly, Christianity was first brought to Japan by the Portugese. Thus the Japanese word for "Jesus" is not, as you might guess, "Jiizasu" but "Iesu." The books of the Bible also have Portugese names, and I was pretty proud of myself for figuring out that the Japanese spelling of "Johannes" meant "John" and "Petros" meant "Peter." Go me!
After church quite a few people seemed eager to meet me, including the pastor, and I had to go through the "nihongo ga ojouzu desu ne/iie, mada mada desu" routine several times. Several people had been to the US before, and one had been a visiting professor at Chico State, of all places. One fellow gaijin walked up to me and said "hi!" in an Australian accent. He teaches English and runs Bible studies in Japan. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming. Next everyone had lunch together in the church. After watching me attempt to do as the Japanese do and eat my hamburger patty with chopsticks, someone brought me a fork. Not go me. I had a really good time and will probably go again, being sure to bring a dictionary next time.