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A tanuki stole my lunchJuly 2002
Well, folks, it's not quite a dingo stealing my baby, but it's still a bit of a story. :)
On a sunny afternoon in mid June, my girlfriend and I found a nice place to paddle, a few clicks up the Anabuki River. We bought a bit of a picnic lunch and spent a lazy couple of hours in and beside Japan's cleanest water - the Anabukigawa is one of very few rivers in Japan that remain undammed, so it's good for a dip and apparently even better for fishing. Thinking that it might be nice to leave some dessert until we'd finished swimming, we wandered a bit downstream of our belongings, only to return and find dessert gone! Our rubbish had been poked around in, too. Was it a crow? A monkey? Maybe a tanuki? I guess we'll never know, though the next curious local to sample my lunch might get more than it bargained for. Do tanukis taste good? :)
Some of my kids might know the answer to this question, but maybe they don't yet know whether kangaroo meat tickles their taste buds. I'm on a mission to give my students and teachers the opportunity to eat our national symbol, though it might take a bit of subterfuge to get some kangaroo jerky in their bellies - maybe I'll tell them afterwards, rather than before. The first challenge, however, is finding some meat to serve them. It's a bit hard to find kangaroo meat in Japan, so I'm getting Mum to send me some jerky, though it's rather expensive stuff. I hope there's enough to go around. Next on the menu, of course, will be koala, which we eat only on Koala Day every year. That's April 1, in case you didn't know. :)
When I'm not trying to trick my students into eating cute animals, I sometimes get to join them for swimming classes. They didn't start training until just this past fortnight or so - apparently it's still a little chilly in early summer! I'm afraid I don't quite live up to their expectations of Thorpe-like speed in the water, but I'm looking forward to going for a swim every day this summer vacation and getting my ankle back into shape.
You see, just this past weekend, we had a volleyball tournament between the nine local adult teams, a hit-out that I'd been looking forward to for months. We had two good wins in the morning to get into the knockout round, but during warm-up for the semi-final I came down awkwardly on my right foot and experienced a bit of a "nenza" - Japanese for rolling your ankle. I played the game, a tight three-setter, and hit a very satisfying serve to win the match, but once I took my shoe off after the game, there was no getting back on the court for the final. We ended up losing the final to a team we'd beaten earlier in the day - not for lack of me, mind you, but I wish I'd been out there. I woke up the next morning with bruises up and down my swollen right foot, barely able to walk. No dancing for me last week!
Luckily, the swelling settled just in time for this past weekend's Awa Odori Contest for Foreigners in the city. I was almost certain that I'd miss it, but I found myself walking smoothly much sooner than I had thought I would. A bit of strapping tape to support the ankle was all the encouragement I needed to get out there and prance around with fifty other gaijin. The other contestants came largely from China, Korea, Russia and America, a few from Indonesia and Malaysia, and one from each of France, Peru and, of course, Australia.
No sooner had we thrown on our yukatas and dancing shoes than we were up on stage, dancing in a circle, under the eye of the judging panel. After three rounds of the stage, the field of fifty was cut to ten and I suddenly found myself at the front of the line. Two more laps and a bucket's worth of sweat later, it was all over and the judges had made their choices. Special prizes to the French guy (who didn't speak a word of Japanese, but has learnt some good English in the three years he's lived here!) and two ladies from China and Malaysia. Third prize - me! And second and first to two lads from China. In the end, the contest wasn't really about who was best, but more about cultural exchange and having a good time. After the dancing, we all headed off to have a party, where I had a good chat with an Iranian doctor who is doing a bit of research at the local uni. I went home with a trophy, a certificate, and a couple of women's kimonos that I'm looking forward to trying on. Not to mention a unique experience in internationalisation. Top night!
A swollen ankle isn't my only complaint, but at least getting sunburnt is all my own fault. The past fortnight has seen a couple of unseasonal typhoons carving their way up the Japanese coast, but since they cleared off, the rain has stayed away and Japan's summer is dealing out the hottest days I've seen yet.
I copped my first case of "hiyake" at the school camp two weeks ago. We headed up to Awajishima, the island that was home to Team England during the World Cup, for a two day retreat at the National Youth Centre. I succeeded in getting burnt on a cloudy day, but had a good time at the beach, playing disc golf (golf with a frisbee, if you can imagine it), and spending time with the kids. I'm not quite sure about this two-day camp thing, though. Another three days would be worthwhile...
Case number two hit me yesterday. This past Saturday was "umi no hi" - Marine Day - in Japan, so families were out in force at the beaches all weekend. Heading down to the beach in Tokushima City, this time I was well prepared to beat off the sun, but didn't bet on falling asleep after swimming! Fortunately, though, I got away with a light roasting that should turn brown. Some people say that the sun isn't so intense in Japan - I'd have to say that they're wrong!
Today is the first day of the summer vacation here, but our students are all at school, as is the case everywhere in Japan. Students of all ages will spend a good deal of time over the next month practicing athletics or swimming and participating in their chosen club sport. It's just another example of how school is a subtly different institution in Japanese life. For all the time students spend doing these things, however, I can't help but wonder why Japanese teams aren't world champions at just about everything.
For example, we had our local interschool competition just last month. Our volleyball team got soundly beaten, almost embarrassingly so, whilst a couple of the members of the tennis and table tennis teams put up a good fight. It's hard for a school like mine to get amongst it, being so small, but I guess it's ultimately about competitive spirit. I can see it in some of the students here, but not all of them, and maybe it's a more common thing in Australia where competition is almost in our blood. Seeing the volleyball team get beaten so badly was very sad. I just look forward to the day when these kids will have a win.
I'm also looking forward to the day when I'll see a few of my good mates again. Just today I said goodbye to Keith van Eaton, who is heading back to America after a year on the JET Programme. There are lots of great people leaving like he is, but Keith has been one of my closest friends this past year. I remember saying farewell to some other close friends at this same time last year, when I left Australia - it's never easy. And it's been almost a year. I haven't left Japan in all that time, but I've booked a ticket to England this September - that'll be my first contact with family since Mum came to Japan in May, not to mention a chance to catch up with many old friends living in Britain. I'm also planning on getting back to Oz in December for a quick break. I don't know how I'll handle stepping into the Australian summer from an Iya winter, but Mum's going to make me a pavlova, I'll see my family together again, and Christmas will actually be hot and a holiday, as it should be. Oh, and I'll go to the dentist. Lots of things to look forward to as I finish my first year in the land of the rising sun. That's just how I like it.
Lots of love,
Dave