John Stupart.com

A busy weekend! With Monday being National Foundation Day, the past weekend proved the perfect opportunity for more travel. The weekend likewise coincided with the much-famed Sapporo Yuki Matsuri or ‘Snow Festival’. Not content to spend all my weekend looking at snowmen, I opted to do that and more. A friend of mine in Aomori mentioned that Rage Against the Machine were playing in Tokyo on the Sunday, and thus the beginnings of an epic travel of doom were formed! At the end of business on Monday night, I had gone by bus to Sapporo, flown to Aomori, taken the bullet train to Tokyo, seen RATM, and flown back to Sapporo. In the space of 3 days! Truly an awesome way to spend it.

I was able to view the snow festival at 6am in the morning on Saturday, allowing the dual pleasure of seeing the sculptures at sunrise as well as avoiding the throngs of tourists that descend upon Odori Park later in the day. To be brutally frank, I don’t see what the huge fuss is about this thing. Before I even enlisted on the JET programme I’d heard about the snow festival, with the hundreds of snow sculptures depicting everything from the latest Disney movie to big-breasted anime heroines. But aside from the few giant sculptures, roughly the size of a large house, the rest were rather… crude. They looked as if they were hewn with a chainsaw rather than chisel, resulting in at-times misshapen faces and forms. The large centerpiece statues were impressive, to be fair, including several made to seemingly glow with a bluish hue. But to be honest, if I didn’t live in Hokkaido, I think I would feel somewhat cheated by traveling so far to see the things (hotels are expensive in Sapporo, and they only get more so around the festival.) Nonetheless, I’m glad I saw it; one more thing off the checklist of life and all that. Fun fact: According to my JTE, many of the main snow sculptures were created by members of the JSDF (Japanese Army.) Integral training and all that I’m sure!

Aomori and the surrounding areas looked stunningly beautiful from the air, with snowy farmlands, mountains and the like cradling small towns in the middle. Juliet, the South African ALT stationed therein, explained that this was the poorest prefecture in all of Japan. Probably something to do with being razed to the ground by Allied forces in WW2. Then again, so was most of Japan, so it’s not a terribly valid excuse. From what I could tell, there was little to no industry or staple manufacturing base to fuel the city, meaning that the majority of Aomori’s income would, I assume, come from agriculture and fishing. Much like Hokkaido in this respect, only with more mouths to feed! Only one night was spent here, but it was certainly entertaining, with bountiful beer and Juliet and I displaying our country’s wonderous language called ‘afrikaans’ to the delight of the Married ALT duo Ron and Kelly, both of which who are extremely entertaining after a couple of drinks (much, I suspect, like any other warm-blooded human being!)

From there we embarked on the bullet train to Tokyo. At a speed of 360km/h, the train is whisper-quiet and not nearly as bumpy as a non-magnetic-levitation vehicle. I don’t know what I expected, but the train was interesting if only to say that I’ve done it. There are no jaw-dropping G-force effects or unnerving atmospheric pressures. It’s kinda just like being in a really fast, smooth-running train which, I guess, is precisely what a bullet train by definition should be!

Tokyo was just as vast and overwhelming as my first visit at the start of the JET programme. With skyscrapers as far as the eye can see and vast transportation networks, I don’t think I’ll ever wrap my head around quite how impressively HUGE it is. And then there was the concert itself. I’ve always been a RATM fan, even though I’m by political definition part of the ‘problem’ in their anarchistic eyes, so seeing them play live was a truly awesome experience. I had expected the Japanese fans to be largely docile throughout the concert, and the initial pre-show atmosphere certainly indicated such. But when the band came onto stage, my god! The hall virtually exploded with energy and never let down right until the end. A two hour session of awesome music, insane mosh pits (I have my fair share of cuts and bruises) and screaming has me now completely finished! Two days later and I am still exhausted. I have no regrets! I was able to get right to front about mid-way through the show as well, so seeing a band that I’ve always enjoyed playing from within sweat-catching distance was something I won’t easily forget!

And that was Tokyo in it’s brief madness. I got to ride the monorail to the airport, which was again quite an interesting train ride. Unlike the other rail lines, monorails tend to bank left or right, much like an aircraft would, rather than simply turn. Likewise, the trains go over skyscrapers, rivers and estuaries feeding into the Sea of Japan, with no need for sleeper tracks and all that jazz, so the experience is very much like flying through the city at low speed. My stomach did jump into my mouth at the first turn, however, as the experience of staring 100m down at children playing soccer while traveling at speed is… unnerving.

I left for the airport in Tokyo at 6am and got home to Sarufutsu at 22h00. A long-ass journey, but compared to the 24 hour monster that is getting home from Cambodia, it’s relatively manageable. One thing I have noticed is that the thought of a 6 hour journey somewhere is now not nearly as daunting as a few years back, where simply driving from Jo’burg to Durban was a minor operation. Out here, getting to any major city takes at least 6 hours, and then one compounds that the further one goes. I am getting quite used to traveling for a day or more now, if I might say so myself. Good practice, I think, for anyone who wants to go on a road trip when I return to SA?

Here are what pics I got before my camera died. Enjoy!

Juliet and John (Not me!) outside the concert hall

Associated footwear

Love and Peace! Or something…

Disney promo for the next LW&Wardrobe movie… I think…

In most of my entries I realize I haven’t made much mention of the little thing called ‘my job’ which sustains me here in Japan, but I assure it’s not out of any sort of loathing. Instead, it’s rather that it’s the ‘thing’ I do during the week that is usually overshadowed by what I get up to on the weekends. But I suppose, six months in, an explanation would probably be in order.

I am termed, in JET-lingo, as a ‘base-school’ ALT (Assistant Language Teacher). This basically means that majority of my time is spent at one school, in this case the town’s ONLY Junior High School, Takushin. Additionally, I teach at five elementary schools spread out around Sarufutsu. Now bear in mind that this is a small village, so the elementary schools average in total population of four to seventy-four. Every school in SA that I’d attended averaged around one thousand students, so these tiny class sizes are a mind screw in their own right. I think it was my supervisor who explained that this can be attributed to the policy that every student should be within close proximity to a school. Easy enough in the cities, expensive to implement in the countryside. But this is Japan, and it must be done, for the greatness of the emperor, or something…

… my roles in the respective schools differ along two broad lines. At the Junior High School, I take a firm second role to the main English teacher, or JTE, and this is most probably for the better. My JTE, Eizo Katsura, speaks excellent (near fluent) English, having studied in Ireland for a spell as well as extensively in Japan. As a result he’s a very capable teacher, who would likely not need me at all really should Sarufutsu decline to have an ALT here. In the classes with him, I am simply there to help out with pronunciation, intonation and the other verbal nuances of the language that cannot really be taught so much as heard and absorbed. So aside from the occasional subtlety of the English language which I can expound upon, I am effectively a human voice recorder. It gets terribly boring sometimes, but then again, were I to take a more instructive role in class, I think it would disrupt their education far more than it would benefit them.

In the elementary schools, however, I am effectively ‘the’ English teacher. Because of Japan’s hopelessly inadequate educational budgetary restraints (as a result of equally hopeless legislation), all but one of the some twenty-odd elementary ‘homeroom teachers’ I teach with don’t speak a lick of English. It makes for entertaining meeting sessions, but it also gives me a far greater freedom to shape the lessons as I am comfortable with. In almost every single class, I am the effect ‘JTE’ rather than the other way round, and the truth of the matter is, it’s awesome! In the elementary schools, the kids are under far less pressure, respond way more positively to the language, and are generally less blasé about the whole second language thing. By the time they are ready to leave the Junior High, however, those who are not so great (ie BAD) at English have essentially given up at trying to do better, while those with promise leap aheap. In Elementary schools, because the class sizes range from two to twenty, the students carry each other along.

The lessons are active and full of language-related games aiming to build a solid notion of what they’re learning, and I try as much as possible to encourage the kids to be unafraid to speak English as loudly as possible. For the most part, it’s far more rewarding than the JHS. It’s just a pity I am ultimately allocated far more time at the latter than the former, because where I can do the most positive work is precisely where my time is limited. Severely! I visit each elementary school roughly once or twice a month, with the max being weekly visits, which is just plainly not enough. These kids likely get rigid, textbook-based English classes (about once a week with or without an ALT) and enter Junior High School with a crippled ability in English. If I could have my way, I’d be far more oriented around the Elementary schools, and provide weekly ‘oral’ classes with the JHS students. But that’s not the way it’s done, and I’m but a piddly 1st year JET person, so what do I know!?!

Nonetheless it’s an enjoyable job, if somewhat boring after a while. The elementary classes, while fun, hardly tax my well-versed knowledge in Plato’s Republic or the intricacies of Marxist theory. But for anyone reading this wishing to embark on the JET programme, this is likely what you can expect! I know several folks around Japan who can speak decent Japanese and are still relegated to second-fiddle gaijin voice recorders, which is a shameful waste of a rather expensive resource. I suspect the native teachers don’t really know what to do with us, and that only exacerbates the waste. Why spend all that money flying in a foreigner with native-level command of the English language if they’re going to simply be ‘helping out’? This problem hints at my own suspicions that the JET programme, while delightful, is a colossal waste of resources that could be streamlined far more effectively. Course, nobody wants to hear that, so I’ll be the good JET employee and shut up about that :p Japanese educators are taking close to a 9% pay cut next year, the third year running, and yet us gaijin get ferried in by the thousands to ‘internationalise’ and help unmotivated Junior and Senior high school students pronounce English words correctly! It’s a criminal waste!

Thankfully, many Elementary schools are beginning to see the need for English instructors in their classrooms from an early age, and thus the demand for elementary-focused ALT’s increases. Although by now there is no budget for it in the over-burdened education ministry. It’s a pity, because it’s at those very young ages where the problem of teaching a seriously difficult language can be dealt with effectively with the correct training and legislation. Yet instead us JET’s are stuffed like the pale white sewer rats we are into senior high school classes to teach to those who are already far beyond what little contributions the ALT can possibly make. Even the most enthusiastic, fluent Japanese-speaking ALT of English can hope to achieve so much. Extra-mural ‘language clubs’ and all that wonderful fluffy stuff might help a select few gain mastery of the English language, but I can almost assuredly say off-hand that these are the minority, and that the rest of the students are doomed to ESL failure for the rest of their educational existence!

Nay! I say it should be the elementary schools that receive us ALT’s first, instead of the other way round! They learn more, respond better to instruction, and quite simply need it more than their senior counterparts. Also, for a gaijin like me, I have way more fun with them anyway!

Living in the rural north of Japan can lend a certain air of idealism. With virtually zero crime and an almost utopian village society that I thought only existed in Disney movies, I often catch myself thinking about just how awesome life is here, and indeed how even better it would be if I were able to speak fluent Japanese. The quality of life here is pretty high for virtually everyone, including myself, who would never be able to come straight out of university and expect a lekker 4WD car, snowboard trips every weekend and Sushi for dinner! Indeed even Sapporo, Hokkaido’s principle city, is inhabited by a mere 3 million citizens, yet spans the size of Johannesburg easily, replete with a functioning subway and rail system. It’s a city populated by mostly middle class folks. People who are thus relatively well-off. And the atmosphere of the city oozes this out of every pore. So why on earth should I live in South Africa?

I should probably explain that this post stems from a hectic week at the other blog that I write for, where pessimism towards SA has advanced into active cynicism by many of the site’s contributors, not the least of which includes me. To be certain up until now I’ve held what I thought to be a relatively upbeat view of SA. I could shrug off the rampant crime and corruption in government, together with the suffocating monopolies of Eskom and Telkom collectively, because I had always hoped that after the transitional birthing pains of a newly-liberated country, these things would start to fall away. Instead, they’ve only compounded upon themselves… exponentially. And it’s depressing, especially when reading from abroad, to have become so disenchanted with the country I’ve lived in my entire life up until now. It has given me everything that has contributed to my current well-being. My education, upbringing, friends and family as well as many other less-obvious factors have all resulted from the experience of living in South Africa. But what now?

It’s easy to assault the many educated elite who are streaming out of SA for their lack of patriotism, as well as their ungrateful attitudes at the country and government that has raised them from sniveling toddlers to educated professionals, but the brain drain is not the heart of the problem. I don’t think anyone chooses to leave SA lightly. Nobody wants to hate their country, and indeed only the most ardent of verkrampte old-school Afrikaner would leave simply because of the race of their president. But when you look at the antics going on now (that is, if you can. Often the power cuts out and the TV/Computer is inaccessible), the crippling forces in SA is becoming endemic, rather than temporary. So I no longer frown upon the many friends and acquaintances leaving SA right out of university for London, Australia or Canada, because I believe that SA has eroded to the point where even the most patient of optimists has to draw the line and start thinking about their futures.

But I shall not follow suit. I could theoretically prolong my stay in the JET programme for another three years if I so choose, but that would only erode the positively glowing impression I have of Japan as well as make me watch my country decline from afar, as well as stagnate intellectually and socially from all the remote isolation from my voluntary braai embargo. But like some friends of mine, I have decided to give it five years. Five years of living in SA to see if things will turn around. That’s enough time to begin a noticeable turnaround from the dark precipice towards which our faithful comrades are steadfastly hurtling us at. It’s enough time for me to finish my university education and perhaps get some field-related work experience, but most importantly, it’ll allow me to become a nuisance to the hordes of apologists rooting for JZ and his ilk to dismantle the very freedoms they fought so hard to attain.

I am in the rather unique position, as a post-graduate in the political field, to actually do something about my country’s decline. I’m not, of course, talking about reaching for the AK47 and going underground, but rather I am capable of helping wage the intellectual war against the bafoonery we witness on a daily basis in SA. Through the blogosphere and other mediums it is possible to write a convincing commentary against the forces that wish to self-destruct SA. I’m not talking about mere propaganda here, as that would simply be a matter of lowering myself to the idiocy as the same people who believe Zuma is a great choice for president, but rather helping other like-minded individuals write substantiated and rational argument to stand up against the torrent of drivel issued from the ANC and government’s collective mouthpieces in the foreseeable future.

Sounds grandiose, as I am wont to posturing at the best of times, but the reality is that what little I am able to do about the situation will likely never amount to a hill of beans, but at least it’s something. So I shall try for five years, and then perhaps think about making another country my new home. I’ve recently fallen in love with snow, so perhaps Alaska has need for my extensive talents and skillset! Anywhere that lets me snowboard can have me! What can I say, I’m cheap!

So other than a creeping pessimism, what’s news? Not much! It snows a crapload now, and a blizzard came through Hokkaido last week which made it particularly frigid. Otherwise I have spent most of my time on the weekend either snowboarding or recovering from snowboarding! I don’t fall over nearly as much now and it’s become seriously enjoyable. I expect most of my time this winter will be spent on a board in the snow, enjoying the winter while I can, as it’ll be quite sometime before I can experience a comparable winter again. Tiffendale is a tad expensive to consider in SA!

PS
For those non-South Africans wondering what on earth a braai is, observe the following instruction video on braai etiquette for an introduction.