祝！九州 九州新幹線全線開CM１８０秒

Hey People! This is the Japan I love!

Many people often accuse me that i always complain about Japan, but that is not entirely true. I do have quite  few complaints that stem from cultural differences or differences of lifestyles.  I have to admit that having spent almost 5 years here, doesn't make it so much easier. There are still plenty of things I couldn't get used to, and I'm afraid I'll never be able to get used to, such as the lack of proper heating in winter, the overuse of air-conditioners in the summer, and the huge crowds of people that the train cars are crammed with every morning and evening rush hours.

Despite all of these though, there is a Japan I very much like indeed. The Japan where people are grateful, the Japan where they stick together, the Japan where they like having fun. Today, I'm going to share with you a video; it is a commercial made to celebrate the new shinkansen line that connects Kyushu island to Honshu. It was opened in March this year, but due to the massive earthquake, this CM was broadcasted only for 3 days on Japanese television. It became very popular on the internet, however. The thousand of people you will see in this video are all ordinary folks, who saw the JR (Japan Railways, a private company that runs the shinkansens) advertisement in a newspaper, asking people who felt grateful for the new train line to come near the rails at a given time, so they can videotape them welcoming the first bullet train ever to arrive!

I don't think it would be possible in Hungary for example, to shoot such a movie. I don't think I would go to celebrate any new lines of MÁV....except for the intercity trains, I don't really think we reach the EU standards. Although I have to admit, I haven't used Hungarian Railways in the past few years, butI was a regular customer before I came to Japan. And well...the people's attitude is also different...I guess LOL.

Hey, anyway, enjoy the video! I have to admit I was so moved, that it made me cry :) I'm too sentimental, I guess. I put the link here, and I will try to post the video directly in my next post...I can't figure out how I can combine posting a video diorectly, plus adding text....aghhh...

http://youtu.be/UNbJzCFgjnU 

Crocodile dundee and drunken public servants

So, the rumor was true. Another native teacher (T-NET) came. (Just for you to know NETs like me work sort of full time 5 days a week and have 20 days paid holidays plus public holidays only, while T-NETs are kind of part time, they might work from 1 up to 5 days a week, they have unpaid summer and winter vacations.)

I was expecting someone young, as most foreigners who come here to teach are in their twenties or thirties, and I was praying for that person to be a woman. I thought it would help the work relationship and we would have many things in common and so on. Then, on Thursday two weeks ago, a teacher came up to me and said, this is the profile of the T-Net who is coming tomorrow.

58 years old male from Australia...and the first thing that came into my mind was Crocodile Dundee. God save us from some Australian Tarzan. What the heck is someone doing in Japan at the age of 58? I wondered. I was hoping it means he is an interesting person who does things differently. The paper said he just arrived recently to Japan. Well, well...good old me, lets put aside that bit of prejudice against Tarzans and Croc Dundees and we'll see what happens. After all, I actually like Dundee it's just that he wouldn't make a good teacher...LOL...not for English I guess. Could teach good survival skills though.

Then he arrived. Let's call him James. My first impression was that he could easily be a Benedictine monk, balding on the top of his head. His friendly and easygoing face seemed to support this idea too. Turns out he works at a university in Brisbane, he's intelligent (meaning he knows his mother tongue's grammar amongst a lot of other things... it might sound rude, but for native speakers it used to be quite rare, recently they become stricter about employment,but there are still quite a few morons who come here pretending to teach, but they actually just want the money and have fun) and he is well educated in many other subjects as well.. We had great talks so far. Both of us were invited to the school's drinking party last Friday.

So I went. He didn't show up, and we couldn't even contact him, since he has no Japanese cell phone yet. You have to get your alien registration card before you can purchase a phone or sim card here....This week he works only two days, I don't know which days, but today he didn't come to work. I wonder what happened. Maybe he got lost. Some teachers were frantically looking for him, but the party was around one of the biggest and busiest stations. Of course they couldn't find him.

Thus, I enjoyed the party as the only foreigner. I got lucky and had nice neighbors at my table, two of them English teachers. We ate Chinese food at a pretty posh place, which also organizes wedding parties. With the other young female English teacher we were about to leave, when some others invited us for an after party....uhm...why not, I thought.

It was a big big mistake to say yes. I never have thought that drunk people are so annoying if you yourself are not drunk. Oh, God! My luck left me when the seating was decided. On my right I had an elderly female English teacher, the bitter lady I talked about before; recently she is pretty positive and it's quite enjoyable to have a talk with her. She was my last bit of luck, because on my other side I had a totally drunk vice-principal and opposite was a young man, some former science teacher. The former was constantly trying to force me to eat some beans that I kept refusing, the latter seemed to be friendly at first, but then was trying to hit on me big time, even though he had a girlfriend. Appalling. Plus, we went to some goddamn sushi bar which served only fish and sea food. Thank God I ate enough at the first place, so it didn't really matter, except for the disgust I had when they served some flying fish with the cut off head as a decoration on the plate. I still considered myself lucky that they didn't order lobster or shrimp. I would have thrown up probably.

The Whiteboard Accident

The other day I was a bit late and had to rush to class. I was doing my first lesson, a kind of self introduction using the computer with the projector and the whiteboard. I got there just when the chime went on, set up everything in a hurry and started my lesson.

The whiteboard marker I used ran out of ink, so I grabbed another.  When the lesson ended and I was about to clean the board I had to realize that I can't erase the words....first I was like, God, I picked the poster marker that is for regular paper...then I started panicking...what if I can't erase it? After all it's the schools property, I don't want to buy a white board.

I gave the marker a closer look. It said the base is oil...hmmm....I ran to the cleaning lady and borrowed a bottle of detergent. It worked, but I was rubbing the board for about 30 minutes and I felt so dumb...LOL.....well, I'm blond, I guess I can afford it.

It wasn't until I went home that my boyfriend told me: the easiest way to clear it off would have been to write on top of the poster marker with a whiteboard marker and erase it. Just a practical advice if any of you ever needs it... （＾－＾）ｖ