My friend Sunny from australia is visiting me right now. She came to the teachers welcome ceremony on tuesday and the party afterwards and all the teachers loved her. We have also done some snorkling (you get used to the cold pretty quick) and saw some fun fish and wierd things. She also accompanied me on a run (riding a bike) and snapped this pic of me getting mobbed by shogakksei while getting a drink. More soon!

So today I got to take part in a Okinawan Oban ceremony. I and all the other teachers went to king Shoens (famous ryukan king from Izena) and there joined all the other prominent members of team Izena for the ceremony. I as I reached the top of the steps leading to the tomb/shrine I noticed on the left people sitting on tatami type matting and people standing on the right, a member of the BOE motioned me to the left so I joined the sitting people. I think this was something of an honour as all the other teachers stood to the right, and among the other seated people was the mayor if Izena and descendant of king Shoen. It is also possible I misread her direction and just waltzed in all gung hoe like. I was dressed in bright red running trousers and a blue t-shirt while everyone else was in a black suit, c'est la vie. I did sit seiza (legs under you while sitting on feet) for the whole thing though, causing some small pain and stood and bowed and sat and bowed (repeated several times) when everyone else did. Afterwards we all ate typical Japanese food; omochi, some seaweed I don't know, tofu and other things I don't know, all washed down with ocha of course. It was all very nice and I got to meet some of the new shogakko teachers (elementary school), one of which speaks good English, subarashi ne!
In other news I now have my own little garden. I bought some seeds a while back and planned to plant them in the garden of my own house, but then I decided it might be better to do it at the school. They grow allot of plants and have all the bits and bobs one needs. So I asked and they said how many? and I said oh just one! So now I have a smallish raised bed to play with. Today I weeded and dug half of it and planted; tomatoes, carrots and some flowers (Cosmos Versailes).

Kelly visited my island this weekend and I certainly had a rip roaring good time! I think she enjoyed herself too! Definitely took my mind of the impending departure of my Izenian friends. On Saturday we went out to collect shellfish (at low tide on the exposed coral rock) with Teru and Yoshiaki-san and I saw my first Octopus being caught. I helped a little but who am I kidding, it was Teru who did all the work. The little eight armed beastie as very tenacious and took a lot of getting out of the little hole he had wedged himself in. But we finally succeeded and it would later prove a tasty addition to our barbeque later that night. There were also a lot of shakugau about (a kind of clam) and we collected quite a few. I am proud to have found the largest one by some measure but then proceeded to gash my finger while getting it out, woops. I had planned some sea kayaking but the weather took a turn for the worse on Sunday and that plan had to be abandoned. I am still determined to kayak out to the uninhabited island which lies perhaps a few Kilometres North West of Izena Beach. It will just take the right combination of time, weather and company. The islanders thought I was crazy when I mentioned it a while back.

This weekend I played in a 7’s rugby tournament at Nago Senior High school. One of my teachers (who is leaving) is a member of a men’s rugby club in Nago and invited me to come and play for them. So I did and it was lots of fun, despite raining constantly and heavily throughout the morning and afternoon. My team got to the semi-finals which was pretty good I reckon. The final ended up being between Nago HS A and B teams; they are the number one or two school for rugby in Okinawa I think. For some unknown reason the tournament took place on a pitch which was not covered in grass but instead was sand! Not fine soft sand either, hard gritty stuff! It was about the most abrasive playing surface I could imagine, everyone had big grazes on their legs and arms by the time we were done. My left knee is going to have a quite impressive scab! Anyway it was fun. Got some bad news today, Teru (my best buddy on Izena) won’t have a job after the end of this week and will probably have to go to Okinawa honto to try and find a job. Jobs are few and far between on Izena it seems, he also said they were pretty scarce on Okinawa honto too. I hope he magically finds one on Izena! To make things worse Koshin has also gone to stay with family on Okinawa honto (for personal reasons) and Nagi also will also have to go to Okinawa honto to try and find a job. So that’s my three best friends on Izena gone or going! Bummer, and all this after they managed to convince the BOE to let a particular female teacher they liked to stay another year. My predecessor did say people came and went on Izena but still, I will miss them, although I am still hoping they will find some job on Izena. There have also been budget cuts to the education system here in Okinawa and some teachers are loosing their jobs, it seems not all is well with Okinawa/Japan plc.

On Thursday I attended the elementary school graduation. This was a much more elaborate affair than we have at home and lasted most of the morning. I was slightly apprehensive expecting tears and the like (I had heard this might be the case from other JETs) but it was a surprisingly pleasant affair with no tears at all! After all the kids are only going about 100 yards up the road to the Junior High school. They will of course be my new first year class at the JHS, quite looking forward to teaching them. One of them mentioned English in his farewell speech; I hope it was in a positive way. One minor curiosity was that one teacher pointedly sat down for the singing of the national anthem, she/he shall remain nameless but she/he was stood immediately before and after the anthem so I must assume it was a meaningful gesture. Potentially a strong one in this conformist and unquestionably patriotic (or so it seems to me) country. It still seems a little odd to me, all the flag flying and anthem singing, oh and the bowing to the Japanese flag before and after speeches. I don't think I have ever stood for the British national anthem except shortly before or after standing up to belt out 'oh flower of Scotland' at Murray field (our national rugby stadium) and I certainly don't know the words. At least they don't have flags in the classrooms here. Anyway! Yuko sensei (the teacher of the graduation year) looked quite splendid in her Kimono and other bit which I can remember the name off. Today (Friday) is the last day of term so the teachers who will be leaving all gave speeches and were given flowers, this time there was crying. The 3rd years (JHS students) turned up so say goodbye again which was nice. My favourite speech was by M.Sensei and went along the lines of;
'I taught the 3rd years for 3 years, the 2nd years for 2 years and the 1st years for 1 year. Do your best please. Thank you. That's it!'
Short and sweet!

I had rather a long weekend this weekend, for one reason or another. One reason was the India fundraiser which was held on Saturday. All the Okinawa JETs who went to India in December have been working on throwing a fundraiser at the popular JET haunt, Paul and Mike’s international bar. The night was a success despite a disappointing turnout and we raised a total of 8man (80000 yen or 800 US dollars) after all our expenses. This money will go to the anada marger (however that is spelt) organization to be used to fund their schools in India. The harrowing highlight of the night was the live slave auction; the five boys who had gone to India offered themselves up for sale as slaves/dates for the night. Another big hit were cookies cooked by the hottest gal in all of Okinawa, sold with the slogan ‘better than sex’ they raised almost a 100 bucks on their own. Other goings on over the course of the weekend involved a Gumball rally which despite acts of gross public indecency my team did not win, I suppose second place is better than a kick in the pants. The weekend was topped off with a visit to Nakagusuku castle, an ancient Ryukyu castle dating back to the 15th centaury and a world heritage site which boasts impressive masonry and panoramic views, one can see from one side of the island to the other (maybe). After exploring the castle we explored a haunted hotel which was built right next to the castle. I don’t know any of the details of the story; suffice it to say the hotel was build recently but quickly abandoned after it got a reputation as being haunted. This reputation arose by an alarming number of unexplained deaths which plagued the hotel. I don’t know the actual number but it must be assumed it was alarmingly large enough to cause this large and probably once impressive hotel to be abandoned. It is quite derelict now and covered in graffiti. It does have a certain spooky charm and include a picture of me pretending to serve a drink from behind what used to be a bar (I think). I was also very sick this weekend, terrible migraines.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4781688.stm
This is an interesting article. A bit sad and troubling but I post it because of the Japanese students who helped the unfortunate lady when no-one else did. My Japanese English teacher was happy when I told her about the article. It is my observation that Japanese people are very kind and eager to help and seem to view life with little malice. I have not noticed any bullying or nastiness between students at my school, I would definitely expect a little of that if this were a Scottish school. Another character trait I have noticed is a tendency for Japanese men to get stark naked when drunk. A phenomenon I experienced in the confines of my very own home last night. I am sure you are wondering if I participating in this activity, as a cultural experience perhaps? I am also quite sure I won't be telling ;).

A fun weekend but another one where spending time with my Japanese friends got in the way of actual Japanese language study. Ah well, such is the way of things. On Saturday four people from Tokyo visited Izena, one of them had traced her ancestry back to King Shoen and the others were just along for the ride. We threw a barbeque at Yoshiaki-sans house in their honour (any excuse for a party). I mostly brought this up because I wanted to post a picture of me eating a pig’s snout. A whole pigs head (minus bones) is typical Okinawan barbeque fare and upon spying the snout I claimed that delicacy for myself. It was a little chewy but not bad!

A Picture of me and Percy the Primula about to depart Unten port for his new home on Izena island! As requested by 'e'.

Aww cute, could you find anything better on your desk when you come into work?

On the front it said:
Letter for you kureigu
And inside: It is the cookie which we made. Probably, good.
Were you already used to Japan? from students 3 grad

I don't want them to learn english well, it's way cuter this way.

I finally fixed my internet! For two weeks now it has been semi-broken, not going to certain sites or loading up pictures, very annoying! I was pretty much restricted to gmail and bbc.co.uk but anyway is all good now cos I fixed it! Something to do with the IP and DNS addresses. I have had this post lying around waiting to be posted for a while now and finally, without further ado, my post:
Another update to my blog with nothing of immense importance to convey. But I say since when has important been a part of fun? I had a fun weekend on Okinawa honto (and if you haven’t picked up on it yet, that is the main and largest Okinawan Island). On Saturday I went to see the new Narnia film and I thought it was jolly good! I did love the books are a child so I am sure that had something to do with it. It really was the ultimate fantasy for a young boy, getting to go to a magical world and be given a sword and shield and told you could be king! Anyway I thought it was pretty good. Later that same evening I went ice-skating at Okinawa’s only ice rink. I was terrible but then I expected that, however since when has terrible not been a part of fun! Mmmm I am not sure that one works but I did have fun! On Sunday my ferry was cancelled again! I really hate it when that happens…… (Yeah right!). So that day was spent exploring the heavily forested mountains of northern Okinawa honto in the search of waterfalls. For the second time running the trail to the world famous Hiji falls was closed so our only option was to bravely set forth and discover hitherto unknown falls in a brave (some may say foolhardy) adventure. And yet find falling water we did! See above picture for photographic evidence! We also came across strange beasts lurking in the leaf litter (newts). So that was my weekend. Ah yes I also made a new friend, Percy the primula, he’s moving in with me. I also bought several helmets and a hammer that goes squeak, students of Izena beware! That’s all I have to say.

Teraryo, their eyes amuse me, I think they look quite startled to have been taken out of the water.




This Saturday (the 18th) I lived the day in the life of a mozuku fisher man on Izena Island. Mozuku is a brown sea weed which is something of a delicacy in Japan, it and sugar are Izena island’s main exports. My friend Koshin and his father are mozuku fishermen and two weeks ago Koshin had offered to give me a ‘workshop’ on his work. The day started early (I woke up at 6.30am) and we were in their boat heading out so sea by 8am. It was a small 25 to 30 foot boat, Koshin and his father work together in a two man team harvesting the mozuku. At the South West side of the island (off Izena beach) a small uninhabited island (Yamaho shima) and several rocks linked by reef form a large, shallow lagoon; this is where the mozuku is grown. It is grown on nets suspended about a foot above the sea bed. Once we had reached their nets we anchored the boat and set about harvesting the mozuku. There were several other similar small boats in the lagoon also harvesting mozuku, Koshin tells me there are about 50 fishermen (uminchu) in Izena village. It was a two man job, one member would dive down with a sort of hoover and suck up the mozuku. The mozuku and sea water was pumped up to the boat and then out over netting suspended over the side of the boat, the other member of the team would then brush the mozuku into crates while removing any other seaweeds or sea grass which was mixed in with the mozuku. I offered to help with the brushing and Koshin’s father seemed only too happy to let me, I ended up doing 6 out of the 7 crates we filled that day. I was determined to prove (to myself?) that I was up to the challenge of this work and I expect Koshin’s father was delighted to have a bit of a holiday. The mozuku fisher men work seven days and week and typically spend all day out at sea, hard work! I also went down and snorkeled to observe the ‘hoovering’ process. While I was down there I saw a white moray eel swimming along, it was perhaps 3 or 4 foot long. We harvested the mozuku without break until about 1.30pm when the compressor broke and Koshin was forced to surface. So that brought an end to the mozuku harvest for the day and to be honest I was quite relieved! We brought the mozuku to the packing plant and then had a quick lunch (bento) before heading back out to sea to do some shell fish collecting. For the record 400kg of mozuku brings in 7 man (350quid) and each crate weighted about 70kg, judging by the number of empty crates on the boat I think they would be able to fill 15-20 in a day. By now the lagoon was about 1 meter deep, perfect for collecting shell fish. A type of cone shell called teraryo is in season right now so that was our chosen prey. Now you those not in Okinawa may not be aware but cone shells can be very dangerous as certain species are extremely venomous (potentially fatal) and one is recommended to avoid all cone shells. So my first lesson was how to recognize the different species. Fortunately the most common species is the edible variety and the venomous species have a distinct pattern (triangular blobs instead of stripes) and are conveniently bright orange or purple. We collected toritsu from roughly 2.30 to 4.30 and after a while I got my eye in and collected quite a few, all together we must have collected several hundred at least. I also spotted some weird and wonderful marine life along the way, I have jotted down descriptions of them and will endeavor to find out what they were. Once back on dry land we boiled the shells and shelled them, quite a task as well! We split the teraryo equally three ways so now I have quite a lot of them in my fridge! Later I and Koshin met with Teru at Nakagawakan (the restaurant/hotel near my house) for dinner and drinks. I was pretty exhausted from the day’s exertions and had to pass on karaoke, I think I was sound asleep by about 11 o’clock. So that was my day in the life as an Izena mozuku fisherman, it was hard work and to be honest rather monotonous, it makes me even more grateful for the wonderful job I have now. I am very grateful to all those factors which have conspired to give me an education and therefore such exiting prospects and opportunities in life.

So today was Valentines Day! Valentines Day in Japan is a little different to Valentines Day back home. Instead of being mostly about couples where usually the man makes the effort here in Japan on the 14th of February women give men chocolate. Not only do they have to give chocolate to their lover/partner but also to male co-workers or any man they like/are close to. Then on White day, the 14th of March, Men return the favour giving chocolate to any women who gave them chocolate, although this may not in practice happen. So anyway the female teachers banded together to give all the male teachers chocolate and I also got chocolate from some of the pupils. One came with a cute note saying ‘happy valentines Craig, thank you for teaching English for us for half years,’ pretty sweet I thought. Oh and also we had chocolate cake with our school lunch (valentines cake) and as there was some left I got an extra slice, wicked! To make things even better when I popped down to my elementary school at the end of the day to check on the topic for Thursdays lesson (review!) I got more valentines chocolate and they were opening their valentines cake so I had some more, double wicked! In other news I got recontracted today and while up at my BOE (Board of Education) the head of the BOE offered me some tea and over tea we were chatting about running and working out (he is a decathlon athlete) and he offered me the use of his weights at his house. In fact he was so kind as to drive me to his house then and there so I could look at his weights, he had a nice old traditional okinawan house. So one of these evenings soon I will drop by and lift with him. Not sure I want to get into lifting again what with my running thing right now but a little won’t hurt and it would only be polite. So all in all it was a good day, I also only had one class to teach all day.

My blog goes political! Not entirely sure why I am inspired to do this but in light of recent events I feel I would like to share this cartoon with you all. It has been stolen by me from www.b3ta.com . I expect I will delete this post after a while but for the moment here you go:

Well to continue in the vain of random posts about relatively mundane goings on in Izena Jima I will tell you what I did last night. It was actually quite a fun night. As of late I have been avoiding drinking during the week, it is definately not good for my school performance. The locals seem to be able to deal with it just fine, but not poor old me! However I got tricked into it last night. After having finished my own dinner (made myself some onigiri) I got a call from Koshii and Nagi and all that I understood was that he could be at my house in five minutes. I quicky get ready and jump in his car when he arrives. He takes me to his house where I meet his parents. I had mentioned I like sashimi on saturday and that day he had caught a tuna so tonite we were to feast on mountains of tuna sashimi liberaly washed down with sake and beer. Yoshiaki san and his family also turned up. It was a very fun night, I managed to get alot of the jokes (the impersonations of some of the teachers was pretty easy to enjoy), the food was good and the drink plentyfull. I was amused upon entering their kitchen to suddenly feel tall, mmm what's this strange sensation. Their kitchen ceiling was only a few inches clear of my head, I am assuming it is a old japanese house! Koshii's father is a fisherman and we have set a date for him to take me out to do sumogeri (not quite sure on that word), anyway it mean skin diving and hunting fish and collecting shell fish. Last time I did that it was nice and hot, not entirely sure how fun it will be in the cold, oh well! Ganbarrimasu!

I realise I haven’t blogged in a while and to be honest there hasn't been anything exiting to blog about. However for the sake of those folks at home who like to know what I am up to I will briefly detail my shenanigans. I spent last weekend on Okinawa honto, Saturday was a friend’s birthday party, which was suitably Kronk. It was nice to see a lot of fellow ALTs I hadn't seen in some time. There was a case of a missed ferry but it was due to wholly unavoidable reasons. I worked solo on Tues/Wed as my JTE had business on Okinawa honto. My exertions were noticed and I got a comment about being a hard worker on Wednesday night and went out to dinner that night with my teachers. Thursday was a very busy day at the shogakko (elementary school), 5 classes but they all went well. On Friday my Junior High had it's ekiden (relay marathon for the students) for which I sacrificed my half day off but I think it was worth it as the teachers seemed keen for me to attend. Afterwards we had our 'Otskaresama' parti (wow what a good job we did party!). I left that party after about 3 hours to celebrate an islander's birthday. A rather intoxicated night of Karaoke ensued and much fun was had by all. The weekend that followed was characterised by a severe case of lethargy from which I am just recovered from. I had dinner with some Japanese friends on Saturday, managed a run on Sunday, throw in some painting and a little Japanese study and that's all I managed. Ah yes, how could I forget, throughout this past week I have been IMENSLY enjoying watching the original star wars trilogy kindly lent to me by a fellow outer islander Brett. A ripping yarn backed up with wizz bang graphics, crickey! OH! How could I forget, I must mention so you ALL know, Scotland just beat France in the six nations rugby tournament (20-16) first time in ten years!!! I am only sad I wasn't back home and able to watch the game at Murrayfield, ah well.

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Gentle Dancer. Where You Lived: Japan. How You Died: Consumption.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

I decided it might be nice to make some sort of poster about India to stick up on a wall (or window) somewhere. But being the sort to make full use of the resources avialable to me I decided I should have my students make it. So I had them do it in my english conversation night class. It did have some educational aspect as they had to translate the english into japanese. What wonderful little mites they are! Doing work for me and of course not only being the reason for my getting paid here but also making my job most enjoyable. I do plan to add a bit of writing of my own but that japanese translation will take some work, unless I just ask my JTE to do it for me.

Sakura! The cherry blossoms are out on Izena! They are indeed quite pretty.

Well I am officially a little bored right now. I had one class this morning and that was it! I have to plan something for my English conversation class tomorrow but I have a pretty good idea of what I will do and I have alllllllll day to do it. So as a result I am going to write an entirely random entry on my Blog. Were to start... ah-hah! On Friday the teachers at my Shogakko (elementary school) had a new year’s party. I accepted their kind invitation even though it meant I could not go to Iheya with Teru, boooooooo! It turned out to be rather quite fun and I was glad I went. It was held in the yochein (kindergarten) room and we sat on their tiny, tiny chairs, barely enough space to fit half one’s derrière onto! The sight of all the teachers (the headmaster and vice in particular) perched on these dolls house sized chairs was something I will treasure for some time to come. I had the honour of being sat to the headmaster’s right which meant extensive and repetitive use of my limited Japanese vocabulary throughout the night. Being a party held by elementary school teachers we of course played a game. The game involved being blindfolded and drawing portraits of teachers each taking it in turn to draw one feature after another. For those of you who don’t know Japanese try and guess which one is me! For the rest my name is written in Katakana. It was a fun night anyway. The rest of the weekend was rather quiet, Izena seemed to be on shutdown. It took three attempts before I and Nagi found a place which served beer so we could study our respective languages over a cold one. Unfortunately the place then closed at 11 so it was a short study session. Well anyway, nothing much exiting happened so I won’t bore you. I think like the rest of the ALTs who went to India I have been mulling over my experience. However I think I am being drawn to a more cynical view of the whole affair. Of perhaps drawn between a cynical view and a more positive one. I don’t want to get into it too much but although I felt by going there we did something special for the children and I remember the joy and delight we gave to them and the joy and delight they gave us, I am somewhat troubled by the whole affair. So we definitely touched their lives in a positive way. However I am unsure of what lasting good we have done them. If teaching them English was our goal I don’t think we made a huge difference, their English was already good and due to our lack of Bengali most activities were games. Games were fun of course and having them associate English with fun is good. The importance of learning English is pretty much well established in India though and the standard is very high, it is essential for a good career there. If our aim was to promote this method of teaching as opposed to the very old fashioned methods commonly used in India, all fine and good, a noble cause but should we not have been teaching teachers then? Ok so the only tangible lasting effect I could see that we left was the things as a result of the money we donated. The new well shaft and water tank and wall for a classroom I think. And of course they will have money left over. So if they money was the main thing as I expect it was then it seems a fair point to me that our personal expenditures on the trip were vastly more than the sum we donated. I can’t help wondering if we might not have better served these children and the whole cause of better education for underprivileged children in India better by simply sending them more money and less people having actually gone to teach. What did we gain by having so many people go there in person over less people and more money? Nothing that I can see apart from our own personal experiences of the trip. So was then this whole thing as much about us getting to experience India as helping the children? I now imagine having sent more money and not having gone to India personally and even if I had detailed accounts of the trip and how the money was spent I would have personally got less out of the experience. I would have felt less good about what I had done. But now I realise my error, I was viewing the whole trip as entirely to do with helping the children. When it was also about being an opportunity to allow us to experience India and see the children first hand and in as such it was an undoubted success. With this realisation my above rant is unnecessary but I think I will post it anyway, also now I feel especially guilty that in effect Elvira, Corry and John did so much to organise what was partially a holiday in India, well I can offer them nothing now except my gratitude, you did a splendid job! I hope no-one is offended by my cynical take on things; it’s not entirely how I feel about the India trip. It was amazing, the kids were amazing and my fellow ALTs were amazing, I have a considerable amount of admiration for you all. Bear in mind I tend to feel uncomfortable with going along with the groups opinion on things (or whatever I perceive it to be) and am somewhat reactionary as a result. Well this turned into something I didn’t expect, so much for a little random post in my blog to pass the time of day. Actually in hindsight I think my frustration (and a little confusion) lay because on the one hand I felt very good about the amazing thing we did and how the kids and people reacted to us and on the other hand frustrated at the huge disparity between what we achieved and the scale of the problem(s) we saw there. I suppose India's problems and indeed one small schools problems are too big to solve by one 9 day visit by 23 people.