nipponDAZE

The private-school JETs and the head of the Board of Education? or the private school association? I’m in the black jacket. The blonde with a big smile is Amy of Hita. Simon, a Brit, stands behind me. I don’t remember who the other two women are. If you know, would you leave me a note.

Accounts

¥3000	photograph for alien registration card
¥460	train: Kamegawa to Oita (1.5) I’m guessing Murakami-sensei drove to school and then picked us up to take the train to Oita. I don’t know why she didn’t just drive as she drove her car to work every day unless it was part of training us how to get around on the train.
¥100	machine drink
¥1000	movie: Star Trek V and Indiana Jones (JQS)
¥750	shared taxi: Suginoi Palace
¥2250	Suginoi Palace onsen (1.5)
¥100	Suginoi Palace locker
¥7660	Total

Notes from 2009

Oita-shi

This was our first time in Oita-shi (literally Oita City to distinguish it from Oita-ken, Oita Prefecture but I’ll just refer to the city as Oita from now on). I remember Murakami-sensei pointing out the shopping street and comparing it to the Drag by UT (which she had visited the previous year). The walls were covered with movie posters. JQS, being able to read katakana, impressed her and amazed me by spotting and pronouncing Godzilla correctly (go-zhi-ra).

Aisatsu

Murakami-sensei had her duties cut out for her as she shuttled us around from one bureaucratic office to another. We had to get my alien registration card, open a bank account, meet with the mayor of Beppu, the governor of Oita-ken, the head of the private school board and I don’t remember what else. I think the first words of Japanese I really learn are chotto matte [Just a minute...wait here]. All these aisatsu [meet and greets], rolled over me like water. In the end I think everyone was exhausted with ceremony. I wasn’t cut out for the life of a politician or a beauty queen but I did my best to smile and bow and have my photo taken–to behave like a little trooper for the cause of internationalization.

We private school AETs were given a welcome lunch. JQS didn’t attend that. At some point, anyway, Murakami-sensei took him to a movie theater so he’d have something to do while we were running around being introduced to officials.

Working Parents: Who’s Discriminatory?

Rather than get to go home after our day in Oita, we are whisked to a hotel in Beppu for the annual English Summer Seminar for High School Students.

The teachers had dinner in a small private room where I overheard a couple of fellow foreigners wonder who JQS was. “The Japanese won’t like that there’s a kid up here.” The Japanese, however, seemed absolutely charmed by JQS. The head guy spent the evening doing origami with him.

Earlier that day I meet the only other new JETs with children, a couple from New Zealand who have two girls a little older than JQS. Then a guy, who’s been here a year (I think) and has several kids, saunters in. He looks at me with JQS and says, “Oh, so you’re the one with the kid. Well, you’re in for lots of trouble.” Wow! What encouragement! And he says this right in front of JQS! Although I really wanted to talk to someone else with kids, I swear never to have anything to do with this idiot.

During my entire stay in Japan, JQS was always the center of attention among my coworkers at school. They made a big effort to show him Japan. In my second year, after JQS had returned to Texas, I wasn’t invited to nearly as many outings as I had been when he was with me.

The governor of Oita-ken shakes hands with JQS. I’m standing to his right, directly behind the woman turning around to look. So all you can see of me is the corner of my mouth. (At least I’m smiling.)

Suginoi Palace

We went off in a taxi full of teachers to the Suginoi Palace onsen to take the waters at one of Beppu’s most lavish and tourist-y spas. However, for seem reason I didn’t understand that one could visit any hotel’s onsen and pay a small fee to bathe even if one wasn’t staying at the hotel. We could have explored onsen all over Beppu, something I didn’t really do until my second year. By the end of my time in Japan, going to the onsen was part of my weekly shopping trip in town.