August 29, 2002 - 10:04AM
Wes Ehrlichman

Yesterday was one of my favorite days in Japan yet. It started out fairly boring. I sat around the middle school and translated a manga for a while. Here's a page that I did.

Pretty Exciting huh?

After going home and eating lunch I rode my bike to the government office and joined teachers from each school and people from the Board of Education in a volley ball tournament to celebrate the Sports Festival that will take place two Sundays from now.

When I got there I found out that it wasn't volleyball it was actually "Mini-Volley" or Mini Volleyball. I don't know if this exists in America, but I definately think it needs to be made into an olympic sport if it does. Mini-Volley is basically volleyball that focuses more on teamwork than actual skill. You use the same type of ball that is used in kickball and it plays just like volleyball except that when you serve the ball has to be hit by four people before it goes over, and you score a point whenever the ball lands on the other side regardless of who served it. When the first team reaches 16 points you switch sides, but neither team's score is reset and the first team to reach 31 wins the game.

Having four people hit the ball before it goes over may sound like it's more difficult than just having one person hit it over, but it's actually much easier. It's been my experience that when you're playing volleyball with people that aren't very strong or not very coordinated possession is always lost when it's there turn to serve. This does away with that. And scoring whenever it goes over just makes the game go faster. If you get 8 people together go to Wal-Mart, buy a kickball and try it out. You'll love it!

I was on the Middle School team. We won the first game and lost the second game. Somehow this put us at the top of the ladder in our three team division, and we made it to the third and final game, where we lost to the Board of Education 17-31.

When the Mini-Volley was done I had to rush home and get ready for my welcome party, which was to take place that night. I was ultra sweaty, but I didn't have time to take a shower so I'm sure I smelled terrible. Oh well! At least I changed clothes and put on a tie and a nice pair of pants.

We got to the Kedoin hotel, where the welcome party was to take place, and a few people got together and introduced me. The Mayor was one of these people, and his introduction had everyone in the room laughing. The only part that I could understand was where he pointed out my ultra bad golf score from last Sunday. I think 104 is a pretty good score. Unfortunately, it's not so good when it's your score for only 9 holes instead of the 18. Hey it was my first time, and I had fun so that's all that matters. I think I'm playing again this Sunday. I'll take some pictures and put 'em on the site.

After the introduction everyone said cheers, which meant it was ok to drink and eat. After I had a few bites of rice my supervisor told me to stand up and do my introduction.

This was pretty terrible.

I'm not that great at speaking in front of a big group of people, and I tend to make mistakes when speaking Japanese. I started my speech with

"Good afternoon."

Which isn't a good thing to say at 7:00 PM. After everyone laughed I corrected myself and continued on.

I said that I was from Indiana in America and I said that I was 23. Everyone gets a kick out of my age. My predecessor was in his 30s so I have a feeling that he was much more like a peer than a silly foreign kid. Oh well! I then asked them to teach me Japanese, which I think they agreed with, and I finished up with please be nice to me when we work together in the future. Which apparently is a direct translation of "Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu," the thing everyone in Japan says when they first meet someone.

Then is when the real razzmatazzin' went on.

My supervisor asked everyone in the room for questions. The first one came from

"Why are you always taking so many pictures? Patchi, patchi! Patchi, Patchi! All the time, taking pictures!" This isn't exact, but it's what I pictured him saying as he spoke.

This is a picture of the guy who asked that question by the way. His name is Yoshikuni. He teaches at Daigo elementary school and I had to take his picture because he's one of the coolest looking Japanese guys I've seen. He let out a high pitched screamed whenever he missed the ball during Volleyball. It was so awesome!

I told him it's because I want to remember what Japan was like, and because I put them up on my homepage to show my family what it's like here.

Next, someone asked me what I eat in Japan. I listed off some things that I eat. "I eat Somen, Ramen, Soba, Tofu, Tamago, Yasai, pan, budou..."

"In English also please," my supervisor said.

"Umm, I eat all those things I just said, but in English," I said. Because almost all of the food is the same in English and in Japanese and noone in the room could understand English anyways. I don't think anyone caught this joke.

The next, and final question was from the Mayor. He asked me to sing my country's song. That's what my supervisor told me to do anyways. I don't even know what my country song is! At the time the only song I could think of is "My Country tis of thee," so I started singing.

"My Country tis of thee, Sweet Land of Liberty, of the I sing. Land where miiiiican't remember the rest."

This surprisingly got more claps than laughs. I personally would have cracked up if I heard someone sing that. But I guess they didn't want to be rude.

When I got back to my table someone asked what song I sang. I said it was my country's song and they were like, doesn't that go, "dudududududud." I just said that there were several America songs and that I just sang one of them. I don't know if this is officially right, but oh well!

After sitting down and getting a couple more bites of food my Supervisor started a game. To begin the game he laid pieces of newspaper down the long way and asked for pairs of people to come up. Me and the girl sitting next to me, who's also 23 (I feel like everyone's always trying to hook me up!) volunteered to be a team. Each team of two stood on a piece of newspaper and we played a huge game of rock paper scissors with my supervisor. In Japanese this is called Jan Ken Pon. The Japanese settle everything with Jan Ken. If baseball weren't their national game, Jan Ken would be.

At any rate, when someone lost against my supervisor they had to fold the paper in half and the two of you had to find a way to stand on it. I did ok the first few times. Our paper was only folded in half. I guess these were trial runs to show how the game worked though. Everyone unfolded their newspaper and the real game began.

I lost the first run.

I lost the second run.

I lost the third run.

I let her play the fourth run.

She lost.

So now were were stuck with a piece of newspaper that was about the size of only my feet. She had to jump onto my back and stay on while we played the next round. It's really hard to give a piggy back to someone who's wearing a long skirt. We started again.

Jan Ken Pon

We didn't lose this one!

Jan Ken Pon

We lost this one though.

The newspaper was down to about half the size of one of my feet at this point, so I would have had to stand on one leg and hold a girl with a skirt on my back, when most everyone else still had at least half of a newspaper. We gave up.

The winner got a bag of mystery gifts.

When I got back to my table I was finally able to eat. There wasn't a lot of options, but the eggplant was freaking good. Japanese Eggplant is really really good. I didn't love it at first, but now it's almost one of my favorite foods here.

While I was eating, I kept being asked about music. The guy across the table asked if I like New Kids on the Block. I don't think they understood how funny that question was. I had to say yes, because who didn't like New Kids on the Block back in the day. Japanese people don't know that they're not cool anymore. Next Yoshikuni, the guy who asked me why I took so many pictures, asked me if I liked Queen or ACDC. Again I had to answer yes. Japanese people have the best taste in music.

I ate a little bit more and then I went over to another table to talk to Mr. Tateoka, who was talking to a few girls. I began talking to one of them named Kana, who is a teacher at one of the elementary schools. She asked me if I was going to start an adult English Conversation Class. She is the first person I've talked to who'se officially shown interest in English Conversation Classes since I got here. I'm pretty sure I could get quite a croud though. I think I should wait and see how it goes with the kids though, before I begin teaching adults.

The party went on for a little while after this, but not long enough. I was having a good time and I wanted to keep talking to people! Oh well. When I got back I looked into the gym where we had played Mini Volley earlier that day. There were some older women out front and inside some kids were playing badminton and soccer. I went inside and checked it out. I could really go for some badminton some time. I'll have to go back next Wednesday night.

On my way home I noticed something else. It was the first time I had ridden my bike at night and I noticed that it has a light on the front that's run by the power of the wheel going around. Does that even exist in America? It's such a good idea!

Ok, I guess that's all the fun stuff that happened last night. Car Tomorrow. ISDN Tomorrow.

By the way, my birthday is coming up on September 25th. If you were going to oh, say order me something from Electronics Boutique Online for me for my birthday this is what I would want.

Birthday List:

***Animal Crossing (Sept 17th)
***E-Reader w/ Donkey Kong Jr. $45 (Sept 17th)
**Balloon Fight $5 (Sept 17th)
**Excitebike $5 (Sept 17th)
*Pinball $5 (Sept 17th)
*1 or 2 Packs of Animal Crossing Cards <$5 (Sept 17th)

If people would like to get together on this stuff and save on shipping it would be a good idea. Shipping stuff here is really expensive. If you think it would be cheaper to ship it yourself go ahead and pre-order it at the store and ship it yourself. But do quick shipping! I'm impatient! :-)