Welcome Andrew and Angela!

hello once again

something very exciting happened this week. a young Baha'i couple from Chicago, andrew and angela, have moved to Takamatsu! they are here to teach English to pay off their student loans from university and at the same time help out the Takamatsu Baha'is. they don't speak Japanese, but they are really eager to learn it and have a great attitude (i think).

on monday, the Baha'i Fast started. this means that between sunrise and sunset we don't eat or drink, and at the same time we try to make an extra special effort to become a better person (more kind, caring etc). i find it also helps me to become more self-disciplined and after the Fast i always try to eat more in moderation- ie not too much, but not too little either.
only those between 15-70 fast and if you have certain health conditions or are pregnant or breastfeeding or in heavy labour you dont either. also if you start getting sick during it, youre allowed to stop fasting. theres been quite a few medical studies which show the health benefits of fasting for a limited period of time each year.

anyway, the hardest part of fasting at the moment for me is getting up at 5.45 am after being used to sleeping in till 10 every day. especially cos we arent going out as much, if youre doing something like studying Chinese characters, you get tired fast! so i had a nap yesterday and today. and cathy cooks us all breakfast and an amazing breakfast at that- she should win some award for how healthy her food is, so i only start getting hungry in the afternoon :D cant beat brown rice

i went to the public baths for the first time on monday with Reina, my host parents daughter, and obaa-chan. i had been reeeeally reeeeeally intimidated of going, especially cos even though i can handle standing out normally, standing out while i have no clothes on is one of the most daunting things i could imagine. but we went in the middle of the day so there was hardly anyone there and they were all middle-aged so it wasnt that bad- actually it was really relaxing. there are heaps of different small pools which are really hot and have different types of water or diff scents or something. of course male and female baths are completely separate.

on friday i was supposed to go to Ritsurin Park (the one in the photo on my blog which i got from google images) with a friend of Cathy and Yuichis. but it ended up raining, and more importantly for me, freeeezing. so we ended up going to the biggest shopping centre in the prefecture (which was about the size of Cairns Central or Greensborough in melbourne- which areboth averageish sized) we didnt buy anything, but we talked in english the whole time cos Hirano-san (the womans name) is trying to learn english.

afterwards, we went to the day centre for children with intellectual disabilities that Hirano-san works at. i spent the afternoon there, and met 3 of the children who come there. one was a girl who was 6 yrs old and had a more severe form of autism that meant she was unable to speak, but occasionally said recognisable words. one was a 10yr old boy whod only recently been ableto sit ona chair because he was so full of energy. another was a 14 yr old boy who also had autism but more mildly, so he could respond if you asked him questions and was really into drawing and could write chinese characters (and really prettily).

it was quite confronting to be honest, particularly the girl, who was really emotionally volatile. but i enjoyed it, and probably the main thing i took away from there was a huge feeling of respect for the parents and carers i met. Japanese society, in general, probably doesnt accept people with disabilities to the same degree that they are in the West, although of course theres room for improvement there too. but, Hirano-san was telling me, this puts an extra burden on parents of children with disabilities, and apparently some of the parents of the children who go to the centre have been hospitalised and are on medication because of conditions related to the stress they feel.

ive told heaps of people already, but in Japanese Extension at school, we had to study a book called "Noones Perfect" by Hirotada Ototake, and i thoroughly recommend anyone who has the opportunity to read it. Ototake was born in Japan with no arms and no legs and the book is his autobiography up until he was a young adult. it reached number 1 in japan and holds some record for being the most books soldin japan ever or the 2nd most or sumthing.
anyway, id never really thought of people with disabilities before i read that book, mainly because i dont know anyone with one, and reading that book was a big eye-opener for me.
whats perhaps most impressive is that Ototake thinks that the biggest way to increase acceptance of people with disabilities is through the education of children. to that end, he wrote his book in very simple Japanese and has become a primary school teacher. as he says in the book, he gets lots of children staring at him and asking Ototake whats wrong with him. often what happens then is that their parents tell their children to be quiet and they hurry along embarassed. but Ototake questions whether this is the best response. at school, Ototake was always really popular amongst other kids and never got bullied. he says that (paraphrasing) "of course children when they first see me all wonder whats wrong with me and thing it's strange. but once i tell them 'i got sick when i was in my mummy's tummy', they accept it and dont think about it any more"


wow my blog ended up hectically philosophical yet again haha... anyway good luck everyone whos going to uni with their first week- hope its going well :)