Okayama

helloo


Today I went to Okayama, a city on mainland Japan, with Cathy, Yuichi and Obaa-chan to visit Yuichi's uncle and aunt. To get there, we had to cross the Seto-Ohashi Bridge, which Wikipedia tells me is the world's longest two-tiered bridge system (bridge with one lane on top of another one). Anyway, its pretty long, and was pretty exciting to cross.

Yuichi's uncle is his late father's younger brother. This uncle's parents died when he was 6 years old, and the aunt's when she was 3, which makes spending time with family even more important to them. Even with the current recession, modern Japan is nothing like the impoverished country it was before, during and for a while after World War 2.

They were such lovely people though. His uncle, who's now mostly retired, is also a beekeeper, and he took us to where he keeps his bees. But apparently lately the number of bees has decreased dramatically, which Yuichi's uncle attributed to the increasing use of agricultural chemicals, which harm the bees. Consequently, he hasn't been able to make any honey.

I was happy because on the 1.5 hr car drive there and back I sat next to Obaa-chan, and I found I was actually able to (mostly) have a conversation with her, despite her Osaka dialect which is really difficult to understand. I must admit I did still have to feign comprehension at some times, but until now I couldn't understand her at aaaall.

On Friday, I went out with ICES, the international club of Kagawa University. Pretty much the main reason I went was for the opportunity to interact with young people and as a "native English speaker" and also very obviously the only foreigner there, I was a bit of a magnet. Which I liked, cos I'm usually terrible with introducing myself to strangers. I'm going to miss the magnetising-effect of being a "native English speaker" when I go back home...
Anyway, we went to a nearby family restaurant and I sat with one guy who was pretty into learning English. And I must say I was pretty impressed by his ability and attitude, what I've found since coming here is that students can (apparently) write amazing essays in English but struggle to have a conversation. This is partly due to an education system in which there is a focus on exams, rather than using language as a communication tool, and that there is a fear of making a mistake (mind you before coming here I couldn't do either!). Confidence with learning a foreign language is pretty essential I think.

On Saturday we had the children's class, and the youth group. Its Golden Week at the moment, one week in which there's 3 public holidays, so many people just take the other 2 off work too and go on holidays. Because of this, we were only expecting 2 or 3 kids to come to the children's class.

Instead, 11 children, many of who were under 6, turned up. At first, it was pretty crazy, because the first part we had planned expecting an older audience who had been to these classes before (many of the kids who came hadn't), and thus it involved a bit of sitting still. In Takamatsu, the childrens class focuses on a different virtue, ie a good quality, every time and this time the one the kids learnt about was justice.

But when it came to making paper crowns to fit in with the quote below about justice, they had a ball. A young child was so happy that she ran around the room repeatedly, proudly wearing her over-sized crown. I then took some really cute photos of her, eyes scrunched up, smiling, with her fingers in the peace sign. Cute.

“Attire mine head with the crown of justice, and my temple with the ornament of equity.”

-Baha'u'llah

Can't think of anything else overly blogworthy...

Sonia