More on Japanese schools! I had a day off from school, and I spent it at my host mother’s kindergarten. She is the head teacher at this school, and so let me shadow the entire day, through classes as well as free play time. It was very fun and cute, as well as a fascinating experience!

Japanese kindergartens include ages 3-5, kind of like Montessori school. Interestingly, they have uniforms to wear to and from school, and then another uniform to change into after they get to school (clothes they can more easily run around in).

Kids arrive at around 8:30, and the school remains open until 6pm, although many kids are picked up by 2 or 3. The school day consists of free indoor and outdoor play periods alternating with formal “lesson” type periods, lunch and exercise. It is interesting the emphasis they place on exercise in Japan. There is this routine set of exercises to a particular musical track that many people in Japan seem to do often if not daily, and the kids are taught these exercises at school.

In their lessons, sometimes there will be organized arts and crafts, other times, they will learn songs or play musical instruments, or study the Japanese “alphabets” (hiragana and katakana) and read books. Each day there is a student who is the “teacher’s helper”, and they will stand in front of the class to start the day with announcements and use formal greetings to greet each member of the class. This routine seems to be a way fro them to practice using formal classroom Japanese, because at all other times they use plain forms, even when talking to the teachers! Since kids are always spoken to in plain forms, it makes sense that they would not have learned how to speak in “desu” and “masu” (polite sentence forms), which they will of course need to know for formal classroom settings soon, so it makes sense that kindergarten would be the place for them to learn this. It is funny that I have a much easier time speaking in “desu” and “masu” than plain forms because I learned those first! It didn’t occur to me before how they may be difficult for children.

Trying to speak to the kids in plain forms was good practice. Other than the exercises, polite speech practice, and tiny adorable bento boxes served at lunch, the kindergarten and the kids there seemed to be pretty similar to US preschools/kindergartens. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to spend a day here! The kids were so awesome!

We had the opportunity to pay a visit to one of Hakodate’s public elementary schools! They taught us Hakodate’s signature dance, the “Ika Odori” (squid dance – Hakodate is very famous for its squid!) and then broke into small groups and played games with us. I was with a 6^th grade class, and we had a lot of fun! It was somewhat challenging to try to teach them games in Japanese, but we were able to get laughs playing Pictionary telephone and Duck Duck Goose. Being able to communicate with them was really exciting because I was able to talk around words I didn’t know in a way that I definitely could not have done weeks earlier! It was also interesting to learn a bit about the school system. First through sixth grades are all part of elementary school in Japan, and it did look like 6^th graders still had elementary-school style classrooms and lessons. Middle school here is 7^th through 9^th, and high school is only 10^th through 12^th. Also, the 6^th graders were busy studying fro their middle school entrance exams (!!). Before entering middle school and high school, Japanese students must take an aptitude test, their score on which entirely determines which middle school or high school they will be able to attend and is a significant factor in their future success. That seems rather high-pressure to me for such young kids! Many of them attend cram schools after school each day to help prepare for the test.

This was a pretty neat experience!

During the mid-program break, I had the chance to travel to Sapporo! It was a really neat city, and I got to visit the famous zoo, stroll through the beautiful Odori Park, see the TV tower, and even experience the Japanese “game center”. Japanese game centers, or arcades, are absolutely full of claw machines, except unlike in the US, they’re actually winnable! As a result, claw machines have become a huge part of Japanese culture. I can see why people get addicted – they are winnable but only just barely, in such a way that one always feels as though they will succeed with just one more try, one more try! Eventually, you will win, but only after you’ve spent way more money than the prize is worth. But perhaps it’s worth it to try it out once for the experience and the fun! It took me more tries than I’m willing to admit, but I was able to win myself a huge, adorable hamster. Japanese cute culture continues to amaze me – I don’t know how they can make so many random products so darn cute!

Also in Sapporo we were able to try my host family’s #1 favorite ramen place, where we ordered Sapporo’s specialty – butter corn miso ramen. It was a completely different experience from eating ramen in the US! Even though ramen is originally from China, and even thought of as “Chinese food” to people in Japan, it has been highly “Japanicised”, and these kinds are definitely types of ramen you could only find in this country!

I can hardly believe it, but I’ve been living in Japan for exactly a month now! My experience so far has been absolutely incredible, and everything that I had hoped for! That said, it has also been much busier and more challenging than I had expected, and somehow I let a whole month go by without writing a post. There is so much to talk about, and so I’d like to focus this post on my incredible host family, who, it turns out, are the most amazing people in the world!

Having only studied Japanese for one year before arriving here, I have to admit that I was very worried about communicating with a host family that didn’t speak any English. The first few days were extremely challenging indeed. In fact, I barely spoke at all. But it is indeed true that when plunging into an immersive environment with little background knowledge, one absorbs language really fast! Additionally, it helps that one of my host moms is a kindergarten teacher, and thus is used at using easy words and simplifying her grammar. I have reached the point where I can comfortably speak about nearly any everyday topic with my host parents, and it is such a great environment to practice all the new vocabulary and grammar outside of the classroom.

My host family consists of two sisters in their late 50s and their energetic shetland sheepdog, Lucky (ラッキー). Lucky and I became quick friends! I quickly got to know all the Japanese commands he knows.

My host parents have introduced me to so many things! My first weekend, we visited the strawberry farm near their house. I was so surprised to see so much farmland right in Hakodate, and the strawberries were the sweetest, brightest ones I had ever encountered.

On my birthday, my family hosted this amazing potluck and invited all their friends to come meet me! It was really fantastic to hear about all their different stories, and also to try all of the amazing food. I was very surprised by how much Japanese food I had never heard of! I thought I knew what Japanese food was, but the vast majority of the foods at the potluck were brand-new to me (and delicious).

One day, we tried the most amazing ice cream shop, which is very famous throughout all of Japan. They sell actual ice cream sandwiches – meaning a scoop of vanilla ice cream on an actual bun! The bun is a special Japanese bread called melon bread, which is a kind of sweetbread. The ice cream goes into the bun right as it comes out of the oven, and the combination is surprisingly incredible. The name of the shop is 「世界で２番めにおいしい焼きたてメロンパンアイス」which translates as “The second most delicious melon bread ice cream in the world”. It’s an odd name indeed, since it’s the only melon bread ice cream in the world, but my host parents explained that the shop was just being humble. What an interesting cultural nuance!

http://www.japanbullet.com/life-style/schoolgirl-s-ice-cream-twist-on-melon-bread-goes-down-a-treat

One of my favorite activities was going to the 「運動会」(undoukai – “sports day”) that my host mom’s kindergarten held. An undoukai is a very fun modern Japanese tradition similar to field day in the US, except it’s held on a weekend, takes up the entire day, and all the parents and even grandparents come and participate in field games, relays, and dances. The kids were adorable, and everyone had a blast. What a great community-building tradition!

There’s even more. For my birthday, my host parents insisted on getting me my very own yukatta (summer kimono) which was amazing. One of the other teachers at the kindergarten happens to be a kimono etiquette teacher as well, and came over to teach me how to wear it (it is surprisingly difficult). I think I’ve got it down, although I still cant tie it as well as she can! I can’t wait to wear it at the Hakodate Port Festival in August.

The transition to life in Japan has been a crazy experience, definitely difficult at times, and even more of a different world than I had predicted. I’m amazed at the all the new aspects of everyday culture that I’ve been introduced to, and by how far my language skills have come in just one month. I’m so excited for the second half!