Learning to Bow

I truly enjoy the tradition of getting up every morning, and bowing while proudly saying "onegaishimasu!" I have done it for approximately six months now, and I will continue to do it. I have noticed that as the year is progressing, less students are running around between classes and less students are late to school each day. I taught the students a few new phrases, such as "I eat lunch at..." and "I go to bed at..." They enjoyed this, but when we moved on to reading textbooks most of the students seemed bored.

When I started explaining to them about the racial problems in the United States and explained to them that we are all one people, they learned a new vocabulary word. "Same." I was very surprised that they already know this word, as I would think they had heard this word before if I said it. After explaining more about racial discrimination in various state in the US, we moved on to telling stories. I told the folk tale of "Paul Bunyan". The students enjoyed this tale very much and clapped and cheered whenever I spoke his name. After this, some of the students read to me the story of "The Peach Boy" while acting it out in a small skit.

Once again, I drew a sketchy map of The United States of America, and once again, the students mimicked me - "Thheeee United States of America". I taught them about the east, west and midwest areas and how my ancestors came to live in these areas. As I went over the story of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki while teaching the phrase "I think it is...", many of the students were very enthusiastic since they could relate to the story, as it was about their own country.

After school, I finally planned to visit Tokyo. Many of the teachers and other colleagues of mine discouraged this, but my college friend named Cho liked the idea. He had his friend Hara to meet me at the train station. I think Tokyo is a great city blossoming with youth, although it is changing the Japanese culture, which many people (especially old people) do not like. I went on a "go-con" with Cho Hara, and a couple of friends of theirs. Hara's friend was very rude and kept putting down American people, but I grew to live with it. It was quite fun to start out, but as we fought for twenty minutes and then after they deserted me, we all agreed it was not fun at all. We also have decided that we will have to come back to visit Tokyo and do this again, but make it much better!

After our "go-con", we went skiing. Tomo and I went down the easiest path as we are not too good of skiers, and I have never skied here, or anywhere in Japan for that matter. Now I am tired and I must go, but I will be sure to write soon!