Trying the Tsugaru Jamisen

The shamisen is a traditional Japanese string instrument played throughout the island nation and I was lucky enough to try it thanks to one of the fellow ALT senpai and her (now our) Japanese friend who drove us.

This happened on this past Thursday, December 3 at the house of my senpai's teacher's teacher's wife (Confused?). The room we played in was a tatami room full of memorabilia and photos from the late husband who was apparently one of the most famous tsugaru jamisen players. My ALT senpai's teacher, therefore, was this famous man's apprentice and we were practicing in the widowed wife's house.

The wife and the teacher (both old grandmas) neither spoke a lick of English, so our senpai who is a 5th year ALT, and her friend who is native to Aomori helped translate. We had a formal aisatu or greeting with tea and a sort of gummy red-bean flavored snack that's native to Aomori. The women talked for a while about foreigners in Aomori, referring them to gaijin (Gaijin is a shortened, usually derogatory term for foreigners, while Gaikokujin is the more official, respectful way to say the same thing) and after about 20-25 minutes of chatting, we finally got started.

She began the demonstration with herself and the two students (The ALT senpai and her Aomori friend who drove us to the house) and it sounded so awesome... There's apparently a performance coming up as well, which is why they practiced the particular songs they demonstrated for us.After the trio performance, they played one more song together until the shamisen teacher played a song on her own.

With the last 20 minutes of the 1 hour lesson, she let myself and another ALT who has been here for 3 years, Sasha, try out the tsugaru shamisen.

As a side note, apparently the leathery topside area of the shamisen is made out of cat if it's high quality, and dog if it isn't. The teacher's pick was apparently made out of turtle shell and the strings -- I'm not too sure, nylon? This instrument sure isn't for any PETA-type people, that's for sure.

As most of you already know, I've never played nor tried to play an instrument before in my life, but I really wanted to try the shamisen ever since I learned that the tsugaru jamisen was a regional specialty of Aomori Prefecture. After a few picks at the three strings of the instrument, my senpai's Aomori friend commented that my playing was umai（うまい; delicious; very good), which was a nice boost of confidence.

It was actually so fun and from the plucking of individual strings, we moved on to plucking one string and plucking it again in the opposite direction (i.e. plucking going towards the shamisen and again plucking away from the shamisen). We then strummed a little bit and used our fingers to make different notes (or sounds, or whatever the technical term is for it.

All in al, it was a great experience, and I'm really thankful for my senpai and senpai's friend and teacher for giving me the opportunity to try it out. I have until this Saturday to decide whether or not I want to commit to it as Saturday is my senpai's performance and the teacher will be there seeking an answer-- it's a hard decision that I will have to make. Maybe I should give it a go.

(Late Post) Winter has come!

As of November 29th, Aomori City has "finally" started getting snow on the ground. Granted, on November 29th, the snow only stuck during the morning and turned into slush after, the real snow that actually stuck started on around December 4th.

My impression of snow while walking home from the BoE on Friday Dec. 4 - the first real day of snow.

Honestly, it really hasn't been that bad - yet. The sleet (みぞれ; mizore) is honestly worse than snow as each step you take goes into a slushy mix of ice and water. After Friday, thankfully, the clouds have been giving us snow that sticks rather than sleet. Temperature-wise it's been lingering at around 0 to 5 degrees Celsius, which is only bad when there is only wind to accompany it. My apartment is fairly cold, but just like everyone else, I stay under my kotatsu right when I get home. For those who don't know, a kotatsu is a Japanese style table with a heater underneath. Add a blanket to the mix and you are able to trap all the heat to keep your body warm. I also have an electric blanket that I use literally every night.

As I mentioned early, the weather is really only a pain in the neck when it's windy. However, if you're dressed for the weather (Insulated underpants and undershirt, thick sweater, scarf, hat, gloves, boots), even the wind isn't a problem. Many of my Japanese co-workers at my visit schools worry about me when I don't bring an umbrella, but honestly on the windy days it's better to leave it at home since the wind changes direction all the time and you'd end up being down at least 500 yen when, not if, your umbrella breaks.

The local "Universe" which is our grocery store that is about a 3 minute walk from home normally. This photo was taken Sunday Dec. 6th and the visibility due to the wind and snow was basically reduced to zero. Don't worry, I dressed warm!

 So yes. It's only been snowing for about a week now. I'm still generally enjoying the weather when I have time to enjoy it. I have made a snowman already, though mine are pretty sad. The first and only time I made my snowmen so far was on my walk home from Karaoke at around 1AM. The streets were blanketed with a sheet of powdery, white snow and I was literally the only person on the road - No cars, no people. I made 3 snowmen on that walk home as I sobered up and left a little gift for the other friends who would come back home a little bit later.

Snowman and a message that I made around 1AM after walking home from a prolonged karaoke session.

There is, however, still the issue of SNOW SHOES. The only shoes that I have at the moment are the casual, everyday black shoes with no real support or traction. The sidewalks and rounds haven't really become icy yet, but they will soon. Thankfully Papa Ludwig and family has a package with the gear en route, so I just have to survive this week and I will (should) be all set!

1 week of snow down,

~5 months of snow left.

Talking Star Wars with a 2nd Year (~Day 128)

Here's a little peak of what the JTE at my base schools hands me at the first day of the week when I work at their school:

	月 (12/7)	火 (12/8)	水 (12/9)	木	金
1	2-2
2
3	2-3
4	2-1
Lunch	2-1	2-2	2-3
5
6

Today, I write this blog post as I struggle to stay awake due to a lack of things to do. My tethering app on my phone is broken for some reason, and so I can’t use the internet to work on other projects of mine. Anyways, today I am working from my base school, and was assigned a class on 1^st, 3^rd and 4^th periods with the 2-2 class, 2-3 class, and 2-1 class, respectively. At this moment in time, I’ve finished my classes already, and they turned out being quite good. In class, the teacher provided two questions to select from, and they had to write answers to them and present them to the class after about 15 minutes. The two sentences they had to choose from were:

Q: What is your dream?

A: I want to be a ________.

Q: Why do you want to be a ________?

A: I want to be a ________ to _________.

Q: Where do you want to go?

A: I want to go to ________.

Q: Why do you want to go to ________?

A: I want to go to ________ to ________.

This was actually a great day relative to what I usually do with my 2^nd year teacher. Typically, I’m doing nothing more than reading dialogue from a book and repeating new vocabulary twice per word. Today, however,  I was able to talk to each student about these questions, walk around the class to help answer questions, and learn more about each student’s aspirations.

1^st period with the 2-2 class went quite well. Class flowed properly and the students had some really creative responses. Their speaking volume was quite low, but that is understandable with folks who are shy and are still learning the language.

3^rd period was 2-3 was probably the most enjoyable. Before class started, I had a conversation with a kid who was sitting in the front of the class. I commented about his pencil tin, which had a graphic of the Millennium Falcon and as a result we had a short conversation about Star Wars. I asked him if he liked Star Wars and whether or not he was going to see the new movie on opening night, or if he was going to see it over the weekend. He confirmed that he liked the movies, and that he would see the new movie on the first Saturday of the movie’s release. Once class started, each and every student had great, creative sentences just like the 2-2 class, but some boys in the back made a joke out of the lesson. They said

“I want to be a ________ to be strong and sexy”.

It wasn’t just one student, but rather around 3-5 students who used this same sentence with some minor changes, like putting in “cute” instead of “sexy”. The whole class erupted in laughter, but I still appreciated the fact that they were willing to be creative and not stressed about the grammar, and that they used it correctly.

After class ended, the boy who had a solid conversation with me about Star Wars approached me and gave me a Yoda-shaped eraser. This was frosting on the already delicious cake of good classes. Man. This kid. So awesome. So kind. So bright. He also understood everything that I was telling him so I knew that his comprehension level was really good as well. Unfortunately, I still don’t know his name because I just have too many students and it’s difficult without having a chart or booklet to look at with their names and pictures on it.­

The Yoda eraser that was given to me by a 2nd year student after class ended.

4^th period is a complete other story. Generally, this class is the least-behaved and has the lowest level English out of each of the 3 different classes for 2^nd year students. One student in particular is very loud and confident when answering questions, and while his comprehension and English is good, his attitude about it is quite disrespectful since his demeanor in class tells me that he really doesn’t care, and he’s in a “too cool for school” phase. During lunch with the 2-1 class, I also did not end up speaking to the students very much. They just are not talkative and don’t have confidence in their English for the most part. There were a good handful of students who paused and had to sit down without answering the questions we prompted them since they just totally blanked without knowing what to say.

Snapshot Saturday #7 - Thanksgiving Dinner in Aomori (11/28)

In the morning starting at 9:00AM, we helped make Thai Green Curry for the Global Party which collaborated with the volunteer group for an event hosting university exchange students from Thailand, Vietnam, China, and Taiwan. There were only 3 of us Americans here including myself. We met a lot of new people and added them on LINE.

Kelsey and I testing out the Thai Curry as we just about finish cooking the meal. It was delicious, Reminded me of home oddly enough.

Late Thanksgiving dinner @ Masako's house on 11/28. Card games were going on on the left, while dinner was just behind the wall to the right. There was mashed potatoes, mac 'n' cheese, turkey, cranberry jelly, and other traditional foods! Felt like an authentic Thanksgiving Day dinner. Definitely needed this to recharge my batteries.

Snapshot Saturday #6 - Lucky Perriot Burgers and Goryōkaku in Hakodate 「ラッキーピエロ」と「五稜郭」(11/21)

*Place Holder* Sorry I didn't write anything!

Snapshot Saturday #5 (11/14) -

Snapshot Saturday #4 - Shirakami Sanchi「白神山地」(11/7)

Today I went to Shirakami Sanchi, which hosts a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I tagged along with two friends, Keita (In the foreground, Nickname: Maru-chan) and Andres (in the background). Maru-chan drove us and we set out to try and see several different places in the area.

At the very start of our hike towards Anmon Falls. This post reads,
｢白神山地世界遺産地域　入口」
(Shirkamisanchi Sekaiisan Chiki. Iriguchi; Shirakami Sanchi World Heritage Area. Entrance)
Thank you Google Translate.

Man-made waterfall also at the very beginning.

Mini panorama of Maru-chan and the trail leading towards the falls. It was a very very easy hike of about 15 minutes.

Both Maru-chan and Andres are photographers, so we took a lot of these kind of photo breaks.

One of my own photos en route to Anmon Falls. Just a small creek waterfall thingy, beautiful nonetheless.

AND WE'VE ARRIVED. Anmon Fals was close due to the cold weather and coming winter.

Near the parking lot, once we returned from the trail, we saw a huge playground resting on a hill with a giant slide. Maru-chan and I braved it. It was actually quite intimidating to look at, but it wasn't as bad as it seemed. The first time I went down, I went way too slow, so I took of my jacket and slid using that.

A photo of what I think is Iwaki River - named after the nearby mountain, Iwakisan (Mt. Iwaki)

Next stop: Nishimeya Village (西目屋村; Nishimeya Mura) where there is a famous waterfall - particularly in Winter - called Chichihoke Taki or Chichihoke Waterfall. I'm not sure what the huge sword symbolized, nor what we were supposed to do with it, if anything. Just to the right of the tip of the sword you can see the shrine area.

The shrine area was only 3 switchbacks from gronud level. The path entrance was just behind the waterfall that you can see just trickling down from the cliff above.

There was A LOT of nationalism going on in the shrine area. There were about 4 of these shrines of different sizes. I wonder what it meant...

After a long day, and a few more stops, we ended up in Goshogowara - a city famous for it's summer festival, tachinebuta.. We were in the city, however, for dinner inside a huge shopping mall called ELM.