sechan19 | Scenes from a Life Japanese.

I've been riding at the front of the trains during my morning commute and observing the driver, trying to get a sense of how the well-oiled machine that is the Tokyo train system runs. The most interesting thing I've noticed is how the driver points forward right before the doors close, as if signaling. Of course the driver doesn't control the doors, and he's separated from the guy who does by ten cars. So how they coordinate is fascinating to me. I assume that both workers are simply on incredibly tight timetables, much in the way synchronized dancers coordinate by counting beats. I'll keep watching until I have it all worked out in my head.

In other news, I was astonished yesterday to discover that Anraku-sensei (an accomplished English-speaker) has never seen or heard of an artichoke. I went so far as to draw one on the white board for her, but didn't succeed in ringing any bells. I somehow saw artichokes as universal, but apparently some people live their entire life without them.

This morning I watched a live broadcast of a ceremony taking place to honor a sumo wrestler who'd been promoted to the highest rank. I was surprised to see the media blitz surrounding the event. I knew that sumo was popular, but not that it was breaking-news-style popular. The broadcast demonstrated what I consider to be an interesting example of how pop culture and traditional culture both coexist and co-mingle here.

And lastly, I was somehow elected the star of today's language class. My first brush with fame came when I became confused about an example sentence during today's kanji lesson. When the teacher questioned me about it, I tried to explain that while most of the sentence made sense I had no idea what a "doraemon" was. This struck everyone as extremely funny, and they spent an enjoyable few minutes explaining it to me.

It turns out that Doraemon is a very famous character from a popular manga - a robotic cat that can open doors to anywhere, anytime, etc. Being one of the few Americans (possibly the only American) at the school who did not come to Japan for the sake of manga or anime, this was my first brush with the strange phenomenon of Doraemon.

Later I was tapped to give dramatic performances illustrating various emotional states (for strictly grammatical purposes, of course). I did the first one - acting out cutting my hand and experiencing pain. Then the teacher tried, unsuccessfully, to get other students to do the same with different scenarios. After two other girls refused she came back to me, stating that I was so good at it that I might as well go again. This time I acted out a person who was sad because their dog died. Sometimes it's fun being the only Caucasian in the class.

Final points: be sure to scroll down for a second post that's tied to this one, wherein I put up some poems I composed today in class. And also, enjoy this photo of me goofing around. A friend put a teddy bear sticker on my cheek the other day, and I promptly forgot it and proceeded to wander the city with it affixed to my face. But I didn't get any extra looks or anything. After all, I'm a tiny, freckled, blonde-haired, blue-eyed gaijin. A teddy bear sticker on the cheek is really just frosting.