Wild boars & monkeys, oh my!

About a month ago, I went to what you might call a state park for a short hike.  I came upon this on the notice board near the entrance.

As if the picture and the red exclaiming-type image weren't enough to figure it out, it says to watch out for wild boars.  There is also advice for if you do happen to run into one.  Put any food you might have into your backpack.  Definitely don't feed it!  Back away slowly.

I guess it depends on where you live, but although there was a wide variety of wildlife where I came from, we didn't have wild boars.  Or monkeys.  But sometimes there are monkey warnings in Japan too! 

This is a monkey warning sign along a highway in Aichi Prefecture.  Those monkeys are no joke!  Check out that over-turned truck!! 

 

Unfortunately, I have never seen a wild boar or a monkey in a public place.  I have been to Arashiyama in Kyoto, where you can climb a small mountain and go visit some monkeys.  You can feed them apple slices from inside a building (through a fence-type window).  Photos from Arashiyama below:

"You're almost at the top.  The monkeys are waiting for you!"

"What is the meaning of life?  Oh wait, I'm just a monkey.  Bananas!"

Student art

A couple of weeks ago, all the 6th grade classes at one of my schools held an art "exhibition" in their classrooms and invited all the other kids to come during the break times.  It was all Buddhist art (I believe they had been to Nara awhile ago and saw the great Buddha there).  Every student's work was different, since there are so many varieties of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.  These two were my favorites.

One of the many-faced, many-armed Bodhisattvas.  I've always liked these kinds of statues.

This one...I have no idea how this was made.  Look at it!  This picture could have multiple interpretations, but I think it's Fudo Myo-o (a kinda angry-looking protective deity).


**Disclaimer: I'm not a Buddhist, therefore any information on this page comes from Google.  If I'm mistaken, sorry!

Kyushoku #2

As promised, more pictures of Japanese elementary school's lunch!

A more Japanese-style lunch.  Rice, miso soup, dry crunchy beans with kinako, and fish in a slightly sweet sauce.  There was also "wakame furikake", but I generally prefer plain rice so I opted out. 

Bread with chocolate spread, chicken & quail eggs, "bi-fun" with veggies.  OK, I have to explain some of this...  First off, chocolate on bread is super delicious!  I never had this before coming to Japan.  Next, I had to look up "bi-fun" and I came up with "rice noodles".  It's a kind of noodle from China.  Finally, the quails eggs.  When my mother visited Japan many years ago, I brought her with me to school and we had quails eggs.  She was surprised to see them in school lunch because back home, these kinds of eggs are much more expensive than regular eggs.  I bought some once, but trying to peel the shell of those tiny things was much more trouble than it was worth!

Seriously, I recommend trying chocolate on bread.  You can try cake frosting, if you have it!  Or if you're in Japan, many grocery stores have chocolate spread, in the same section as peanut butter and jam.

Crime?? in Japan?!?

From early this morning, I could hear alot of sirens, then helicopters.  The helicopters have been going all day long.  I knew this wasn't something good.


A man stabbed a police officer in front of a koban (like a mini neighborhood police station, usually manned by 1 or 2 officers) near a train station.  Stabbings/slashings aren't too rare, especially as the weather warms up and all the crazies & pervs emerge from hibernation.  BUT, the suspect stole the officer's gun.  This ups the danger level to 11. 


I also received notification that if the suspect isn't caught by 9am tomorrow, school will be closed for the day.  I wonder if this isn't taking things a bit too far, considering how difficult this makes things for families with both parents working/single parent families.  If school is cancelled, the after school care is also cancelled. 


In some countries, where pretty much everyone has guns, this wouldn't be a big deal, I guess.  It highlights how generally SAFE Japan is.  However, even in Japan, crime does happen, so you shouldn't let your guard down too much.




EDIT:  The suspect was arrested the next morning, just over 24 hours after the initial crime.  It was early enough so most schools were able to open as normal, some with slight delays.  More information keeps coming, but this guy came here from Tokyo on purpose.  He called in a fake robbery report to get most of the officers out of the koban.  It's been said that earlier this year, he was trying to get the addresses of classmates from his school days (he used to live around here until he went to university in Tokyo), so it's possible he wanted some very very late revenge for some childhood slight?  He's also certified as "mentally ill", though at the risk of sounding insensitive to people with actual mental illness, how bad could his illness be if he was able to put this plan into motion?

Counting in Japanese

I suppose English can be just as difficult, when I think about it.  Which words do you add "s" on the end to make it plural?  Which words remain the same in both singular and plural forms?  An ear of corn.  A bunch of bananas. 


In Japanese, it seems like every single thing has its own word for counting.  Usually you can get away with the generic counting words hitotsu, futatsu... (1 of something, 2 of something...) or ikko, nikko... (1 of something generally small, 2...).

This quiz was part of a handout at one of my schools.  How do you count each of these??


#1 - Tofu is counted as "chou" (丁), so one block of tofu is icchou.


#2 - One bowl of rice can be counted two ways, ichizen （１ぜん）or ippai
     （１ぱい）.


#3 - One squid (as food, not as an animal) can be either ippai or ippon (一本）.


#4 - One cabbage can be either ikko (as I mentioned above) or hitodama （１玉）.


#5 - A bunch of bananas is hitofusa （１ふさ） and one banana is ippon (same as  
       one squid).


#6 - One...I don't know...bunch? of somen noodles pre-cooking is either
       hitotaba （１束）or ichiwa （１わ）.


I think one of the hard parts is even just the number 1 has many ways of pronouncing it.  It can be ichi, or that can be blended into the following word (ippai, icchou).  It can also be added as "hito" from hitotsu.  How do you know which one to use??  Sometimes I can guess from just having been in a Japanese language environment for so long (kind of like how I can usually write a kanji in the correct stroke order even if I never wrote it before).  Other times....no clue!

School Clubs

Today's topic is school clubs.  I'll be talking about elementary school clubs, which are rather different from junior high school (and beyond) clubs.


First off, there are two different kinds of clubs.  The first kind take place during school hours, usually once a month, and are manditory.  The second kind are out of school hours and are only for students who want to join.  These are competitive sports clubs such as baseball or badminton.


What kinds of manditory clubs are there?  These vary from school to school, according to the interests of the general student body and teachers.  Of course, there are sports clubs.  Some are specific sports while others are general "outdoor sports" or "gym sports" clubs.  Computer clubs are quite popular.  There are also various arts and crafts clubs, including origami, "kirie" (cut paper art), and sewing.  Other clubs include cooking, ecology/recycling, traditional Japanese games such as shogi, sign language...the list is nearly endless.  One of my favorites (though I've never seen them in action) is comedy club.  I can't imagine what a bunch of elementary school kids can come up with!  I heard they sometimes have performances for senior citizen groups... 


With such a variety of clubs, anyone can find something that interests them (which is good since they're manditory, right?).  What kind of club do you think you'd like to join?  Personally, I'd join the sign language club.  I'm interested in Japanese sign language (shuwa), but no longer have anyone to practice with. My daughter's special needs school teachers all use shuwa to support students with limited verbal skills.