With October over, it’s been an incredibly busy past few weeks, but all a lot of fun. I’ve had real opportunities to grow closer with my coworkers and peers. I’ve been getting more and more comfortable with my work and my role in the school, as well as life outside school.
Since my last posting, I have become a regular at an Izakaya, a sort of traditional Japanese pub. It has become a nice place for my friend and I to meet up for an hour or two on Friday nights to catch up on the past week. The owner and bartender is very friendly and is good about getting conversations started with other people. This has, by extension, made it a great place to practice Japanese. It’s been quite useful and a good way to practice in a low-stakes environment. I use it as a way to learn more about Sapporo and local places, as well as ask about words in the local dialect. We are now greeted by name whenever we walk in and always well looked-after.
On top of this, I have gotten used to hanging out more with my fellow ALTs, from a weekly DnD session with one group, another group for semiregular movie nights, another for sharing interesting history about Sapporo and Hokkaido at the library, as well as just normal friend groups and people I spend time with individually.
On the subject of being more sociable, I’ve been able to connect better with my fellow teachers. I’ve begun to better understand how each of them teaches, so I can adapt my own work to best match their teaching styles. I have found myself synergizing particularly well with one of the 3rd year teachers, who has spoken highly of our classes together. Her classes have been some of the easiest for me to teach, with our teaching styles complementing each other very well. I also had the chance to attend a teaching conference with some of my English teachers, which was a great experience. I’ve also been connecting with some of the other faces around the school, such as a very popular 3rd year Japanese teacher, as well as a moment shared with the principal over our mutual love of cats in which we showed each other pictures of our own cats.
One quite surprising interaction I had was with the school librarian, she came up to me and introduced herself one afternoon. While doing so, she reached out for a handshake, which immediately told me she had studied somewhere outside of Japan. The questions were the standard ones I’d heard, but eventually I had mentioned that I visit my grandmother in Munich often, to which she replied “Grüß Gott”, a greeting typical for southern Germany and Austria. It turned out she had studied abroad in Frankfurt in her youth and learned German, although had lost a lot of it since. From that point on, we would greet each other in German in the hall.
In terms of interesting German things, I enjoyed my first trip outside of Sapporo since arriving. A friend and I decided on day trip over to Otaru, a nice port side town on the Sea of Japan side of Hokkaido. It was pretty spontaneous, but I was keen on getting out of my apartment. Being only an hour train ride from the center station, it’s a pretty painless trip. The train was pretty crowded, but the views were particularly beautiful as we got further out of the city. The end of the journey was particularly beautiful as the train zipped down the coast, flanked by tall mountains on one side and waves crashing on the rocks on the other, all while the distant docks of the port grew closer.
Upon arriving, we made our way to the water, but not before getting sidetracked into a small and crowded covered seafood market. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen more crabs in a single place. We headed further down towards the water, meandering to whatever looked interesting before reaching the landmark the city is known for: its canal. Otaru has been an important port city in Hokkaido since the late 19th century. This turned a once small village into a major financial and business center, with its history reflected in its unique western architecture. Even now, the port still serves an important role in trade, with signs down by the docks in English and Russian. In fact, there were still the occasional Russian buildings, though they did appear quite run down now. The streets were almost overwhelmed with tourists admiring the main street, which would not have looked out of place in many European towns.
We spent our time in Otaru mostly exploring, but made two notable stops, one of which being a music box museum, which was an old wooden building that was more of a store than a museum. Despite this, it was an interesting visit, with a lot of very impressive pieces on sale and display, from handheld to the size of a grandfather clock. It was nice to browse for twenty minutes, but we were on our way not long after. By now we were wrapping up our day and headed out for the Otaru Beer Warehouse No.1. A modest brewery resturaunt that looked like a proper beer hall. While this trip was mainly a chance to check out the city, it was also a chance to get some German food. I ordered a pretzel and schnitzel, eager to scratch a long unscratched itch. The pretzel came out first and was really tasty, a refreshing contrast to the pretzels painted in melted butter one might find at German restaurants in the states. The strange mood of being in a very European-looking building eating a pretty authentic pretzel got even stranger when our meals arrived. Not by any waiter, but instead by robot, which proceeded to happily shuffle across the floor before spinning around to deliver our meals. I was too enamored with the atmosphere to really be taken aback by this, I mean, why wouldn’t a robot deliver our food? Evidently, I was too hungry to give this too much thought. The schnitzel, like the pretzel, was really quite good. It wasn’t anything mind-blowing, but really solid. My friend who wasn’t had schnitzel before was having a religious experience, convinced it was the best thing he ever tasted. Overall, the trip was really great, and I definitely intend to make the trek out again.
Moving back to the topic of school, our school festival was held at the end of September. There were no lessons held that day, and parents were welcome to come as visitors. The weeks before had been spent by students working on either decorating their classrooms to various themes, or rehearsing and practicing stage shows. Throughout various times blocks during the day, students could walk around the school and visit the decorated classrooms, or visit the gymnasium to see the various plays and skits the students had prepared. I had a chance to watch some of the stage performances and was impressed at the quality of the acting and some of the humor of the skits, even if my language ability limited my ability to completely comprehend the stories. The costumes and sets were all made my the students and were quite impressive. My English teacher’s 3rd year class did a play with a whole dance number that she herself participated in! The rooms were really just as impressive, with huge structures made from painted cardboard, from trees, to buildings, it was pretty amazing. One classroom was made into a convenience store, another was host to a bunch of recreations of world landmarks, and one was a particularly impressive walk through a minecraft-themed maze. It was a really fun day and great seeing all the hard work the students had put in pay off.
Continuing with school events, just a month later was the chorus contest. Similar to the school festival, there were no lessons held, and the school was opened up to visiting parents. Throughout the day, each class would sing their prepared songs in the gymnasium, with breaks in between the grades. The students had been practicing for weeks before, in substitution of their last period of classes. I was sure to attend all the songs throughout the day, having heard all the work they put into practicing.
The singing was really fantastic and a great respite from lesson planning and other duties. After all the singing, the principal and some teachers who had served as the judges for the competition announced and gave out the awards. The event was concluded with a performance by the chorus club, which was really fantastic. It was a long day for the students and teachers, but all a lot of fun. Despite this, it was not the end of the day for the teachers. That evening would be a nomikai, one of the infamous Japanese work parties. I had been invited along the week before, and the day had finally come.
I left school as usual and headed home to drop off my bag, wash up, and have a snack. The nomikai would be in the center of the city, and only a 15-minute walk from my apartment. I headed over comfortably in advance and waited outside the restaurant for anyone I knew. I was quite nervous at this point since I really had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know much more than the basics of the etiquette, if anyone would want to talk with me, or what the food was going to be like. I eventually saw a group of teachers I had recognized and tagged along. We entered the restaurant and were led over to a large row of tables that already had about 15 teachers, sitting, as well as the principal. It was quite strange seeing everyone dressed so casually, but after finding my seat, I started to feel more comfortable.
I was seated with two teachers I hadn’t spoken to or really interacted with much before, we started talking pretty much immediately, and I got to work using the start of the large amount of Japanese I would be speaking that night. One of the features of a nomikai is each person pays a flat fee that includes a set meal and all you can drink, this is typically two hours. After all drinks were poured and a short speech by the principal, we all toasted and the nomikai officially began. The two hours went by quickly. I spoke in my very broken Japanese, and teachers reciprocated with their varied levels of English, but we all managed to understand one another. I was the subject of great interest and was very flattered by all the compliments from my coworkers. When things wrapped up, we all left the restaurant and said our goodbyes to those who were leaving. I was then invited to the nijikai which is basically the after party. I accepted, and we walked down the street to the first place that had space for all of us. I had a chance to speak with one of the English teachers I hadn’t talked to much outside of class before then. The rest of the evening went by quickly, between chatting, drinking and snacking. We called it an evening, and I retired to my apartment, where I enjoyed a much-needed lazy weekend.
I didn’t really understand the importance of the nomikai as a part of the work culture until experiencing it. It’s really a lot more than just a drinking party, but really an extension of work life. It’s a chance to really bond with coworkers and get to know them in a way that isn’t possible in the school environment. In the week after, the teachers I spoke to started interacting with me more, and overall became much more comfortable to speak with me. I highly recommend this video, which takes a look at the nomikai from an American perspective, for those who wish to learn more.
While the nomikai was an unforgettable experience, this was not the end of things for this month. To jump back a bit, after the summer barbecue by the river, Hunter, the PA for Sapporo, expressed his interest in appointing a “Minister of Fun” to help arrange more fun events in the future. I volunteered for this role, and eventually me and two others were selected as the “Ministry of Fun”. We decided our first event would be a nomikai, as a chance for the considerable amount of new arrivals to get a chance to try out the experience with friends in a more comfortable environment before they were invited themselves to a school nomikai. It took a lot of work and planning, but the Friday after my own first nomikai would be the JET one.
The fellow members of the Ministry of Fun and I had the idea the month before, and were making plans all throughout the meantime. We spent a lot of time looking at places and comparing prices, a major deciding factor would be the food options, as we wanted to ensure everyone would be able to find something they would be able to eat, from allergies to dietary restrictions. We eventually decided on a place, only to find they were closed for the month. We managed to find another at the suggestion of Hunter and snagged the booking about two weeks out. Probably the trickiest part of the planning was keeping the RSVP list matched with our reservation. Everyone would be on the line of ¥4,000 ($26.27 USD at the time of writing) for their meals, so we wanted to make sure we wouldn’t need to pay for last minute cancellations. We added and removed some people throughout the time before the two weeks, but managed to finalize everything the day before without issue. Since this was to be a mock-version of a work nomikai, I decided I would role-play the principal. All this really entailed was giving a short speech and leading the toast.
The evening of the event finally rolled around. I dressed in my suit and grabbed my printed speech I had written the night before. The other two ministers and I met together and made our way to our venue early. People were already beginning to gather outside, the three of us entered ahead of time to get prepared. We had our own private room on the 2nd floor, three separate tables, and 25 seats. We immediately got to work, we had 2 decks of cards, one of which we placed on the seats at the tables. Once prepared, we invited people in. I stood in the hallway to greet people, bowing and saying otukaresamadesu, literally “you must be tired”, the typical salutation for the end of a working day. After paying, each person would get a card that would correspond to one of the cards placed before. This was our way of determining random seating. I continued greeting everyone and collecting money until everyone found their seats, at which the ministers and I drew for the final seats. I was sat at one of the smaller tables with people I hadn’t had the chance to speak with yet, which was quite nice. After this, I waited patiently until everyone got their drinks. Conversation had already started, and I was pleased to see that the seating seemed to be working well. Once drinks were all distributed, I stood to deliver my speech. I had tried to keep it shorter, but ended up speaking for about three minutes. It was pretty sappy and only mildly rehearsed, but went quite well. Afterwards, I raised my glass and lead the toast, kanpai!
The evening went pretty well, as I found myself much more relaxed, having more of an idea of what to experience with my previous experience. I spoke at lengths with Anna, who was from England and was one of the few people on the JET program who works as a CIR, or Coordinator for International Relations. Instead of working in a school, CIRs work at city hall and perform a more administrative role, this consists pretty heavily of translation, and unlike the ALT position, does require prerequisite knowledge of Japanese. The evening passed quickly, just as it had with the previous nomikai. After last calls were completed and people put on their coats, the ministers and I paid out what we collected and met with everyone outside. The consensus was for a nijikai, which we had anticipated. Instead of going out to another izakaya to snack and drink more, the consensus was on karaoke. After a quick call, we managed to get a room at easily the most popular karaoke chain among the JETs, Minekineko. It was quite popular for their outside food and drinks policy, so we made a stop at the convenience store to pick up snacks and beverages and headed out for karaoke. I only stayed for about an hour, being quite exhausted organizing the event and wasn’t keen on being in a bad way the next morning. I got home at around midnight and was fast asleep not long after.
Those were the major events of the past few weeks, but it would be silly not to end off the month of October with Halloween. I had made the decision to wear a costume, at least during my lessons for the day. After giving it some thought earlier in the month, Harry Potter seemed to be a pretty good costume. It worked well since it was pretty much only a matter of putting on a tie and a robe over my usual work wear. It was also one of the few costumes I could think of that pretty much all the students would recognize generally. What I thought would work out as a light-hearted prop for some of the lessons ended up being a greater hit than I ever would have expected. One would’ve thought I was actually Daniel Radcliffe with all the reactions of students, every single classroom I walked past was met with gasps of excitement. Even some of the other teachers faces would light up when they saw the costume. I was walking by the classroom of the previously mentioned 3rd year English teacher, only for her to rush out into the hall and call me back in to show off my costume. Upon turning into the classroom, all the students were standing and started clapping. I really didn’t know how to react to this, so I just bowed. The rest of the day was spent giving high-fives and being stopped by students who wanted to admire my costume. I was pretty shy about it at the beginning of the day, but I was really glad I decided to do it, since it really seemed to make for a new way of connecting with my students.
This was quite the undertaking to write compared to my last few posts. It really snuck up on me how much has happened in so short a time, and with so much more happening as I was writing this and the scope quickly getting out of hand, it had to find a good date for the cutoff. As I’m concluding this, there is already so much more stuff to talk about. I started journaling just before the end of the month to attempt to keep track of all the things going on, and hopefully make writing updates a little easier in the process. These past few weeks have really been defined by beginning to get more comfortable with life here, deepening connections with friends and coworkers, and exploring more of what Hokkaido has to offer me and what I can give back. I hope this read was exhaustive while not being too exhausting a read. As of writing, November is already well under way, with our first snowfall just last week. There are already many new things to share, but I’ll be saving it for the next post. Please look forward to it!