sneak peak

Huge day today and must get some sleep or my two year old class tomorrow is really going to drag. Or we could learn some new action verbs- nap, rest, lie down, sleep?

But had to share this shot of Amy discovering the magic of hot hands and chocolate coated snacks:

oops

I guess the moral of the story is don't come home from a night out and decide to blog.

Not sure which version will reach you but neither one is at all informative and both shall be denied in the morning. ;)

Oh God, it's Christmas

Every year at this time of year I get all in a muddle.

All my classes want to do something Christmassy.

I want to do something Christmassy.

But I don't want to do something fried chicken, strawberry shortcake and presents for the childrenny.

I want to talk about the meaning of Christmas.

But I'm not a Christian. I don't want to (nor could I) preach.

Searching for Christmas materials on line you tend to find two kinds- religious and secular.

Religious has baby Jesus, Bethlehem, angels etc.

Secular has Santa, presents, candy, snowflakes and snowmen.

(I'm from Australia. No snowmen at my Christmas secular or otherwise...)

While I would feel odd teaching a purely religious Christmas when it's not what I observe I also think it's odd to completely take God out of Christmas. One of my students lived in the US for a while. She told me she was instructed to say 'Happy Holidays!' rather than 'Merry Christmas!' That seems really bland to me. And in Japan it's not a holiday anyway. And if you take baby Jesus out of the nativity you are left with a bunch of farm animals. Happy Farm Animal Day! Nope doesn't work for me.

I want a third option. I'm thinking of calling it moral.

My moral Christmas has an emphasis on giving and being grateful, thinking about those who make sacrifices for our happiness and what we can sacrifice (I'm thinking time, energy and money rather than lambs or first born sons) to help others.

In my kids classes we usually decorate cookies. I give each kid two cookies. One for them and one for someone they love. They decorate them both, eat their cookie and we bag up and attach a gift tag to the other cookie. It's important to me that they are not just getting a cookie but giving one as well.

This year in my Christmas Bingo, among the snowflakes and reindeer, I left in 5 religious cards- Bethlehem, Mary and Jesus, Three wise men, a star and an angel. There's no reason why I chose those 5, I printed off a premade Bingo set from the internet. But it gave me an in to talk a little bit about the meaning of Christmas.

And what conversations they have been. Did you know:

The three wise men were the only ones who could see the Emperor's new clothes?

The angel was Jesus' mother?

Bethlehem is in Pakistan. Where America is fighting?

We put the star at the top of the Christmas tree because it has sharp points and would be dangerous lower down?

That would be funny if it was from my kid's classes but no. It's from my senior women.

And I'm glad that by the end of this Christmas we should have a better understanding than that at least.

odd

I was out the back feeding the chooks and picking broccoli.

The girls were inside playing their umpteenth round of 'nice mummies'.

I heard a voice "Hello?"

Walking around the side of the house was an older Japanese man.

I am used to random door knocking old men: the electricity meter checker, the gas man, the other gas man in the village who wants to be our gas man, the kerosene delivery man, the yakult woman, the milk man, the newspaper man etc etc. We don't actually have any of these things delivered but every 6 months or so one of them will pop in to see if they can't convince us to sign up. When I say pop in I mean it literally. If the front door is unlocked they'll come into the genkan, if no-one's in the house they'll walk around the back to see if we're out there.

So anyway, I didn't recognise today's old man so just answered "Hello?"

"Can you sell me some cigarettes?"

"Sorry?"

"Ahhh, are you from that house?" (pointing to the old house, it has a roof and walls but it's a stretch to think you would live there)

"No. This one."

"Well can you sell me some cigarettes?"

"No. I'm sorry. The shop closed about 15 years ago. You'll have to go down to the bottom of the hill and the shop there."

"Oh. No cigarettes at all then?"

"No. Sorry."

Very odd. This house did indeed used to be a cigarette shop. But that was 15 years ago. And there was an actual shop out the front. You know with a sign and cigarettes in the window and all that. To have not visited in 15 years, not notice the lack of shop, not noticed that I'm not the old woman who ran the shop etc etc rather odd.

Saw the man off and went back inside.

"Meg? Did someone come to the door?"

"Yes."

"Did you know who it was?"

"No."

"What did he say?"

"Hello."

"What did you say?"

"I said mummy's out the back."

"Don't you practice stranger danger at kinder? What does sensei tell you to do?"

"He wasn't a stranger! He was just an old man."

Fabulous. Glad to know all that stranger danger practice is working, huh?

frosty morning

It was freezing this morning.

Literally.

I really feel as an Australian I should be exempt from window scraping duties. Brrrrr. But after one very stupid morning when I thought I'd drive without scraping my window (made it 10 metres before I had a panic attack and stopped...) I suck it up and do it.

Trying to look on the bright side of freezing temperatures I tried to take some pictures of the frost. Hmmm still haven't got this camera sorted but:

Looks like my wishes are coming true this year so I would like to modify yesterday's 'here's to it getting colder' to 'here's to it getting colder at the ski resorts'.

blue sky days

Beautiful blue sunny day today. 11 degrees, no wind, even a view of the Alps. The Alps are really quite bashful. Once there's snow up there if there's any wind the snow blows around and you can't see the outlines clearly. I really think the picture perfect postcard view of the Alps happens about once or twice a year if we're lucky.

11 degrees though. First day of December, first day of Winter and it's 11 degrees. I was actually too hot in my thermal vest* and woolly jumper. This warm weather is supposed to continue for the next couple of months. This is not good. Not good for the ski industry which means not good for Nagano. And the last thing we need is another blow to the economy so, I can't believe I'm saying this but, here's to it getting colder.

*Don't judge me. I resisted "baba shirts" -thermal vests- for 8 years but I'm a convert. They are warm. Really warm. Those old women know what they're talking about. No, they're not sexy but one of those babies alleviates the need for about three layers of regular clothes which allows for a silhouette the right side of the Michelin man.

I only wear the white or baby pink ones though. There's no excuse for wearing the beige ones.

None.

a doozy of a phonecall

I think I would say I am conversationally bilingual. I will not be interpreting for heart surgeons or international financiers any time soon but in my daily life I function in Japanese without consciously thinking about it.

And then occasionally I have an absolute doozy of a conversation and feel like a right idiot.

Today's phonecall was one of those.

Hi! Fukase-san?

Yes?

This is Maruyama-san from the bazaar.

Hi.

You forgot a phone tree yesterday didn't you?

(??? Oh no. Really???!!! How???!!!!) A phone tree?

No. Some washing. At the bazaar. On the veggie table. Some washing.

(Phew... But washing? I didn't take any washing with me.... washing?) Washing?

Washing? No a calculator. Cal-cu-lator.

Ahhh! A calculator!

Yes! A green calculator. It's yours, isn't it?

The one with the photo stickers on it? No, that's not mine. Mine was red with goldfish on it. That one was there before I started.

Really? We all looked at the photo stickers and were sure it was you...

Oh? I thought the woman in the picture definitely looked Japanese....

In my defense, I was tired, serving dinner with one hand and on the cordless phone at the time. But still, a pretty weird conversation and a jolt to my Japanese ability confidence, hey....

Oh and the words I mucked up- renraku, sentaku and dentaku.

Double Oh- I really wish I had taken a picture of the photo sticker now. It was definitely a Japanese woman.... I know if you've been here long enough people stop looking 'Asian' but is the reverse true, too? Have the locals got so used to seeing my face around town I've stopped looking 'Western'?? Hmmmmm......