What is it? これはなに？

Ever bought something and had no idea what it was? Never? Welcome to Japan, where even the knowledge of kana, kanji and grammar can still left you wondering what the heck is that thing you bought today :-) 

I would describe it as totally phenomenological experience (for the first time ever in my life using my Philosophy degree for something :-) ). The point of this game, kore-wa nani (what is it) is to simply erase your mind and try to embrace the object itself. You know nothing of it, but try to figure out what it can be :-) If you know - please don't spoil the fun for others.The answers will be posted in the same post every Sunday :-)

Can it be:

a/ Halloween inspired rose incense sticks;
b/ Japanese Halloween pick-a-stick game;

c/ pink Halloween chopsticks for kids;

d/ strawberry-flavoured Halloween sweets;

e/ berry-flavoured mosquito-killing incense sticks;

f/ Japanese pink crayons;

g/ girls hair ornaments for Halloween.

Good luck with guessing!
(answer below)
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d/ strawberry-flavoured Halloween sweets.
^_^

読本１：暴風警報

... and how the typhoon didn't let me have classes today after all

So it's official - warning is still in power and it means that there are no classes today. Oh well. Maybe I'm a studying geek, but I really regret that I don't have anything to do today. I guess I will do some self-study then. Everybody who diligently studies any language knows that there are always TONS to learn, so I shall be all right. I'm no expert on typhoons, 台風(taifuu), but this one seems strong, and all the precautions have been taken really seriously. Public transport has been suspended, there was a series of sirens and warnings. It's still unclear which way the typhoon no.15 (that's its name) will take, so all the regions are getting prepared. Here is the live coverage of 15's trajectory: http://weathernews.jp/typhoon/  


I've always liked studying. I could never understand people who complained that they HAD TO go to school. And how much they hated it. (Now you can see that all over the internet, unfortunately, because the teens with too much free time in their hands are in power over the net; my baby sister always updates me on pages like these http://www.kwejk.pl/, where on Sundays you see tons of pictures about how much they hate school, how much they don't need it and how much they would kill the teachers/parents if they could be MacGyvers and invent a laser gun from an eraser and math notebook... etc.). Oh, I would forget: how much they 'don't need no education' nor any A-levels or its equivalent to achieve anything in life. 

Well, it's fine with me. Drop out, go away, do something else with your life, so I do not have to be surrounded by you and laughed at how much of a geek I am, and then afterwards eagerly looked for when the test approaches so you have somebody to cheat from. And I could be spared all the talks from teachers who try to cheer you up, telling that you're not 'THAT hopeless', 'grades don't mean a thing', and 'you do have bright moments sometimes, which makes it more valuable for me as a teacher than listening to people who can talk smartly all the time'. All of which wonderfully cross out all my hard work for all my life.

But no, in Poland there is a so-called school duty till the age of 18. So instead of letting people do what they like at the age of 15 or 16, like in most reasonable countries, even cease studying if they wish to, in Poland they are still over-keeping them at upper high schools. How pointless, but foremost how discouraging it is for people that actually like learning new things, like to study and want to achieve something, we can all imagine.

Kids in Japan start going to school at the age of 6 when they enter 小学校 (shoo-gakkoo), elementary school. Before that, from as early as 3 years old they can attend 幼稚園(yoochi-en), kindergarten. After 6 grades of elementary school (altogether 6 years), there is a compulsory 3 year long 中学校(chuu-gakkoo), junior high school. Although since then the studying is not obligatory, over 98% of teens proceed to 高等学校(kootoo-gakkoo), known in short as 高校(kookoo), lasting 3 years. These who decide not to go to the upper high can decide to go to 高専(koo-sen), College of Technology, which lasts 5 years.

Afterwards they it all depends which road they want to take. 1/ They can proceed to 大学(daigaku), university, and after 4 years achieve a Bachelor equivalent; if they wish to continue, they can proceed to 大学院(daigaku-in) which roughly translates as 'graduate school', where you can obtain your Master and Ph.D.; university studies are not free, they require fees. 2/ They can go to school/college/university known commonly under the name of 大学校(dai-gakkoo), which are either provided by the national government or by independent institutions. For instance, it can be a Meteorological College provided by already mentioned Japanese Meteorological Agency, Japanese Coast Guard Academy or a Polytechnic University by the Ministry of Defense. Depending on the institution, fees are being paid for the student, some of them are even paying students the salary and provide them with work after graduation. On some of the institutions a further academic career is possible; 3/They can go to medicine-related schools like 医学部 (igaku-bu), Medicine School, 獣医学部 (juigaku-bu), Veterinary School, 歯学部 (shika-bu), Dentistry School, 薬学部 (yakugaku-bu), Pharmaceutical School, and 防衛医科大学校 (booei ikka daigakko), National Defense Medical College. On all but the latter there is a possibility of proceeding to Ph D. studies. 4/ Alternatively, right after upper high school they can go to 短期大学(tanki daigaku, literally short-term university) Community College, or a 専門学校(senmon gakko), Vocational School. They both last 2 years.

Going to university requires passing not only the university exams, but also the National Entrance Exam, conducted all around Japan on the same day. The best universities accept only the best students with great academic history and perfect exam performance.


In Japan the educational system is strict - you either wish to study, or just go away, but don't just sit back and expect miracles to happen afterwards. Any unexpected fortune to inherit, becoming another Bill Gates by sheer fluke, creating a new Apple you will name Pear, and one day becoming a music star. It will not happen if you don't take your life in your hands, and don't work hard to obtain it. If you do wish to study, don't do it half-way just to please your mommy and daddy, you can as well do it really hard, it will only be for your benefit. 

Already seeing a smirk on your face? Well, you are entitled to your own opinion. But how many worldwide-known and desired goods does your country produce? Why do you think that is? Japan is just a tiny little island country on the edge of three massive tectonic plates. People who like to see the obstacles everywhere have a perfect example of almost nothing but obstacles: earthquakes, typhoons, mountains, no free space for farming, not much land for crops, being and island country, very little national resources, post-World War II disasters, one of the weirdest languages in the world with a really weird writing system. How did this country manage to stand up and have such an influence on the entire world still baffles the researchers, but the fact that people are organized and determined to work hard and cooperate regardless of what they actually do definitely helps. If they farm animals, they give this task everything they can. If they are the サラリーマン, the white-collar workers, they still work as good as they can. If they study, they give their very best. 

And it all pays off in the long run. Because after all any country is mostly the sum of people that form its nation. And honestly, Japanese people are are one of the best 'resources' Japan has ever had. 

And now all together, gentlemen, all together! No place for 協調性がない人 - people with no cooperative spirit.

About how the typhoon warning got me sealed...

Yesterday we got a note from our teachers saying that '暴風警報' (boofuukeihoo, storm warning) was announced by the Japan Meteorological Agency (http://www.jma.go.jp/en/warn/index.html), and that if the warning was not raised by 7 a.m., then all morning classes would be cancelled. If the warning was not raised by 10 a.m., then afternoon classes would be cancelled as well. So far the warning is still in power, which made me a bit sealed in my room for now. It's a pity though, the morning classes were supposed to be kanji and culture and tradition, so pure pleasure. We will see about the afternoon soon though. It definitely does rain. A lot. It got significantly cooler, too, compared to the 35-ish temperatures and full sun during most of my first 2 weeks here.

One thing that will never cease to mesmerize me (in a very positive way), is the fact that Japanese have it all so... well, organized. Predictable. And even if something unpredictable happens, they simply don't panic, they follow certain rules and procedures. Nobody makes fun of the rules and procedures, nobody is 'smarter' than the system. Moreover, nobody even tries any shenanigans because the group will proverbially 'hammer the nail'.

'Are you scared of going to Japan?', 'How will you organize everything?', 'Aren't you a little bit anxious?'. These, along with 'Aren't you excited?' made me realize my departure for Japan was near. Was I scared? Anxious? To be honest - I was far more scared before coming to study in London. The Japanese have well in advance sent me detailed information about, well, EVERYTHING that could possibly concern the foreign student. About money, about arrival, about the university, about the dormitory, about the required documents, about things that I would need to do in the first week or two, about the food, about the best ways to travel/commute, about Kyoto in general... I got everything booked, everything prepared and the only thing I had to be stressed about was the flight itself... Which was fair enough, don't you think?

Approaching Korea... The view reminded me that I need to see the Hao Long Bay in Vietnam. Soon!

Marvelous clouds over Korea (the Koreans probably had a different opinion that day :-)

 

And here's Japan! I found it very amusing that the flight trajectory almost exactly copied Genghis Khan's 3 failed Japan invasion plans :-) No 神風, kamikaze, divine winds were here though, thank you very much!

It's a far cry from typical Polish mentality, where the communism has made more harm than most people imagine. Where following the rules makes you a 'loser' and an 'idiot' because 'the rules are set to be broken'. Where still the cunning ones who cheat, even at school, win, and in the shops you are at the mercy of the cashier, who is the queen, right? You have to beg for her time and attention, if you don't like it - bugger off to some other shop. Country where even being nice and saying 'good morning' and 'thank you' makes you feel like a weakling, because even if anybody answers, you can tell that they have already started thinking about why you are so nice, are you a whimp or something?

Anyway, sorry about that ramble. I'm just trying to say that I like Japan a lot, and I don't find its rules or people behaviour weird at all. More to that, I think a lot could be learned from Japan and its dealing with things, like the natural disasters for instance. When I think about how much fuss is made about few inches of snow in Britain, or about the yearly Polish spring floods in the areas they've always been occurring, my arms (if not other parts of the body) just... drop. With resignation, that is.

PS. Please forgive if the pictures don't seem to be lined correctly, I'm still learning how to edit things in here :-)

留学生's long way to Japan... no falling asleep, please!

Japan has always been my dream. It's hard to point when it all started, and when exactly I felt that Japanese is 'the one'. It might have been because of some rather old Japanese cartoons with first Italian, then Polish dubbing (that is why most Polish people are convinced that 'aiuto' is the Japanese word for 'help'; as we all know, Japanese anime characters like to shout 助けて, tasukete, A LOT). It might have been because of martial arts fascination. Or it might have been because I always wanted to study something original. And because I always loved languages and art, and kanji were just... well, not only beautiful, but also perfect for combining the two.

Anyway, what can be difficult about it? You just go to university and study, mostly losing your interest in the first 1-2 years, right? Well, it wasn't that easy. In this country of mine that I particularly dislike, Poland, not only was the major very exclusive - there were only 3 universities that offered it to average 12-15 candidates per year. That combined with 28 希望者(kiboosha, wishful people) per place and this lovely misleading information from bureaucratic university offices made me rejected so many times that I stopped to count them. But you know what? I didn't let go. I applied to a British university, where they welcomed me with their arms wide open, and am now studying in one of three best places in the world you can actually study Japanese outside Japan, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. With all my teachers being native Japanese, with all of them having a solid degree and courses in teaching, and the greatest entire year abroad in Japan scheme, believe me, I'm thanking goodness every. single. day I didn't end up in this Polish toxic 'Japanese clique' after all! (It was inevitable that I encountered some of them at some point... With one honourable exception - I've never met more pompous, self-centered and weird people in my life. I'm pretty sure it's the university that made them so convinced of their grandeur. Most of the time talking to them is just an upsetting waste of time.)

So anyway, I ended up in Kyoto for my year abroad, which I'm very happy about! I'm studying at 京都外国語大学, Kyooto Gaikokugo Daigaku, also known in short as just 京都外大, Kyooto Gaidai. I'm staying in one of the University student residences, which is really conveniently located and comfortable to live at, with a great dose of privacy and freedom. People are mostly nice too, all of them from different paths of university life and different language learning background, not to mention different home countries, so I'm really happy. This is what I wanted! And this is what I worked hard for!

So far saying that I'm enjoying it a lot is an underestimation! I'm so excited! I can't wait for the classes to start tomorrow, when I will become a real 留学生(ryuugakusei, exchange student; proper full name: 交換プログラム留学生 kookan puroguramu ryuugakusei)! 

(I will probably change my mind with the amount of homework I will be getting soon, but shhh about that for now! ;-) )

I'm in the middle of organizing my photos, but once I'm done, I will not fail to put some here :-)

Teramachi, Kyoto, Japan.

Welcome to my new blog, everybody!

Hello, and welcome to my new blog! It's new, it's fresh, and it will be about many things that generally weigh on the student's mind, but mostly concerning Kyoto, where I currently live, Japanese language with all its oddities and quirkiness, and everything that could possibly bother a foreign student in such a far-away place as Japan!

(So expect everything, basically.)

(Or: expect the unexpected, as one of my teachers would say, regarding some test)

There are few things that need to be set up before we start though:

1/ if you see squares in the title of the blog - please make sure to enable Japanese fonts for your computer. I'll be using Japanese in my posts, so please do it if you want to see it. If not and you don't mind squares here and there - don't do anything :-) (If you're not sure how to enable the fonts - there are plenty of tutorials on the internet.)

2/ although I'd love to, I'm not a native English speaker, and although I do try to write as clearly and mistake-free as possible, please forgive if there are some mistakes. Please, be so kind so as to spare yourself the effort of pointing the lexical/grammatical mistakes out in the comments, and judging my intelligence level by that.

3/ this blog will be billingual. Sometimes I'm in the mood of writing in English, sometimes in Polish, so posts will be either in English, or Polish. No matter how much I'd love to, I honestly have no time to translate the posts into the other language, so please forgive if something that would be of interest to you is not in English. I can promise it will not happen that often though!


Ok, everybody in for some adventure? Welcome aboard... the year abroad! (no pun intended)

Green tea with some sweets. Enjoyed at Matsunoo Taisha tea pavilion, 18/09/2011.