... That's what one of the sixth grade teachers was asking the class as I walked in.
........ WHY?!
I'm sure that many JETs have encountered similar things at their elementary schools since the homeroom teachers don't have to have any prior knowledge of English in order to teach it for the required one hour per week. It can be very frustrating at times, but at least the teacher is trying... right?
Anyway, I actually wanted to talk about going to the movies in Japan. I've been going to the movies much more often than I ever did in the US since my roommate is a big movie fan. So since coming to Japan I've seen: the Immortals, Tin Tin, Sherlock Holmes 2, Hugo, Real Steel, and Cowboys and Aliens. Actually for Tin Tin, they had to change his name to Tan Tan since the Japanese version of his name is an inappropriate word.
The movie-going process is a bit different from how it is back home:
First of all (at least for Anne, Julia, and me) is choosing a movie to go see and a weekend in which to see it. The nearest theater is in Ishinomaki, about an hour away from our apartment (and it's even farther for poor Julia!). Movie theaters are not very common in Japan so finding a theater can be very challenging. Choosing a movie can be difficult too since most foreign films that are released are Japanese-dubbed so we need to specifically look for ones in English (which will have Japanese subtitles of course). Luckily subtitles are easy to ignore if you don't know what they say, haha. But because of the delay due to dubbing, many movies come out in Japan months after their initial US release. When we went to the movies just a couple of weekends ago we saw Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows which was released in the US last December (yikes).
Once we get to the theater, we buy our tickets. In Japan the ticket prices vary depending on where you sit; in our theater there are front-section, middle-section, and back-section tickets. You can even choose which specific seats you want if you come early enough. I think the middle-section seats are the most expensive but we get the cheapest, back-section ones. Even though they're the cheapest they're still expensive by my standards though since it's usually around 1800 yen (~ $21) per seat. I think that the fact that movie theaters are so rare definitely makes them more expensive; even the food and drinks sold at the theater don't seem so expensive in comparison!
Since the ticket prices are different in each section, there are assigned seats (as can be seen by the numbered seat in the photo above). In this case the cup-holders are also assigned! When we go to the movies, the theater is hardly ever crowded (people are probably just avoiding having to read subtitles). So even though we're sitting far away from the screen we still have no trouble seeing the movie. Before the movie begins there is a hilarious anti-piracy commercial that plays (just imagine watching it without subtitles and it becomes ten times funnier).
During the movie the other members of the audience are very quiet (and there's hardly any laughter even at the funny parts). At the end of the movie there is never a round of applause (like there is sometimes in the US at the end of a really great movie or when my brother attempts to start one at the end of a mediocre movie). It seems like most people take their trash with them as well (I always do anyway of course but in the US I think people are more likely to just leave their garbage for someone else to clean up). Another big difference is that the bathrooms in a Japanese movie theater are great; the toilets have seat-warmers, the room is incredibly clean, and the stalls always have toilet paper.
Anyway, that's the scoop!
No comments:
Post a Comment