Why am I leaving? Well, I'll admit I was a bit homesick after coming back from the US which I think affected my decision... if I had been asked a month after that my answer may have been different... but in the end I suppose that I really should be "getting on with my life" in the US. Not to say that there's nothing left for me to do or learn in Japan (quite the opposite!) and I hope to visit Japan in the future when I can (or maybe even live here again for a while but probably not permanently). But if I look back at what I've done in Japan, I think I've actually accomplished a lot. I successfully lived in a foreign country for over a year, I taught English to different age groups and confirmed that teaching is a profession that would work for me, and I improved my Japanese language ability (not as much as I would have liked, but that's my fault for not putting in more effort). Basically, I think I did pretty well. And even though I'll be really sad to leave my students, teachers, and neighbors (I'm getting teary just thinking of it) I'm sure that they will have fun communicating with and learning from the new JET too. In the end I hope they have fond memories of me and that some of what I taught them will help them at some point in the future... my that sounds vague (but I still hope it's true) : )
So, my contract will end on July 31st and a new ALT (I don't know who yet) will arrive on August 1st. My brother will come visit at the end of July and then the first week of August we will travel up to Hokkaido (northern island) and around Tohoku (northeast area) a bit. After that we'll go down to Tokyo and meet my sister at Narita airport (she's studying abroad in Chile at the moment which is why she'll be arriving later). All three of us will then spend a couple of weeks sightseeing in the southern and eastern parts of Honshu (the main island). It's going to be AMAZING!
I still don't know exactly what I'm going to do when I get back to the US but I've heard that the job market is slightly better than it was when I left so I'm sure I'll find something eventually... In the meantime I'll continue my blog. I'll probably even continue to save up pictures and stories so that I can still write a bit about Japan even while living in the US. Once that's done I might turn this into a travel blog - in other words, incentive for me to travel more!
Anyway, now onto sun-related stories!
In Japan most people get suntanned pretty easily. But some people (mostly women/girls) prefer to have paler skin since that's currently considered to be more "beautiful". Back in the US most people seem to prefer the whole tan skin/blonde hair look (like my beautiful college-age cousins). Of course, there are people who use tanning booths and spray-tans as well. For someone like me, who gets burned instead of tanned, I imagine a spray-on tan would make me look rather like an orange. Anyway, in Japan it's generally the opposite with women sometimes going to great lengths to avoid getting tanned. At my school there's a teacher who always has a hat and a parasol and wears arm-warmer looking sleeves that reflect UV rays when she goes outside.
Sunglasses are considered a "fashion accessory" in Japan. Though I was relieved to find that they still claim to block UV rays when I purchased a couple recently. Most people in Japan have dark brown eyes (though if you ask them the students say they have "black eyes" which makes me laugh). Since the iris is such a dark color, not a lot of harmful radiation from the sun can make it to the inner eye and cause damage. But even though sunglasses aren't strictly necessary... they're still cool, right? So people in Japan still wear them, sometimes even when it's not bright out (or even at night). When my students see me outside with my sunglasses on they say that I "look like a spy," haha. Actually, just before I went to Japan I read an interesting BBC article about how thousands of years ago people in Europe actually adapted to have larger eyes so that they could see better on darker days.
Anyway, a few days ago I was riding the school bus with some elementary students and a boy from my neighborhood looked at me and asked me straight-out why I didn't have a suntan. So I explained that instead of turning brown my skin turns red and painful when exposed to the sun (I didn't mention the peeling though). All the students were very surprised to hear this. When asking his question the neighborhood boy used the word「日焼け」(hiyake) which can mean either "suntan"or "sunburn". Basically that language difference tells you how rare sunburns are in Japan.
A couple of weeks ago when I was teaching at Hashi Junior High School there were a few other sun-related events on the same day. During first period I was at one of the third year classes and they were working on a review worksheet at the end of class. I was walking around the room and helping students who were having a hard time. Shingo-sensei suddenly walked to the front of the room and started sniffing around as if there were a scent in the air. He walked down the middle row of students and stopped right in front of me.
Shingo: Erin-sensei, are you wearing perfume?
me: No... I don't think so.
Shingo: Maybe a lotion?
me: Ah, I'm wearing sunblock today, maybe it's that?
Shingo: "sunblock"?
me: Yes, so that I don't get sunburned.
Shingo: Ah, I see.
Apparently some of the students, who had been unable to identify the smell of the sunblock, asked Shingo-sensei what it was so he went to investigate. After that he explained to the students (in Japanese) that many people from Europe have skin that is "weak against the sun" and so have to wear sunblock. Most of the middle school students had never heard of a "sunburn" either so I explained that concept to them as well. I suppose in the past when they saw me wearing hats outside or whatnot they assumed that I was just trying to prevent a suntan, haha. Anyway, at the middle school the students wear school uniforms and have a pretty strict dress/appearance code (so no jewelry/perfume either) and the teachers tend to avoid too much makeup/jewelry as well (partly so that those things won't distract the students). After class I asked Shingo-sensei if I should find a "less smelly" sunblock to wear if it was so noticeable to the students, and he said that would probably be a good idea.
Still, I love how we get so much daylight at this time of the year! But the sun rises so early here in Minamisanriku! I bought thick curtains so that I can sleep until my alarm goes off. Here are the sunrise and sunset times for today:
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| Since there's no daylight savings, recently the sun has been rising around 4 AM (according to Accuweather) |
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| Half of the sun halo, taken with my cell phone |
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| See how it looks like an upside-down rainbow? |
rainbow near the sun = sundog
Which is not true! Really:
rainbow/light circling the sun = sun halo
spot of light or rainbow to the right or left of the sun = sundog
Unfortunately it's the start of the rainy season 梅雨 (tsuyu) or 雨期 (uki) in my area so there won't be as much sunlight over the next several weeks. Ugh, it's so humid out already, I feel like I'm living in a rainforest.
One last topic for today. I mentioned to my dad that Blogger lets me see where my readers are located around the world (probably based on their IP addresses). For example, over the past month:
And if I look at my all-time views:
The top two countries make sense but I'm not really sure why people in Russia or Germany would be interested in my blog... I can only speculate.
