I’m at the coffee shop downtown (it was a latte that was 380 yen) and walked through a lot of floaty snow to get here from school. That was something! It’s not like I’ve never seen snow falling before, but this is still all new to me. There’s slushy icy snow all over the sidewalk so it’s a bit hazardous, the walking. Snow gets in your eyes. How about THAT! And when you breathe, it goes up your nose. Now, I’ve done the ‘trying to catch snow on the tongue’ thing plenty of times, but how can this breathing snow up your nose stuff have never happened? So there’s a lot of snow and it’s not old yet. I mean, there’s a lot of old snow (and it’s grody and dirty) but it’s still a novelty for me.
There was some added difficulty on this walk because my pants won’t stay up. I’ve got some (whisper) silky underwear on today and, as it happens, my new purple pants (yes, purple, they are strange) are lined in some satin-y flowered stuff. So, (whisper) silky skivvies + satin-y lining = pants shimmy down my hips all day. I really meant to put on a belt today cause the pants? They are also too big. But they’re new so I’ve got to wear them and they are not as ‘too big’ as all my other pants.
Today I wrote a lesson on racism and I think I offended a teacher I work with. I’d found an article on racism in high schools in the US (it’s from YM, so it’s not all serious and talking about hate crimes) and, after having the students read it in groups, I want them to tell me about racism in Japan. I try to get them to write to me about their opinion in just about every lesson and they always reply with some wishy-washy statement that reflects whatever opinion they think I might have. So, on the lesson sheet I asked them to reply with their opinion to the following statement: “Though they don’t act out violently, the Japanese are quite racist. They believe they are superior to other races.” NOW, before I get hatemail, let me explain. This is not an opinion I necessarily have (though one I have heard expressed before and since coming to Japan a lot). My goal here is to get the students a bit riled up and really give them something to write an opinion about. But I took it to a teacher and asked if it was a bad idea, if it would offend anyone and I think the answer is (ahem) yes. She started telling me about how 10 years ago, many Japanese people believed this, but since the economy has started to go all wacky, they don’t believe it anymore and maybe the Japanese believe they are superior to other Asians, like, you know, the Chinese and Koreans and I stopped listening cause she’d kind of just blabbed her way into proving my statement.
Now, before I offend anyone else, sayonara.