Saturday, March 1, 2003

What I did today Today, I... Went to Akizuki for the farewell party for the sixth years; Went into Hiroshima to meet three of the panellists for the Ogiri event; Went to Kure with Komaki-kun, Fukushima-kun, Kitagawa-kun, and Komai-kun; Went to Mejiro for ramen with Komaki-kun until about midnight.

Spent a chilly (no, freezing) two hours in the gym at Akizuki Elementary School this morning, watching the Sixth-years' Farewell Party. This basically consisted of a series of presentations by each of the six year groups, the teachers, and the PTA, as a send off for the shortly-to-graduate sixth-years. One of these presentations, of course, was 'The Glove', the English play the children had been practicing in my lessons. It wasn't bad at all in the end, although the perfectionist in me was disappointed in the fact that some of the children whose pronunciation had been excellent during the rehearsals let themselves down on the day. Still, the children who I'd corrected during the practices did seem to remember at least some of my advice, and in the end I couldn't say I really had any complaints about how the children did. The rest of the presentations weren't bad either, especially the first-years' play. The sixth-years' attitude to all this, though, was as predictable as it was irritating- complete indifference bordering on insolence. The school will be better off without these children, I think it's fair to say.

This evening, I went to the American Base in Kure with Komaki-kun, Fukushima-kun and Kitagawa-kun, all members of the JMSDF. Fukushima-kun and Kitagawa-kun also brought along their sempai, Komai-kun. We drank plenty- the Japanese members enjoyed the foreign beers available, I think- and we ordered copious amounts of food. Between the five of us, we must have ordered enough appetizers, salads, steak sandwiches and various other sundry dishes to have fed a group at least three times larger. We finished off with a huge (and very good) pizza, and Kitagawa-kun even managed a 16-oz hamburger steak! Not content with this, though, we went next to the yatai in Kure, where we ate and drank yet more. Catching the final ferry back, Komaki-kun and I then left the others and went to Mejiro for a bowl of ramen, and chatted until midnight. It was a very enjoyable, companionable sort of evening- made even better by the fact that the food in the base is so cheap (all we ordered only cost 1600 yen each!)- and in addition, I don't think I'll need much at all to eat tomorrow!

Japan A-Z Seppuku Seppuku, written with the characters 'cut'-'stomach', is probably better known in the west by the term harakiri (incidentally written with the same characters, but in reverse order). Seppuku (harakiri is rarely used in Japanese) is the way of committing suicide by cutting open the abdomen. Suicide by seppuku was favoured by samurai as a way of dying honourably rather than living with shame.