Letter from Japan, I quite like the lessons in my new school, some of them are the same as Scottish school lessons but I do get taught some traditional Japanese arts

by rachaelbrogan (student)

GCSE Geography

Letter from Japan,

Land of the Rising Sun.

4-25-10 Yoyogi

Shibuya-ku

Tokyo

Japan

151-0053

8th January 2012

Dear Bob,

Hey, it’s Mary. How have you been? I haven’t seen you in ages! It’s been too long, pal. I’m missing you like mad! I have to say though, Japan is amazing! Everything is so different here, but I love it. My house is massive! Bigger than all the houses in Dullatur, haha! It has six bedrooms, five bathrooms, three living rooms, two kitchens, a games room and an office. The garden’s massive too! Look here’s a picture of it:

My bedroom is the second biggest in the house; I have a king-size bed, a walk-in wardrobe, a 3D 44-inch plasma television, one of the touch-screen computers we used to always talk about before I moved. I also have a balcony that looks over our swimming pool; did I mention we have a pool? Well we do, it’s amazing in the summer, it’s always warm and my friends and I who live in the street can dip in and out of it whenever we want. Even in the winter, it’s still fun to go in because it has a heater but we don’t go in it that much because my friend, Gemma (she’s American and she lives two doors down) has an indoor pool. I have one of the home cinema rooms too; it’s good when I’ve got friends over and when the family are over. There is some American and British people living nearby that were a bonus. When we first arrived, they came round to the door with a bottle of Japanese Whiskey because they knew we were Scottish, and apparently all Scottish people like Whiskey. Anyway, their children are lovely, Gemma, she’s 13 and Graeme, he’s 14, from the Forrest family (they’re American) and the Jones’s family are lovely too, they have one child, Ryan, he’s 15 but we all walk to school together.

I have made a few friends here, but most of the people in our school don’t talk much English, apart from the stuff they’ve learnt in English class, but that doesn’t really make a very good conversation. My parents are thinking about hiring a Japanese tutor for me and my brother, so we can get on better in school and stuff, since we do live in a Japanese speaking part of Japan. In school, the English speaking kids do get taken out of some classes for some Japanese lessons but my parents still think I would benefit from a private tutor…you know what they’re like. My school is quite big too, I’ve seen bigger though, here’s a picture:

I quite like the lessons in my new school, some of them are the same as Scottish school lessons but I do get taught some traditional Japanese arts like Shodu, which is like calligraphy and Haiku, which is a form of Japanese poetry, it was developed here 400 years ago. It’s very precise, every Haiku has seventeen syllables, and they’re split up into units of five, seven and five syllables. They are written to convey deep emotion apparently, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen my Haiku teacher shed a tear at any of my poems, well if she has, I can assure you, it’s not because she thinks it’s good… We have loads more trips here than we ever did in Scotland. I’ve been to lots of historical sites and festivals. I’ve also been on some of the trips for the highest achieving pupils, we’ve been on two ski trips and I’ve been on three trips to Kyoto and one trip to Nara. They were so much fun and interesting too! On the trip to Kyoto, they took us to a big museum in the city, I can’t really remember what the museum was for, and I wasn’t paying much attention. As you know, I’m not the biggest fan of museums, anyway, Gemma and I were wandering about, and I should probably say it was one of those really silent places that the only noises you hear are coughs and sneezes and the occasional hiccup. Well, we were walking through whispering to each other and making jokes about some of the things in the museum. I said something to her, and it must have been funny because she burst out laughing and fell backwards into an older man, who fell into one of the exhibits, sending it flying! Luckily, nothing was broken and no-one was hurt, but the old man that Gemma bumped into told one of the security guards when he came that it was Gemma and the guard was shouting at her in Japanese, she laughed, said “sayonara” and walked away, it was rather funny. You don’t have to wear uniform in Elementary school, but most Middle school and High schools make their pupils wear uniform and they’re much stricter than our schools uniform. The boys have to wear black trousers and a blue jacket, with a stand-up collar and the girls wear blue blazers and black knee-length skirts. Just like OLHS, there are lots of extra-curricular activities for us to do like sports clubs (baseball, football, judo, basketball, tennis, gymnastics and volleyball), choir, art clubs, brass band and even tea ceremonies and flower arranging! Our holidays are similar but the only thing different is the new school year starts after our spring break in April. I start school at half 8, and finish at three. Most of my teachers are lovely, they’re very supportive and are helping me as much as they can to pick up the Japanese language, and for that I’m very grateful, although, there are a few teachers who I’m not too fond of, but not as many as there were in Scotland. Our lunches are prepared for us in the classroom; we always have something different, featuring various fishes, meats, vegetables and sea plants. A typical meal is either stew or curry, served with boiled vegetables, a sandwich and a salad. Milk is served with all our meals and we usually have a desert, jelly, ice cream and fruit. I like the meals, they’re always lovely, and they’re healthy too. One of the weirdest things about coming to a Japanese school is, instead of having fire drills, we have earthquake drills. When the alarm goes off, we all have to get under our desks immediately, until the quake is over, then we get hard hats from the front of the class and follow our teacher at that time out to the assembly point which is in the yard, we all squeeze into the middle of the yard, so we’re as far away from the building as possible. We have these drills once a month. If it was a real earthquake, we would have to stay at the school until we were picked up by an adult, in-case something happens to us on the way home, or something has happened to our house and we can’t get in and there’s no-one there. When the kids are in Elementary school, they get to go to the local fire-department and have a go in the earthquake simulation room, that’s a room in the building that’s decorated like a normal Japanese living room, and people go in it to experience an earthquake, the whole room shakes, and all the furniture falls. I haven’t actually been in one of these rooms because the school takes us when we’re 7 and I was 12 when I arrived here. I have had a go in our schools emergency chute; it’s a fast way to get from the top floor to the bottom floor. I know it’s serious but it’s very fun, when you’re not actually in danger!

I have to say, one of the best things about living in Japan is the technology, I have an iPhone 6s! And my dad has a 3D phone! What do you have again? An iPhone 4? Haha! But yeah, the technology here is astounding! They have these things called ‘Book Caves’, it’s a book case with a chair shaped bit in the middle, I have one in my room! It’s comfy too. I think Erin would love one, since she loves books.

We also have one of these. I know it looks like a pen, but it’s actually a ...

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We also have one of these. I know it looks like a pen, but it’s actually a computer! Like, an actual laptop computer! You press a button and the keyboard, mouse and screen are all a table-top projection! Much better than those bricks they call laptops in school. Also, my parents have a thing called a ‘Novac’, it’s a box thing that you put your cassettes in one side, and plug your iPod, or whatever into the other side and it converts all the tracks on the cassettes into mp3 files! They love it! My little brother has this key ring thing on his school bag, and it’s like everlasting bubble wrap. It’s so cool; it must annoy his teachers though! For my thirteenth birthday, my friend Gemma got me a watch. She had mentioned it a few days before my birthday, and I must admit, my initial thoughts were, ‘Huh? What’s so special about a watch?’ I had obviously forgotten I was in Japan! This is the best watch I have ever seen! It’s called infection. I didn’t really understand it at first, but now that it’s been explained to me, it’s quite simple to understand. The red dots indicate hours, the yellow dots indicate minutes in groups of five, and the green dots indicate single minutes. It’s so clever! Look, here’s a picture of it:

If I came to Scotland with this on, I think I’d get a few weird looks! It definitely doesn’t look like a normal watch, does it? But well done, Gemma for getting me it! You don’t like Star Wars, do you? I’ll tell about this anyway, my maths teacher is the biggest Star Wars fan I have ever met and the projector in our class-room is actually R2-D2 from the movies head! It’s so cool, not that I like Star Wars or anything… The stuff I have is considered to be normal and lots of people have them, there are loads more that are just amazing! A few examples are the robots that a big company has just realised, it looks just like a human being and are scarily like humans, and the people who invented them were trying to invent something that would be an aid to elderly people, instead of hiring people to do it. I don’t know if they’ve sold any yet, but I think it’s a genius idea! According to my dad, Japan is the leader in the robot market and making ‘humanoids’. I think if I stay here for long enough, I’d like to maybe work in that area. It seems fun! These ‘Humanoids’ are used for loads of things, they can be used to work, as I mentioned earlier about helping the elderly. But they can be used as models, entertainers and lots more. They truly are amazing! Apparently when you’re talking to them, you seem to forget that they’re not actually humans. WEIRD!

This is one of these Robots. I don’t know if she has a name or anything, but if you put some clothes on her, she would look so much like a human, don’t you think?

You’re going to find this really surprising but since I moved here, I’ve became a complete sport maniac! I love any sports here, from Football to Judo, and Badminton to Basketball. I know it’s the one thing you wouldn’t expect me to like, judging from my lack of interest in any sports when I was in Scotland. At school, I’m on the cross country team, the football team; the baseball team…really the only teams I’m not on is the Sumo team, haha. Sumo is a massive thing here! The elite wrestlers are usually between twenty and thirty-five, and are all trained athletes. They live in groups together in houses called ‘stables’…the last time I checked that’s where horses lived, but anyway. In the ‘stables’ they live on a very strict training regime and eat a very strict diet, a hearty diet at that, but still a very strict one. All aspects of their life are monitored and controlled by a coach, called the ‘stable master’. There aren’t any weight restrictions to be a Sumo Wrestler (I suppose that’s obvious...) so if you were a Sumo Wrestler, you could easily be fighting someone many times your size. I suppose that’s the reason they’re the size that they are. The basic rules of Sumo are simple: the wrestler who first touches the ground with anything else but his feet, or who leaves the ring before his opponent, loses. Fights take place in an elevated ring called a ‘dohyo’ and usually last a few seconds, in some rare cases, a minute. The highest rank of Sumo wrestler is the yokozuna. Once a wrestler reaches the rank of yokozuna, he can’t lose it but he will be expected to retire when the results start to worsen.

There’s a picture from one of the tournaments I was at a few months ago. They’re such a pretty bunch, aren’t they? Six tournaments are held a year, each lasting fifteen days, there’s three held in Tokyo, one held in January, May and September. I was at the one in May. There is also one held in Osaka (held in March), Nagoya (held in July) and one in Fukuoka (held in November). Another one of Japans popular sports is Judo; Judo was developed by some professor in the 19th century from the ancient art of Jujitsu. In Judo, it’s not just the winning that counts, it’s the preparation of your mind and soul too. They also do Karate, and Japanese fencing (called Kendo) and Japanese archery (called Kyudo). We also do a lot of sports that came from Britain and America, like football, basketball and baseball. There’s a club for all of them at my school, and most schools in Japan.

I know this sounds geeky and stuff, but the history of this place is amazing! There have been lots of different periods, there was the Jomon period, when the early Japanese people were living in Japan, and they were hunters, gatherers and fishers. Then there was the Yayoi period, when the introduction to the rice agriculture began the development of a social hierarchy and when hundreds of small countries started to unify into larger countries. After that there was the Kofun period when Japan became more or less united. And they started building tombs for their dead leaders. Then there was the Asuka period, when Buddhism was introduced to Japan. Followed by the Nara period, when Nara became the first official capitol of Japan, however Nagaoka also became the capitol in that period. After the Nagaoka period, there was the Heian period, when the capitol moves to Heian (now known as Kyoto), the Taira took power of Japan after the Heiji war, and then the Minamoto clan puts an end to Taira supremacy, then there was the Kamakura period, when Minamoto Yoritomo and establishes the Kamakura government, the Mongols try to invade Japan twice but fail, mainly to bad weather conditions, and then the Kamakura falls. After all that, there was the Muromachi period, when Kyoto was captured by Takauji, he then established the Muromachi government, then he fled and established the southern court, the northern and southern courts then united. Then there was the Onin war, one hundred years later, the Muromachi fell. Then there was the Azuchi Monoyama period, when Hideyoshi became leader, he confiscated the weapons of all farmers and religious institutions in the ‘sword hunt’, there was an unsuccessful invasion of Korea, and then the death of Hideyoshi. In 1603, the Edo period began, when Lesayu is appointed leader and establishes the Tokugawa government in Edo (now known as Tokyo), he intensified the persecution of Christians, Japan is almost completely isolated after from the rest of the world, the Russians unsuccessfully try to establish trade relations with Japan so Commodore Matthew Perry forces them to open some trading ports. The Meiji period began in 1868, when Meiji was restored, the Sino-Japanese war and the Russo-Japanese war took place during this period, then Emperor Meiji died in 1912. After that, the Taisho period began, Japan joined the allied forces in World War One, and then in 1923, the Great Kanto earthquake devastated Tokyo and Yokohama. The Showa period began in 1926, the second Sino-Japanese war started, and then the Pacific war, Japan surrendered after two atomic bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in 1956, Japan became a member of the UN, and then the oil crisis began in 1973, marking the beginning of the Heisei period. In 1995, the Great Hanshin Earthquake devastated Kobe, and then in 2011, there was the Great East Japan Earthquake. So yeah, that’s the history of Japan, haha!

One of the things I’ve had to get used to the food here, of course there’s McDonalds and other fast-food restaurants but it has been a challenge getting used to the Japanese cuisine, I don’t think you’d like it! We eat rice with every meal, and sushi is very popular, I’ve had to learn to like Sushi because I hated it before I came here. My family particularly like a fish dish called Sashimi; it’s just raw fish really, which I know sounds absolutely disgusting but a lot of fishes can be delicious if they are prepared correctly. Some other dishes we enjoy are Ramen, a kind of soup with noodles and vegetables; you eat all the noodles and vegetables first and then drink the soup. Yakitori is delicious, it’s grilled pieces of chicken on a stick. Also, there’s Tonkatsu, which is grilled pork, served with curry rice, and shredded cabbage. That’s it there:

The Japanese have made their own attempt at some Western dishes over the centuries, Korokke are deep fried and breaded, and filled with minced meat and mashed potato. They’re rather nice too. And then there’s Omuraisu (abbreviation for omelette rice) which is rice, wrapped in a thin omelette, and usually served with a gravy sauce or a tomato sauce. Also, there’s Hamubagu (this makes me laugh) which is a Japanese style hamburger. It is typically served on a plate, with a demi-glace sauce but without a bun. We always eat with chop-sticks and traditionally, the Japanese don’t eat sitting on a chair, or standing up, we sit on the floor on a cushion. But we don’t do that, we sit at the table, unless we’re at a Japanese restaurant. But it makes my back sore. Like this:

So yeah, we eat Japanese food, in a Western way!

Right, I can imagine you’re probably getting bored reading about me and Japan…so I’m going to start wrapping this up. All in all, I love living here, it’s amazing! The people, the food, the history, the culture, the sports, everything really! Although, I’m really missing you and all my friends and family back in Scotland. One of the things I’m missing the most is Irn Bru! See when you’re coming over to see me, can you bring some? Haha! I hope I see you soon, Keri. Tell everyone I said hi, and hope they’re all okay. And show Mr Lynch this if you wish, I’m sure he’d like it! Write back to me? You don’t have to write me a ten page letter though! Miss you,

Love,

Mary!