MO' LOVE

Today is my last day of work for 2003. Your boy was blessed once again this morning: I wasn't in the staffroom for 5 minutes, before Ohki-sensei, one of the 5th grade teachers, caught my attention:

"Over here ...Over here," she said, in English.

"Yes?"

After leading me over to a corner of the room, she said,

(translation): "This is a present for you from me and Fujiyama-sensei (6th grade teacher)," handing me a white envelope reading: "FAREWELL GIFT."

"What is it? What's inside?," I asked.

I KNEW what it was, immediately. Cash. The envelope was too small to be anything else. Plus, I went through this before, just last week. Trying to maintain an element of surprise, I asked several times before she admitted that there was indeed cash inside.

"Really? But..I'm coming back!" I said.

"No, no, no. ...If you go home and come back..It's OK...it's a Japanese custom."

Well. If there's one thing that I learned in Japan, it's that a custom can't be denied!

So "How much did you get?," you ask. (A: The same amount I got from junior high. ((If you still don't know, read 'BUDDHA CLAUS' post.) )

I had my last 2 classes with the 4th graders this morning; they learned how to tell time. In the 4th period, I was invited to one of the 3rd grade classes' Christmas party. When I arrived, they were singing a Japanese rendition of 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.' I recognized the melody right away. I was sitting in the back of the classroom, and towards the end of the song, I started chiming in with the English lyrics. All the kids turned around and looked at me like I was crazy. After all the singing was finished, we played Bingo. There were a bunch of small gifts people had brought for the winners, and finally, I scored "Bingo" and won a little Christmas stocking with some kind of snacks inside. I haven't checked them out yet--hope there's no pork any of them!

On a dietary note, lunch was much better today; we had hanpen, a sort of stew with tofu chunks, carrots, green beans, white radish, hard-boiled quail eggs, and bits of boiled chicken. There was also kabocha, or pumpkin chunks, with some type of lima-like beans. And of course, rice, with furikake, or dried "sprinklable" vegetable flakes. For dessert there was some sort of "Italian Dessert" gelatin-like pudding. Wasn't bad at all.

Tonight is our elementary school's bohnenkai, which is a traditional end-of-the-year party almost all companies have. We're having nabe, which is a giant self-made soup which you cook and eat on the table in front of you. Nabe is pretty bangin' so I'm looking forward to it. There will be plenty o' beer too, I'm sure. Highlights later.