My daughter had some research on the Internet to find some information about sleep requirements for elementary school aged children. Conventional knowledge in the us says 8-10 hours of sleep is required for elementary school students. I helped my daughter find out the information on the Japanese side of the Internet and yes, according to research in Japan, the ideal amount of sleep is 8 hours and 54 minutes. Kind of interesting how exact they were, 54 minutes? Oh well, they were on par with conventional wisdom with the west.
Just to satisfy my curiosity I did a search for Junior High School times. I was shocked, SHOCKED!!! Get this, according to another Japanese site, Junior HS students require 6-8 hours of sleep. Did you see that SIX HOURS is the low end. For a medical professional, any medical professional to support the idea a 13-15 year old only need a minimum of 6 hours of sleep a day is CRAZY!!! But, when you see the culture and how much homework Jr. high schools give their students, it would be counter cultural to state the ACTUAL needs. That age group is in high gear of their physical development and need 8.5 - 10 hours of sleep. Any less stunts growth both physically and mentally.
If a Japanese doctor came out and actually stated the truth he would set off an out cry from the department of education because that revelation would require that they require schools to reduce the amount of homework so they can sleep more. But, knowing Japanese schools, they would comply on the surface, but then have "VOLUNTEER" study sessions or something like that. And again, if you know Japan, you know that "VOLUNTEER" actually means "REQUIRED". This also shows me how little the administration cares for the health of the youth of Japan. How far ahead of the educational/academic curve would Japan be if only they allowed their students to get more sleep.
The Japanese education system is slowly killing off their most coveted resource, their students. All in the name of "Prestige". Shame on you Japan!!!! SHAME ON YOU!!!
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Forced to Improve my Japanese!
Every Saturday, I attend church. Once or twice a quarter, I am assigned to be the MC for the worship service. As MC, I have to read the designated Bible verse, introduce the different parts of the service and pray for the tithes and offerings (offering is like donations from the people who attend the service for church management, tithe is 10% of church members income). Every time I am MC for the past 12 years, I prepare a script. Every word I say is typed out in Japanese with furigana on the Chinese characters I cannot read. Introducing the opening songs and things like that is easy, but two things I need to practice and prepare beforehand.
First, the reading of the Bible verse. The Bible that everyone uses up front on stage is tradition Japanese style printed vertically. I just can't read vertically. So, I type out the whole verse horizontally left to right. Sometimes, it is just one or two verses. But usually it is much longer. And if you have ever read the Japanese Bible, it is not colloquial Japanese but very... Very difficult to read for me. So I practice... a lot!
Second is the prayer. I felt that prayers are special and need to be perfect. So I always asked my wife to prepare a prayer for me. I felt that my Japanese was inadequate to use in prayer. So I typed those out big enough to read.
It was bound to happen. Just last month, I totally forgot to look at the MC schedule. When I arrived at church Saturday morning on October 1, I was feeling good. I was excited to go into the Bible study class and hear the sermon. I got the program and all those good happy feelings disappeared. My name was listed as MC. I felt like a truck had crushed me. Panic started to set in as I considered my options. I couldn't go back home and type everything out. I couldn't use any computer at church. In a daze, I went to class. I got a Japanese Bible and started to practice the verse. Luckily it was only about 3 verses long and there weren't many tongue twister phrases that could mess me up. But it was vertical type. PANIC. But, I was most worried about the prayer. I had never prayed my own words in Japanese as MC for the worship service before. That in itself made me panic the most.
Moments later, my wife came into my class with her Bible. Her Bible is horizontal! She has highlighted the verses and helped with the difficult Chinese characters. It is so great to have a loving, and supportive wife! I thank God for her everyday.
The time came and I was on stage without a script. After a brief prayer, I started to service.
Thank God, everything went well. I truly was blessed that day. Not only through the music, the sermon, and the praying, but God allowed me to gain a ton of confidence in my Japanese I never had before. I am nowhere near perfect, but now, I am not afraid to make mistakes and I am ready for the next step in my Japanese journey. I wonder what it will be.
First, the reading of the Bible verse. The Bible that everyone uses up front on stage is tradition Japanese style printed vertically. I just can't read vertically. So, I type out the whole verse horizontally left to right. Sometimes, it is just one or two verses. But usually it is much longer. And if you have ever read the Japanese Bible, it is not colloquial Japanese but very... Very difficult to read for me. So I practice... a lot!
Second is the prayer. I felt that prayers are special and need to be perfect. So I always asked my wife to prepare a prayer for me. I felt that my Japanese was inadequate to use in prayer. So I typed those out big enough to read.
It was bound to happen. Just last month, I totally forgot to look at the MC schedule. When I arrived at church Saturday morning on October 1, I was feeling good. I was excited to go into the Bible study class and hear the sermon. I got the program and all those good happy feelings disappeared. My name was listed as MC. I felt like a truck had crushed me. Panic started to set in as I considered my options. I couldn't go back home and type everything out. I couldn't use any computer at church. In a daze, I went to class. I got a Japanese Bible and started to practice the verse. Luckily it was only about 3 verses long and there weren't many tongue twister phrases that could mess me up. But it was vertical type. PANIC. But, I was most worried about the prayer. I had never prayed my own words in Japanese as MC for the worship service before. That in itself made me panic the most.
Moments later, my wife came into my class with her Bible. Her Bible is horizontal! She has highlighted the verses and helped with the difficult Chinese characters. It is so great to have a loving, and supportive wife! I thank God for her everyday.
The time came and I was on stage without a script. After a brief prayer, I started to service.
Thank God, everything went well. I truly was blessed that day. Not only through the music, the sermon, and the praying, but God allowed me to gain a ton of confidence in my Japanese I never had before. I am nowhere near perfect, but now, I am not afraid to make mistakes and I am ready for the next step in my Japanese journey. I wonder what it will be.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Japanese Media and SASUKE
There is a program that I like to watch with my family here in Japan. If you know me, you know that I lost the love for Japanese TV over a decade ago because of boring repetitive story lines, too much senseless humor, and the lack of maturing of the industry in general. However, There are a few shows that I like to watch, or at least watch and put up with the stupidity that pervades the content. One program I like is "Tokyo Friend Park II" when sports teams are on it, NOT comedians or "talents". Shows like that air only 3-4 times a year at the most. Another one is "Kinniku Banzuke" Usually only at new years. And then there is SASUKE, which airs only twice a year. But SASUKE is treading dangerously close to the ideas that I hate to see. The big one is comparisons to America.
For over 10 years, I have seen a nationalistic attitude of the Japanese media that boarders on narcissism. It started with programs like "Koko ga Hen Dayo Nihonjin". I really liked that program when it aired in the mid 90's. It was on air for about 3-4 years and the first two years were great. The last year or two, I could barely stomach to the point that I just stopped watching. Then in domino-type fashion I started to stop watching Japanese TV all together. What happened to that program was this: They started focusing on foreign countries rather than on Japan. When I say foreign I mainly mean the USA. And it basically became a forum for people to bash the USA.
Now, NHK produces programs that focus on getting foreigners to praise Japan and say how great Japan is. That may sound harmless, but if you have ever watched the show, it is extremely narcissistic in its presentation. They have a group of foreigners from several foreign countries who watch a little video clip of some aspect of Japanese culture and then the hosts of the program, a few Japanese, basically asks the foreigners to say how great Japan is because of what they saw. It makes me want to hurl. There was one time recently that I saw as I was surfing the channels that they were doing a story on how Japanese make people in their companies clean, and how kids at school clean. And how other countries now, BECAUSE of Japans example, have their employees, and the elementary school students clean, too. The reporter, who was a foreigner was just singing the praises of the Japanese cleaning idea. But the, "WE SHOWED THE WORLD HOW TO CLEAN" message was as blatant as the noon day sun.
Anyway, what does this have to do with SASUKE? SASUKE is starting to go down that path of comparing Japanese to foreigners, mainly Americans. The most recent airing of SASUKE was two weeks ago. Oh, for those of you who don't know SASUKE, the American version is called "Ninja Warrior". Basically people go through a physically taxing obstacle course in 4 different stages, with each stage becoming more difficult. Over the eight year of the show, only 3 people have completed all four stages. Anyway, about 3 years ago, SASUKE producers brought the top competitors from NINJA WARRIOR to Japan and a few Americans have been participating ever since. This year, a group of 9 Americans came, the most yet, to compete. Out of the 9, 8 made it past the first stage. and 4 made it past the second stage. Of the Japanese competitors, out of 91 competitors, only 17 made it past the first stage, and only 5 made it past the second stage. This is what kills me about the show now. The announcer starts up with comments like, "17 Japanese made it past the first stage, ONLY 8 Americans made it. Japanese are made to be successful as SASUKE! Japanese are great people!" WHAT? Japanese are great because they made SASUKE??? What idiotic logic! Then after the second stage, the announcer again spouted off, "More Japanese than Americans made it past the second stage! Japan is winning the competition!" When did SASUKE become a competition between countries? Even the some Japanese contestants said, "I have to get through this stage to keep Japanese pride." In an interview with an American competitor, an American said, "I just want to do my best. SASUKE is really fun." No hint at the USA vs. Japan issues, just a guy that wanted to do his best and take his physical strength to the limit. SASUKE is more about man against course, not country against country.
Another thing that really irritates me is the MLB vs. JBL baseball series. MLB players come to Japan for a series of games with the JBL players. I think they play like 3 exhibition games, and then one game against a pro-team. When Japan wins a game, announcers are like, "Japan is great, our level of baseball is just as high as the Americans!" and go off on how much better Japanese style is better. When the MLB wins, the announcers like, "Yeah, MLB is strong." THAT'S IT! What I would like to see is the JBL All-Stars go to America one year and see how they like battling jet lag and playing in front of a hostile crowd. Not once has Japan's All-Stars gone to play games in the USA. What, are they afraid? This is of course not talking about the WBC which Japan has won twice. Kudos to Japan on that.
Anyway, that is my rant for today. Glad I could get it off my chest, FINALLY!
CAVEAT: I love Japan! If I didn't I would be living here for more than 21 years. But there are things that I do not like, just like there are some things about the USA that I don't like. No country is perfect.
For over 10 years, I have seen a nationalistic attitude of the Japanese media that boarders on narcissism. It started with programs like "Koko ga Hen Dayo Nihonjin". I really liked that program when it aired in the mid 90's. It was on air for about 3-4 years and the first two years were great. The last year or two, I could barely stomach to the point that I just stopped watching. Then in domino-type fashion I started to stop watching Japanese TV all together. What happened to that program was this: They started focusing on foreign countries rather than on Japan. When I say foreign I mainly mean the USA. And it basically became a forum for people to bash the USA.
Now, NHK produces programs that focus on getting foreigners to praise Japan and say how great Japan is. That may sound harmless, but if you have ever watched the show, it is extremely narcissistic in its presentation. They have a group of foreigners from several foreign countries who watch a little video clip of some aspect of Japanese culture and then the hosts of the program, a few Japanese, basically asks the foreigners to say how great Japan is because of what they saw. It makes me want to hurl. There was one time recently that I saw as I was surfing the channels that they were doing a story on how Japanese make people in their companies clean, and how kids at school clean. And how other countries now, BECAUSE of Japans example, have their employees, and the elementary school students clean, too. The reporter, who was a foreigner was just singing the praises of the Japanese cleaning idea. But the, "WE SHOWED THE WORLD HOW TO CLEAN" message was as blatant as the noon day sun.
Anyway, what does this have to do with SASUKE? SASUKE is starting to go down that path of comparing Japanese to foreigners, mainly Americans. The most recent airing of SASUKE was two weeks ago. Oh, for those of you who don't know SASUKE, the American version is called "Ninja Warrior". Basically people go through a physically taxing obstacle course in 4 different stages, with each stage becoming more difficult. Over the eight year of the show, only 3 people have completed all four stages. Anyway, about 3 years ago, SASUKE producers brought the top competitors from NINJA WARRIOR to Japan and a few Americans have been participating ever since. This year, a group of 9 Americans came, the most yet, to compete. Out of the 9, 8 made it past the first stage. and 4 made it past the second stage. Of the Japanese competitors, out of 91 competitors, only 17 made it past the first stage, and only 5 made it past the second stage. This is what kills me about the show now. The announcer starts up with comments like, "17 Japanese made it past the first stage, ONLY 8 Americans made it. Japanese are made to be successful as SASUKE! Japanese are great people!" WHAT? Japanese are great because they made SASUKE??? What idiotic logic! Then after the second stage, the announcer again spouted off, "More Japanese than Americans made it past the second stage! Japan is winning the competition!" When did SASUKE become a competition between countries? Even the some Japanese contestants said, "I have to get through this stage to keep Japanese pride." In an interview with an American competitor, an American said, "I just want to do my best. SASUKE is really fun." No hint at the USA vs. Japan issues, just a guy that wanted to do his best and take his physical strength to the limit. SASUKE is more about man against course, not country against country.
Another thing that really irritates me is the MLB vs. JBL baseball series. MLB players come to Japan for a series of games with the JBL players. I think they play like 3 exhibition games, and then one game against a pro-team. When Japan wins a game, announcers are like, "Japan is great, our level of baseball is just as high as the Americans!" and go off on how much better Japanese style is better. When the MLB wins, the announcers like, "Yeah, MLB is strong." THAT'S IT! What I would like to see is the JBL All-Stars go to America one year and see how they like battling jet lag and playing in front of a hostile crowd. Not once has Japan's All-Stars gone to play games in the USA. What, are they afraid? This is of course not talking about the WBC which Japan has won twice. Kudos to Japan on that.
Anyway, that is my rant for today. Glad I could get it off my chest, FINALLY!
CAVEAT: I love Japan! If I didn't I would be living here for more than 21 years. But there are things that I do not like, just like there are some things about the USA that I don't like. No country is perfect.
Friday, October 14, 2011
My Son, CHAMPION!!!
Okay, time for a proud father to brag about his son. My son entered his schools English recitation contest last month. I practiced with him several times and he was ready. The day before the school contest a teacher tells him that the presenters are not supposed to use gestures, or big body movement. He got home early evening which didn't give him a lot of time to re-tool his presentation. But he did it and won the school competition. A few days later my wife called the teacher to ask about gestures and his teacher said that they were a little confused as to why my son didn't do a lot of gestures. I hit the roof. I was like, "WHAT??? Because he was told not to!!!" His teacher went on to say that the scoring gap between my son and the second place person was very slim.
Now that my son was the winner of the school competition, he earned the right to represent the school at the Prefectural competition.
This last Sunday was the Prefectural competition. Problem was that from Wednesday before my son caught a cold and even wasn't able to go to school on Friday. Instead, on Friday, my wife took him to the hospital and got checked out. The doc was surprised at how red my son's throat was. He prescribed meds and rest. When Sunday rolled around, my son was still not 100%. Maybe 70% of his top physical condition. There were 45 contestant in all. My son was number 38. As I sat and listened to the other students, I knew my son would win. There was no question in my mind. There were a few good students, but no one held a candle to what my son was able to do. The students were judged on the following criteria:
1. Memorization 2. Expression 3. Intonation 4. Facial expression 5. Body Language/Gestures 6. interpretation 7. Confidence
There were a few students that did a few of the critera well, but only my son had everything all working for him. He slammed it home! I am very proud of him and the effort and work he put in. He deserves the victory.
Now that my son was the winner of the school competition, he earned the right to represent the school at the Prefectural competition.
This last Sunday was the Prefectural competition. Problem was that from Wednesday before my son caught a cold and even wasn't able to go to school on Friday. Instead, on Friday, my wife took him to the hospital and got checked out. The doc was surprised at how red my son's throat was. He prescribed meds and rest. When Sunday rolled around, my son was still not 100%. Maybe 70% of his top physical condition. There were 45 contestant in all. My son was number 38. As I sat and listened to the other students, I knew my son would win. There was no question in my mind. There were a few good students, but no one held a candle to what my son was able to do. The students were judged on the following criteria:
1. Memorization 2. Expression 3. Intonation 4. Facial expression 5. Body Language/Gestures 6. interpretation 7. Confidence
There were a few students that did a few of the critera well, but only my son had everything all working for him. He slammed it home! I am very proud of him and the effort and work he put in. He deserves the victory.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Busy Day...
I have two children. Our oldest is 14 years old. I had almost forgotten what it was like before we had children. Today I got a reminder. Our oldest child had a tennis tournament to attend and our youngest was invited by a friend to go to the local park to play. From 10:15 am the house was childless. That is when my wife and I got busy.
No no no, not THAT! Get your mind out of the gutter, man!
After breakfast, I had to run some errands for work and for home. The work errand is work so I won't talk about it now, but the home errand was more of a mission. In our neighborhood there are a lot of cats, stray and owned. They roam wherever they please. We hate it because when they come into our yard, they leave smelly gifts for us to clean up. I HATE IT! By Japanese standards, we have a large yard and we have most of it protected from feline incursions... or so we thought. One day my wife caught a cat jumping into our yard from the roof of the house behind us. Another time she caught another cat climbing a neighbors fence and crawling under our fence to get into our yard. The reason why they like our yard so much is that our yard is actual dirt so it is like a huge litter box for them. So my mission today was to devise a plan to keep the fence climbers and roof jumpers OUT!.
So, I purchased some 3m X 3m netting with 10cm openings. And with some garden brace poles, I created a net wall that should effectively block the cat from jumping into our yard. YEAH!!! We'll see if my wall works. I also got some leftover siding and blocked the fence climber. Hope everything works out!
Over the next few hours, I cut our grass (actually weeds). The yard was in dire need of a cut because the rains that fell the two weeks prior to today really allowed the weeds to shoot up. Some of the big ones were almost as tall as me. I also raked everything, bagged all the cuttings and got them ready for trash day which, by the way, is tomorrow.
Then we had to sweep up all the ash, bag it and bring it to the ash pick up location on the corner of our block. We also cleaned out the water drains that were about 1/3 full of ash as well. We ended up with about 10 bags of ash. By that time, our youngest came home. So we played soccer in the newly mowed yard. Fun!!! If the kids were home today, we probably wouldn't have been able to get half of that done. Oh, and I eventually ate lunch at about 4pm.
No no no, not THAT! Get your mind out of the gutter, man!
After breakfast, I had to run some errands for work and for home. The work errand is work so I won't talk about it now, but the home errand was more of a mission. In our neighborhood there are a lot of cats, stray and owned. They roam wherever they please. We hate it because when they come into our yard, they leave smelly gifts for us to clean up. I HATE IT! By Japanese standards, we have a large yard and we have most of it protected from feline incursions... or so we thought. One day my wife caught a cat jumping into our yard from the roof of the house behind us. Another time she caught another cat climbing a neighbors fence and crawling under our fence to get into our yard. The reason why they like our yard so much is that our yard is actual dirt so it is like a huge litter box for them. So my mission today was to devise a plan to keep the fence climbers and roof jumpers OUT!.
So, I purchased some 3m X 3m netting with 10cm openings. And with some garden brace poles, I created a net wall that should effectively block the cat from jumping into our yard. YEAH!!! We'll see if my wall works. I also got some leftover siding and blocked the fence climber. Hope everything works out!
Over the next few hours, I cut our grass (actually weeds). The yard was in dire need of a cut because the rains that fell the two weeks prior to today really allowed the weeds to shoot up. Some of the big ones were almost as tall as me. I also raked everything, bagged all the cuttings and got them ready for trash day which, by the way, is tomorrow.
Then we had to sweep up all the ash, bag it and bring it to the ash pick up location on the corner of our block. We also cleaned out the water drains that were about 1/3 full of ash as well. We ended up with about 10 bags of ash. By that time, our youngest came home. So we played soccer in the newly mowed yard. Fun!!! If the kids were home today, we probably wouldn't have been able to get half of that done. Oh, and I eventually ate lunch at about 4pm.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
What is up with Rabbit Rabbit???
I don't know when it started, and I don't know why it started, but I wish it would stop. For years people, including my own brother and sister have said "Rabbit, Rabbit" to people on the first day of each month. When I was younger I got into it a little, but thank goodness I got out of it.
When my brother was in college it became a serious competition with a friend of his who could say it first. Their escapades became more and more extravagant. I remember on time, I woke up on the first of the month really early, around 6am, only to find my brothers friend trying to string up two stuffed rabbits between the gates of the driveway to our house. I was like, "Gee wiz, get a life."
I have seen it pop up a few times on facebook, but thankfully it hasn't continued. If it does, I may have go do some "Wabbit hunting".
When my brother was in college it became a serious competition with a friend of his who could say it first. Their escapades became more and more extravagant. I remember on time, I woke up on the first of the month really early, around 6am, only to find my brothers friend trying to string up two stuffed rabbits between the gates of the driveway to our house. I was like, "Gee wiz, get a life."
I have seen it pop up a few times on facebook, but thankfully it hasn't continued. If it does, I may have go do some "Wabbit hunting".
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