HIF Wrap-Up

I know it's a bit late, but this will be my version of the HIF Final Report--since, having blogged, I don't *technically* have to do one.
Academics
While initially I was disappointed at being placed into the 上級 class at HIF (mostly because a fellow Yale third-year placed into the next higher class), I wasn't unhappy with the structure and content of the class itself. There were daily kanji/vocab quizzes, which I didn't find too difficult as they are a feature of Yale's 2nd and 3rd year classes. We spent a lot of time working on speaking and listening skills, with extra emphasis (especially in the listening) on casual and/or slang speech patterns that are often used in normal conversation, but that aren't usually studied. The rest of the bulk of the class was spent in reading, either from the textbook or various newspaper articles, which we would then use in class discussions, debates, and essays.
This brings me to the 作文, essays. We wrote four or five over the course of the semester, 600-800 characters each, on topics such as the Japanese education system, then environment, and my all-time favorite (please note the sarcasm) 豊かさの意味 "The Meaning of Wealth." The thing that I found most annoying was that all essays had to be hand-written (no typing!). The idea was that, on the computer, it's easier to insert kanji that you don't necessarily know otherwise, and the teacher wanted us to try and use our current vocabulary in the essays. I found this extremely ridiculous at the time, having always been allowed to type Japanese essays in the past. However, in retrospect I have to concede that Saitou-sensei had a point. Not necessarily about us looking up kanji we don't know--but I did find that the kanji I remember the best from HIF are the ones that I wrote over and over again in my essays. Writing the essays really helped to reinforce the writing and meaning of kanji that I might otherwise have relegated to my short-term memory only.
Project Work
And, of course, we come to the infamous HIF "Project Work." I was a little concerned about this going in, having heard from past HIF-ers that it became the bane of everyone's existence (so much so that HIF contemplated scrapping it altogether), and the actual project work was both not as bad and worse than I had feared.
Without getting into the politics of certain group members' willingness to work (or not), I had good group members and a topic that I was interested in (looking at inter-cultural (mis)communication between host families and their host students). In that respect, the project work was enjoyable, and I had fairly high hopes for it in the beginning. However, theory and practice proved to be two very different animals.
As the semester wore on, I think everyone discovered that we had less time to devote to project work than we had expected, and as other things took over our time, we all fell behind the schedules that had once seemed so easy to accomplish. The result was that the projects began to seem like nothing more than busy work, to be gotten over with as quickly as possible; and those few who wanted to use the project in connection with thesis research--and thus actually trying to do a good job of it--quickly became overworked and overstressed trying to fit it all in. By presentation time, most people had stopped caring.
Host Family
Living with the host family was definitely one of the best parts of HIF (tons of delicious Japanese food aside). Especially compared with living alone now, when I spend so much time thinking/speaking/reading in English, or simply not speaking Japanese--living with a host family provides an invaluable experience, for several reasons. Especially for someone like me, who had never been to Japan before, having a host family around to explain things and talk to, and generally make me feel at home, went a long way toward easing any homesickness I might otherwise have felt. I had a bit of a different family from most other HIF-ers, as both my host parents worked (in most families the mom stayed at home), so I didn't get the intensive conversations that some other students had with their host mothers. But my family was extremely friendly, and I was able to spend lots of time with my siblings, Sae and Satoshi, so it was an extremely enjoyable summer.

Last day in Hakodate

Packed and ready to go, finally it was my last day in Hakodate...sadness! I had planned to take the train down from Hakodate (cheaper than flying and it wasn't as if I was in any rush). My train didn't leave until 10:40, so my host family took me down to the Asaichi, or Morning Market, to walk around and have breakfast. The asaichi is a daily morning fish market down by Hakodate station, where you can buy pretty much anything that comes from the sea, just about as fresh as you can get it. And I mean that in the literal sense--one of the buildings had a large tank, full of squid swimming around.For a small fee, you can get a fishing pole and catch one of the squid. You put it in a bucket, and about five minutes later they bring it to you all chopped up on a plate, and~voila~sashimi! It was so fresh, some of the tentacles were still wriggling around on the plate! (A little bit creepy--I made sure I only ate the dead parts). Here's a video--Satoshi catches the squid!
And then....we eat!

P.S. Here's a picture, finally, of my host family! Well, part of it anyway. I never did manage to get a good opportunity to snap a picture of everyone all together, but--
On the left is Sae, my host sister; Satoshi is in the middle; and the one on the right is actually my host mom's younger sister, Aunt Hami, who often came over to hang out with us.

Kyudo-ness

One of the most enjoyable things about my time in Hakodate was getting to practice kyudo (the Japanese martial art of archery) again. In high school I had the luck to live very close to a dojo, and for about a year and a half I studied kyudo there. Of course, there being only about 12 kyudojos in the entire US, I didn't get that lucky again, and I had to put my kyudo study on hold during college.
Through HIF, I had the chance to get back into kyudo through the club team at Iai High School. Not only were the girls at the club really great and friendly, but the high school turned out to be just down the road from my house, so I was able to go to practice pretty much every day for the bulk of the summer. Even better, for the last couple of weeks I, along with a couple of other Iai students, got to go to the dojo where the Iai sensei practices with his sensei, an amazing and impressive teacher.
At the last practice before HIF ended, the Iai club threw a sort of farewell practice/party for us. They had extra hakama and gi (the traditional kyudo uniform) ready for me and the other HIF regulars, and we each got little posters with messages from all the members of the club.
Here's me, all dressed up:

Some of the Iai senpai demonstrating for us:


And some more of the second-years:


Finally--a group picture! The Iai High School kyudo club, and the HIF exchange students (the three of us are in the front)

Matsuri!

So, the Hakodate Minato Matsuri is so amazing that it gets a whole post all to itself! Seriously, the Japanese *really* know how to do a festival up right. In Hakodate, the matsuri goes for three whole days with parades and fireworks and food, and they basically shut down half the town to make room for it all.
The first day began with an 1850s costume parade, which the HIF students got to be in, as various samurai or townspeople--two of the guys even got to appear as Goronin (some Russian dude?) and Commodore Matthew Perry! I did what was called "futon danjiri," which means I got to help push this big shrine thing down the street, which was lots of fun but very unwieldy. Afterwards they had a party for all the parade participants, at this really neat restaurant near the harbor. Then, later that night, I grabbed some drinks and a blanket with some friends, and settled down to watch a truly amazing display of fireworks--it went on for a solid hour! And of course, afterwards I had the most difficult time getting home! (imagine hundreds of people all trying to get on the same streetcar all at once...really, I was having flashbacks of the buses after Yale-Harvard)

The next day was the first day of the "Ika Odori" (squid dance) parade. The parade route went from Juijigai all the way to Matsukaze-cho (about a 15 minute walk, when there's *not* a parade going on). I met up with a friend at Matsukaze-cho, where they had a whole bunch of different food and game stalls set up. Takoyaki, yakitori, corn on the cob, crepes; and those fun little Japanese fair games, like the one where you try to pick up the goldfish with the paper spatula-thingy (I don't know how else to describe it...). I had okonomiyaki (おいしい～). That day, I also wore the yukata that I had bought for the festival. Turns out none of my host family really knew how to tie the obi, but we had learned how in the kimono culture class and I sort of remembered how, so...it wasn't quite right, but I managed to do it well enough that nothing was going to fall out. ;-P
There were various groups who appeared doing different kinds of dances and things in the parade, but then at the end it pretty much devolved into everybody jumping into the parade and joining in one massive Ika Odori (which of course, I also took part). The ika odori is Hakodate's signature dance (they claim to have invented it) and is a really simple dance which basically involves everybody jumping around and wriggling in a (sort of) squid-like fashion. The sort of thing that's the most fun if you're either a little kid, or have been drinking.
The next day was pretty much the same thing, but the parade was around Goryokaku Park area--which, incidentally, meant that I had a surprisingly hard time getting home, as the streetcar only went as far as the station because of the parade route. I managed to find a bus, however, that took me reasonably close to my house. I met up with friends that night too, and we made it a fun-filled evening of parade food, ika odori-ing, and some karaoke.
All in all, really the best matsuri that I've ever been to!

OK, here goes... (The first of many)

First off, to wrap up my last few weeks in Hakodate! :-) す～ごく楽しかったよ。
The culture classes and community activities continued, and were lots of fun! Sorry I don't have pictures of everything, but-- First off was ikebana (flower arranging) which was a lot more fun than I expected it to be. I think it would have been nice to have more than just the one hour, but it was interesting to get to try it for ourselves. Here's mine! (left)
My favorite was shodo (calligraphy) which unfortunately I don't have any pictures of. It was at nearby Nishi High School, and we were able to go to it for two days. The sensei there was a really charismatic teacher, and I thought the class was lots of fun. On the second day, a few people got to try out writing characters on the several-feet by several-feet papers outside, and we all got to write a character on fancy hard board to take home. I wrote 嬉, the character for "happy." :-D



We also got to try out soba and mochi making at a nearby soba shop, which was great (especially the part where they fed us all loads of it after!). People took turns pounding the mochi dough with this huge mallet (see picture)--why I'm not sure, but it seemed to be the proper mochi-making method. And I got to help break the dough into balls so that it could be dipped in all the mochi-topping goodness. We didn't get to stay for much of the soba part, because that was also the day that J.E. Dean Farley and his wife came to visit all us Light-ies and take us out to an absolutely fantastic dinner (thank you, Light Fellowship!).

The last few weeks also hosted the HIF speech contest. We had a mini-contest earlier, in the first semester, and out of that 2 students from each class were picked to compete in the final speech contest (me, yay!). The Yalies represented--I managed to get second place in the advanced-class division--and Rex Isenberg got first in the intermediate-class division~go Yalies, whee~!



The final, really nice thing was that on my last night in Hakodate, my host family surprised me with a cake to celebrate my birthday--which, incidentally, was today. :-) It was personalized and everything, and just really made my night. Yet another reason why host families are definitely the way to go!

Tanabata

In Japan, July 7 is a holiday called Tanabata, which in Hakodate at least is sort of like Christmas and Halloween all rolled into one. First (and this is common all over Japan) you take these strips of colored paper and write out an お願い、or a wish, and then hang them from a bamboo stalk which is placed in the entryway. That's the Christmas part. The picture to the left is my Tanabata wish. For those of you who can't read Japanese, it says "I want to become good at kanji." ;-P
Next (the Halloween part), on the evening of Tanabata the little kids all dress up in yukata and go around from house to house singing a Tanabata song, and they get candy (sounds familiar, right?). Apparently, though, this tradition is really only in Hakodate (too bad for the other kids, huh?)
Here are some pictures of the kids all dressed up (kawaii!), and onw of my host mom handing out おかしい (sweets).









Below is a short video I took of the kids singing the Tanabata song!

Host Family (&c)

I`ll post pictures later, but for now here`s a little bit about my host family, the Oowadas (大和田).
The dad, Minoru, is a doctor(my host mom calls him "sensei" sometimes). He`s not around very much (par for the course in Japan) but he`s really nice and easy to get along with (also a bit of a joker I think). The mom, Chizuru, is a nurse, which is a little bit out of the ordinary. I think most of my friends` moms don`t work outside the house anymore. I was pretty intimidated when I first met her--she seemed very elegant and put-together (if that makes sense). I felt like I was very grubby and clumsy next to her. But that just goes to show you that first impressions aren`t the end-all, because things have relaxed a lot since I first moved in, and now we`re very friendly and relaxed. There are also 2 kids in the family: Sae (16, daughter) and Satoshi (10, son). They seem to have your typical sibling relationship, with Satoshi being the screwball little brother while Sae yells "うるさい！" I see them pretty often in the evenings, since we all eat dinner together, and then sit at the table doing our homework. Sae and I also recently bonded over our MP3 players (she was impressed by the music videos on my IPod, especially Christina Aguilera`s "Candyman" video) and a mutual fondness for Orange Range.

In school news, we had the first brainstorming session for the HIF group project today. I`ve heard that the project was pretty much the bane of everyone`s existence last year, so here`s hoping this one will be slightly more fun and useful!

Placement test/funny story

So Alvarez-san from my third year class at Yale is also here at HIF, but he got placed in a higher class than me (sadness!). I`m in Advanced (second highest class) and he`s in High Advanced. When I told my host family about this, my host mom`s reaction was funny, and very Japanese:
"Well, you know, in Japan we say that the second highest class is the best. Because, you know, in the second class you can still がんばって　and move up, but in the highest class there`s nowhere to go but down!"
^_^

Photo time! (round one)

These are a bit out of order but...here we go! Some scenes from my life!


My room!!


People were sticking their feet in the water. My host mom explained why, but I forget.


A famous Hakodate squid.


The ropeway up to the top of Hakodate-yama.


Hakodate harbor. Pretty!


The view from my balcony at home.




My balcony again.




Hakodate-yama, wreathed in smoke (I thought it was a cool picture).



I get to ride the streetcar to school everyday!






This is the view of Hakodate harbor from my class room. (I have to climb up that hill every day. I`ll post another pic of it later--it looks much steeper from the bottom!)

Finally in Hakodate

So I made it to Japan! It was a really long flight to Tokyo (13 hours) followed by about 4 hours in the airport and then getting up at 4am the next morning to fly to Hakodate--where they made us go straight from the airport to take our placement tests.
I meet my host family later this afternoon--a doctor and nurse couple, with a 16-yr old daughter and a 10-yr old son. I hope they like me! ^_^
I`ll post more later. Oh, and apologies if there aren`t many pictures for a few weeks--I somehow lost my small digital camera between moving out of Yale and unpacking in Raleigh, so all I have now is my digital SLR which, while phenomenal and supremely fancy, is not exactly portable.

Getting ready...

Just a short post to get this blog going. I'm now officially a grad (scary!) and even though I've only been home for two days, it's time to start getting ready for Japan! I leave for Hakodate in just about two weeks, and it feels like there's still *tons* to do.
Hope I find out about my host family soon!

More to come when I finally arrive in Japan...