10:03 UK time

Today’s Armistice Day where we remember those who lost their lives during the period of World War 1, as it was on this day 90 years ago that the bulk of the fighting came to an end. Like most people back home I observed some time of silence at 11 o’clock this morning after making a somewhat’s successful attempt to explain it to my teacher in Japanese. A few moments ago I had another period of silence as it turned 11am in France, and will be having another 2 minute silence at 8pm (11am UK time) so I can still participate with everyone.

Yesterday while making poppies out of paper to wear, for both myself and some other students (Royal British Legion poppies are not-surprisingly hard to find here), I was asked by a numerous Japanese and North American students about what today was about. Now I’m the first to admite I’m not a history fan, so I explained it as well as I could whilst remembering the assemblies we’d have at school every year. Ironically non of the American’s who asked me realised that it was also their own Veteran’s Day today.

To be honest, since the bludgeoning of my new textbook on Sunday (which of course you’ll all know was Rememberance Sunday; also known as Poppy Day), not a lot has happened. Well, one little thing happened today which not only caused me to look like a complete and utter plonker in front of a couple of friends, I also confused a Japanese security guard somewhats.

On a random trip to Nishinomiyakitaguchi on the way home, we went to what I was led to believe was a large department store. As we got closer, the signs indicated that it was a shopping area and cinema. They were doing roadworks around the building, in the near vicinity as the station, so we tried to comply with the temporary changes to the path. The main door for the centre was blocked off by the roadworks, and given the option to choose left or right, we chose right.

After going round a corner and up some stairs we passed some very confused looking passers by, but kept on our way. After a few moments of walking down the side of this building we approached a door with a security man handing out security passes. I was about to ask him if he could tell us where the entrance was, but I hit a problem. I couldn’t remember the Japanese word for shopping centre. Hmm … what could I substitute it with … the cinema! So I asked him how where the cinema was and he stared back at me blankly.

“The cinema?” I reiterated incase I’d ballsed up my pronunciation the first time. He told us it was back from where we came (obviously we should have turned left instead of right), and then added some more words which at the time I couldn’t make out. I thanked him and we carried on. He looked so confused.

Heading back to wear we made our wrong turn, we then proceded on what we thought was the right path. Once again we passed wave after wave of baffled face, but I merely passed it off as “ooh look, a foreigner” syndrome. When we reached the back of the building we realised what had happened. The nice new looking building and complex was indeed nice and new. So new in fact, that they were still building the thing! It was hear I rememebered what the security chap told us at the end of directing is … “but it’s not still being built” … (ish). We headed back to the station a slightly different way, but still going past the guard at our left-right decision point for a third time in ten minutes.

On the way back to the station we headed into the Konami sports club; none of us were members there of course. One friend wanted to see if their (tiny) sports shop had martial arts equiment and one wanted to see the pool. The pool iteself is pretty amazing as it’s on the second story. Wanting to know how much it was, she was just going to check online, but I thought it be an idea to put those Nihongo lessons to use and asked a member of staff how much the pool was.

Just a tad of worry went through me when we were asked to head down to one of the membership desks on the far side … well, a fair bit of worry actually. Thankfully the member of staff realised our Japanese abilities were low so she spoke clearly and carefully (thank you ^_^). It turns out that to use any of the facilities you had to be a member, fair enough, and she produced a handout saying various prices. They do also do a student rate, but I missed where that info was.

Needless to say pricewise I’ll be sticking to the Uni gym, and a bath at home.

On that note, I WILL be moving before Christmas, but more on that next time.

I’m going to go now, and get ready for the 2 minute silence (which is 2 minutes away). Laters.

Well my knee support did help a lot and now I’m not hobbling anymore … well, not as much anyway.

On Friday night there was a party hosted by the University’s IEC (International Exchange … Committee?), a student run society, as another way of introducing the year abroad students to Japanese students. It was more like a variety show with games, the batsu games (punnishment games) were real fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.

Afterwards myself and six others (Japanese and exchange students) went into Umeda at a favourite dining place of ours; the (name forgotton) everything 280yen place. The night got even better as we ate and drank a variety of foods and drinks and conversed in both English and Japanese, with Japanese being the dominant language. This in itself was a very good achievement because as far as our University Japanese level groups go, the foreign students were from the A & B classes (5 classes in total with E class being almost if not fluent).

On the train back I started feeling a bit worse for wear. I wasn’t drunk, far from it (well, maybe just a tad), in fact I’ve noticed Japanese beer being a lot weaker than what I’m used to back home. It was that I realised just how tired I actually was. I still hadn’t had a proper rest since my 7 hour stroll through the back streets of Kansai, and was still having to use my brolly as a makeshift walking stick. I slept for most of the trip back, then walked from my station to home, which seemed to take a good few hours (despite it actually only taking about 25 minutes).

Yesterday I once again went to Nishinomiya Kitaguchi with a friend for some kanji practice. It had been raining during the night so the seat I wanted to work at was soaked. We went into one of the shopping centres and eventually found a space. Up until this time we had been using ‘Minna No Nihongo‘ (MNN), a book which I’d heavilly recommend to beginners of the Japanese Language, but due to completing the book we have moved onto ‘An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese‘ (AIAIJ). Something I hadn’t counted on was how different the format for kanji was in AIAIJ, so much so that Konan had given us a second book just for the kanji … unfortunately I’d forgot to bring this one.

Regardless, we tried to work on some of the kanji we knew, but in reality it was a failed situation before we had even started.

I came home and started doing some homework. To go with the new book the homework is in a different layout also, with less furigana (hiragana/katakana readings) above the kanji that we should know. This is good because it means that we’ll (well me anyway) will have to actively try to read them properly instead of letting my eyes glance above the kanji letters. Well after doing the homework I thought I’d read up on the culture notes in the new textbook.

I hate AIAIJ.

The grammar points, vocab, kanji etc all seem to be pretty great in AIAIJ. It gives plenty of example sentances and reading excercises and is generally what I’d consider to be an awesome book for studying with … if you fit into it’s own expectations of what it’s student should be, that is. I personally came to Japan (from Britain) to learn about Japan and Japanese culture, but due to the overwhelming number of Americans on my course (I didn’t really want to go down this tangent again, but oh well) I found myself unwillingly learning about the states. Don’t get me wrong I have very little against America, it’s just not somewhere I plan on going to or getting accustomed to, and right from the start I made a point of agreeing to myself that I was going to hang on to whatever Britishness I had (including but not limited to how to spell the word colour).

AIAIJ must have heard my arrangement and thought “Ha! We’ll see about that”. The cultural notes section for the vast, VAST majority of the book basically compares Japanese customs and culture with American customs and culture. MNN avoided this by having characters from different countries, including non-English speaking countries (like Santos-san from Brazil and Karina-san from Indonesia) and this meant that readers throughout the world could emote with and more importantly learn with all the characters throughout the book.

“…when Americans talk about their family members, they often “brag” about them,…”

First of all, it generalises an entire nation by ignoring the fact that not all Americans are up their own arse. Second, I don’t really give a toss about how Americans talk about their family members. Thirdly, this could easilly be avoided with a change of wording. For example:

“…when some people talk about their family members, they often “brag” about them,…”

In fact the first time that non-American foreigners are actually refferred to in the Culture Notes section comes in chapter 14 (the book itself being only 15 chapters long). But it isn’t until the final chapter that another country (Korea, though it doesn’t specify north or south) is specifically referred to.

The other assumption that is made of it’s students is that everyone who comes to Japan after studying it will be doing a homestay, as it says at the top of page 70 (first page of chapter four – Homestay):

“When you are doing a homestay,…”

“When”? What is this “when”? I’m in a dorm, where did you get this notion I would be reading this from the comfort of an actual house? Why not use “if”? “If” gives you plenty of leeway incase some of us couldn’t get that privalege. In fact I was going to let this slide as this is actually the first year that Konan have actually had to have a dorm option as not enough homestays were available (though recent rumours around the Ajisai room would have you believe otherwise), and those students who are part of the Illinois Consortium of something or other (most of which have used this book) were guaranteed a homestay. However it isn’t just one chapter that deals with homestays, it’s two! Two chapters of irrelevant information (bar the grammar etc) that I can’t use. At least this year anyway. I still read them though and found myself becoming increasingly angrier with those students who complained about their homestays (see previous entry), as most of the things they were complaining about were discussed in the book and how to basically accept the cultural differences of the fact that you’re not in your precious America any more.

In short, I recommend any universities who have dorms and non-American students to avoid AIAIJ. 3A (the company behind MNN) do a range of books aimed at Lower Intermediate, Upper Intermediate and Advanced students, as well as the Beginner books.

I went to bed at about 5 o’clock, after finally letting my feelings of segregation and isolation soothe; I didn’t really fancy taking a walk.

Waking up late today, I partook in some instant ramen. Heading to the washroom after (to wash my chopsticks), I soon discovered the method to get hot water from the sink! Hoorah! Too bad it’s taken two months to sodding get it. Still, I guess if I’d have asked the dorm manager I would have found out sooner.

We don’t have a test tomorrow, but I’m going to start writing up my vocab flash cards for the week.