Family, Friends, Culture, and Tradition Part II

Sunday morning, I was awoken at 8 am by the siren that sounds throughout the town every day at the same time (it also sounds at noon and 5 pm). Mrs. Kondo came in my room to make sure I was up, and once everyone was dressed and ready, we left the house and went to an open air market that is held on Sundays in the center of town. At this market, local farmers, fishermen, and merchants sold their goods. The merchants at the markets knew that the American teachers staying in Takeo would be at the market this week, so they made special signs in English to welcome us and explain their products. I bought some handmade New Year’s cards and Mrs. Kondo bought food for breakfast. When we got back to the house, sat down to eat the breakfast Mrs. Kondo prepared.

Breakfast in Japan is VERY different from breakfast in America. While she was preparing a typical Japanese breakfast, Mrs. Kondo asked what Americans eat for breakfast. I told her that we usually have eggs, toast, cereal, or a bagel and cream cheese (I had to explain what a bagel was). For breakfast at the Kondo’s, we had rice (rice is eaten with EVERY meal in Japan), soup with chicken, mushrooms, and bean curd, and two different kinds of tofu (raw and fried). I didn’t love the fried tofu, but I didn’t want to offend

anyone, so I made sure to finish everything in my bowl.

After breakfast we headed to the nearby town of Arita, which is famous throughout Japan and the rest of the world for producing beautiful porcelain. In Arita there is a museum that documents the history of ceramics in Japan. Almost all of the information in the museum was in Japanese, but I was able to see that the earliest Japanese pottery in the collection dated back over 400 years. As the pottery became more modern, the shapes and designs became more complex and the colors were more varied and brilliant.

On the way home from the museum we stopped at the supermarket (again) to pick up food for lunch. Since Japanese kitchens tend to be pretty small, families tend to shop for one day or one meal at a time. Many families in Takeo also practice some kind of farming. They might not grow all of the food they need to exist, but they grow some of the food they need. For example, the Kondos grow onions and squash, and they got their rice from a friend’s paddy nearby. Lunch on Sunday was a yummy dish called yakisoba. Mrs. Kondo and Hanai sliced the vegetables and meat, while Mr. Kondo cooked the veggies and noodles on a big, electric pan in the middle of the dining room table. While we were eating our yakisoba, the tofu truck passed by the house. Much like ice cream trucks in America, the tofu truck plays a simple song through a bullhorn on top of the car (it almost sounds like the truck is singing "to-fu") and the people in the neighborhood who need to buy tofu run out to the truck to make their purchase. Since the Kondo's bought tofu at the market in the morning, they didn't need to purchase any from the truck that day. In fact, we were already eating tofu in the salad we had with our lunch!

After lunch, we took some time to relax at the house and watched the Phillies play in the 3rd game of the World Series! I was so excited to be able to see the game, and it was so awesome to be watching it in Japan!! The neatest part was that the Japanese sports channel actually had reporters in a Press Box at Citizens' Bank Park, so the announcing was in English and Japanese. While I expected to hear the announcers speak Japanese, I did not expect to see the player stats and batting line-up in Japanese. We also noticed that an advertisement for a juku, or cram school, was superimposed over the digital sign behind home plate. Over the course of the weekend, I had been trying to explain to the Kondos what Philadelphia was famous for (other than Rocky), like cheesesteaks, the Liberty Bell, and the Philly Phanatic. This was not an easy task without pictures, but during the World Series, the TV cameras showed each of these highlights of Philadelphia and I was able to share visuals of these local favorites with my Host Family.

While we were watching the game, Mr. Kondo's sister came to visit from Arita with her daughter, Namiko, and Namiko's best friend, Maiko. Namiko and Maiko are seniors at Takeo High School and they were looking forward to meeting me and practicing their English. When they came over, Namiko and Maiko were both in their school uniforms, which means they were at school studying on Sunday! Both of them attend a juku and are preparing for their college entrance exams. Our guests took a break from studying long enough to share some tea and cream puffs they brought from a famous French pastry shop in Arita. I was able to ask them questions about high school in Japan and they asked me what I thought of Japan and Japanese food.

Once the baseball game ended (Go Phils!), Namiko gave me a lesson in shodo, Japanese calligraphy. By creating an example for me to copy from, Namiko taught me how to write the Japanese symbol for Peace, which is pronounced "Heh-ee-wa". After the girls left, Mrs. Kondo taught me how to write the Japanese symbol for Compassion, pronounced "Na-sa-keh". Hanai warned me that Mrs. Kondo teaches shodo to her fourth grade students and is a very strict teacher, and she was right. I kept forgetting to use my left hand to hold the paper steady and Mrs. Kondo corrected me every time. In the end, Mrs. Kondo might have been a strict teacher, but she was a very good teacher and I learned a lot from her.

After my shodo lesson, it was time to pack my bags and say my goodbyes to my Japanese family. They drove me back into town to the ryokan where I and the rest of my group would be spending our last night in Takeo. It was hard to say goodbye to the Kondos. They showed me such kindness and welcomed me into their house with open arms. They also did so much to teach me about Japanese culture and family life. We promised to keep in touch, trade pictures from the weekend, and send music suggestions. I let the Kondos know that if they ever visit Philadelphia to run the steps of the Art Museum like Rocky Balboa (something Mrs. Kondo is really looking forward to doing), they always have a place to stay.

My group's night at the ryokan (a traditional Japanese inn), was the perfect way to end our stay in Takeo and spend our final night as a small group. We started the week hardly knowing each other, and ended it knowing that we will each remain a part of each other's lives forever. I was very lucky to spend my time in Takeo with such an amazing, diverse group of dedicated teachers and administrators. At the inn, we dressed in yukata and we were treated to a traditional Japanese feast. I have never seen so much food in my life! I tried to take a picture of my place setting, but I had to start eating the food so there would be room for the next course! The beef was served to us raw, but was cooked on our tables in little clay pots by a candle. It was so yummy! After we finally finished all of that food, the owner of the inn rolled out the karaoke machine and we all took turns singing songs. Finally, after a filling dinner and lots of out of tune singing, we took our final bath in the onsen. After that, it was back to the tatami rooms we shared together to get a good night's sleep and prepare for our flight back to Tokyo the next morning.

Now, I am sitting in my hotel room in Tokyo, back where I started this adventure, getting ready for our closing banquet. I can hardly believe that it is already time to come home! I have had such an amazing time in Japan and I've learned so much more than I've had time to relate in this blog. I can't wait to continue sharing this experience with you once I return to Pennsylvania!

Family, Friends, Culture, and Tradition

Well, friends, I am back in Tokyo after an amazing week in Takeo. After spending so much time in the countryside, Tokyo almost feels like America! There is so much to tell you about my weekend I hardly know where to start!

My weekend began with the Home Stay portion of our "total immersion" experience. For this part of the trip, every participant in the teacher program was matched with a local family who volunteered to invite a teacher into their home for a day and a half. I was very nervous to meet my Host Family. I was so busy getting ready for the trip before I left the United States that I didn't have time to print out pictures of my family and school to show them and I was nervous that we wouldn't have anything to talk about. As it turned out, I didn't need to worry at all! My hosts had a wonderful weekend planned!

Mr. and Mrs. Kondo picked me up at the hotel at 9:30 on Saturday morning. They drove me back to their house to drop off my belongings and pack a picnic lunch. In Japan, all members of the family play a roll in preparing the meals. For this meal, Mr. Kondo gathered the items we would need for our picnic while Mrs. Kondo taught me how to make onigiri, or rice balls. There are many different ways to make onigiri, and we made four different kinds for our picnic. For the first type, we mixed sesame seeds and seaweed flakes into the rice. For the second kind, we mixed a different kind of seaweed flakes into the rice, and for the third and fourth kinds we added a little salt to the rice and filled the center of the onigiri with different kinds of pickled vegetables and wrapped them in nori (paper thin sheets of seaweed). Next we had to shape the rice. The confusing thing about "rice balls" is that they are not really balls, but triangles. Shaping the rice into triangles is much more difficult than it sounds. My onigiri looked more like ovals than triangles, but with a little practice my technique started to improve. After the onigiri were completed, we packed our lunch and drove up a long, twisting path to the top of one of the highest mountains in Takeo. On top of the mountain there was a reconstruction of a castle, with a gorgeous view of the rice fields of the region. While we ate our lunch, Mr. and Mrs. Kondo told me more about Takeo and pointed out some of the key features of the geography and told me about the history of the area.

On the way home from lunch, we stopped at a store to buy some flowers. Mrs. Kondo was going to give me a lesson in ikebana, the traditional Japanese art of flower arranging. I think I mentioned before, that ikebana is one of the arts a Japanese woman is supposed to learn in order to be considered a "good wife" and a traditional Japanese home should always have flowers to represent the season. Mrs. Kondo chose two types of flowers to represent autumn(sunflowers and a long stem with lots of purple flowers on it) and two kind of leaves (one that had thin branches with lots of small leaves and a lily pad). In ikebana, there are three important stems, a high stem, a low stem, and a stem in the middle. After the three major stems are in place, the other flowers and leaves are put in place to fill in the spaces. Just as traditional Japanese music starts slow and soft and then gets faster and louder before slowing down again, the goal in ikebana is to create a rolling effect, like water flowing in a river.

After my ikebana lesson, we all drove to the train station to pick up Hanai, Mr. and Mrs. Kondo’s 19-year-old daughter, who was away at college. Hanai is studying Speech Therapy at a university two hours away from her parents’ home and this was the first time she came back to visit since she left for school two months ago. Hanai was very excited to see her parents and they were very happy to see her. Throughout the weekend I kept hearing them repeat the word yokata, so I asked them what it means. They told me that yokata means “glad” or “happy”.

On the way home from the train station we stopped at the supermarket to pick up food for dinner. I didn’t think a Japanese supermarket would be that much different from an American supermarket, but, boy, was I wrong! It is true that, like an American supermarket, the Japanese supermarket had different sections for different kinds of food, with one section for meat, one section for fish, one section for seasonings, one section for snack food, etc…, but what was in each section was different from what you might find in those same sections in an American supermarket. For instance, in the seasoning section, there was salt, but I didn’t see any pepper! There were also lots of different types of sauce made from soy and ginger, as well as a variety of types of dried seaweed. While Mr. & Mrs. Kondo and Hanai selected the foods they needed to prepare dinner. I bought some of the seasonings we used earlier in the day to make onigiri so I can try to make them at home.

When we got back to the house, Mrs. Kondo began to prepare dinner while I talked with Hanai and Mr. Kondo. They shared pictures of their travels to Canda and Alaska three years ago and I told them about Philadelphia and showed them where it was on the map. Once the basic preparations for dinner were underway, we all went into the kitchen to help Mrs. Kondo finish the meal. Hanai helped Mrs. Kondo chop vegetables while Mr. Kondo and I set the table and I served the rice. Dinner was a true feast! In addition to the rice there were fried chicken wings marinated in a sweet soy sauce with sesame seeds and a traditional soup with a milk base that had mushrooms, tofu, chicken, cabbage, and meatballs. The soup was heated up in a big, electric pan in the center of the table. There was also a WHOLE FISH for each person! I was very surprised to come to the table and see a whole fish on my plate, complete with bones, the tail, the head, and even the eyes! While everybody took their seats, I contemplated how I would go about eating the fish using chopsticks.

Before the meal began, everyone put their hands together as if they were going to pray and said, “Itadakemas”. This is done by every person before every meal in Japan, even in schools, as a way of showing thanks to the person who prepared the food. (It's also what people in Japan say instead of "cheese" before taking a picture!) Once we said “itadakemas”, everyone began to eat. During dinner, the Kondos asked me questions about life in the United States and I asked them questions about life in Japan. I could tell that they were still not clear as to where Philadelphia is and if it is a city or a state. I asked them if they knew the movie “Rocky”. They were very familiar with the movie and Hanai started humming the theme song while Mrs. Kondo yelled, “Adrienne!” Right away Mrs. Kondo realized that I was from the same city where Rocky is set. For the rest of the meal we discussed which Rocky movie we thought was the best and which one we thought was the worst. Hanai and I also discussed music. She loves Colby Caillat and KT Tunstall. I told her that I thought she should check out Jack Johnson.

After dinner we watched some of the Japanese World Series between the Yomiuri Giants and the Seibu Lions, and then it was time to get ready for bed. Part of getting ready for bed in Japan involves taking a bath. In Japan, most people don’t take showers like we do in the United States. The bath and the toilet are in two separate rooms. The room that has the bath is like one big shower, with a drain in the middle of the floor. First, the person taking the bath sits on a stool and washes their body and hair under a faucet in an area next to the tub. Once they are completely clean, they soak in a tub filled with hot water and relax. After ten minutes or so, the person climbs out of the tub, dries off, and covers the tub to keep the water warm for the next person. I was very nervous about taking a bath this way, but really, it was very relaxing. I was so relaxed, in fact, that I went straight to bed and had the best sleep I think I’ve had since I got to Japan.

My good night’s sleep might have been a result of the relaxing bath or it might have been because of my comfortable bed. Rooms in Japan are measured by the number of tatami mats that fit in the room. The room I slept in was an 8 tatami mat room. When I first saw the room, I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to sleep. The only furniture in the room was a TV on a stand, a low coffee table, and two chairs without legs that rested on the floor. When it came time to get ready for bed, Mrs. Kondo and Hanai slid open the doors that made up one side of the room and pulled out a mattress (called a futon in Japanese), sheets, blankets, and a pillow. We moved the table and chairs to the side of the room and made up the bed on the tatami mat floor. It was very, very comfortable!

I had such a great first day with my host family that I couldn’t wait to see what the next day would bring. For now, I can tell you that Sunday was just as exciting as Saturday, but I’ll save those adventures for tomorrow’s entry!

Saving the Best for Last...Takeo Junior High School

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that today was my favorite school visit in Taeko. I was so excited to see a Japanese Middle School! To be honest, it really wasn't all that different from William Penn! There are about the same number of students in both of our schools, but in Takeo Junior High School the grades are equivalent to our 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. They even have a field day just like ours, but they are divided into three teams instead of two. The Middle School also has a strict dress code. The sign on the right reminds girls to dress neatly, tie their bows properly, and to make sure their socks aren't slouchy and their hair isn't dyed or permed. It also reminds them that they are not allowed to shave their eyebrows (something that seems to be a popular trend among Japanese girls).

The Middle School students' day starts out with homeroom, and then today, in honor of our visit, the school had a special assembly to welcome us. I like to think that if we had special visitors to William Penn, our students would sit as nicely and quietly and be as well behaved in an assembly as the students at Takeo Junior High School were today.

In the Junior High School, as in the High School, the students switch classrooms for each subject. The first class we observed was a first year math class. What made this class different from any other class in the school was that the students were divided into two groups, so there were only 20 students in each class instead of 40. This is only done for 7th grade math. When we entered the room, there were four students at the board solving problems, just like Mr. Garretson has students do at William Penn!

Next, we observed a 7th grade Science class, where the students were conducting a flame experiment. If I'm not mistaken, the 8th grade students at William Penn will have the opportunity to conduct a very similar experiment in their science classes later this year. Mrs. Blackshire will also be happy to know that even in Japanese schools, seating is an issue in Science classes. Only this time, instead of three students sharing each long black table, there were four students per table!

It probably goes without saying that I was very excited to see Social Studies classes. In 7th grade the students were studying the Middle Ages, just like we study the Middle Ages at William Penn in 7th grade. In this class, instead of studying Europe in the Middle Ages, these students were studying the history of Japan in the Middle Ages and learning about samurai and shogun. In 9th grade they were learning about the Japanese Constitution and Human Rights. I think it would be really interesting to compare the United States Constitution and our ideas about Human Rights with the Japanese Constitution and their students' ideas about Human Rights!

The one things I did notice is that the Japanese textbooks were much thinner than our textbooks and they didn't have as much content. Otherwise, our books were pretty similar, complete with guiding questions and primary sources. They even used graphic organizers to help them take notes, just like we do! At the end of the day, I had the opportunity to talk with the Junior High School Social Studies teacher (with the help of a translator) and learn more about how she conducts her classes. We found out that we have a lot of the same ideas about teaching Social Studies!

Takeo Junior High School has all of the same special area subjects that we have, but the students get to choose which classes they would like to take within each discipline. For instance, instead of just having one art class, the students can choose between crafts and drawing. In crafts, the students were constructing paper lampshades. It looked like a very complex process! In drawing, the students were making "imagination pictures", which were very abstract, colorful paintings that involved many steps to create the final product. The teacher and students in that class were very friendly and invited us to join them and help with their paintings.


The other special area classes we were able to visit were the instrumental music classes. In these classes, the students learn to play traditional Japanese instruments, such as taiko drums (the type of drumming from the festivals we saw in Takeo) and koto. The teachers in each of these classes also arranged for us to pair up with students who taught how to play these traditional instruments.

In the drumming class, the students sit at their desk and practice on a drum pad, while the teacher demonstrates on real drums in the front of the room. Japanese drumming starts out soft and slow and the beat gradually gets faster and louder, then it ends softly and slowly again. When playing the taiko drums, the students used western musical notation. Since I used to play an instrument when I was in middle school, I could follow along with the beat and keep up with rest of the class. The teacher did have a lot of corrections for me to make on my posture. Real taiko drumming uses a very athletic stance and takes every muscle in the body (as you could see from the pictures and videos from the festivals earlier in the week!).

Playing the koto seemed kind of like playing a harp, but it was also very different. There were so many ways you could manipulate the strings to make different sounds. With the help of a very patient and talented student, I was able to play some notes on the koto, but the musical notation was so different from western style music that there was no way I could decipher it. The entire class performed a song for us on the koto and traditional Japanese drums. I below is a short video clip of the performance. The sound did not come out very well on the video recording, but I think you will get a good idea of how the koto is played from watching:



After 4th period, the students went back to their homerooms to eat lunch. Lunch in the Middle School is served much like the lunch in the elementary school. The individual desks are pushed together in groups of 6 and covered with tablecloths and the food is brought in pots to the classroom. Members of the group take turns acting as the server for each table. Once everyone has their food and the class has thanked the people who prepared the food, a teacher comes on the loud speaker and announces what song will be played that day. Then, while the students are eating, classical music is played through the PA system. When the students are finished with their lunches, everyone clears their plates and rearranges the tables for the next class. I should mention that Japanese schools (and Japanese society in general) are very conscientious about recycling. The schools do not use disposable dishes, trays, or silverware, and each student unfolds their milk carton to make it flat, rinses it off, and recycles it. This is an area where William Penn could really learn something from Japanese schools. By this point, I bet you can guess what the students did once they were finished lunch. You got it...they CLEANED THE SCHOOL! Even though this was the third time I saw it happen, the concept still amazes me! What a great idea!
After school is over at 3:40 pm, the students either go home or go to their club activities like they do at the High School. Many of the clubs they have in Middle School are the same clubs as in the High School. Some of the most popular clubs are volleyball, baseball, soccer, tennis, judo, and kendo. (To find out what judo and kendo are, go back to yesterday's blog and find those words highlighted in my entry. Click on them and it will take you to links that explain each sport.) Unfortunately, we did not get to observe the Sumo club because they were away from school at a meet that afternoon. We did, however, get to see volleyball, kendo, and judo.
After clubs and activities were done for the day, I took advantage of the nice weather to hike up to the top of one of the bigger hills in Takeo to watch the sunset. It was very beautiful and peaceful. I know today's post was a bit longer than usual, but it was such an exciting day and I learned so many things that I just had to share! Tomorrow morning I meet my host family and I will stay with them until Sunday evening. On Sunday they will drop me off at a traditional Japanese Inn where I will stay until we fly back to Tokyo on Monday. I think it's a pretty safe bet that I won't have access to email until I am back in Tokyo Monday night. I'm sure I will have a lot to tell you when I get back, and I still haven't even told you how we are ordering food without a menu or the use of language. I'll give you a hint: we have to be very creative in how we communicate with the servers. I can't wait to hear what you would do! To help you think, I'll leave you with a picture of the menu from dinner tonight and the food I ended up getting after I ordered dinner at that restaurant:

Takeo High School

Today, Thursday, was our second visit to a school in Takeo. Instead of visting a middle school after going to the elementary school yesterday, we skipped right to visiting the high school. Takeo High School is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. Like many other things in Takeo, it has been around for a long time. Before I tell you about my day at the school, I think I need to give you a quick summary of the structure of schools in Japan, and the Takeo schools in particular. As I mentioned yesterday, the elementary schools here are for 1st grade through 6th grade. Middle Schools have three grades, just like ours, but they are 7th grade, 8th grade, and 9th grade. High schools also have three grades: 10th, 11th, and 12th. Remember, students are not required to go to high school in Japan, but most students do. In addition, most students that go to high school, go on to college. In fact, the whole point of going to high school in Japan is to prepare for the college entrance exams.

The structure of classes at the high school we visited today was closer to how I envisioned Japanese schools. The students all wear uniforms and sit in neat, straigh rows in their classes. The students' day begins with Homeroom at 8:25 am. Homeroom in Japan is pretty much like Homeroom at William Penn. The teacher takes attendance, reads the announcements, and gives students information that must go home to their parents. One major difference between our homeroom and their homeroom is that Japanese students never ask if they can leave to go to their lockers. Do you know why? Because they don't have them! The students carry their books with them to class in backpacks. At 8:40 am, the first bell rings (it sounds like Big Ben!) to signal the start of 1st period. The first year high school students (10th graders) all take the same required courses. By 11th grade they either choose a Science course of study or a Humanities course of study. In 12th grade, each course of study is divided into even more specific classes, depending on the type of Science or the type of Humanities the student chooses as their focus.

As we observed various classes (mostly in the Science courses), we noticed that there were some classes that didn't have any girls in them, only boys! The Vice-Principal told us that these were the Physics and Math classes, and that girls usually didn't sign up for the science classes, except for biology. He asked us if it was the same way in the United States and we told him that it was not the same at all! Some girls in the United States are very interested in Physics and Math! Another thing that was interesting about the academic classes is that students never raise their hands. It's not because students in Japan are allowed to speak in class without raising their hands, it's that Japanese High School students don't ask questions in class! It is considered shameful to have a question or not understand the material. In fact, many students are bullied by their classmates in Japan for falling behind in their classes. Instead, the students will ask the teacher their questions in between classes or come for one-on-one help after school. Each student sat at their desk with their books open, listening to the teacher and taking notes. It really made me appreciate all of the great questions you ask in Social Studies!

Despite those differences from the elementary school, there are many similarities because the elementary school and the high school. For instance, the students take their shoes off when entering the building and put on slippers or house shoes. The students and teacher also begin each class by standing, saying "Good Morning" or "Good Afternoon", and bowing to each other. Another similarity is...are you ready?...after lunch, the students CLEAN THE SCHOOL! Only in high school, the students have even more cleaning responsibilities than they did in elementary school. The students in the high school still have to mop, vacuum, and sweep, but they also have to weed the courtyard, rake the leaves, and take out the trash!

Of course, the day wouldn't have been complete without some incredible surprises. The first one came during the first period of the day when we went to observe a "Home-making" class (it's the same as our Family and Consumer Science classes). Instead of just having us watch the class, the teacher arranged for each of the teachers to join groups of students and learn how to make kuri manju (k00-ree ma-n-joo). Kuri manju are buns stuffed with a sweet bean paste and chestnut. These "bean buns" (as we've been calling them) might sound kind of gross at first, but they are actually quite oishi (delicious)! It was very interesting trying to communicate with the students and make the buns at the same time. After all of our hardwork, we had a chance to sit down with our new friends and enjoy the warm kuri manju with some green tea.

The next surprise came at lunch, when high school students came to eat with us in the conference room. Just like in the elementary school, the Japanese students eat their lunch in the classroom. The difference, however, is that high school students bring their lunch with them to school. I ate my lunch with two senior boys; one from the Science course and one from the Humanities course. I had a ton of questions to ask them, but it seemed to take a while to ask and answer each question because I don't speak any Japanese and they only spoke limited English. I did learn that they both like music. While they are familiar with American performers such as Madonna, Avril Lavigne, and Limp Bizkit, their favorite kind of music is "J-Pop".

After lunch and before the cleaning, we had an opportunity to walk down the street and see residents of Takeo prepare for their fall festival. This festival has taken place on the same day in the same location for the last 810 years! To start the festival, there was a tug-of-war competition in the center of town last night and a performance by the same drum troup we saw at the other festival the night before. The drums were just as amazing the second time around! The festival concluded today with yabusame, an archery ceremony involving archers mounted on horseback. In this competition, men wearing traditional costumes must hit a series of targets with arrows while sitting on top of a moving horse! The archery contest took place during a time when we had a meeting scheduled so we didn't get to see the actual competition, but we did get a chance to go outside after lunch (before cleaning) to watch the archers warm-up their horses.

The official school day for high school students in Takeo ends at 4:15 pm, after another short Homeroom period at the end of the day. The students' day, however, is far from over. After classes, the school sponsors clubs and sports, just like our school. The students can choose from Basketball, volleyball, baseball, tennis, judo, kendo, exam preparation, drama, science, fine arts, brass band, tea ceremony, and many, many more! About 80% of the students at Takeo High School participate in an afterschool club. We had a chance to observe a few clubs, but we were invited to participate in the Tea Ceremony club.

The Japanese word for the tea ceremony is sado. Although the origins of sado are rooted in Buddhist meditation, the ceremony is not a religious one, but a method of serving tea. Both men and women can prepare the tea, but it is thought to be one of the things a woman needs to know how to do in order to be a good wife. The ceremony starts with the eating of sweets. The green tea served in the ceremony is bitter, and eating sweets first makes it taste better. Next, the tea is prepared. The ceremony is very structured, and there is a proper way to do everything. There is a certain way each tool for making the tea should be held, a certain way to hold your tea cup, and there is even a certain way to fold your napkin when you are done with your sweets! There is also a lot of bowing in the ceremony, which is a way to show respect for your host and hostess.

School clubs end around 7pm, but the students' day is STILL not over. 10th & 11th graders have an average of 2 1/2 hours of homework a night, and seniors have an average of 4 hours of homework a night. On top of that, some students attend juko, or cram schools in the evenings to help them prepare for their entrance exams.

I guess the city of Takeo decided to save the best for last, because tomorrow I am visiting a middle school! I can't wait to see how middle school teachers help the students make the transition from elementary school to high school! I promise to tell you all about it when I get home! Meanwhile, I have a question for you: How would you order food in a restaurant if there wasn't a menu, there were no pictures of food, and no one in the restaurant spoke any English?