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shirenomad"Where is the 'sigh' in 'sayonara'?" (Oh, wait, there it is... -_-)
The final speech was yesterday, and I think everyone was grateful that they let us bring our notes. I still did my best to memorize mine, just so I wouldn't be reading off the paper for the duration (or stumbling over the hard words: someone say "yawaragemasu" three times fast!) but I spent a lot of time glancing down momentarily. Fortunately, my speech seemed to go over well. The subject was my frustrations with learning kanji, and it sadly doesn't really translate well, because I make a lot of comments about specific kanji pronunciation and appearance. (Those with decent Japanese knowledge will understand my "Why is America 'rice country'?" complaint.) I also had the help of my "lovely assistant"; I had a huge sketchpad with giant kanji written on the pages as a visual aid, and Noriko was kind enough to volunteer for the job of page-turner. Nathan, of course, managed to show me up -- his speech was on Japanese music and he dragged a CD player in to sing one karaoke -- but I still got a lot of compliments afterward.
Speaking of karaoke... after the speech was over, and after a brief farewell party with all the host families, senseis, etc. (plus Laura's parents, who had flown in a day earlier; they didn't understand a word of what was going on, of course, but they enjoyed it nonetheless), we decided to give ourselves a send-off in true Japanese fashion. So 9 tutors and 8 ryuugakusei went down to the local karaoke parlor and spent four hours rocking out. (With leftovers from the farewell party, no less.) Highlights include:
- Laura and David(!) singing Brandy's dueling duet "The Boy is Mine." (Midway through Tae spontaneously opted to stand between them and get fought over. Hope my photo of that came out.) Dave then managed to lose what remained of his masculinity points by singing the girl's part (in an alarmingly femmy voice) to Noriko's manly rapping for "F.F.B." (a Japanese rap song; you've probably never heard it). He recovered a little later by singing Aladdin's role in "A Whole New World"; he managed to talk Courtney into doing Jasmine's part instead of the other way around. ^^;
- Tae's solo: "Ojiisan no Tokei" (at least, I think that's what it's called). Well-known song around here; I'd heard the kids at the elementary school sing it, but considering how kids tend to belt out music, I could never understand it until the karaoke machine had the words on display for all to see. The only line I'd understood before yesterday was "Ima wa mou ugokanai, sono tokei" ("Now it doesn't run anymore, that watch"). As it turns out, it's a song about the singer's grandfather: the watch was bought on the day Grandfather was born, it ran for a hundred years, and then when "Grandpa went to heaven" it stopped working. ...In hindsight, that's a bit of a depressing song to be teaching first graders.
- "Traveling." I forget how this J-pop song became our theme, but it did. At just about any tutor-ryuugakusei party I've been to, someone's popped it in the CD player and at least half of us have started singing along. Well, why buck with tradition? We closed with that number... just about everyone sang (or at least danced to it) this time.
- The dude at the register getting something like 15 cameras piled onto the counter with requests to take group photos of the entire crew. If he hadn't been Reiko's boyfriend we probably wouldn't have gotten away with that, but we did. That one better have come out; it'll be the last time we're all together...
As I type this, David is off to the train station on his way to Narita Airport. We just saw him off. An hour after watching Laura leave with her parents: they'll be touring Japan for a week or so before flying back to America, and even if they decide to drop back by Tsuru before leaving the country, the only person left by then will be Mike, so it was our big farewell for her too. I mentioned way back when I first got here that I'd probably get pretty close to these people... but it didn't really hit me until, well, literally just now, how close the ryuugakusei-gumi are to family for me... *gets quiet for a moment before composing himself enough to continue*
My own farewell from Tsuru will be Wednesday around 10:30: I've checked the train schedules and I can get to Narita Airport a full two hours before my flight leaves if I start then, complete with time for lunch at Shinjuku station. I figure that will give me more than enough time to get through customs and any hazards of finding my way around a Japanese airport.
The final speech was yesterday, and I think everyone was grateful that they let us bring our notes. I still did my best to memorize mine, just so I wouldn't be reading off the paper for the duration (or stumbling over the hard words: someone say "yawaragemasu" three times fast!) but I spent a lot of time glancing down momentarily. Fortunately, my speech seemed to go over well. The subject was my frustrations with learning kanji, and it sadly doesn't really translate well, because I make a lot of comments about specific kanji pronunciation and appearance. (Those with decent Japanese knowledge will understand my "Why is America 'rice country'?" complaint.) I also had the help of my "lovely assistant"; I had a huge sketchpad with giant kanji written on the pages as a visual aid, and Noriko was kind enough to volunteer for the job of page-turner. Nathan, of course, managed to show me up -- his speech was on Japanese music and he dragged a CD player in to sing one karaoke -- but I still got a lot of compliments afterward.
Speaking of karaoke... after the speech was over, and after a brief farewell party with all the host families, senseis, etc. (plus Laura's parents, who had flown in a day earlier; they didn't understand a word of what was going on, of course, but they enjoyed it nonetheless), we decided to give ourselves a send-off in true Japanese fashion. So 9 tutors and 8 ryuugakusei went down to the local karaoke parlor and spent four hours rocking out. (With leftovers from the farewell party, no less.) Highlights include:
- Laura and David(!) singing Brandy's dueling duet "The Boy is Mine." (Midway through Tae spontaneously opted to stand between them and get fought over. Hope my photo of that came out.) Dave then managed to lose what remained of his masculinity points by singing the girl's part (in an alarmingly femmy voice) to Noriko's manly rapping for "F.F.B." (a Japanese rap song; you've probably never heard it). He recovered a little later by singing Aladdin's role in "A Whole New World"; he managed to talk Courtney into doing Jasmine's part instead of the other way around. ^^;
- Tae's solo: "Ojiisan no Tokei" (at least, I think that's what it's called). Well-known song around here; I'd heard the kids at the elementary school sing it, but considering how kids tend to belt out music, I could never understand it until the karaoke machine had the words on display for all to see. The only line I'd understood before yesterday was "Ima wa mou ugokanai, sono tokei" ("Now it doesn't run anymore, that watch"). As it turns out, it's a song about the singer's grandfather: the watch was bought on the day Grandfather was born, it ran for a hundred years, and then when "Grandpa went to heaven" it stopped working. ...In hindsight, that's a bit of a depressing song to be teaching first graders.
- "Traveling." I forget how this J-pop song became our theme, but it did. At just about any tutor-ryuugakusei party I've been to, someone's popped it in the CD player and at least half of us have started singing along. Well, why buck with tradition? We closed with that number... just about everyone sang (or at least danced to it) this time.
- The dude at the register getting something like 15 cameras piled onto the counter with requests to take group photos of the entire crew. If he hadn't been Reiko's boyfriend we probably wouldn't have gotten away with that, but we did. That one better have come out; it'll be the last time we're all together...
As I type this, David is off to the train station on his way to Narita Airport. We just saw him off. An hour after watching Laura leave with her parents: they'll be touring Japan for a week or so before flying back to America, and even if they decide to drop back by Tsuru before leaving the country, the only person left by then will be Mike, so it was our big farewell for her too. I mentioned way back when I first got here that I'd probably get pretty close to these people... but it didn't really hit me until, well, literally just now, how close the ryuugakusei-gumi are to family for me... *gets quiet for a moment before composing himself enough to continue*
My own farewell from Tsuru will be Wednesday around 10:30: I've checked the train schedules and I can get to Narita Airport a full two hours before my flight leaves if I start then, complete with time for lunch at Shinjuku station. I figure that will give me more than enough time to get through customs and any hazards of finding my way around a Japanese airport.
