Today was sports day. It was enjoyable! I visited the different stations. One cool thing they were doing in the gym was the test of your “power.” It was this thing you squeezed that was attached to a pressure gage that told you how many kilos you could squeeze: a test of strength. I asked Shobu what it was and he said, “…For power.” He’s in my 二年生 class.
Outside, there’s a pool next door to Segawa Junior High. Crowds of kids were following teachers through our school grounds to get there, and I could hear the giggling and screaming of little children. Delightful. I met Sayûri’s little sister, Yûri. She was quiet. She couldn’t swim because she hurt her leg/foot. The other girl, Mayu, was pretty talkative and sweet. I think they were friends. When their group of kids came back from the pool, some of them asked, “Eigo no sensei desu ka?” (“Are you an English teacher?”). Others made observations out loud (the way that kids do!), like “Kami ga nagai” (“[She] has long hair”). As I was talking with more of the kids, they were gathering around me and Mayu said, “Hana ga takai!” or “Hana takai!” which literally means “[Your] nose is tall!” And I know I’ve heard or read that before and laughed at the literal meaning. I’ll have to ask Yukari if there’s a Japanese figure of speech that I’m missing.
Well, I asked her, and here’s the cake. It literally just means “your nose is tall!” (“you have a long/big nose”). And like children making observations, they have shared with mean a Japanese observation; In Japan, big noses are considered beautiful. Isn’t that awesome? It’s as desirable a feature as maybe long, silky hair is to women in the States. Japan just won ten points. When I’m thinking back at the first time I heard the “hana ga takai,” I think I might have laughed because the translation was “good-looking person” and it never explained about nose being a desirable feature, so all I got was “tall nose” = “good-looking.”
Sometimes when I hear everyone say something to someone else who’s leaving, I don’t catch the beginning, but I just mumble the first part and say the end. I think that’s a common thing that people do anyway, sometimes. (“Ohayo- gozaimasu” becomes “gozaimasssss” and even “zaimassss” the younger or lazier the person is/ is feeling).
Today I got to play the Koto! It was really big (180 centimeters, I think, [about 6 feet]) and you play it on the floor, or maybe set up on a long table. You wear flexible finger picks on your thumb, pointer, and middle fingers. The Koto’s supposed to take the shape/form of a dragon. It’s really easy to tune, too. I played part of the song “Sakura” a traditional Japanese song (I’ll look it up and make a midi of it). Later, during the actual music class, Keiko, the music teacher, asked me to join the class on the piano. We were all practicing the same song on our own for most of the class, then at the end we all played together. It worked pretty well: hand-bells, guitars, and piano (the flautist might be practicing a different song). At the end of class, she shared a secret with me after the students left: she’s *****. I’m not sure why she shared that with me, because not all of the teachers know. She was looking through a Japanese-english dictionary, trying to communicate with me. She looked up the word ***** and then “secret” and then *****. I was like, “OH! Ah! Wakarimasu!” (“I understand!”)
I also found out that the original measurement system (can’t remember the name) was equal to 3 centimeters and 3 kilometers, etc. But since Japan system was only used by Japan, they switched to match the world, BUT kimonos are still made using the old system. That’s pretty sweet.
I have to be careful about my sense of reality. On my computer screen, I just minimized an application I was using so that I wouldn’t splash food on it. Wow.
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