Japanese Travel Journal: Utsunomiya (宇都宮)

I am struggling to get updated here. For this installment, I present you with my trip to Utsunomiya.

This is the first time I saw anyone from Isesaki after I had moved to Matsudo. This is not so impressive as it sounds, because we all met in Utsunomiya 12 days after I moved. The way Benni-先生 greeted us, you'd think it was closer to 12 years.

We went to Utsunomiya for gyoza. I'm pretty sure I've already posted about my love for gyoza, and the Isesaki ladies wanted to foster this as much as possible. In addition, they also love gyoza, so that helped. I cannot understand why anyone would not love gyoza, but that's beside the point. We wanted to eat as much gyoza as possible. This turned out to be quite a lot. Also, the girls helped me pick out a watch while we waited for Benni先生 to show up. Akikoさん and Yukariさん helped me program it, because the instructions were all in Japanese. This made all of us very happy (not that the instructions were Japanese but that the three of us were able to get it sorted out).

We ate at three different places, though the third place was a combination of 5 restaurants and we could order from any of the menus. At the first two restaurants, we ordered a plate or two of gyoza and shared it amongst ourselves before moving on. The first restaurant was a tiny place where you ordered the food at a ticket machine, after which you presented the ticket to the waitress. Because there were seven of us, we had to split up, so Akikoさん, Yukariさん, and myself shared an order each of boiled and fried gyoza (the fried was better). After that, we slipped out to the place next door and ordered GIANT gyoza. The rest of the girls showed up just as we were finishing, which is why we had time to wait to program my watch.

Together, we all headed out to the third location, which was an awesome conglomeration of gyoza restaurants (Utsunomiya is famous for gyoza - there are upwards of two dozen restaurants specializing in this most awesome of foods, probably more). I think we ordered about seven plates of gyoza at this place, from three different menus. There was chiso (a basil-type herb) gyoza, crunchy gyoza, not-so-crunchy gyoza, shrimpy gyoza, spicy gyoza, salty gyoza - holy cats, there was a LOT of gyoza. Boy, were we stuffed. And to everyone's astonishment, Benni先生 polished off a bowl and a half of rice along with it, the half being what I couldn't eat.

[This is nothing - I once witnessed her eat a huge bowl of ramen, an order of gyoza, and THREE bowls of rice in one sitting. Her stomach is bottomless.]

After gorging ourselves on gyoza, we went off in search of other exciting things to do. We began by buying gyoza omiyage. Half of the ladies bought frozen gyoza to take home - complete with styrofoam cooler to transport them in. Then they bought me a cellphone strap of a little plastic plate of gyoza, which I've become a collector of (the cellphone straps, not the little plastic plates of gyoza). These ladies are so totally the awesome.

While wandering around Utsunomiya, we discovered a shrine in the middle of the city and because I love shrines, we immediately explored it. I like going to shrines with the ladies because they will explain things to me the best they can. Benni先生 either has no answer to my questions or ignores me entirely (in her defense, she's just naturally oblivious sometimes). Even if the ladies don't know the answers to my questions, they will do their best to figure it out or explain it somehow, even if it means translating something.

The cherry blossoms were nearing the end of their blooming stage, but they were still very beautiful and stunning. The wind blew gently that day, but it still scattered blossoms all through the air. They kept falling and falling, a shower of pink and white petals. There seemed to be no end to them.

With the sun going down, we decided it was time to end our gyoza adventure. We set a date for our next gathering (Nagano - Matsumoto Castle in May), and then they dropped me off at the train station. And thus ended our trip to Utsunomiya. Quite satisfying, I must say.

Japanese Trainspotting

Timing is everything. With careful planning and precise timing, you can see amazing things, so long as you know when and where to be. Everything runs on its own clock, and if you can synchronize with it, you can witness marvelous things.

Or, if you're lucky, you can stumble upon them at just the right moment. There's something magical about arriving just as the natural order of things is unfolding.

Twice since moving to Matsudo, I've left my apartment to discover a group of people gathered at a nearby railroad crossing. I live close to the tracks - they lie just across the street, parallel to a skinny creek lined with sakura trees. I'm used to the trains, but the people are unusual.

They are almost all men, and they all have cameras. Not your everyday handheld digital cameras but serious photography cameras, replete with lens attachments and tripods and whatever else may be needed for serious train photography. These men - there are seven or eight of them at the crossing, with more of them posted haphazardly along the sakura path - are ardently preparing for the moment of the perfect shot: adjusting their tripods for maximum stability, curling around the fence railing to get the best vantage point, clustering around around the edge of the path to get the clearest view. They are quiet and serious, focused on their work.

The crossing signal comes to life, and the actions of the photographers becomes more frantic as they make last-second preparations. Rumblings announces the train's approach, and then the group goes still, poised and ready to capture the moment.

The first time I witnessed this activity, the train had a vinyl banner spread across its front, declaring in Japanese and English that this was its Last Run. The second occurence provided no such insight to the importance of the event. Two sets of cars - one yellow, one blue - had been coupled, and nobody rode them; they carried only a small squadron of jumpsuited railway workers. Its signifigance remains a mystery to me.

To me, but not to the photographers. A symphony of snapping shutters erupts as the train comes closer, and then follows a scramble as the group reassembles to catch hasty photos of the train's backside.

And then the moment has passed. The photographers smile at each other and consult their cameras and compare pictures. This lasts only briefly, and then they pack up their things and head off in different directions. Within five minutes, the crossing is abandoned, once again an unimportant fixture in the Matsudo cityscape. You would never know that anything special had just happened here.

another universal teaching truth

You can't make people want to learn. I don't care if they're children, teenagers, adults - whatever. Age doesn't matter, nationality doesn't matter, NOTHING matters. If there is no motivation, you can't make 'em learn.

Lately, head office has been coming down on our shisha (region) because of high cancellation rates and low renewal rates. Last week, I spent an hour in a v-chat where the primary message seemed to be "students are quitting/not renewing, and it's ALL YOUR FAULT. Quit blaming the economy, quit blaming job transfers, quit making excuses. Let's face it - you need to be better!"

(Talk about encouraging a lack of motivation . . .)

Sure, it's possible for teachers to increase motivation. I'll accept that. If a person is a really great teacher - I mean, really stupendous, totally has the whole thing down - then maybe they can get their students so pumped up about it that they'll keep coming back even when they don't really want to.

I am not a great teacher. I believe that 90% of motivation comes from within. I can't generate it for them. I can enjoy myself and take my job seriously, but I can't force people to want to study English. Now, that doesn't mean that I don't do the best I can. I love my job, and I want to do it well. That helps some - my students see how enthusiastic I am about English, and they think it's kind of cute. It makes them feel like I'm here because I want to be here and not because I need the money (which is true, wholly and completely - the money doesn't mean jack to me, not really). I can encourage my students and guide them and help them and amuse and educate them in class. But if they don't WANT to learn, there's not a whole lot I can do about that. Granted, this is my philosophy because it's the way I operate, but on the whole, I've found it to be mostly true. If they don't HAVE to do it, people won't do it unless they want to.

(Unless they're like me and they'll only do things they want to do, PERIOD.)

I will note that though Moriya's renewal rate is not great (it's over 50%, which is good enough for me), our successful interview rate is around 90%, and we pulled in 7 new students last month. As far as numbers are concerned, I still have about 75 students and 30 classes. Maybe we're not doing phenomenal work, but we're making ends meet, and that's enough to make me happy.