100 Things I Learned in 2009

1. In Japan, if at first you don’t succeed in your New Year’s countdown, try try again.
2. You’ll get to six before the Christmas-lighted trees turn on.
3. Those same trees got turned off and back on once per hour for the preceding fourteen days. Happy New Year!
4. On Coming of Age day, twenty-year-old girls (and some boys) participate in the ceremony for the sake of the kimonos their parents buy for them.
5. My Japanese teacher borrowed her sister’s kimono and used the same amount of money to go on a trip to Europe instead.
6. I never appreciated insulation when I had it.
7. Central heating, too.
8. Although kerosene is neither as smelly or as dangerous as you might be led to believe.
9. A round-trip bullet train ticket to the airport costs more than a round-trip ticket to Korea.
10. I take night buses now.
11. You forget about the impossible cleanliness of Japan until you leave.
12. Seoul is huge and dirty and none too easy to navigate.
13. But it is also filled with genuinely Western products (French bread! Dunkin Donuts!) and English-speakers who will give directions (Yes, I am holding a guidebook; yes, I am lost.).
14. Displays about the Japanese invasions into Korea take up an entire wing of the War Museum.
15. The Korean War takes up two floors.
16. Both are taught as little more than footnotes in the respective invaders’ history classes.
17. The third-year junior-high English textbook is intentionally made short enough to not require the entire year to teach.
18. You use the remaining time to “prepare” the students for high-school entrance exams.
19. This mostly entails giving them last year’s tests and watching them fill in answers.
20. Occasionally you do a listening test, which entails putting in a CD and trying not to throw the player out the window in frustration at the terrible acting and terrible English.
21. If I never hear the words “entrance exam” again, it will be too soon.
22. Junior high school graduation requires several three hour-long practice sessions in how to proceed up to the stage, take one’s diploma, and bow to the correct degree.
23. It also requires a three-hour-long set-up of the gym by the first- and second-years.
24. And a $2400!! flower arrangement on the stage.
25. The underclassmen sing a goodbye song to the graduates, and the graduates sing a goodbye song to the teachers, parents, and other students.
26. By the end of both songs, everyone involved will be crying too hard to sing.
27. The Japanese usually do not emote; when they do, they really let go.
28. There are actually five elementary schools that can request my presence in their English classes.
29. Five elementary schools is too many.
30. Teachers are reassigned after about six years at one school.
31. The rearrangement of desks in the staffroom is an all-day, all-staff project.
32. Spring break is only two weeks long.
33. But the excitement of starting a new school year is still a huge energy boost for everyone.
34. The kids actually like English -- and me -- again!
35. Japanese college kids are more like what I’m used to than Japanese anything-else.
36. Apparently, once they’ve gone through hell to get into high school, and then more hell to get into college, they are pretty much home-free.
37. They laugh, and they’re loud, and they stay out until 3 am, and they sleep through their classes the next day.
38. Sakura (cherry blossoms) last for two weeks at the outside.
39. If there is a sunny weekend day in that time, take advantage.
40. Because next weekend it will be cold and rainy. Guaranteed.
41. Toilets do not require running water.
42. Neither do showers.
43. Habitat for Humanity require prospective homeowners to spend 400 “sweat equity” hours working on someone else’s house.
44. For comparison, we were there for five days and put in about 30 hours each.
45. I am capable of manual labour.
46. Not as capable as some, but capable nonetheless.
47. If you go somewhere usually visited only by tour buses and use public transportation instead, you will be much better-received.
48. “By the age of 23, most Filipina ladies are married with three kids!” ~man on a bus in Bohol
49. Manila is dirty, dangerous, and filled with beggars of all ages.
50. The H4H village is definitely a better place to grow up.
51. At “pick your own fruit” farms in Japan, you pay a flat fee to eat as much as you can for as long as you want -- but you can’t take any out with you.
52. In July, high up on a mountain, there will be one patch of dirty, slushy snow that the sun hasn’t reached yet.
53. Japanese people will stand in line to ski down it.
54. Cambodia is intoxicating and heartbreaking and addictive and inspiring, all at the same time.
55. Angkor Wat is not the best temple that Angkor has to offer.
56. Everything that a temple seller has costs a dollar. Bottled water, postcards, bananas, photographs.
57. Unless you appear to not want it; then it costs 2 for a dollar.
58. If your friend bought your ticket with a credit card, get a copy of the credit card.
59. Thank god for parents and Western Union and perpetually-underbooked Vietnam Airlines flights.
60. Sometimes, if you were treated badly enough and you write an angry enough letter, Thai Airways will pay you back for the new ticket.
61. Helping nine 15-year-old boys write and perform an English play was a better idea in my head than in actuality.
62. Don’t let boys use paint if you can’t read the label.
63. Oil paint does not, in fact, come off anything.
64. I can coach a student for a speech contest without a translator.
65. But I might have to drag her down to the bathrooms and point in order to communicate the idea of “mirror.”
66. Speech contest judges are stupid.
67. The water in northern Japan is apparently perfect for making whisky.
68. I would not have had the courage to leave Japan in 1918 to move to Scotland and learn to make whisky.
69. Japan can make anything cute.
70. Even water monsters that drag disobedient children to their deaths by drowning.
71. I can teach a class of forty non-English-speakers, without a translator, on 30 minutes’ notice.
72. But I’d rather not.
73. I can teach a class of thirty very small non-English-speakers, whose translator has chosen not to show up, on no notice.
74. But I’d really rather not.
75. Typhoons sound like a worse idea than they really are.
76. Who needs to be able to read Japanese when your health-check report comes adorned with little blue smiley faces?
77. Do not spill miso soup onto a laptop keyboard.
78. Apple does not cover spills.
79. Knitting on subways is a really good way to draw a LOT of stares.
80. There’s nothing like being home for your birthday.
81. But an elementary school, a junior high school, a cake buffet with friends, and a big parcel from home will do in a pinch.
82. Japan does have juvenile delinquents.
83. I’m glad I only had to teach them for one day. Good luck, Ken-sensei!
84. Laos is quiet and safe and friendly.
85. Basically, not at all like Southeast Asia...
86. It is possible to trigger pro-American feelings in me.
87. Why you would choose to be biased enough to be able to do so is beyond me.
88. If they are going to make things ornate, the Japanese like detailed carving and many colors of paint.
89. The Southeast Asians like gold.
90. Tiles are also acceptable, for contrast.
91. Vietnam is not user-friendly.
92. Vietnamese coffee is very, very user-friendly.
93. Bangkok is everything that everyone proclaims it to be.
94. Good, bad, ugly, beautiful, friendly, full of scams...
95. The Thais claim they built Angkor Wat.
96. It is a lie, and they should be ashamed of themselves.
97. Tokyo airport has the most wonderful showers.
98. Do not expect to eat after 7.30 pm in Tokyo on New Year’s Eve.
99. My life is wild and weird and wonderful.
100. Thank you, Asia.