by Whitey | May 16, 2008 | Weekly Re-Cap
Here’s some stuff going through my head tonight, and in my life this week, in no particular order:
1. Now that I’ve been learning Kanji for a few weeks now, I find myself recognizing — and actually knowing the meaning of — kanji I see in the real world. It’s pretty cool to suddenly notice stuff that’s been there all along but I just didn’t understand.
2. Speaking of understanding, sometimes when trying to communicate with people here, I’m not sure if it’s them not understanding me or if it’s me not understanding them. It’s a little bewildering at times.
3. My friend just text-messaged me inviting me to go see the new Narnia movie with him this coming week. I’m stoked. But it may be a busy week, so it may or may not actually happen. We’ll see.
4. I’ve been debating for a while about getting an electronic Japanese-English / English-Japanese dictionary. Pretty handy — even necessary — if you’re studying Japanese. After some research, I opted to buy a Nintendo DS instead, along with their dictionary software, KANJI SONOMAMA DS RAKUBIKI JITEN — both of which I just ordered tonight from Amazon Japan. The system and the cartridge together cost less than a lot of the dictionaries you see around Japan. And of course the DS has the added bonus of game play.
5. My boss — GP Asia area director Romy Caringal — is coming to Japan this weekend, and I’ll finally get to meet him in person when he visits Nagoya next week. That’ll be cool.
6. This past Sunday, our church had our morning service outside — at a burial site. We were actually inside this big tomb thing where on the upper levels people’s bones are. It was a Christian tome, so rather unlike the typical Japanese one, but still seemed an odd place for a Sunday morning service. But that’s contextualization. As someone explained to me (as I understood it), in Japanese religious traditions there is a great deal of respect — even veneration or worship — for the dead, and a criticism against Christianity is a lack of respect for the dead and their tombs. These kinds of services are a response to that. Only unlike the Buddhist or Shinto versions, we remember — not worship — the dead. And we remember with hope, not mourning.
And that’s a wrap for this week.
by Whitey | May 14, 2008 | Etc.
Check out this post: Yellow moon, blue traffic light, from Linguarum’s Weblog, on the different ways Japanese and Westerners express things, and how culture affects even the way we perceive the world around us.
Basically the writer’s idea is that Asians, particularly Japanese, view or express things in more symbolic, less literal ways than Westerners. The question this leaves us with is How can we communicate more effectively cross-culturally?
by Whitey | May 13, 2008 | Etc.
Good word on the arts and mission and what they have to do with each other: Innovation in Mission: Innovation in the Arts.
by Whitey | May 9, 2008 | Weekly Re-Cap
Golden Week was this past week here in Japan. It’s a cluster of holidays that all happen within the same week. This year, one of the holidays was last Tuesday, two were this week (Monday and Tuesday), and one landed on Saturday (boo). If people are going to use vacation time in Japan (and oddly enough, it’s not a given that one would actually use one’s vacation time), Golden Week is often when it happens.
Since it was Golden Week, I had Monday and Tuesday off — no classes. So I took off to Osaka on Friday afternoon, to visit friends in my Japanese “hometown”. I got caught up with friends, ate some great yaki-niku, did some sight-seeing (more on that another day), even went to a movie.
I got back late Monday night. Tuesday, since it was a holiday, our church hosted a missions festival. Also a good time. Then in the evening, after an already full day, I went out: A worship band called Audacious (from the UK) was in town and there was a worship concert going on. Also good.
Then came Wednesday, and it was back to school.
Ouch.
I feel like I could have used another day off just to stay at home and catch up on sleep. The holidays were a lot of fun, but I didn’t have much down time, alone, just to chill out. I’ve been looking forward to the weekend since Wednesday. I haven’t slept well, despite being tired.
But it’s Friday now.
by Whitey | Apr 25, 2008 | Weekly Re-Cap
This Week:
1. I didn’t blog much, as you can see. I’ll try to make up for it next week. I do have some unused videos and photos.
2. I connected with some new mission-minded Christian friends — one in person and one via email. I’m always amazed at how we’re all connected somehow. It’s like the whole “six degrees” thing; only with Christians in Japan it’s more like two degrees, which is probably due at least in part to the relative smallness of the Christian community here.
3. I helped pass out flyers to kids near a couple of local elementary schools. We have a kids’ event tomorrow we were inviting them to.
4. I realized I need to study even more. Last week we started studying Kanji — the complicated characters borrowed from Chinese which represent words instead of sounds. There are literally thousands of these things, and I think we’re supposed to learn about 300 in the next five months or so. On top of that, we’re quickly coming up on grammar that I’m less familiar with, and soon enough will be into all new stuff again. So, as I said, more study required. I figure about 3 hours outside of class would do it.
5. I also realized this week that I don’t get enough talk time in class, and I’m thinking I need to do something about that. Meaning I need to seek out more opportunities to practice my Japanese, or take advantage of the opportunities that are already there.
by Whitey | Apr 23, 2008 | Links
… on CAN Japan’s Worship & The Arts blog: Manga Outreach + A Sneak Peak at Manga Metamorphosis and Manga Mutiny. Speaks for itself, so ’nuff said.
by Whitey | Apr 18, 2008 | Weekly Re-Cap
Is it Friday again already? Life seems to be moving pretty fast these days. The days fill up quickly and the next thing you know it, another week has passed. It makes these Weekly Re-Caps hard to write. But here goes. This week I’ll talk about my new routine…
I’m getting into a pretty regular routine now that school’s full-time: I get up at around 6:30, have a shower, then have breakfast, coffee and quiet time. I leave for school between 8 and 8:30, depending on whether I’m biking or taking the subway. Biking takes more time and effort, but it’s good exercise, and I enjoy the trip. The subway is faster but really crowded that time of day, and more depressing; just picture a train car full of sleepy salarymen, office ladies and students, crammed in like sardines, most of them going somewhere they don’t want to be going, especially that time of day. Yeah, biking is better.
I’m in class from about 9 AM till 12:35 PM, then in the afternoon I need to spend at least 2 hours studying and doing homework. Then I have “missionary stuff” to do, which means anything from preparing for an ESL Bible study, to emailing supporters, to internship work. So there’s always something to do, whether it feels like ministry or not.
As I said, the days fill up pretty quickly.
Prayer Points: This week the new pastor, Uchiyama-sensei, arrived. His first prayer meeting was Wednesday night. That same night the outgoing pastor’s family left, and the moving company took their stuff away the next day. Pray-ers, please continue to pray for the church as it goes through this transition time. Pastor Uchiyama’s first Sunday as Nagoya Immanuel’s pastor is this weekend. Also, please keep praying for my studies (we’re moving quickly into new and uncharted territory!) and God’s guidance for my ministry here. Thanks!
And that’s a wrap for this week. If you haven’t been here all week, scroll on down and see what I’ve added — there was a bunch of new stuff this week. See you next week.
by Whitey | Apr 17, 2008 | Life in Japan, Photos, Videos
This past weekend, as I mentioned before, Zach came to Nagoya. I had the task of being his tour guide, which was kind of nice, because it gave me someone to do some site-seeing with (the locals, just like back home, take local landmarks for granted).
We met up Saturday morning around 10 at Nagoya Station. After a brief discussion we decided on three things to do: visit Midland Square (tallest building in Nagoya) and check out the view of the city; go to Nagoya Castle, where they were having a samurai parade and battle re-enactment (which was not nearly as cool as it sounds); and travel to Gifu (the neighboring prefecture) for the Fire Festival, which just happened to be going on Saturday night.
The Fire Festival was just as crazy as the name implies. Basically, a bunch of “bare-chested, sake-fueled men” (as the article read) carried around portable shrine things making lots of noise — typical Japanese festival stuff, but with the addition of fireworks being shot into the air, lighting up lanterns and sending ashes and sparks down on the aforementioned bare-chested men. There were also lots of booths set up selling various food and souvenir items. Zach got a bbq squid on a stick and I bought a huge bbq sausage on a stick; there were lots of things on sticks, now that I think of it. There were also lots of people.
Anyway, here are some photos and videos from Midland Square, Nagoya Castle and even Gifu (where it was too dark and far from the action to get good video on a cell phone but if you look carefully you may see some of those bare-chested men dancing beneath the flames).
Nagoya Castle and the surrounding cityscape,
as seen from Midland Square:
Fierce-looking samurai warriors:
Me! At the Castle:
Me again! On top of a replica of one of the
“Golden Dolphins” that adorn the top of the outside of the Castle:
More fierce samurai. Myself included:
Zach and his squid-stick:
The craziness just getting started in Gifu:
Lanterns on FIRE!
Going up the elevator at Midland Squre:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6KBFsyCbJU&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&border=1]
Taiko drummers at the Castle:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBBKP0TzGTg&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&border=1]
Craziness at the Fire Festival:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=958unGkOeFs&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&border=1]
by Whitey | Apr 11, 2008 | Weekly Re-Cap
This week…
1. I had my first full week of full-time language classes. Lots of review for me, since it’s the same stuff I took in January, but it’s moving much more quickly. I’m trying to take advantage of the ease of the current workload and memorize the words I missed the first time. And hopefully get ahead and stay ahead. Soon enough we’ll be into uncharted territory.
2. Things at the church have been chaotic, as renovations were being done, boxes and furniture were being moved in and out, and lots of stuff went out with the trash — all part of pastoral transition time.
3. Fellow missionary Zach came to Nagoya. I haven’t seen him yet but we’ve made plans to meet up and see some sights together tomorrow. Expect to read about the fun here.
If you’re a pray-er, please pray for…
1. My language studies
2. Pastor Saoshiro and family — this coming Sunday is their last one here.
3. Pastor Uchiyama and family — the new pastor, who begins next week.
Thanks! That’s a wrap for this week!
by Whitey | Apr 4, 2008 | Weekly Re-Cap
Last week I was away and off-line for a few days, so I didn’t get to post a re-cap. So this week I’ll attempt to sum up the past two weeks concisely, in point-form.
- Last Wednesday afternoon, I hopped the Shinkansen to Yokohama and found my way to the Wesleyan mission house, where I was hosted hospitably by the Probsts, WGM missionaries.
- Thursday was spent hanging out with fellow-GP-missionary Andrea, and our boss’s boss’s boss Wesleyan General Superintendent Dr. Jerry Pence, along with his two sons, sight-seeing in Tokyo. Photos will follow when I get around to it.
- Friday, Saturday and Sunday I attended several sessions of the Immanuel Church’s annual national conference. Friday night I gave a testimony in the evening service, and Saturday I gave greetings — in Japanese! — during one of the business meetings.
- Sunday night after conference I came back to Nagoya. Tired.
- Monday morning I wrote, survived, and passed my Japanese exam.
- Tuesday morning I had orientation and a placement exam for my full-time course.
- Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (today) I had class in the morning and studied in the afternoons. So far the new class is super-easy because we’re back to square one, covering the stuff I was doing in January, which was already pretty easy since I’d studied it before. But it’ll get much harder pretty soon I’m sure.
- Yesterday I also shot some photos in Nagoya Central Park and did some recording for a soon-to-be-released (maybe even tonight) podcast, in which I talk more about conference, the needs of Japan and the Japanese church, my studies and what’s going on here at the Nagoya church. Check back soon!
And that’s a wrap for now.
