Short week TILT

With the event running through the long weekend and me taking Tuesday off to recuperate, my work week is only two days old and already it's Thursday. What's not to love?!

As for the event... it was exhausting - I got a normal amount of sleep each night but was so busy during the day that I had to miss a few meals and just generally stay on full "go" for the entire day. But, exhaustion aside, it was a lot of fun! An amazing event to be a part of. Official sources say we had over 6000 people over the course of the three days, and I'm pretty sure that just about every one of them came into the World Centre room we were running. Our photocopied handouts had to be strictly rationed but we still ran out. We sold out of some of our goods (with our very cute elephant logo - still a few tote bags and badges, get yours while they last!). I saw old friends. I networked. I made new friends. I missed an opportunity to meet the Empress. But mostly it was just a very powerful reminder of the incredibeness that is the movement Lord Baden Powell started 100 years ago.

Besides that, well I love U who came all the way out to pick us and all our luggage at the end of the event, to drive us to another event , a final reception we had to run. He then dropped my exhausted fellow organizer at her place and took me home, telling me to go to bed because I had "dead fish eyes." (just what every girl wants to hear, eh?!).

I'm loving the cooler weather and having weekend plans for the next few weeks, and honestly I'm just nerd enough that I am starting to love the challenge I've set for myself over the next few months!

Garam Chai!

One of my favourite memories of travelling around India was the chai wallahs – the men who would come around selling paper cups of hot milky sweet spiced tea. Sometimes there would sell a coffee version, and sometimes one or the other would be without spices or even sugar, but every morning I woke up on the train I awoke to the call of the chai wallah yelling “chai! Garam chai! Garam chai!”

Trains definitely weren't the only place I could get chai, however, and they weren't the best either. When I visited the home of a friend or acquaintance, when I went to the hairdresser or was waiting in a shop, a cup of chai would often be offered. It seemed that each and every time was different, each person seemed to have their own ingredients and amounts. One friend’s chai was thick and sweet – made with extra sugar and more milk that water, another friend’s was more strongly tea flavoured – she boiled the teabag for longer and put the spices in near the end, my hairdresser’s was light and aromatic – she used lemongrass and no cardamon… Most of my Indian friends used the same type of tea – a loose semi-powdered strong black tea, but since leaving India I've seen chai made from decaf black tea, herbal teas, green teas, red roiboos teas, and, then there was La Fuji Mama:s barley tea chai with mugi-cha! When you think about all the different methods, spices, teas, and the variations thereof… well the variations of chai are endless!

Part of my preparations for the big Girl Scout event next month was to make a “chai recipe sheet” for us to include with the logo-ed mugs we are selling. I decided that just one recipe wasn't going to cut it, so ended up making a multiple-page little booklet with information about the spices, various chai spice mixtures, and then some info about Indian desserts as well. But to be able to write about various flavours of chai I had to try them myself first, and try out the basic recipe too. So I hosted a planning meeting at my place where we also made 8 (yes, EIGHT) batches of chai. Each batch was slightly different from the other and, for the most part I was the only one who knew what was in each. We numbered paper cups and each got 1/4 of a cup of each batch, which we tasted one by one, sort of like a wine tasting – discussing the spice mixture and flavour. In the end we came up with five mixtures that we liked, and I used those for the recipe book.

Hearing all about the chai-tasting, U demanded that I make him chai sometime, so I went out and bought all the spices for my own kitchen. I was worried when I did that I might end up making chai once and then having all the spices cluttering up my cupboard and gathering dust. I needn't have worried, however, as I've found myself making chai a number of times a week now. Sure it takes more effort than just brewing a cup of regular tea, but it is ever so worth the extra effort. Ever so worth it!

And while I would love to have everybody who reads my blog come out to the event and buy their own tea goods to get my chai recipes, I'm guessing it'd be just a liiiitle too far for some of you! So, here goes...

1 cup water
enough tea for one cup (bag or loose)
spices
1/4 cup milk
1/2 tbsp sugar (more or less to taste)

(I use skim milk instead of the 3.7% that is more common in Japan, so I switch my water and milk amounts)

1)Heat water in pan over low heat. When it starts to boil add tea and continue to simmer for 1 minute.
2)Add spices. Continue to simmer for 2 minutes.
3)Add sugar and milk. Stir occasionally and heat for 3-5 minutes (should be light brown in colour).
4)Strain and pour into mug.
5)ENJOY!


Spice suggestions:
-basic chai: cinnamon (stick) 6 cm, 3 whole cardamom, 4 cloves
-fragrant chai: cinnamon (stick) 3 cm, 3 whole cardamom, 4 cloves, 1 tbsp lemongrass
-sweet chai: cinnamon (stick) 3 cm, 3 whole cardamom, 4 cloves, 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
-warming chai: cinnamon (stick) 3 cm, 4 cloves, 1/2 tbsp ginger powder
-spicy chai: cinnamon (stick) 3 cm, 3 whole cardamom, 4 cloves, 1/4 tsp black pepper

Guiding across language barriers

I've been involved with Girl Guides/Scouts on and off since I was about 6 years old and I wanted to be cool like all the other little girls in my grade 1 class and wear the beeeeeautiful brown dress to school on Wednesdays and sell cookies (thankfully my fashion sense, although not terribly good has improved since then, just wish I could say the same for my taste buds... mmm Girl Guide cookies! mmmmm....) My mother balked, as she thought Guiding was a para-military movement. But I joined, and had great fun including my first camp - a one night sleep-over where, much to the amusement of my leader, the four of us in my tent ended up rolling about so much in our sleep that we used each other as pillows!

I became a leader first in Canada as an undergrad, found a troop to join while on exchange in Osaka, then started my own troop in the US as a grad student, visited a troop on a semi-regular basis in India, and now the troop in Tokyo that I've been with for four years. It has been an incredible experience to learn about Guiding/Scouting in so many different countries, but it has also had a drawback, having to get used to Guiding/Scouting in so many countries means having to learn a new set of rules, a new set of customs, and a new set of songs each and every time. Sure the handshake is the same, and many of formal songs have been translated or are the same, but the little things are different.

Or at least they normally are.

I just got back from a one-night camp that managed to tie in just about everywhere I've been in my Guiding career. There was the Brownie sleeping next to me who kicked off her blanket when she was hot and then got cold and thought my sleeping bag was hers, so tried to steal it and ended up using my feet as a pillow, much to the amusement of one of the other leaders. One of the other leaders had decided to teach the girls a whole bunch of new songs, two of which turned out to be my FAVOURITE Japanese camp songs - one from Osaka and one from the Japanese girl I worked with in India. And then, when we had finished other tasks early and were waiting for dinner, I suddenly had a brainwave and came up with a song from my days as a Brownie that my Japanese brownie could also sing! Aie Oonie. They weren't too sure about it at first - it sounds pretty silly and the hand motions can be confusing, but the next morning they asked to sing it again as we were waiting for their parents to pick them up, and after a dozen or so times they had all the words and actions down and were BEGGING to PLEEEEEEEEEASE sing it just ONNNNE MOOOOOORE TIME!

Sure I got less than 4 hours of sleep on a hard church building floor in a room that alternated between freezingly way over-air conditioned to stiflingly warm and humid, but I honestly can't think of a better way to spend my Saturday night.

Wordless Wednesday - Happy Birthday

How I spent my Sunday - with 4500 other Tokyo Girl Scouts of all ages - celebrating the 60th anniversary of Girl Scouts in Tokyo.



(ps - Achan and anybody else who is interested, I snagged a bunch of Tokyo area badges as well as a few 60th anniversary badges. So, let me know if you're interested in a badge swap!)

A scarf for a scarf

Last year for my birthday I got a whole bunch of yarn from one friend. There were five balls of beige-y grey-y linen/cotton/hemp that I turned into the checkerboard scarf I already wrote about, for the friend in question, but there were a few single balls, including one of a gorgeously soft pale green yarn. It was a pleasure to knit, and I turned it into a small lacy scarf, with the idea in mind of giving it to T-leader, one of the older women who had long been in charge of the Brownie troop I'm with, but who had retired last year. Having finished the scarf, however, I convinced myself it wasn't big enough, and so I shoved it into the back of my knitting shelf because I couldn't track down any of the same yarn (but I did stumble upon some other gorgeous yarn by the same company and somehow ended up ordering it in two different colours, in rather big batches for larger projects... hmmm, wonder how that happened!).

I eventually found a similar-ish soft yarn in a beige/brown colour that I thought would be complementary, and dragged out the lacy green scarf to steel myself for the mamoth job of picking up all the stitches. But before I did I decided I should try to block it... rather aggressively... and so I wet it thoroughly and stretched it rather vigorously before pinning it out on an extra futon. The next day I un-pinned it and after trying it on decided that it was perfectly acceptable as a small scarf (of course this had nothing to do with my avid dislike of picking up stitches... nothing at all!)





And, to make a short story long, as my father often teases me, on to the title of the post...

I took the green scarf to Brownies last week, in the hopes of giving it to T-leader's daughter, who is a leader in the troop as well, working with the junior and senior high school-age girls. I was somewhat disappointed to find out she wasn't feeling well and so wouldn't be there, and figured I'd have to take the scarf home and wait for our next meeting. Fate decided to help me out, however, as T-leader herself showed up suddenly about a half an hour after we started practicing for our fly-up and investiture ceremony. I grabbed the wrapped scarf, angling in to try and talk to her, but she had been immediately surrounded by other leaders happy to see her.

I started to hand her the scarf, just as she handed me a parcel about the same size... a hand-made scarf! We both started laughing when we realized what was happening.

She's a weaver, and had long been promising to make all the Brownie leaders cashmere scarves when she bought a huge batch of un-dyed cashmere a few years ago. She had bought a few huge cones of plain cashmere yarn for weaving and then dyed it herself in small batches. The first scarf she made was a deep pink with squares of magenta, for herself, then a brown scarf with herringbone ribs for one of the other leaders, but two of us were still scarf-less. Until last weekend when I was presented with this gorgeous scarf in shades of blue (some that match my Girl Scout uniform perfectly). It is soft and warm and absolutely lovely.

Unforgettable Behind

I'm wandering the crowded exhibit space, listening to the audio guide and taking notes - lost in my own world. The interview I just conducted for my thesis went well, and my brain is a whir. The exhibits are fascinating and -

"Sarah?"

A short middle-aged woman touches my arm and my train of thought is suddenly interrupted. One word, a simple question, but I am confused. The woman isn't wearing the red jacket or name card worn by all the exhibit staff and volunteers, so she isn't an employee. I have the vague feeling that I should recognize her face, but can't place her or come up with a name.

"Yes, my name is Sarah..."

I let my voice trail off into a question, but all the woman needed was affirmation of my name, and she all but hugs me as she bounces with glee and beams at me excitedly. When she finally notices my confusion she steps back and looks at me.

"I used to be a leader with a Girl Scout troop in Hirakata City..."

Now it is her turn to trail off, and my turn to bounce with excitement and hug her as my jaw dropped. Hirakata City Girl Scout troop?! Its K-leader!! Wow! My mind jumps back over a decade and fills with memories of my exchange year in Osaka, by far the best part of which was the time I spent with a local troop. Despite my lack of language skills the girls and leaders of the troop welcomed and accepted me. They encouraged me, challenging me to use my fledgling Japanese to lead songs and games. After meetings the other leaders (one occasional leader was a fellow university student, then there was K-leader, and then three or four women in their mid-sixties) would hold a meeting over tempura and noodles. I was dragged along every time despite being unable to follow the discussion in rapid-fire Osaka dialect. Hiking Mount Fuji in the middle of a rainstorm, attending a national camp, learning about Japanese festivals, learning about the tea ceremony, and all sorts of other wonderful moments flooded my mind as K-leader continued to beam and bounce in delight.

She asked me what I was doing now, why I was at this museum in a remote area a few hours from Osaka. Without really stopping for me to answer, she continued on in a rush, telling me how she hadn't been supposed to be one of the teachers on the school group she was with, how she had stepped in at the last minute when another teacher got sick. Then she began to tell me how she had recognized me. I hadn't changed a bit, she said. My face was exactly the same. But even more so, she had recognized my profile from behind - in particular my bum was what convinced her it really was me.

Should I take it as a compliment that a woman old enough to be my mother, who saw my 19 year-old ass and everything else in a Japanese hot-spring, says my rear hasn't changed in the intervening decade plus??? Either way, she was terribly amused by this, and showed her amusement and general appreciation of the correctness of her guess by reaching over and pinching that part that she found most recognizable...

We chatted a bit more, and I gave her my card so that she and the other leaders could be in touch and we could all get together next time I visited Kansai. Then she dashed off to find her group, leaving me and my somewhat sore rear to go back to my research.

Thinking Day

Lord Baden Powell, the founder of Boy Scouts, and his wife, shared February 22 as their birthday. It is still celebrated today, as one of the biggest events in the scouting year. Today is World Thinking Day, a day for Girl Guides and Scouts around the world to think about each other, the incredible movement Lord Baden Powell started, and the annual theme.

The theme chosen by the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), this year was "stop the spread of AIDS, malaria, and other diseases." In my area, it was decided that we would enlarge that to the general theme of health for our annual area event. Eleven units from the area participate, with upwards of 150 girls and leaders. Last year we had an international event, and the girls visited booths for the 4 World Centres as well as ones for Japan and Korea. A friend and fellow Sangam volunteer helped me run the India booth. This year I found myself volunteering to run the booth again, this time trying to add an international flair to health. I enlisted the help of a variety of Brownie handbooks I've collected from around the world, and did a presentation on the ways in which 6-9 year-olds learn about health/safety in Guiding/Scouting.

I had the girls start by looking at the photographs, and asked them which uniform they liked the most, and which badges they liked the best. Canada, the UK, and New Zealand have all recently overhauled their uniforms to make them more appealing to girls. I remember how excited we were as girls when the old Brownie dress was first replaced by a striped t-shirt. I remember the hype when I was a leader and the brown t-shirts were replaced by more appealing peachy orange shirts. I was expecting the girls to like these uniforms the best but was rather suprised to find that while a few girls picked the pink t-shirts of the Kiwi uniform, almost all the girls chose the green blouse and skirt of the Philippines, the most traditional of the uniforms (also the one most similar to what they were wearing). When I mentioned this to the other leaders they weren't surprised, which surprised me even more. Were the girls today just choosing the skirt because they thought it looked nicer, not because it was the one they wanted to wear? Or are Japanese girls more used to uniforms with skirts?

I talked a little bit about what Brownies in each of the 8 countries (Canada, the US, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and the UK) learn about health and had the girls guess which country I was talking about. Sometimes this was easy - "Little Friends" in Sri Lanka learn how to deal with snake bites, to walk 10 m with a weight of at least 1 kg balanced on their head, the importance of drinking at least 5 glasses of water everyday, and how to mix rehydration solution. In Canada Brownies learn about hypothermia and frostbite, and play outdoor games. In the US Brownies have a huge number of choices (at least twice many of the other countries) of individual interest patches, and are taught to have confidence in their uniqueness while they are encouraged to think about how their bodies are changing.

After the country had been matched to its program, we played memory - matching badge and country name. The girls seemed to enjoy themselves and both girls and leaders alike were fascinated by all the different badge books. It was a fun event to plan, and made me realize again that while the packaging varies widely, the contents of Guiding/Scouting around the world doesn't change much. (and that I'm going to have to keep collecting Brownie books from as many countries as I can!)

We ended the day, as always, with the friendship circle (the squeeze took a looooooong time to go through 150 people!) and closing song. As we sang I thought about all the Thinking Day events I've partipated in over the years - sticking pennies on a world map as a Brownie, laying flowers at the foot of pictures of Lord and Lady Baden Powell at my first Japanese Thinking Day, and of course the incredible day at Sangam my year in India. I thought also about my Guiding friends (one of whom has also been planning her own event over the past few days) and realized, once again, how lucky I am to be a part of an organization that has given me so much.

(Then, because I had been up most of the night planning, and because I spent the day in a freezing school gym wearing a t-shirt and talking almost constantly, I just about keeled over. I barely managed to get home, and as soon as I did I crashed for a three hour nap!)

Camping - Garu Style

I've been a Brownie leader for most of the past decade. My first Brownies - the ones who taught me just how badly a camping trip could go - graduated from high school last year. Since that first chaotic and crazy trip where just about anything that could go wrong did, I've worked (and camped) with troops in Canada, the US, and Japan, and also visited troops in India and Sri Lanka. Despite cultural, linguistic, uniform and other differences, some things seem to be universal, especially when you take the girls camping. After not having gone camping with a troop for a few years, I just got back from 3 days in Yamanashi-prefecture with my current Brownie troop (4 leaders and 8 girls in grades 1-3). Here are a few of the lessons I (re)learned.

1. Roast marshmallows are a delicious ooey-gooey snack (although in Japan s'mores are made with ritz instead of graham crackers?!?!) and campfire is good fun. I co-lead my first campfire in Japanese and, despite some mistaken lyrics, a great time was had by all - from silly songs with exaggerated actions to slow songs sung in the round.
   
   
   
   
2. Girls are apparently unable to go to the bathroom by themselves. More amusing, however, is the power of suggestion, and how quickly an ENTIRE room of girls will go from zero to full-on squirming potty-dance when one of them announces her need to use the facilities.
   
   
3. Little girls can switch personalities faster than Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde - they'll be adorable and lovable one second and rude and cruel the next. (and then adorable again in a heartbeat)
   
   
4. Despite complaining CONSTANTLY about being tired/hot/injured during the hike, girls return to their room and immediately start running about.
   Our "long" hike - despite their complaints the girls did REALLY well!
   
   
   
5. Fill a room with exhausted little girls tucked into bed and no adults and the resulting mayhem will ensure that NOBODY will fall asleep for hours. Add a singing adult or two, however, and the girls will be fast asleep within minutes!
   
   
6. Serve a meal to a group of kids and no matter what it is half of them will find SOMETHING to turn their noses up at... UNLESS they have cooked it themselves (My previous belief that Japanese kids aren't picky eaters was proven wrong time and time again over the past few days)
   
   
7. No matter how much said picky eaters may eat at a given meal, the minute any mention is made of snack time, they are all DYING OF HUNGER! And not one of them will turn down sweets or other goodies.
   
   
8. Parents are often more upset or worried by their Brownie's first night away from home than the Brownie herself!
   
   
9. It really is incredible just how much a Brownie can do on her own when she puts her mind to it - whether it is fixing her own hair, peeling and chopping a knobbly potato, or managing not to loose her underwear. (a prime example was the Brownie who managed to lose THREE pairs of underwear on a single overnight last year, who earned the "luggage organization" prize at camp this year)
   
   
10. All the stress of being a leader evaporates the instant a small hand slips into yours on a hike, or arms are thrown sleepily around you along in a good night/good morning hug, or a new Brownie earnestly exclaims "I like you Sarah-leader!
    
    

    Yours truly, according to one of my Brownies

Camp was good fun. But I'm rather glad I'm home for the next 10 days. I've got a museum translation contract to keep me from being bored, but no big plans.

Education Thursdays

My Intro to Education Theory course on Thursday mornings is proving to be a thought provoking class. The prof ends class 5~10 minutes early and has us write down and hand in our comments/responses to that week's class. (this also serves the purpose of taking attendance, which in many courses comprises part of the final grade)

This past week we ran a bit late and I didn't have enough time to martial my thoughts and get them all down on paper, so I left class with a full mind and an almost painfully strong need to sit down with paper and pen and WRITE.

This week's theme was academic ability - in particular its relation to an individual's personal traits and cultural differences. We looked at a number of studies that tested 5 year-olds and linked their results to their academic test scores in grades 5 and 6. The first was of a matching test, where the little kids were asked to pick the matching image out of 6 similar choices.

(don't worry if you can't find a pair - I spent a good 5 minutes searching
before I realized this is just the ANSWER, the question - with the one you are
supposed to find the match for, was not included in our class handout)

In the second test, kids reached into a box and (without looking) touched a wooden shape and then had to pick out the shape they had felt from four diagrams on a piece of paper.

The study showed that in Japan there is a strong correlation between how a student did on the matching test, and how they did academically later in elementary school. In the United States, however, while there was no correlation for the matching test, there was an even STRONGER correlation between how a child did on the shape-feeling test and how they scored academically years later. In short, in Japanese schools it is the students with patience and attention to detail who excel, while in the US it is free-thinkers with good imaginations.

No surprise there, I suppose. Isn't that the stereotype, after all? Hammering down the nail that sticks up, versus the sacredness of the individual. I'm not one to agree with something just because that is what "everybody says," however, in fact I'm just contrary enough to want to believe the exact opposite! So, I began to think...

I started with my Brownies. After all, I first became a Brownie leader 10 years ago (we are NOT going to discuss the fact that that means my very first Brownies graduated from high school last year and have just finished their first year of university, making them the same age as the "kids" in my education class!! But I digress...) In the intervening decade I've worked with 5 different troops in Canada, the US and Japan. Culturally, the North American and Japanese Brownies are divided by uniform. While in Canada and the US girls are required to wear no more than their scarf and enrollment pin, and can choose from more uniform options such as t-shirts, sweatshirts, blouses, skirts, shorts, sweat pants, full headscarves... In Japan, on the other hand, girls are required to wear uniform hats, blouses, skirts belts and socks. For formal occasions black shoes (of your own choosing) are also required. This is a cultural difference (I can't imagine trying to tell the parents of my girls in Canada that their daughter must wear totally black shoes with her uniform, they'd think I was mad or controlling or both!) but is also at least partially due to a desire in North America to make Guiding/Scouting accessible to a wider (specifically lower income) audience. So the first image that came to mind was the uniformity of my Japanese Brownies versus the individuality of my North American Brownies.

Score
Stereotypes: 1
Sarah's contrariness: 0

I started thinking more superficially about the troops I've worked with and the girls in the troops. I was rather surprised to realize something that has never hit me before. My Brownies are all in the 8-10 age range but unconsciously I had been thinking my Japanese Brownies were older. While this could be partially due to the fact that in both Canada and the US I also worked with the pre-Brownie age group as well, the more I thought about it the more I realized that my American and Canadian Brownies seemed younger, more kid-like, my Japanese Brownies much quieter and more reserved.

Score
Stereotypes: 2
Sarah's contrariness: 0

I decided at this point to think of other examples, so I turned to my prison sentence time as an English teacher. My favourite memory is of the Halloween craft project I did with all my students under the age of 16. I cut out pumpkin-shaped templates in orange construction paper and gave each student a pair of scissors and black paper. They were not allowed to write or draw pictures, but could decorate their Jack-o-lantern in any way they desired. Most of them looked at me dumbly as I slowly and simply explained (miming when needed) what I wanted them to do. I had made a basic example myself and was half expecting to have dozens of similar Jack-o-lanterns. While it took them a few moments to get warmed up, however, my students COMPLETELY AMAZED me with their creativity and individuality. No two Jack-o-lanterns were ANYTHING alike, and not one single one looked like mine or any other "traditional" Jack-o-lantern either!

Just a few of the unique creations my kids came up with.

Score
Stereotypes: 2
Sarah's contrariness: 1

The craft had originally grown out of a desire to make decorations for the school when my manager couldn't find any decorations she liked at the store. The kids LOVED having their handiwork up for all to see, and many of the cram school teachers and students asked if they too could make a Jack-o-lantern. I had been a bit worried that the parents would complain of a valuable lesson hour having been largely "wasted" on a craft project. I was not, however, prepared for the reaction I got. The parents were overwhelmingly positive in their reaction. They LOVED the artwork and enjoyed trying to guess which face belonged to which child. I also had a number of parents individually thank me directly or through my director for having done such a project with their child. They felt it was an important creative opportunity, one their child didn't have outside of the English classroom.

Score
Stereotypes: 3
Sarah's contrariness: 1

With this type of score, I was forced to take a step back and think about the bigger picture. I thought too about kids programs I helped out with at the museum, and about the experiences of my friend who is Japanese but worked in the US as a museum educator. Gradually I began to see a picture that largely agreed with the studies. Culturally, Japan is a country that encourages similarity and order. Children, when encouraged, are just as imaginative and energetic and individual, but they are much less likely to be encouraged to do so, especially not in a classroom setting.

A Woman's World

One of the courses I am taking this term is Intro to Education Theory, a required course for both the teaching and curatorial certificates. The prof is apparently rather well known, as he is a prolific author. While I can't speak to that, I can tell that you he definitely doesn't fit the old adage that "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. And those who can't teach, teach teachers." His class is always interesting, thought provoking, and very well taught. We've been looking at gender and education over the past few classes and that, in combination with some comments I've gotten recently, got me to thinking...
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Japan is famous for its cuteness. It is quite acceptable, normal even, for grown women to wear frilly pink things. Frilly pink is a fashion statement I haven't made since I was about 10 years old. But as bellbottoms demonstrated, fashion has a way of coming back, and so it appears that pink frills are going to be re-introduced into my wardrobe after a nearly 20 year hiatus. By force, if necessary, as one of my friends demonstrated recently! But let me backtrack...

I was a girly-girl as a kid, my favourite colours were pink and purple and my favourite clothes were the beautiful dresses my mother hand-made for me. Gradually, however, I (like most girls I knew) grew out of it, and became more comfortable in jeans. I took this trend a little further than some, perhaps, as when I wore a skirt to math class in grade 12 my teacher just about fell of his desk in surprise. Two years later, during my first trip to Japan, the petite and feminine Korean exchange students in one of the other classes all but forced me to start wearing make-up and buy a skirt. My second time studying in Japan I started wearing nail polish. My host mother attributed this to the guy I had just started dating and was so impressed that a guy could have such a feminizing effect on the lost case she saw me as, that she was ready to send us down the aisle after only a few weeks of dating. She immediately took me shopping and picked out a shade of pearly pink nail polish for me. Fast forward 5 years. Different university, different group of friend, different boy, and yet the same effect. My friends find out there is a guy I'm interested in and they go into full feminizing mode. While having lunch with a friend a few weeks back, I made the comment that I wanted to buy a pair of shoes. She squealed and proceeded to bodily drag me into shoe stores. My enormous foreign feet (I can still hear Indian shopkeepers yelling "big size, big size!!") are a size or two over the largest shoes normally available in the average store. My friend and I, however, managed to find a couple of different Godzilla-size shoe stores. She groaned and rolled her eyes at a few of my choices, clearly vetoing anything that didn't have a bow or other cutesy decoration. She argued hard for something with a heel, but those of you who know me know that this klutz needs no help tripping over her own feet, so I flatly (groan!) refused heels. I finally settled upon a pair of off white flats that satisfied both me AND my friend.

After shoe shopping, she decided to take the girl-ifying one step further, and address my accessories. She helped me pick out a pink and silver necklace and then proceeded to scour every single store she could find for matching earrings.

All of this (plus the blushing and gushing caused by the aforementioned thing for the guy) has caused my friends to make comments like "wow, you are a girl after all!" and "You're turning into a girl!!" (begging the question, what was I before?!)

With strains of Shania Twain running through my head, I've turned to people watching - checking out the shoes of women on the train (almost exclusively ballet flats or heels, except for the 65 and over crowd), noticing the high number of women in skirts walking by the coffee shop, remarking on the dressy-ness of women in the grocery store and groups of mothers waiting for the school bus. Everywhere I looked (in Tokyo, I admit), I was struck with the formalness, the dressy-ness, and most of all the femininity of Japanese women.

My professor today talked about societal conditioning of gender identity - from colouring and patterning of socks and other baby clothing, to usage of certain linguistic terms for boys or girls. In the arena of education one of the examples he gave was of a girls high school where a belief that girls were less interested in/qualified for maths and sciences led to a smaller number of those courses offered. This caused more girls to take arts and humanities courses, thereby fulfilling and fortifying the expectations. This self-perpetuating cycle makes it more difficult for girls who might be interested in maths and sciences to chose that route. I would add to that the uniforms worn by junior high and high school students. While boys wear shirts and ties or the more common Mandarin collar-style buttoned jacket with slacks, girls wear blouses or sailor blouses and (very short) skirts.

(the historical progression of uniforms from one school)

Girl Scout uniform is also skirts and blouses on all occasions except for camp.



While I know a number of examples to the contrary, it is still the norm for Japanese women to give up outside employment to look after their family. In response to a presentation in my sociology grad seminar last week about social support for mothers/housewives, the two male grad students remarked that they were open to the idea of quitting their jobs to look after the family/home if their wife were making more. When the professor, skeptical of their sincerity, questioned one with specific mention to the girlfriend, the student in question was much less convincing. My education professor came to basically the same answer. He would like to see change. He says he can't understand why more fathers don't get involved in child-rearing and housework, he loves it! (he's married with a young daughter)
He has little confidence in the ability of the education system to effect major change, however.

Where does this leave me? Well, I need to go and do my make-up and my hair and iron my outfit before I go to class, I'll get back to you later...

I'm alive...

With two full weeks of classes under my belt now I'm beginning to realize just what I've gotten myself in for, and it is rather overwhelming! I have been taking classes at my university for a year, but being an actual student changes it all, especially since I have a thesis to write! But let me backtrack...

This term I am taking four graduate level courses - sociology, social education, museum management theory, and a general thesis-related course (plus a few other random credits). I am also taking two undergrad level courses for the curatorial certificate - basics in education, and introduction to lifelong learning. I am also TA-ing (which means assisting the professor with the hands-on portion instead of actually teaching myself) the 4th year curatorial certificate course. In addition, I am still working at the museum. They are currently keeping me busy with updating part of the archival database and translating documents for a special exhibit this summer, as well as working on various tasks related to the meetings 4 of us will be attending in the US at the end of May. My life would, of course, not be complete without Girl Scouts. My Brownie troop meets roughly twice a month, our latest meeting was our year-end (the Japanese school year runs April-March) event, when we went to see a Japanese production of the musical "Anne of Green Gables" (or rather "Akage no An."

So that is my life in a nutshell. Busy. Full. Exciting. Great fun. Challenging. I love it, and about once a day find myself questioning why the heck I ever thought I could do it in the first place. Little things - like not being able to properly express myself on the weekly response sheet for my education class, or watching the discussion of Foucault rapidly go over my head in the sociology class. And yet, those times are balanced with the other times when I realize I can get most of my reading for the social education class WITHOUT MY DICTIONARY, or am able to get through my self-introduction and thesis outline presentation in front of the entire department without making a fool of myself. I really appreciate being part of a community again. I miss not having other students around me studying similar things (I'm the only museum studies person, there are three M1 students in education, 13 in psychology, and none in sociology, add to that another 15-20 M2s in ed/psych/soc and a couple of doctoral students and you have the entire graduate population of my department, the name of which I translate as Psychology, Sociology and Education). But, I am still finding I belong to a community, as I get to know the other grad students in my department and run into my friends in other departments on campus. For somebody who has moved around as much as I have, this feeling of belonging, to a place and to a group, is one to be truly appreciated!!

As far as classes themselves go, undergrad courses are lecture-based. Most seem to have no assigned text, although some of my courses have had them. Some professors take attendance (with slips of paper where you fill in your name, student number, etc) and include this in their grading, while in other classes grades are based on a combination of short essays, response papers and/or exams. My graduate courses are all small, the largest having 5 students. They are more discussion based, but differ from the general discussion type courses I took in my previous graduate incarnation. The norm here is that one student will be assigned to make a presentation each week, based on a reading that the entire class will have read, or something read only by the student presenting. He or she will then talk for about 30 minutes (normally reading from prepared handouts, my father was amazed to hear nobody uses powerpoint here), before opening it up for discussion which is normally dominated by the professor. I have presentations coming up in three of my four graduate courses, and I'm more than a little nervous about it all...

And then there is my thesis... I presented my initial proposal at a department-wide meeting a week ago. In a few days I will be meeting with my advisor to decide on a schedule for the next year, and to discuss a more detailed version of my proposal. It is all very exciting, but it looks more and more like I'm going to be writing in Japanese, which is a little bit daunting!

To Eat or Not to Eat

I've never thought of myself as a picky eater. When I was a little kid my family travelled a fair amount and I was raised to try new things. My elder cousins have often told me that they used to dread their little cousin Sarah coming for a visit because that was when their mother would force them to eat all the icky green vegetables I was downing. I remember another family member, who will remain nameless for their protection, dunking each of their noodles into a glass of water to wash off the "green stuff" before they would eat the "plain pasta" ordered at a nice Italian restaurant. As a Brownie leader I've spent hours planning and re-planning meals with multiple options so that no parents could complain we had starved their child (aka the girl who turned her nose up at every single item we placed in front of her) at camp.

I won't eat anything and everything - for example I couldn't bring myself to try the Philippino delicacy of balut when I was there. (Balut is duck eggs with half-grown embryos inside, that have been partially cooked. When you slurp one down you get half-grown feathers, beak, etc...) But I don't turn my nose up at many average meals. Sure, I don't eat tomatoes, but that doesn't count as it isn't about not liking them but about what eating them does to my digestive system! I don't like pineapple, almond paste, coconut, raisins and sea urchin sushi. Not a bad list, right? A strange one, I'll admit, but not overly long, right?

Well, my first overnight with my new Brownie troop in Tokyo last summer was the first indication that maybe I wasn't so far away from being a picky eater. The menu for dinner? Curry rice (with tomatoes in the curry stock), with annin tofu for desert. I had been warned ahead of time about the curry, so had brought myself some soup. But the desert... an almond paste flavoured desert topped with fruit, in this case pineapple. Ugh. I ate it, but UGH!!! For breakfast? Raisin buns. I am not kidding. At this point I figured that the universe was making fun of me, trying to fit as many of my food dislikes into an 18 hour time period as possible. When annin tofu came up again as desert for a more recent Brownie event (this time I manage to avoid both the pineapple and the extra almond paste sauce, making the desert almost edible!), I began thinking about my apparent pickiness.

It occurred to me that it wasn't so much that I was picky, but that nobody else was. I realized that not once at any of the events I've eaten at with my Brownies has any of them refused to eat something. When we made the rice balls last week, a couple of the girls wrinkled their noses at the idea of cheese in a rice ball. But once they were made the girls all tried them and pronounced them delicious. This is likely due in some measure to the fact that elementary students in Japan eat a school-provided lunch every day, not a cafeteria lunch where they choose their food, but a set (and balanced) meal. Every day a few students from each class will dress up in a white apron jacket and hat and collect the food from a central location (schools in the bigger cities will have their food delivered by a service, but in more remote locations the food is made on the premises). The same students will then serve the food into equal portions for the number of students in the class. Not eating something is not an option. Does this simply force Japanese children not to be picky eaters, meaning that they will clean their plates without complaint whether they actually like what they are eating or not?

I have heard a number of Japanese friends say "when I was a child I didn't have likes and dislikes, but now I don't like..." Is this just that they are finally admiting that there are foods they like and don't like, and choosing to not eat them? I would have said the opposite about myself, I think that (with the exception of raisins, which I apparently used to like) I have come to dislike fewer foods as I have gotten older.

Oh, and yes, I am procrastinating from more translations! Sigh...