Teaching the Teacher

11.18.07

After a few days of not checking or replying to any of my emails I figured that it was time to sit down and play a little game of "ketchup". I must interject a comment here: Japanese ketchup is very different from the ketchup that many of us are used to back in the United States. It is much sweeter tasting (less vinegar maybe?) and reminds me very much of tomato paste that you can buy in the cans at home.

Anyways, it has been a while since I had some down time to just "surf the web". Here are some of the sites that I have been taking a gander at:

(1) Relative Speed (Thanks to Heather, I spent some quality time on Threadless.com just looking at the astonishing creativity of some of the people that I share this humongous planet with.)
(2) My favorite (This was my favorite t-shirt on Threadless.com. I also liked the giraffe one that's titled "What makes it work?")
(3) Kenn sent me this music video a long time ago, but I didn't have time to watch it until now.
(4) If you want to build/test your vocabulary while helping feed starving people around the world please check out this site!
(5) Yay Disney! Double yay!
(6) A lesson in entrepreneurship and seizing opportunities: Natto to the Rescue
(7) I think those are all the interesting ones. I'm also listening to some music sent to me by my good friend Jon Newman.

Lately, the winter weather is beginning to show itself. Everyday I see more and more Japanese people sporting colorful scarfs and trendy boots. Perhaps my blood has thinned due to the extremely warm weather we had here this summer, but the number of layers I wear has seemed to increase linearly over the past few days. Thank goodness for mothers that bite the bullet to pay the shipping for warm blankets from home so that I can at least be warm when I'm falling asleep. Yesterday I purchased a black and white checkered scarf that was calling my name. I also picked up some "Meri Kurisumasu" presents for family members :)

Speaking of Christmas, since there is no Thanksgiving holiday in Japan, Christmas decorations come out just after Halloween. Maybe this is also beginning to occur in America too? I have noticed that most stores and buildings are decorated for the quickly approaching X-MAS season.

Japanese Politics Discussion

In my lesson this past Saturday with one of my older students, I learned a lot about Japan's current political scene. My student had intentionally chosen a lesson topic that I knew little about, and I was very thankful for it. I did some basic research before the lesson, but it was a great opportunity for my student to practice his English while explaining something interesting to him. The article concerned a piece of legislation that had recently expired as of November 1st. Different parties were drafting (or not drafting) their own versions of the new bill so that they could be proposed in front of the Diet; the Japanese Congress made up of the upper House of Councilors and lower House of Representatives.

Sidenotes: Currently, Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has control of the House of Representatives (Prime Minister Fukuda is also a member of this party) and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has control of the House of Councilors. My student went to explain that a precedent was set in July 2007. Never have two different parties controlled the Diet like this before; to quote Wikipedia, "In the Upper House election of 2007 [July 2007], the DPJ won 60 out of 121 contested seats, with 49 seats not up to the election, causing the LDP to lose its majority in the upper house for the first time since its inception." The LDP was first formed in 1955 while the DPJ was formed much more recently. LDP and members from other parties united in 1998 to form the DPJ; they wanted to stand up against the dominant LDP party.

Getting back to my lesson, we talked about how the DPJ has been asked to draft it's own version of the bill in response to the government's bill (LDP?), but they continue to make excuses and fail to take action. Their have been several recent scandals that are being used to sidetrack a decision about the bill which allows the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force to supply oil and other supplies to international bases stationed in the Indian Ocean. The government's new legislation is looking to reestablish this refueling mission but the DPJ's does not. From what I understand, many Japanese people are looking forward to the possibility of having a choice between one proposal and the other; however, that could be an incorrect assumption.