The Lead-up to Christmas

The holiday season is upon America, and the season for explaining holidays is upon me. Really, when you think about it, Christmas is kind of complex-- there's Santa, who really has no relation to the birth of Jesus Christ (a hold-over from Paganism, perhaps? .. but I don't remember any fat men in red suits from my Greek myths. He certainly doesn't show up nativity scenes.. maybe his book from the Bible was just lost somewhere. "The Gospel of God According to Santa." .. which would go something like "merry are they who bounce small children on their laps" and I'm sure would make the Bible even more idiosyncratic and misunderstood than it already is. But I digress.)

Anyway, it's hard enough to get my fellow teachers and students to understand what my idea of Christmas is like, a holiday my family has celebrated every year, much less about lesser-known holidays like Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. Heck, I wasn't even entirely successful in explaining Judaism to one of my teachers today (as part of explaining that not all Americans are Christian and therefore not everyone celebrates Christmas... but some non-Christian, non-Christmas-celebrating Americans do celebrate other holidays in December).

I was, however, completely successful in letting everyone and their Vice-Principal know that Americans in general do not eat Christmas cake. If there's one thing that the Japanese do for Christmas, it's to eat Christmas cake. ..where they got the idea to decorate a fluffy sponge-like cake with fruu-fruu frosting topped with out-of-season strawberries next to a plastic Santa and maybe some reindeer, I'll never know. But most of my teachers think that that's what people do on Christmas. Thus my re-education process begins with the small and tangible. We ain't got no Christmas cake in America, guys. You made that up yourself.

It seems like the past week has been spent endlessly repeating the story of Christmas in a variety of comprehension levels (so far from 2nd grade through 9th grade), and I am starting to long for a bit of a Maine holiday... replete with bucketloads of snow, icicles precariously hanging from the eves, Christmas music playing ad nauseum on every single freakin' radio station, horrendously oversized and ugly lawn decorations, a live evergreen tree sprinkling its needles everywhere, and the cats drinking water from the tree's bottom and batting at bits of ribbon wrapped around the presents.

I think Tsushima took a little pity on me and offered up a rare sight-- the first and possibly only snowfall of the year, last Friday. According to some of my taxi drivers, it only snows in Tsushima about once every 2-4 years. I got lucky; the school I was at on Friday had a 'marathon' (different age levels ran different distances; the poor 9th grade boys had to run a 5K), so everyone was outside. I was part of the cheering squad and was waiting for the last of the 9th-grade boys to come by when the first flakes started to fall. I thought that might be it-- a few spits of snow-- but, to Tsushima's credit, there was actually a half-decent flurry for a few moments. No accumulation, of course (which probably would've caused an island-wide panic complete with mothers showing up at the school and demanding their children return home), and the snow-filled cloud soon passed over. There were other scattered flurries throughout the course of the day, though, which all made me very happy. The kids were so elated too-- at the end of the day during last period, it suddenly started flurrying relatively hard. I was standing at the back of the 9th-grader's class (during their end-of-the-day meeting) and made a surprised sound when I noticed through a crack in the curtains. Everyone looked at me, of course, and I guestured to the window. One of the 9th-grade boys stood up, a grin filling his face, and he dashed out onto the 2nd story verandah, leaned over the raining, and stuck his tongue out to try and catch a snowflake on it. The kids kind of went wild for a moment, but the homeroom teacher soon called everyone to order again. By the time they were let out of class, though, the snow had pretty much stopped again. It is strange for snow to be rare-- that same boy who dashed outside tried to explain that what I was seeing out the classroom window (flurries swirling around Tsushima's evergreen-covered mini-mountains) was a "vision." I wish I could import snow for them to get a real experience; I want all of my elementary kids to be able to make a snowman.

The snow picked up soon after school was out, and as soon as I got home I hopped on the bike to go to the beach. I wanted to work off some aggression from earlier in the day, and I wanted to see the beach in snow. It was lovely; all to myself, the water as blue as ever, the bonzai-like tree on a rock in the surf looking quite confused about the white stuff coming down from the sky. Heading out from my apartment on the bike, I ran into one of my neighbors coming home, and she rolled down her SUV window to say, "Be careful! It's cold!" ..I agreed but couldn't help but laughing later. Somehow snow makes it seem less cold and, anyway, there was no way I was going to stay indoors while such a miraculous thing happened outside. I needed to see the snow to swirl around me, feel it hit my face, melt into my sweatshirt (layered underneath with polypropaline, of course). It was such a beautiful, cleansing snow.

Also, I have decided that the best way of catching a snowflake on your tongue is from a bike. I should tell that 9th-grade boy the next time I see him.

Random bits of news from today:

--it was 11 degrees celsius in the hallway outside the teacher's room at today's school. I used an online metric converter, and that's about 51 degrees fareinheit. Really?! .. it feels so much colder...

--when I arrived at school today, the first thing on my daily schedule, third period, was "Training for taking refuge from intruder." This needed a little more explaining, and I found out that it was running through the school's drill for when a weapon-wielding stranger enters the school premises. Which, frankly, I think is amazing. The elementary school only has about 30 kids and, if you asked me, isn't at a very high risk of attack, but the teachers and staff are very serious about protecting them from every danger. The school had 3 police officers come in at a designated time (the teachers knew when but the kids didn't); one was dressed in dodgy clothing and was the 'intruder' while the other two were present to help direct the kids to the designated safe location. I believe everyone managed to get out without 'injury,' and then the principal and policemen then talked about safety in general and what to do if there is a weird stranger about or you think someone is trying to abduct you. (Both sited recent news stories from the Chiba and Tokyo areas, and there was a story awhile back about an elementary girl murdered near Fukuoka, so there is some credence to their fears).

I didn't understand at first-- jeez, we didn't do this in the states, and America has such a worse reputation for having problems in school with weapons-- but then I started to appreciate that despite Japan's reputation for safety, the policemen and schools are still anticipating the worst. Which, really, is the whole point of safety training. It's to be ready for that one-in-a-million chance. On top of last week's earthquake drill (like fire drills in the states except the kids were instructed to bring a textbook or other flat object to hold over their heads as protection from falling debris... which, frankly, was totally adorable), I think we'll be prepared.