Wadayama Summer Festival

Tonight all the ALTs and I went to the summer festival in Wadayama, and it was really good. The festival itself didn’t seem quite as busy as in Santo, but there was more to it. While we were there we met up with some of the ALTs from Yabu, as well as the returning ALTs (Johanna, Jim, and Patrick) from Asago. It was nice to hear them describe how much they like Asago, rather than thinking about why the 5 other ALTs left. I also ran into Nakashima (my supervisor at the Board of Education), Nohmi and Kakio sensei, and Hiyashi sensei (the science teacher). Also, I saw one of the students from the brass band, but didn’t recognize him right away. I now remember he played the Tuba, but since I never knew his name I didn’t really have much to say to him. Anyway, here are the pictures:

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Band Practice

Today when I got to school the Internet and power went off, so I had nothing at all to do in the staffroom. From my desk I could hear music coming from upstairs, and I remembered one of the guys at Yashiro saying that he loved hanging out with the brass band because they were the most talkative. So I went to find them. As it turns out, they aren’t talkative at all. In fact they are just as shy around me as all the other students, except their shyness is more apparent in that they immediately stop practicing their instrument when I get too close. As it turns out though, the one student who is relatively not shy around me (she’s a special needs student), is in the band and was willing to let me watch her practice. Then after awhile the rest of the kids started to ignore me, so I got to see more. I decided to take some pictures, and while it looks like they’re playing they are actually just pretending in most of the pictures, except where it is everyone together. Apparently it is less embarrassing to just look like you’re making noise in a photo, than to actually be making the noise. In this album there are also a few pictures of the school itself, including the staffroom where I spend most of my day.

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Name Meanings

After recognizing that Hannah’s name meant either flower or nose in Japanese, I looked up the meaning of the other names I translated.

Karen – oppression, or poor, pitiful, cute, lovely, or sweet (pretty weird word)

Nana – seven

Also, Marla’s name (Mara) means something, but it’s colloquial, and pretty inappropriate. It’s also hilarious.

More Names

Dad mentioned that I didn’t have a translation for Nana or Granny.

Nana -> “Nana” -> ナナ

Granny -> “Gurani” -> グラニ

However they would actually use either Sobo or Obaasan, I think. Basically it gets pretty confusing when speaking about elders because of the different levels of politeness in Japanese language, and I’m sure it isn’t very hard to screw up in this situation.

Also, if anyone wants to know what there name would translate to let me know, because I seem to have tons of time on my hands, and it’s pretty good practice for me.

Names in Katakana

I’m making a presentation for my first class, and in it I basically introduce everyone I know. Since English names tend to be difficult or impossible for Japanese people to say I translated them all into katakana, and Nohmi sensei told me I was actually accurate. Anyway, I thought I’d share them:

Francis -> “Furanshisu” -> フランシス

Elaine -> “Irain”-> イレイン

Colin -> “Karen” -> カレン

Taylor -> “Teiroru” -> テイロル

Paige -> “Peiju” -> ペイヂュ

Marla -> “Mara” -> マラ

Ryan -> “Rian” -> リアン

Andrea -> “Andoryaa” -> アンドリャー

Greg -> “Gureigu” -> グレイグ

Lindsey -> “Rinzi” -> レンズィ

James -> “Jeimesu” -> ジェイメス

For the vowels, a is “ah”, i is “ee”, u is “ooh”, e is “uh”, and o is “oh”. Out of all of them Marla seemed to be easiest for them to pronounce, because the r is next to an l anyway. Ryan was pretty close, but the R sounds kinda strange and it sounds sorta like Lion.