Green Park Hotel Review

「日本語は下の方」
 
We started out last weekend's International Exchange event by reviewing a local business hotel. It was a bit random and out-of-the-blue, but I suppose it was something obligatory or a formality.

Green Park Hotel is a a business hotel located in Honcho in the heart of Aomori City. It's a very obvious building because the whole thing is painted an algae-green color. It's near all the important places like the city office, prefectural office, and Shinmachi, and it's only a 5 minute taxi ride from Aomori Station and ASPAM. Location-wise, it's fairly good, but the neighborhood it sits in is fairly dark and shady.

The hotel manager explained to us that foreign travelers, especially from the United States, have been visiting Aomori in greater numbers than ever before. They've also begun to stay in lower-priced accommodations like guest houses or business hotels. To better serve the foreign visitors, they wanted our opinion.

My first impression of the place was, "Well, it looks and feels like a normal business hotel." Nothing in particular stood out, except for how nice the public bathrooms downstairs were. The building isn't particularly new, nor is it particularly large. The rooms were small and had no view out the window whatsoever, but they were very clean, quiet, and comfortable. All in all, it felt the way a business hotel should.

For a foreign visitor who doesn't speak Japanese, I can imagine staying in these northern wastes of Japan is difficult. English ability is very limited, and translations are hardly ever provided. The clerks at the counter of Green Park Hotel spoke a fair amount of slow English, which I found (pretended to find) very helpful. They also had a decent amount of fairly accurate English translations on their guides and pamphlets, although it would still be better to have more. I found that the only perfectly written piece of English was the Asahi Beer advertisement.

So close! But at least it's understandable...

Suddenly, perfect English.

One thing we found particularly funny were the "adult programming" pamphlets. "Yeah, this is definitely lodging meant for businessmen traveling alone," we collectively thought. It was also interesting how the cover was written mostly in English, yet the contents are exclusively Japanese. What a tease!

OMG adult programming in English!

Just kidding, it's all Japanese. At least there are pictures!

Finally, we were allowed to partake in their breakfast buffet. It was already lunchtime, but nobody was complaining! Their selection was particularly good, and the taste was nothing to be ashamed of. For a mere 500 yen, I thought it was a great deal.

Japanese food, pseudo-Western food, they've got it all.

In conclusion, this business hotel was basically what you'd expect from a business hotel. Just enough to be clean, safe, and comfortable, for cheaper than a conventional hotel. I'm not sure what exactly made it different from any other one, but I enjoyed the breakfast buffet.


今回の国際交流フェアの始まりは青森市内のビジネスホテル体験でした。少しいきなりだったけど、交流員の義務だと思っていました。

グリーンパークホテルは青森市本町にあります。スピルリナグリーンの色なのでとても目立ちます。近くに市役所、県庁、新町がありますし、駅からタクシーで５分だけかかります。周りの近所は少し暗いけど、ロケーションはいいです。

最近、青森に来る外国の観光者が増えているみたいで、その観光者がゲストハウス、ビジネスホテルみたいな宿に泊まっているそおです。なので、我ら外国人の意見を聞きたがるとマネージャーに聞いてました。

最初入店した時、「まあ、普通のビジネスホテルだな」と思いました。一回のトイレはとてもモダンでよかったですが、他のところが特に何も目立ちませんでした。建物はあまり新しくないし、部屋も思う通りのシングルサイズだったし、窓から景色なんてなかったです。だけど部屋はきれいで、静かで、あずましい感じでした。全てはビジネスホテル通りでした。

日本語を喋らない外国人の立場で、ここ田舎の青森へ旅をするのは大変です。英語で喋ってくれる人が少ないし、英語に翻訳した説明は少ない。ですが、グリーンパークホテルは国際化のことを頑張っているみたいです。カウンターの人が分かりやすく英語で部屋案内してくれました。部屋の中にインフォメーションガイドも英語で書いてあります。間違いもありましたが、それでも分かりましたので安心でした。ロビーにアサヒビールのバナーはたっだひとつの完璧な英語の作文でした。

もうひとつ面白いもの見つけました。エロチャンネルのパンフレットを見かけて、「ここやはり一人旅のビジネスマンの部屋ですよね～」と思ってしまいました。カバーの方はほとんど英語でしたが、チラッと中身を見ると残念ながら全て日本語でした。なんとガッカリ！でも絵がたくさんありましたから十分かな～

最後は朝食バイキングを食べさせてもらいました。種類が多くて普通の朝食バイキングよりセレクションがある。味もなかなか美味しいと思いました。５００円でバイキングが特に安い！

他のビジネスホテルに比べて、グリーンパークホテルはいい方です。値段は少し高いんですが、割引もあるのでもっと安く泊まることができます。いいことは特に朝食バイキングでした。

Scalloping in Mutsu Bay

When you think of products that come from Aomori, the two things that come to mind are apples and scallops (called hotate in Japanese). The afternoon portion of last week's reporting tour took place in Noheji, a town about an hour east of Aomori City. It sits on the very southern coast of Mutsu Bay, where the majority of Aomori's (and Japan's) scallops come from.

The scallop, a tasty little mollusk!

Anatomy of a scallop. Everything but the dark digestive gland is edible.

We arrived at a small building labelled JF, which is the local fishery organization. There, we met two fishing boat captains and their crew, who then ushered us onto their boats. We happened to arrive during the local summer festival, so one of the ships was still adorned with the bright flags displayed during the boat parade.

We boated out into the open sea of Mutsu bay for about 5 minutes before stopping in front a of a field of floats and buoys. The captain and crew explained that they were markers for the scallop lines, which is where the scallops are hung and farmed. I was under the impression that we were going to be catching wild scallops from the sea floor, but apparently it's much more complicated than that.

The captain explained the basic life cycle of a scallop. They start out as little tiny transparent larvae, which fall to the sea floor and slowly grow larger and more opaque with time. The farmers nurture these teeny tiny scallops in mesh bags into their adolescence.

Baby scallop on the left, more mature scallop on the right.

Baby scallops in their mesh bag.

When they get big enough, they have a hole drilled into the bottom corner of their shell and have a string attached to them. They're then hung onto a 10 meter rope, which are then placed into the bay. The captain said that placing them too deep would make them susceptible to predators, like rays or starfish, lurking on the sea floor. Meanwhile, the surface of the ocean is too choppy for the scallops to gather their main food source, plankton.

The hotate life cycle and farming process.

In Mutsu Bay, scallops are farmed both from hanging on ropes and more naturally on the sea bed. We wanted to see the farming methods themselves, but since it was festival season, fishing was prohibited and we didn't actually get to see anything. However, as a consolation, the captains gave us all a big box full of scallops to take home, and then set up a big scallop barbecue for us to enjoy!

At the barbecue, the fisherman taught us how to open the scallops with a special spade-like tool and how to prepare it. Of course, you can eat the abductor muscle and mantle portions as sashimi straight out of the shell. You can also throw them onto a grill and cook them in their own shells.

Grilling in the shell, called kaiyaki.

Mmm, yummy!

With that, we all went home with a big box of fresh scallops to eat for the next several days. I've been eating scallops for the last three nights, and now I'm craving some red meat! See you again!



青森の名物と言えば、２つの物が考えられます：林檎とホタテ。先週の交流会の午後部分は野辺地「のへじ」と言う所で行いました。野辺地町は青森市から車で一時間かかって、むつ湾の南湾岸にあります。
JFと書いてある小さい建物に着きました。船長の二人に船に案内されて乗りました。夏祭りの途中でしたので、派手な旗が立っていた。
 
むつ湾に５分船を乗って、浮きがいっぱいの所に止まりました。このブイはホタテが着いているロープのマーカーと船長に聞きました。私がホタテを狩るとか釣ると思ったんですが、実はホタテはそれより複雑です。

ホタテの赤ちゃんは小さくてクリアーなラーバです。もっと大きくなるまで、たまねぎのメッシュ袋に育てます。少しずつ大きく黒くなります。

大きくなった後、ドリルを使って殻に穴を開けます。糸でホタテを１０メートル長さの紐にくっつけて、湾に出します。深いところに捕食者（エイ、海星）がいっぱいいて、浅はかな所は三角波でプランクトンを食べれなくなる。
 
こんな方法で育てることがあって、もっと自然に海洋底で育てる方法もあります。もうちょっとじっくり見たかったけど、夏祭りが行って魚釣りが禁止になりました。変わりに、船長たちがホタテ取り放題をさせてくれました！それだけでなく、貝焼きパーティーもやってくれました！

BBQでホタテの調理仕方を教えてくれまして。ビデオの中の人がとても上手で簡単に一発でひもを取りました。貝焼き方も見せていただきました。うっまい！

Energy Exploration in Rokkasho

Only a week ofter the Bunaco trip, we were set to take another one. This time, we headed out onto the Shimokita Peninsula to a town called Rokkasho. Sitting on the handle of the hatchet that is Shimokita, it is easily viewable from a distance because of its iconic wind turbines.

Shimokita is famous for it's remoteness. Some say it is one of the last truly rural parts of Japan. The low population makes it a perfect place to locate things that nobody wants to live next to. In this case, Rokkasho is home to an enormous energy industrial complex.

When I say energy, I mean a bunch of different conventional energy forms all in one place. As I mentioned before, the "hatchet handle" is dotted with hundreds of wind turbines, generating clean energy for the residents of Aomori using the strong winds that commonly gust through the narrow peninsula. Underneath the wind turbines sit solar panels that soak up the suns rays on those lucky sunny Aomori days. We stopped at a small observation deck to take a peek at the solar farm and to take pictures of the massive wind generators whirling rapidly in the strong winds.

On the drive through, we passed by a field of massive silos, each storing hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil in reserve in case of emergency. It's said that there is enough crude oil stored here to power Japan for 3 months in case something goes terribly wrong.

We spent a fair amount of time at a hot spring building out in the middle of nowhere. It was called Rocca-Pocca, and while it was a fairly normal large tourist and bathing building, they boasted the cutest set of mascot characters ever!

The Rocca-Pocca's six bathing cuddlies.

Finally, the most important and outstanding facility is the nuclear waste storage and remediation facility. Getting inside required a large amount of security clearance, as would be expected from any facility handling highly radioactive material. They gave us a tour around the facilities, most of which we could only look at from a distance through windows.

Nuclear Recycling Facility

The JNFL complex contains 6 facilities, 2 of which are still under construction. They have a uranium enriching plant, used to make mined uranium usable inside a reactor. The have a low-level waste disposal center, that handles and stores drums of various contaminated items, like safety equipment, tools, clothing, or liquids. There is a vitrified waste storage center that keeps the nasty fission byproducts turned into glass. There is a spent fuel storage facility, which keeps spent or partially spent fuel rods underwater awaiting reprocessing or reuse (this facility is currently filled to max capacity with fuel rods since Japan shut down all their nuclear reactors). There is a reprocessing plant (near completion), as mentioned before, which breaks apart used fuel rods and extracts usable fissile material. Finally, the is a MOX fuel fabrication plant (expected completion in 2017), where they plan to produce experimental "Mixed Oxide Fuel" rods out of reprocessed uranium and plutonium, which can be used similarly to standard uranium fuel rods in light water reactors. For more detailed information, visit http://www.jnfl.co.jp/. They have an English site too!

(and now for a lecture on nuclear energy production and safety)

Before we went inside the nuclear fuel reprocessing facility, one of the participants remarked, "wait, we're actually going inside there? Oh crud...," which is also when I realized that many of these participants, like most of the world's population, don't know how nuclear fission and radioactive decay work.

To understand how nuclear waste storage and remediation works, you must first understand what nuclear fission does and how to safely handle nuclear waste. Inside a nuclear power plant (light water reactors), there are enriched uranium ("fissile material") fuel rods. These fuel rods get blasted with neutrons, which have a chance to be absorbed by some of these fissile material atoms. If it is absorbed, the resulting atom becomes an unstable isotope. Most of the time, these unstable isotopes will undergo fission, where the heavy isotope splits into two smaller atoms (called "fission byproducts"), releasing kinetic energy, gamma rays (x-rays, essentially), beta particles (free electrons), and 2-3 more neutrons to get soaked up by other uranium or plutonium atoms and continue the fission chain reaction.  It is the massive amount of kinetic energy released, turned into heat, that provides the majority of energy used to produce electricity.

After many years in operation, the fuel rods become lean in fissile material. It is at this time that the reactors are shut down and the "spent" fuel rods are replaced with fresh ones. But what should be done with these spent fuel rods? The main concern is, what exactly in left in the spent rods?

As I mentioned before, fissile materials turn into fission byproducts when they split apart. What exactly the fission byproducts are is entirely up to probability, as a fissile material can split into combination of byproducts as long as the resulting mass is the same. Basically, what's left inside the fuel rods is a smorgasbord of various metals and gases, most of which are unstable and undergoing radioactive decay. These materials are NASTY, and you definitely don't want them getting out into the environment. This is why all fuel rods are encased in a metal "cladding" that seals all the crud inside and doesn't let any of it get out.

So hey, the fission byproducts are sealed, so there's nothing to worry about, right? Wrong! There is the problem of RADIATION. Oooooh I used a scary word. But what is radiation? Visible light is radiation. Your microwave and toaster use radiation to cook your food. The radio in your car operates on radiation. What's so scary about radiation?

Radiation itself isn't necessarily harmful. The key word you should be concerned about is "ionizing radiation". This is radiation that will fundamentally alter the atoms and molecules inside your body, and can therefore cause cell and DNA damage, the scariest of which would lead to massive cell death or malignant cancer. You don't want ionizing radiation traveling through your body. This type of radiation comes in 3 forms: alpha particles, beta particles, and gamma rays.

Alpha particles, essentially a Helium nucleus with no electrons, can be pretty nasty because they go around stealing electrons from other atoms they come into contact with. We tend not to care much about them because they are large enough to collide into other matter and can't travel very far. If one of these particles did get far enough to hit you, it would stop before it even made it past your clothes or the layer of dead skin cells that surround your body. Since there's usually no contact with living tissue, alpha particles aren't dangerous unless an alpha particle emitter (such as Radon gas) is ingested or inhaled. The inside of your lungs don't have a protective layer of dead cells like your skin does, allowing alpha particles to bombard sensitive tissues.

Beta particles, on the other hand, are just free flying electrons and are much smaller than alpha particles. They are able to travel much further through matter, usually making it through several meters of air or tens of mm through human flesh. These little electrons fly through the empty space of atoms' electron clouds and slowly lose energy when it collides with nuclei. It'll eventually settle and ionize an atom, leading to fundamental changes in that atom's properties. Beta particles are a bit more scary because they can travel several meters through air. If you're standing next to a beta particle emitter (like most fission byproducts), those beta particles are showering upon you in all their carcinogenic glory several centimeters beneath your skin. However, several millimeters of aluminum is enough to stop almost all beta particles, so wearing an aluminum foil hat would actually be fairly effective at protecting your brain. The main concern again would be if you inhale or ingest a beta particle emitter. Your internal organs would be getting showered with electrons, which leads to serious microscopic (nanoscopic?) internal destruction.

Gamma rays (also called x-rays), finally, are the most dangerous of the ionizing radiation family. They have no mass and travel as pure energy, and so are even more difficult to stop than beta particles. Half of emitted gamma rays will travel through 150 meters of air or 6 cm of concrete. Lead (or plumbium) is by far the best gamma blocking substance, taking only a cm to stop half of emitted gamma rays. That's why the dentist lays a heavy lead apron on your body before taking an x-ray image. This kind of radiation is what we are terrified of, despite the fact that gamma radiation is common in normal daily life, such as medical screenings, normal cosmic radiation, emissions from the ground, and emissions from potassium (like in a banana). Yes, eating a banana irradiates you.

So now that we know what ionizing radiation is and why it's dangerous, how dangerous are spent fuel rods? Well, alpha particles weren't much of a concern to begin with because you could essentially bathe in an ocean on alpha particles with no ill effects (actually it would probably kill you, but not through radiation-caused cancer). Meanwhile, beta particles won't make it further than several meters from the fission byproducts, assuming it even gets past the cladding. The gamma rays are the things we have to worry about.

Fission byproducts, being mostly unstable elements undergoing radioactive decay, release lots of beta and gamma radiation. Nuclear safety controllers first need to ensure that the source emitting the radiation (the fission byproducts) doesn't get spread around. That's why they have cladding. Since all the nasties are contained within the fuel rods, the next step is to prevent the radiation that inevitably comes out of these fission byproducts from actually hitting anyone.

That is where the nuclear waste storage and remediation facility comes into play. First, as I said before, the fuel rods aren't EMPTY. They are simply "lean" in fissile material (uranium and plutonium). Reprocessing the fuel rods involves chopping the rods open and chemically separating the cladding, nasty fission byproducts, and still useable fissile material from each other. The reprocessed fissile material is then reused in new fuel rods, while the nasty fission byproducts become "high level nuclear waste", which spew beta and gamma radiation all over the place.

So what do they do with the high level nuclear waste? They turn it into glass! It's called "vitrification", and it reduces the volume of the nuclear waste tremendously. This allows them to pack the waste into tall steel canisters and slide them 9 high into 10m deep holes in the ground. The canisters emit a massive amount of radiation (enough to be fatal with just 10 seconds of direct exposure), so the burial ensures that any beta or gamma radiation gets soaked up by the concrete. Remember, just 60 cm of concrete is enough to reduce gamma radiation to less than 0.1%. The glass contains boron compounds as well, so any rogue neutrons get soaked up immediately. Some say that nuclear waste is a huge environmental problem, but all of the world's high level nuclear waster can be vitrified and stored safely in a facility the size of a Walmart. I'm fairly certain standard garbage landfills are much more of a concern than nuclear waste.

Vitrified waste

ブナコの観光の一週間後、下北半島の六ヶ所町に行きました。遠くから、ならではの風力タービンが見えます。

六ヶ所はとても田舎です。人が少ないのでコンビナートを建てるのにぴったりです。ここにむつ小川原工業基地があります。

いろいろなエネルギー関係の物が建ててあります。ここに風が強くて風力タービンに丁度いい所です。風力タービンのしたにソーラーパネルがあり、太陽熱発電もされたいます。

施設を通るとたくさんのものでかいサイロも見えます。これは国家石油備蓄基地です。緊急の時、ここに全国が３ヶ月使える原油が溜められているそうです。

次、森の中の観光と温泉のビルがあります。「ろっかぽっか」といいますが、その所のゆるキャラはとてもかわいい！

最後に、一番大事な目立つ所は日本原燃原子燃料サイクル施設でした。セキュリティーが大事なので入るだけでもなかなか難しかったです。バスに乗って色々な施設のツアーをしました。残念だったけどほとんどの観光は遠い所の窓の後ろからでした。

日本原燃原子燃料サイクル施設の中に６つの特別の施設があります。ウラン濃縮工場で原子燃料を作るために天然ウランのU-235を多くします。汚れた道具、服などのあまり危険じゃない放射性廃棄物は低レベル放射性廃棄物埋設センターに入っています。使われた原子燃料の中のもった危険なものがガラスにされて高レベル放射性廃棄物貯蔵管理センターに入っています。使用済燃料受入貯蔵施設でまだ使える燃料が貯蔵されている。まだ未完成な工場が二つあります。再処理工場（２０１４年１０月竣工予定）で使われた燃料ロッドを切り壊してまだ使える物をリサイクルする。その残したものをMOX燃料工場（２０１７年竣工予定）で新しい燃料ロッドを作ることできます。

機械工学の専攻の僕にこの経験がとても特別でした。一生に一回だけ経験できることだったかもしねらいはらとても感謝しています。

（ほかの内容は訳せないので、できれば英語で読んでいただければどうぞお願いします）

Bunaco Part 2

「日本語は下のほう：」
After being in Aomori for this long, I've started running out of new things to do and have started repeating certain activities again. This time, I went BACK to Hirosaki to visit the Bunaco workshop again. For those who don't know about Bunaco, read the previous article here.

Here we are again...

This time around, it was summer, and the workshop was missing the piles of snow that were surrounding it last time. I hardly even recognized the place.

Where... is this???

As we walked inside, I saw the same lady that guided us the last time. She exclaimed, "Hey, you're back!" and I was surprised she recognized me. She didn't recognize Kristin though, and then I remembered that some Japanese people have a "white people all look alike" complex going on.

Look who it is again!

We had a short tour through the facility again, watching the workers wrap, sand, paint, and lacquer away at the various handmade pieces. The air smelled of sawdust and volatile solvents.

The sawdust gets EVERYWHERE!

We were then led to a table where we would again make our own bowls. Same as last time, we used a teacup to mold the shape of the bowl. Kristin and I tried a more difficult shape to get a different set of tableware to add to our collection. I swear I got the stiffest wound bowl out of them all, since the French girl was essentially done within 30 seconds of starting while I was cranking away with my entire body weight for half an hour.

A very nice macro shot.

After we finished, we paid another visit to the Bunaco showroom. One thing different I noticed this time around was the presence of the smooth jazz voice of Sade, played out of the recently developed Bunaco speaker system! WHAAAAA??!?!?!!?! Yeah, seriously, they made this jet-engine shaped stereo set out of Bunaco!

Where do I inject the jet fuel?

I was fascinated by their steam-punk looks and their excellent smooth sound, but I was less impressed by the name and price. I don't know if I'd rather buy a motorcycle or a pseudo-modern wooden sound system.

Would you pay $3000 for a Faggio?

We sat down for a nice long chat with the company president, who explained the various stores in Europe and America that carry his product and how the demand for style was different in different countries. Places varying from top-tier hotels in Tokyo to Starbucks cafes in Hirosaki and Aomori City all carry Bunaco products. Just as the French girl was dozing off, we called it a morning and headed back home.


青森に長くなれば、新しい経験が少なくなり、前の活動を繰り返ることもあります。今回、また弘前のブナコ工場に参りました。先のブナコ体験の詳しくはこちら。

今度こそは夏であり、前の雪の大盛りがなくてまったく違う所みたいでした！

中のほうに入ったら、知り合いのお姉さんが「おぉ、二回目ですか？」と言ってくれました。僕の顔を覚えるなんてびっくりしましたが、なぜクリスチンの彼女を気づかなかったでしょう？日本人が白人の顔を区別できないでしょうか？

お姉さんが工場の案内してもらって、職員の働いている姿を感動した。木屑と溶剤の匂いをしました。

テーブルにつれてもらって、もう一度ブナコのお椀を作りました。今度少し違うもっと難しい形を作ろうとしたが、いつもより硬く回した品物を手に入れたそうです。フランスの女性が３０秒で終わったけど、私が本気を出しても３０分かかりました。なんかおかしいです。。。

完成したらブナコのショールームのほうに参り、少し違う雰囲気でした。スムーズジャズのシャーデーの声が聞こえて何もおかしくないが、見回ったらなんとブナコのスピーカーが！！！！！間違いなくこのジェット機エンジンの形のステレオシステムがありました！

スティームパンクのシェイプもすてきなスムーズ音にも気になりましたが、名前と値段なら気に入らないね。モーターバイクかブナコスピーカー、どちら選ぶか私が悩みませんけどね。

その後 、会長さんと長い話をしました。色んな国の違うスタイルポイントのことを話したり、東京の高レベルホテルも青森県のスターバックスをブナコのものを使うことを聞きました。皆さんが少し眠くなり、フランスの女性があくびを出すところで終わりました。今回は午前までに交流が終わりましたので家に帰り休みました。

The Peculiar Position of the ALT in Japan

For a multitude of reasons, I had always wanted to travel to Japan and see what it was like to live here. For various other reasons, I started wanting to be a teacher. In the last year of college, I found out about the JET Program and other exchange programs that hire assistant language teachers (hereon, “ALTs”) to live and teach in Japan. Hastily, I set into motion my plan to become an ALT by receiving training for a TEFL Certificate and going through the long and stressful JET application process. Now, over two years since my process first began, I have now been an ALT for more than a year. All I can say about my position in this society and education system is: it is peculiar.

I remember when I found out about this job. I wasn't really sure what an ALTs job description was, and there were stories with extremely varying accounts. At orientation, the best our advisers could tell us was the dreaded keyword: ESID (every situation is different). While I've been here, I've been struggling to determine what exactly an ALT is supposed to do. At some of my schools, particularly the elementary school, I actually do something resembling teaching. At others, I sit in the teacher's room all day lazing about, reading interesting articles online or writing on my blog. Sometimes, I am so desperately bored that I write what is on my mind for no particular reason, as I am doing now. I ask if they would like me to do anything, but they tend to avoid bringing me to class. I do things like put up interesting displays on my ever-growing “ALT Wall”, but only because that seems to be the only way I can get some connection to the students. Over and over, I've asked myself, “Why the hell am I here?”

My supervisor put it very simply. “You are here to assist your JTEs (Japanese Teachers of English) with whatever they request.” It sounded easy enough, but we slowly encounter a sort of paradox. From my experience, most of the JTEs I work with don't want assistance from the ALTs. I'm under the impression that they believe they are fine teaching English on their own, and that ALTs are unnecessary. Most of them have been teaching for much longer than any ALT, so they can surely handle themselves better. They've gone through their rigorous testing and certification to become a teacher, so they must be experts in their fields. We must ask: why do the JTEs need assistants like us in the first place?

The answer is this: the schools have been mandated to have an ALT by the national ministry for education (MEXT). An authority outside the confines of the school, maybe even beyond the scope of the local board of education, is requiring them to have an ALT, whether they like it or not. But why do their authorities believe ALTs are necessary?

I thought maybe we'd be here as pronunciation models. JTEs and Japanese people in general have pretty messed up accents due to the relatively few vowel and consonant sounds in their native language. I thought, “maybe we're here so the students can hear what real English sounds like.” It seemed plausible, until I remembered that the textbook comes with a CD read by a native speaker. They don't really need something as expensive as me to display correct pronunciation. Most JTEs have me read passages from the textbook, but when I'm out visiting another school (which is the majority of the time), they use the CD. Some JTEs are so out of the loop that they'll use the CD instead of me even when I'm standing RIGHT THERE NEXT TO THEM. Well, I'm obviously not needed in that department.

Another ALT offered a solution: we have been brought here to be conversation practice partners with the students. It sounds like a good idea, except we are given almost no opportunities to actually talk with the kids. There isn't an assigned time where the students can talk to me, nor is there an assigned place to talk even if they wanted to. I don't get a room or an office, and in between class, lunch, cleaning time, and the various council and class meetings, there isn't enough break time to have a conversation. Skill-wise, I can probably only speak to 3-4 kids per school in anything resembling English. Others get completely flabbergasted at the though of speaking anything but Japanese, and avoid the ALT like the plague. The ALT that suggested this answer works at the biggest school with the most affluent students in the city, so they are more serious about English and have an English Club. Even then, the club attendance is quite low, so not many students actually get “conversation practice”. I'd love to have more conversation time with my students, but if we really are here for that purpose, we are hardly being utilized at all.

Someone else, the translator and international relations coordinator in the office, guessed that we're here to display our culture. Only someone with a cultural background such as us can explain the cultural differences of our home countries, right? True! However, like the previous hypothesis, we are hardly ever used for that purpose. I am rarely asked to explain cultural aspects of America, unless they want me to describe a holiday and the accompanying traditional activities (and even that is rare outside elementary school). We aren't even allowed to maintain our cultural societal behaviors, as we are expected to conform to Japanese societal norms. This includes taking shoes off indoors, bowing, using polite and humble speech, saying itadakimasu and gochisousama during meals, waiting to eat lunch until everyone can start, starting and ending class with an official greeting, etc. How effective can we be in spreading cultural behaviors if we're expected to act Japanese? I can only really explain cultural differences on my ALT Wall, but how many students actually read it? Some ALTs aren't even given the privilege of having wall space (I had to personally ask for one)! Surely this cannot be the answer.

The real reason ALTs are deemed necessary is this: even though English is a required subject from middle school through college, Japan is surprisingly poor at English. Among Asian countries, Japanese people actually score the LOWEST on the TOEFL test. That is truly abysmal...

The government knows this, and they attributed it to the fact that the English teachers in this country (traditionally a job held exclusively by Japanese natives) are, alone, not doing a good enough job. Their solution was to bring in “experts of English teaching” from the outside: ALTs. Yes, the licensing system tells teachers they are competent enough to be teachers, but the ministry of education tells them they are not competent enough to teach without an “expert” by their side. Do you see the paradox here? How can they be competent and incompetent at the same time?

This is the confusion my JTEs have, and they are not entirely wrong to be confused. Their own government has given them a teaching license, so they are officially recognized as competent, even if some aren't. At the moment, the teachers are mostly tested on knowledge of their field, while teaching methods and abilities are largely ignored. The requirements to get a teaching license need a revamp to make sure their skills are up to par. One of my teachers told me once that she had applied to be a teacher at a local eikaiwa, or private after-school tutoring academy. She couldn't meet the standards for that position, so she settled for being a public school teacher. WHAT??? The public education system is picking up the rejects???

Beyond that, these “experts of English teaching” brought in from the outside aren't even required to be experts of English nor teaching. I went through the effort to obtain a TEFL certification from a rigorous and prestigious (read, expensive) institution because I thought that was the only natural decision. Another ALT in the city has a masters degree in TESOL. Many of the other ALTs, however, do not have any teacher training or experience whatsoever, in English or any other field. While a few of us are very qualified to teach English, the majority of ALTs are merely English native speakers. They are neither experts of English or experts of teaching, so the JTEs tend to stereotype all ALTs as “merely foreigners”.

This is the peculiar situation of the ALT in Japan. We are brought here under the assumption that JTEs cannot fully function without us, but the JTEs believe that we are incompetent commoners who function merely as assistants (or audio players). In most cases in reality, both the JTE and the ALT are incompetent and unqualified, combining to form a tag-teamed powerhouse of failure. This confusion over who exists for whose sake and the constant grapple for authority in the classroom is why the ALT system and English education in general is in a dead jam. The ones who suffer most are the students.

*Disclaimer: These are my experiences working as an elementary and junior high ALT in a somewhat large city in a very rural prefecture. I do not claim that my situation is the same as any other ALT in a different location or at a different school level (especially high school). As I mentioned before, ESID (kill me now).

Specialty Crafting in Hirosaki

Lest weekend, I finally got to go on another monthly prefecture-sponsored trip, which I always look forward to. This time, we headed to the Hirosaki Area to experience two different types of specialty crafting: woodworking and brewing.

先週末、いつも楽しみにしている国際交流会の月例旅行がやっと来たぁー！今回弘前市の辺りの名物産品、木工と醸造、を体験させて頂きました。

Our first stop was at a company called Bunaco. Just like their name, they produce furniture and kitchenware using a type of wood called 椈 buna, or Japanese beech. Buna wood is light and flexible, and is shaved into thin long strips, which are wound repeatedly around the edges of a solid-wood base shape. Originally called ぶなコイル buna coil to describe the wrapping of the wood, it is known today as bunako.

最初はBUNACOという木工技術の会社に着きました。名前通り、この会社がブナ「椈」と言う木材を使って、色々なものを作ります。ブナの木材は軽くて柔らかくて、桂剥きのように薄く切られます。その後、硬い木材のベースに何回も巻いたら、「ブナのコイル」になっちゃいます。そのように「ブナコ」と呼ばれてきます。

The kids at one of my middle schools make bunako bowls in their arts and crafts class, so I was enthusiastic to try it myself. First, they gave us a tour of the workshop and showed us the raw materials used.

中学校の生徒も図工の授業でブナコの食器を作っることになるので、一度僕も作ってみたかったなぁ。まず、店員からの挨拶を聞いて、少し工場の見学をしました。

Buna strips

Wooden bases

To start, the buna wood strips are wrapped around the solid-wood base. The larger the piece you are making, the more buna needs to be wrapped around it. After that, the pieces are then shaped using a teacup as a sort of mold press. It's hard to describe, so just watch the video to see for yourself.

ブナコの作り方に対して、まず木材ベースにブナのテープを巻きます。産品が大きければ、ブナテープの量を増やします。その後、茶碗を道具として使って形を成形します。言葉で説明しにくいですが、ビデオをご覧になれば分かるでしょう。

We were all given a piece that was already pre-wound. They gave us each a teacup and taught us how to shape the bowls. The craftsmen made it look easy, but shaping those things took a lot of effort and dexterity. One of the girls was having a lot of trouble getting a smooth curve, causing the wound strips to detach. Immediately after that, the piece burst into a tangled mess of buna strips. Someone came by and gave her a new pre-wound piece, but she ended up ruining that one too... poor girl.

私達も作ってみました！最初から全て作るわけじゃなかったけど、もう巻いておいた板から形をすることでした。板がもう準備されて、茶碗の使い方も教えられて、簡単に作れるとは思ったけど思ったより難しい！マスター職人の働きを見れば「大したことでないな」と思ってしますが、やってみればメチャクチャ硬い！親方様ってなん力強い人だろう！そして、失敗すると、コイルが弾けて、「バーン！」と爆発する。材料はまだまだ使えるので「心配しないで」って言われたんですが、やはり失敗すると悔しいでしょう。留学生の中に１人だけでなく２人も失敗してしまった！かわいそう...

After 15-20 minutes, we'd finished shaping our bowls! Some people made obtuse modern designs, but I just wanted a beautifully symmetrical bowl. We added our final signature mark with a pencil onto the bottom of the bowls, slathered glue over them to solidify the shape, and then laid them in a drying room.

１５－２０分後、成形終了でーす！他の人がモダンな面白い形を作ったが、自分はシンプルのが最高だね。最後に自分のサインマークを書いて、のりを塗って、乾すために乾燥室に入れました。

Complete! It's so beautiful...

My personal logo. How cool is that!

After several weeks, they will arrive finished in the mail! The finished ones will look something like this.

あと２－３週間を待てば完了したお椀が届きますでしょう。この写真のイメージ通りにになはずです。

Completed bowls in 5 different colors.

 I asked if they would stamp the company logo on the bottom for us too. The lady told me that anything with their logo on it could be sold as their handiwork, so they would not be including it. I thought, "Why on earth would I sell my personal bowl?" We later paid a visit to their showroom, and I found out why they were concerned about reselling.

「ブナコの印も付くでしょうか？」と店員に聞くと、 「それはできない」と返事しました。その印がある物はBUNACO会社の商品になってしまうので、産品として売れることになります。「自分作った物を売らねぇよ！」と思ったが、ショールームを見学すると、あの店員の悩みをよく分かりました。

These things are expensive! Something equivalent to the bowls we made were selling for about 4000 yen. That's about $40 US, for a single bowl! They had a bunch on other cute little bowls, coasters, lampshades, and other trinkets for a surprisingly high price. Bunako stools were selling for over $400. I can understand why they are expensive, because each one is made by hand by a skilled craftsman and not some amateur tourist. As beautiful as they were, the products on display were a bit out of my price range.

値段がタッケイー！ 私たちが作ったサイズのお椀は４０００円で販売されていた。茶碗、コースター等の小さな物も安くはない。ブナコの椅子もなんと４万円以上。値段が高いが、その理由は分かります。産品は全部マスター技術職人が上手に手作りをした物で正真正銘なアートなんです。美しくても、この一般人の私には高すぎますね。

As usual, lunch was was an all-you-can-eat buffet, this time at Hotel New Castle. On the top floor, the dining hall has excellent view of both Mt. Iwaki on one side and the rest of Hirosaki on the other side. The food was great, and I must have eaten them out of their smoked ham! Lunch is one of the best parts of these trips...

昼飯は～～～ランチバイキングでした！ ホテルニュウキャッスルの９階には素晴らしい景色が見えるダイニングホールです。料理も美味しくて、生ハムを少し食べ過ぎた～わけがないよね！一生生肉！いやあ、交流会のランチタイムは最高やなー！バイキングばんざい！

After stuffing ourselves at lunch, we went to the company headquarters of a company called Kaneshou. They specialize is various kinds of brewed food products, like soy sauces, miso, and vinegars. Their most famous product is a drinking vinegar made out of apples. Apple vinegar for cooking isn't all that special in itself, but this company was the first to begin production of a premium type of apple vinegar suitable for straight consumption.

食べた後、カネショウと言う会社の工房に行きました。カネショウの専門は醤油、味噌、酢などの醗酵した食物です。一番人気の商品はりんごに作られた飲む酢です。料理用りんご酢がどこでも作られていますが、プレミアムの飲むりんご酢を初めて作った会社はカネショウです。

Normal cooking apple vinegar starts as normal apple juice, which is then fermented into apple wine, which is is then fermented into vinegar. The premium stuff starts out as a paste ground from a blend of fresh Aomori apples. Using this instead of regular old apple juice gives the final product a more wholesome flavor. This apple pulp is fermented into apple wine, after which a special blend of bacteria is introduced to turn it into vinegar. This mixture then sits to age in oak barrels for about a year.

普通の料理用りんご酢はりんごジュースからワインを作り、そのワインから酢に変えます。飲むりんご酢は新鮮な青森りんごのパルプから作っられて、その後バレルに一年のエージングです。そうしたら、ふか～い味ができます。おいしくてそのまま飲めるようになった。

The process explained.

The special bacteria blend, stored at a frigid -80 C

This apple vinegar that comes in the bottles is concentrated, so it needs to be diluted with water before drinking. It's also quite sour and pungent by itself, so most people buy the sweetened versions. The most popular bottle is half vinegar and half honey, while they offer a low-honey version and a cheaper corn syrup option as well. We had a taste test of the water-diluted vinegar, and it was sweet and enjoyable! The taste of crisp apples was strong, with that special saliva-rendering flavor that only fermentation can bring. I personally would have preferred the low-honey version, but it's all good!

ボトルから飲むと、強くて超スッパイ！飲む前に、まず１分の酢と７分の水を混ぜて、スムースに美味しく飲めるようになる。そ して、酢だけですっぱい味ばかりなので、人気がある商品はハチミツ入りりんご酢です。ライトハチミツバージョンもありますし、値段が安い異性化糖使用バー ジョンもある よ。このスイートな甘くて、すっぱくて、すっきりなよだれをドロドロ出してくる飲み物です。私ならライトバージョンが良かったと思う。

They also showed as a different drink to prepare. Instead of diluting the vinegar with water, you can use milk instead! Watching it for the first time made me cringe a little bit, but it's surprisingly palatable. The sour vinegar reacted with the milk in a way that made the end product taste and feel like a sweet yogurt drink! One of our companions was lactose intolerant, so I offered to "bite the bullet" and help him finish his cup.

そして、見たこともない飲む方法も紹介したのです。水の代わりに牛乳を使えば、甘いヨーグルトみたいな飲み物になります！まずそうな感じをしたけど、意外とうまい！牛乳がにがてな一人の仲間がいたので、わたくしがあの人の分を飲んで差し上げました！フフフー

Aging apple vinegar in oak barrels.

Other than apple drinking vinegar, they also produce a multitude of interesting stuff from apples, like apple balsamic, apple salad dressings, apple soy sauce, apple vinegar jelly snacks, garlic and soybeans stewed in apple vinegar, and their most expensive product, Megami no ringo, or "Apple of Goddesses". I wasn't entirely sure what they were saying, but there's some sort of miracle agent (recently discovered by scientists at Hirosaki University) inside that has anti-aging properties. Besides apple products, they have other bizarre stuff like peach vinegar, pear vinegar, and scallop soy sauce. Bizarre, but also probably delicious!

飲むりんご酢以外、りんごドレッシング、りんごバルサミック、りんご醤油、りんご酢ゼリー、りんご酢を入れ込んだにんにくや大豆等のりんご商品もありました。一番高いのは「女神の林檎」と言うりんご酢ドリンク。よく分からなかったけど、弘前大学で発見された奇跡のアンチエージングの不思議な物が酢の中に入っているそうです。りんごの商品いがい、桃酢、かりん酢、ほたて醤油、その他。異様な物いっぱいですが、なんかおいしそうです。

The expensive Megami no ringo

Garlic apple dressing, apple balsamic,and apple drinking vinegar.

Scallops in my soy sauce? WHAT!?!?!

Apple soy sauce.

That's all for this time! There may not be another trip next month, but stay tuned for the next one after that!

The Asamushi Onsen Experience

This past weekend, I went on another Prefecture-sponsored trip with a bunch of foreign exchange student. Having gone on plenty of these together, we've gotten much more familiar with each other at this point, and it feels a bit like taking a trip with your extended family.

Nevertheless, this time, our destination was nearby: Asamushi Onsen, a mere 10 kilometers east of my apartment in Aomori City. Asamushi, once a thriving and popular hot spring town, now caters to much fewer people after shutdowns due to economic decline and the unfortunate recent Great Earthquake. Even so, it's still a favorite place for residents of Aomori City to go and relax, and especially to have their end-of-the-year parties.

Asamushi Onsen during summer.

For us, though, our intention was to experience a bit of the local culture, whether it be traditional or brand new. Our first experience, we were told, would be snowshoeing. Since long ago, residents of Aomori Prefecture have needed to use primitive snowshoes woven out of plant material to walk atop the deep fluffy snow that falls in abundance every year. These days, the outdoorsy people still enjoy a good morning stroll out in the snow, but they use modern snowshoes manufactured from light polymers and metals.

Modern snowshoes

To our surprise, we wouldn't be snowshoeing. Instead, a representative from the ski company Blue Moris came and provided us with some quirky new equipment developed only in the last few years. I thought I had heard of Blue Morris before, and it turns out that they made the cross country skis you can freely borrow from Gappo Park.

The new equipment we were given is called "trekking skis" or "hiking skis". They start with short wide skis similar to ski-boards. On the underside, they attached a special pad made of fine brush-like bristles that are directionally oriented towards the back of the skis. These pads grip the snow when you push back, but allow for some sliding in the forward direction. Combined with a free-heel snowshoe binding and snazzy quick-release adjustable stocks, these trekking skis provide a profound walking function several times more effective than the waxless cross country skis I've used.

Modeling the blue directional pad and the unique free-heel snowboard binding.

How does I ski hike?

To test them out, we headed out to a local trail through the mountains. Our guides were experienced snowshoers and were wearing standard snowshoes, but they had never seen the trekking skis we were testing. They were merely there to guide us through the path. As the only person with cross country ski experience, I took the vanguard and headed up the steep narrow path first behind the snowshoe-equipped guide.

At the start of the hill, and already a great view of Yunoshima.

These trekking skis are amazing! The brush bristles on the pads grab on the snow so well that you can stroll up a slope of almost 30 degrees without slipping back! Try that on waxless xc skis! An added bonus is that the directional pads still provide some grip in the forward direction too, so while you won't be gliding across the flats very easily, you can descend in a controlled manner even on a steep straight path. I'm not a very experienced alpine skier, but even I descended through the trees with relative ease. I can imagine these things being a godsend for backcountry skiers/snowshoers or as training wheels for beginner alpine skiers.

While they are much easier than any other ski out there, they're still not easy enough to just slap on anyone and lead them up a mountain. The path we were on was a narrow snow-covered hiking trail, and some parts even had stairs! Almost all the other participants had no ski experience whatsoever (most were from southeast Asia, where snow doesn't fall), so there was a lot of floundering to get up the steeper portions of the trail. We in the front pack (4 US ALTs and a Korean CIR) reached the peak, and sat around waiting for 20 minutes for the rest of the pack to join up (which is how we filmed the video above). Our photographer from Hokkaido went on a nice rant about Asian girls and their inability at snow sports.

After taking a few pictures at the top, we now had the problem of getting back down the mountain. We were already late for lunch because of the stragglers, so the only option was to go back down the way we came. All the Asian girls freaked out and discussed what to do, while the ALTs nonchalantly started trudging back. The slide down was extremely fun even though it was steep, lined with trees, narrow, and with hairpin turns at every corner. The worst part was probably just the wait at the bottom, since everyone else decided to take their skis off and walk down. The organizers learned from their misjudgement, and the group after us took a leisurely stroll on a flat, wide trail around a lake instead.

The vanguard group and the Aussie-accent photographer.

After waiting half an hour for the group to reassemble and going back to eat lunch, we started our second activity: basket weaving! Called つる細工 tsuruzaiku in Japanese, it's essentially a craft for making baskets or furniture similar to wicker. You start out with many long strands of stiff wooden fibers, softened by being soaked in water. This reminded me of the joke we always made about useless "underwater basket weaving" classes, when in fact weaving a basket underwater would actually keep the fibers soft enough to manipulate!

Pre-soaked flexible wooden shafts

Anyways, several local ladies helped us out and taught us to make a small basket. Basket weaving may seem easy, but it's actually very time consuming and rough on the hands. You need to make sure the fibers don't dry out, so you're constantly spraying more water and gripping the rough wooden strands with damp hands. After about an hour and a half of weaving I had only managed to make a very small basket, maybe big enough for one large Aomori apple.

While chatting with the ladies, I learned that tsuruzaiku is a dying art. It's getting harder and harder to obtain the weaving materials, as most of it comes from southeast Asia now. Also, young people don't bother to learn it because they're always busy with school or would rather play video games. I can imagine that it's hard to get the motivation to spend hours weaving a small basket when you can just buy one at the local dollar store. It's a beautiful and interesting art, but sadly one that doesn't seem to have much of a future, at least here in Japan.

After everything was over, we all took a short bath at Yu~sa on the fifth floor onsen before heading back to Aomori City. With only 3 males in the group, the men's side felt like we'd reserved the whole place to ourselves. While soaking, we daydreamed about what it must be like on the crowded women's side filled with upwards of 15 foreign exchange college girls...

Anyways, that's all for this time, but I'm looking forward to all the interesting places I'll go to in the next trips! See you next time!

先週末、また留学生たちと国際交流会の旅行に行ってしまいました。もうたくさんの交流会の遊びに行ったから、このままはもう大家族と一緒に旅行するようです。

というわけで、今回の場所は浅虫温泉でした。青森市から東方面に進むと１０ｋｍだけです。まえはとても立派なにぎやかな温泉町でしたが、最近は色んな理由のせいで少し静かになりました。それでも、青森市民に極楽のところです。忘年会のにとてもポピュラー！

僕らには目的は文化体験、伝統的でも最近でも。最初の体験はスノーシューだと言われました。昔々、青森県民は交通のためにスノーシューをつるに作る必要でした。最近、冬でも山登りたい方はまだスノーシューを使っているが、今のモダンスノーシューはプラスチックやアルミから作られました。

 意外と私たちはスノーシューをしなかった。BLUE MORISという会社の代表が面白くて新しい道具を貸してくれました。BLUE MORISのことを聞とあるきがしたが、じつは合浦公園の貸し出し歩くスキーを作った会社です。

この新しい道具って？トレッキングスキーと言うものです。ベースはスキーボードみたいな短いスキーです。その下にマイクラッシのような特別なパッドが張ってあります。歩くときはこのパッドが雪にくっくっ付きますが、すべるときはそんなに邪魔をしない。歩くスキーと同じコンセプトだけど、この方がずっと効果的です！

近所の山道にためしにいきました。 スノーシューにはいっていたガイドさんが道案内して、私だけがクロースカントリースキーの経験ありましたので先に進みました。

トレッキングスキーすげい～～！ 下のパッドがちゃんとくっ付いて急坂でも滑らない！前にも進めるが、パッドが少しブレーキつけるのでスピードが出ないし、コントロールが楽です。「山登りしたいだけどスノーシューがゆっくりで楽しくない」と思う人や「スキーやりたいだけどスピードこわい！」と思う人にBLUE MORISのトレッキングスキーおすすめです！

使いやすいでも、トレッキングスキーは誰でもすぐ山登りのために使えるわけではない。 私たちが行ったところが元は暖かい季節のハイキングトレールで、ある所に階段もありました！初心者には少しレベル高すぎて、ほとんどの参加者に奮闘でした。なかなかできる５人のJETの皆さんがずっとほかの留学生を待っていた。

それで、遅い人のせいでつい昼ごはんの時間になりました、どうやってやまを降りるかみんなが悩んでいた。私だけがスキー経験ありましたから、一人で楽しく滑って降りましたが、安全ため、ほかの人がスキーをはずして歩いて降りました。やはりトレッキングスキーはスキーをする人に楽ですが、スキー経験がない人にまだ難しいみたい。ガイドさんたちが考え直し、つぎのグループを違うコースに案内したそうです。

昼ごはんを食べた後、次の活動に進みました。つる細工ということはぬれたつるを使ってバスケットを作ることです。英語の"wicker"「ウィッカー」という細工に近いと思います。

とにかく、二人のおばさんが教えてくれました。つる細工がやさしそうなんだでど、思ったよりつかれるや。つるが乾いたら硬くなるから、すっとじめじめの手でがんばらなきゃ！そしてかなり時間かかります。一時間半後、小さいバスケットしか作れなかった、一個の大きい青森りんごのサイズくらい。

作りながら二人のおばさんと喋ると、つる細工をやる人が少なくなっていると気づきました。原料を手に入れるのは難しいし、若者がいつも勉強、ゲームとか夢中しているし、￥１００ショップで買えたら作る必要もない。面白くて美しいアートなんだけど、未来はどうなるでしょう？

せっかく浅虫温泉に来たから、帰る前に少しだけ温泉に入りました。小さいけどいい景色が見える「ゆ～さ」の五階の銭湯に男性３人女性１５人以上。男の部分は貸切のようで、ゆでながら「女性の部分はきっと込んでいてにぎやかだろうね～」と妄想しちうよねぇ。

今回で終わりなんですけど、次の交流会旅行たんしみだね！