Thousands of Miles from Home
日本で過ごした日々の記録

9/3/2004

Karaoke and Kiwi

Japanese school is quite fun. Even if I can't understand what is being said most of the time, it's still a blast to be a part of it. And if things get too deep for me to understand, I can pull out a book or study some hiragana. Today's schedule was English, Math, two hours of International Social and Human Being (a sort of world cultures class), Classic Japanese, and Health. The math was very easy, the classic japanese was impossible to comprehend.
In between classes there is a ten minute break, so I talk with the kids in my class and the nearby classes. In Japan the teachers, rather than the students, go from class to class. Yesterday I had computer class, which was hard to understand but I eventually figured it out. We started with some typing practice, the we each received a handout made in Word and had to replicate it. It was easy for me to format the page, but most of the text was japanese, especially kanji. The interesting part is how kanji is entered to the computer. There is a box on the screen and with the mouse you draw the kanji, then the computer recognizes the strokes and suggests some kanji you may have wanted to type. It was hard at first but then I got the hang of it.
But the most exciting adventure this week was today's karaoke. So much fun. Shoko, Jittan, Park-san, Park-san's friend, and I went into a small room with some couches, two microphones, and a bunch of music. And when I say a bunch, I mean thousands of songs. In korean, chinese, japanese, and english. And not only old songs, there was a ton of very new music. We spent about three hours there, taking turns singing songs. Park-san and his friend sang in korean, Jittan in chinese, Shoko in Japanese, and me in English (not at the same time). I ended up signing 17 songs, but here are some of the juicy choices :
I Get Around by The Beach Boys
1, 2, 3, 4 by Coolio
Smells like Teen Spirit (Park-san and his friend also knew this so we screamed all the lyrics)
Rappers Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang
All the Small Things by Blink 182
Bohemian Rhapsody (which everyone joined in on)
This Thing Called Love by Queen
Wonderwall by Oasis (Jittan though the English accent was really funny)
1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins (my favorite to sing)
I can't explain how fun it was. I didn't think being in a room singing songs could be that exciting, but it really was. Jittan and Shoko were very good singers, I uploaded a video of Park-san and his friend signing Japanese Rap http://www.clearlyno.com/ben/karaoke.AVI
By the time we got home we were all starving. Dinner was delicious, and afterward Masatoshi brought out a cake. It ended up being a quiche, egg and ham, but the box was labeled sugar cake. We ate it anyway, because it looked good. After dinner Kiwi for dessert.
I'll get to sleep in because it's the weekend. I forgot how hard it is to wake up early in the morning for school. But the bike ride is refreshing.

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