The Mid-Autumn Festival past last Monday without much eventfulness. It’s not the most festive festival: it has a neat story, and if it had fallen on a less cloudy day there would have been more moon-viewing, but mostly people just give each other mooncakes–round pastries that can be filled with just about anything: red bean paste, peanut, chestnut, fruit jam or gelatin, chocolate, ice cream, and more savory flavors as well. Rob and I have a set of unidentifiable ones that smell distinctly like roast chicken. We have enough to last us at least through the end of the month, since some students gave us some and we each received a large box of them from the president of the College of Foreign Languages during the welcome banquet.

The banquet was an interesting experience, though not in the ways I thought it would be. There wasn’t nearly as much pressure to drink yourself senseless as I’d been led to believe (though maybe I just wasn’t bothered because I was drinking beer instead of XX proof bijou), and it didn’t last nearly as long as I thought it would (less than two hours). There was plenty of tasty food and frequent toasts (mostly in Chinese, translated by various parties around the table into English and Russian); Rob shocked all the Chinese professors by giving his own toast in very competent Chinese; Rob and I tried to offer our mostly-silent sympathy to the young Korean woman next to us who was being teased by a boisterous drunk old Japanese professor; I tried to introduce myself to said Japanese professor in Japanese and he responded most unhelpfully in Chinese…like I said, interesting.

This week, I begin teaching my full schedule: 16 hours a week. Each class period is two hours, and I teach 3 sections of Western Culture to sophomores and 3 sections of Listening to freshmen. I also teach Speaking & Listening to PhD students, but unlike my other classes, this one meets twice a week. The PhD class was the one I was most nervous about (everyone’s older than me and has years of teaching experience, eep!), but it has swiftly become my favorite. Since it’s a small class–only 16, as compared to 30-40 in each of my undergrad classes–and meets more often, I’m getting to know the students much better.

The part of teaching I thought would be difficult to get used to hasn’t bothered me at all. I have no problem getting up in front of a class and taking charge of things. That feels much more natural than I would have expected. More so than anything else I’ve done, it seems to stimulate hyper self-criticism…I don’t think I’m doing a bad job of it, but there are so many different approaches to teaching and so many different factors that can effect a lesson, that I’m constantly trying to figure out how to do better and guess at what might engage students more. I spend the ten minute break in the middle of most periods scribbling notes to myself–They laugh when I mime, use more physical humor! Find a way to break up this lecture–you talk too much! And too fast! And not in complete sentences! No students responding to questions…need to build repertoire of creative threats.

Best student names include Lemon, Echo, Fire, Flower, Friday, Smile, Cinderella.

Here are some (many!) pictures from around campus to try to give you a sense of what it’s like to wander around here.

I was wandering around taking pictures of campus (next post!), when I found the freshmen out in camo, on what might be the last day of their two-week military training, I knew I had to finally get the pictures I’d been meaning to take since they started. And I wanted to get them stealthily. But stealth, I soon remembered, isn’t really a possibility when you’re one of a handful of foreigners on a Chinese campus.

I snapped a picture of a group waiting to be photographed on the risers that had been set up in front of the main school building, directly behind the statue of Confucius. I put my camera away and walked around to try to get a better angle when I was spotted. On the edge of another group, a couple boys gestured at me, began talking excitedly, and took out their cameras. I pulled mine back out and pointed it at them in retaliation, eliciting a collective “oooohhhhhh!” When they didn’t back down, I did the only proper thing: posed and flashed the victory sign. Everyone applauded. As I turned to leave, an older man who’d been walking up the other side of the road came running over with his camera-bearing wife in tow, and gesture-asked me if his wife could take a picture of the two of us together.

Then, I went to see if I could snap a decent shot through the fencing of the freshmen practicing marching in step on the track, but I wasn’t even close when a group of girls all started shouting “hi!” at me and waving furiously. I waved back and ducked my head, a little sheepish, as the officer at the head of their group barked for attention.

My schedule looks like it’s going to be jam packed this semester. I was assigned an extra class that I’m certain puts me a number of hours over what’s specified in my contract, and I’m trying to figure out if I can also juggle a Japanese class and Chinese tutoring on top of everything else. That said, I’m still going to try to do the most I can with the blog! It will probably end up being more topic-based than “here’s what I did today!” I already have a lot of catching up to do.

For now, some pictures from Beijing.  At the airport, Rob and I found the rest of the Skidmore teachers and the program coordinators from the university. We stayed overnight in a hotel and spent the next day at Tian’anmen Square, Tian’anmen Street, and the Forbidden City before taking an 8-hour train ride to the university.

I skipped over a lot that I’d like to have recorded and I could do heaps of reflecting, but at this point… *shrug* It is what it is, and I’m satisfied with the blog-keeping I managed.

I’d love to talk more about my time abroad, but I’ve already found difficulty in knowing how to do that. If you ask me in general terms how Tokyo was, I probably won’t give you much of an answer. But if you have any specific questions, those I can work with, and will, happily. Otherwise, I’m likely to try not to bring it up too much, in hopes of avoiding the sort of excessiveness that will bore or annoy you, as much as I know you care.

And I do know you care. You’ve been reading this, after all. Thanks for that! It meant a lot and made home feel not so far away at all.

I’m pretty fond of the blog name, so chances are if you happen to wander back here sometime in the future—can’t say for sure how long, but “eventually” seems about right—I’ll have something new going on. I hardly plan to let the grand adventures stop now. :]

I could’ve spent all of my two hours’ allocated time and then some in the rooms where the walls were covered in sketches and illustrations and watercolors. Gwah.

Love.

We were at first led astray by my silly assumption that, of course, if we found a place with cats in the block where my google map directions led us to, it had to be our desired destination. Because there wouldn’t be, you know, three cat cafes in one block or anything. So we went up to the cat playroom on the top floor of a department store, only to find, upon entering, that more of the cats were behind glass windows than out in the open, the human-cat ratio was not favorable, and there was no cafe.

So we didn’t spend long there before going in search of the place we’d meant to find, which ended up being around the back of the block in a hole-in-the-wall sort of place. This is one of things I’ve learned: you know those sketchy backalleys that other cities use for their shootings and muggings and drugs deals? Well, Tokyo, has plenty of those sketchy backalleys, but since it doesn’t have so much of the other stuff you’d typically find in them, they get filled up with awesome little restaurants and shops instead. Also, most of the good places aren’t on the ground floor. You have to know where you’re going, or have really good luck with aimless wandering (or, you know, be able to read Japanese), to find them.

On the one hand, the cat cafe is a brilliant idea. Cats are adorable. They are also fluffy and soft, fun to pet, and fun to play with. What could be more relaxing than going into a room full of kitties and snuggling them until your heart is full of love and your clothes are full of cat hair?

On the other, cat cafes are preposterous. Cats sleep a lot. They are mostly anti-social. They are too cool for you, and they are definitely too cool for any shiny balls of fuzz dangling on sticks, no matter how long or how earnestly you wave them in front of their disdainful faces.

The fun in cat cafes is two-fold, for me, at least: there’s the rare joy of having a cat validate your pitiful human existence through some display of responsiveness, and then there’s the more complex pleasure of seeing other people being totally denied by cats who just couldn’t give a damn.

That seems cruel, and I guess it is, but maybe not entirely? It wasn’t the suffering that I found amusing, so much as how relatable that suffering was. If I laughed, ok, yes, it was derisive, but it was sympathetic, too. In our shared experience, I felt a deep sense of kinship with the other patrons sitting around sipping their hot milk teas after imminent cat-rejection. Whether or not anyone else was aware of it, I am sure that for our hour there, we were all united in a recognition of human insignificance, of which cats have the unparalleled power to remind us.

No lie.

This weekend I stayed over at Lauren’s, after being politely evicted from my host family’s apartment to make room for their other guests. Friday night after grilled cheese sandwiches (which absolutely merits mention—do you know how long it’s been since I had a grilled cheese sandwich?) and Hairspray, we prepared to go out clubbing with a bunch of her friends. (My initial response to this plan was something like, “Erghuhrurkuh? Me? Clubbing?” But I gradually grew more comfortable with the prospect, especially after receiving sage advice from my Lit professor, the wellspring of wisdom: “That’s what alcohol is for, Dani.” I am always glad to know he’s looking out for my well-being.)

So. My first night of all-night clubbing in Japan. Well, my first night of any sort of clubbing in Japan. Err, my first night of clubbing, period. It was going to be EPIC. It had to be. After all, there was a swimming pool!

And epic it was…not so much. I soon found that Ageha’s claim to fame, “biggest club in Japan,” isn’t necessarily a bragging point, since in this case it meant “half empty.” I mean, I had fun thanks to the excellent company. I enjoyed dancing and was surprised to find that I still enjoyed dancing after five hours of nothing but. Otherwise, meh. I didn’t need to pay the equivalent of $35 to get sleazed on like mad just because I have blonde hair.

The night had its highly amusing moments, though. I received drunken hugs from the three of my Japanese classmates who also happened to be there, a girl fell on me while trying to pet my boots, and I had a good time watching a short, balding business man in a suit and thick glasses, shuffling back and forth to the music, all by himself.

By the 5am train ride home, I was the most exhausted I’ve been since coming to Japan, and I couldn’t how imagine how anyone who did this once would want to consider doing it again, yet alone doing it again the next night. I was also worried I’d have a concussion by the time we got back to Lauren’s place because every time I drifted off, my lolling head smashed into the metal window divider. :/

Alice in Wonderland Restaurant

Saturday evening, after lots of sleep and a trip to the Square Enix store (well, first accidentally to the Square Enix office building, and then to the Square Enix store, which was close by, thankfully), Lauren, Hillary, and I went to the Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant! The interior was decorated all fancy-shmancy with velvety curtains and lots of gilded mirrors and high-backed Mad Tea Party-esque chairs (some of which had bunny tails!) The soundtrack from the Disney movie served as background music. And of course, all of the waitresses wore blue dresses with pinafores and white-and-black-striped socks.

I had the dessert rendering of too-big-Alice crammed into the White Rabbit’s house. It was made with an entire loaf of bread. A loaf of bread coated in butter and honey with vanilla ice cream on top and a roof made of toast triangles over all of it and toast hands and feet sticking out at the corners.

Oh, Japan.

Heart.

And it wasn’t a good idea.

It was THE BEST idea.