4
Aug
Takanawa Yochien (Kindergarten) Video
Topic: Japan 2007, Kai and Eidan
Tags: Japan, Kai
I’ve uploaded a minute and a half clip from a show that was on our local cable channel in Tokyo about Kai’s school. Kai makes a brief appearance towards the end of the clip (if the video looks big and blurry when you play it, look for the small arrow in the bottom right corner and adjust the display to “original size”). It’s in Japanese of course, but even if you can’t follow along, you can still get a good sense from the visuals of what the school is like. Sitting next to Kai in the video is his friend Hiroki. Hiroki lived with his parents in Albany, New York for a while, and he went to school there, so his English is quite good. Kai had another friend at the school named Kaito, who also speaks English. Both of them helped Kai out a lot, since he spoke very little Japanese.
In the video, the woman greeting the kids as they arrive is the principal. That wasn’t staged for the video - she’s out there every morning, rain or shine, to hold the gate open and say good morning to everyone as they come in. While the other teachers spoke at least a little English, she didn’t speak any, so my (attempts at) conversations with her were always the most challenging for me.
It was a really great school for Kai, and I’ve written many times before about how much he enjoyed it. The teachers and his classmates were very supportive and understanding, given that he didn’t speak any Japanese at first. But he did learn quickly. One thing that was fun for me was watching him with the kids in the playground after school, and hearing him try to transpose English words into Japanese. There’s actually quite a bit of English that’s been borrowed in Japanese. Once Kai figured out how to transform English words into their “correct” Japanese pronunciation (e.g. “hot dog” becomes “hotto doghu”, apple juice becomes “apploo juicoo”), and once he mastered a few key Japanese phrases, it was amazing how much he could communicate. One of his first Japanese words was “dameh!” which means “stop it!” - a vital playground survival phrase.
The show about the school was on the Minato City channel, as part of a regular series on the local schools. Each year they make their way through all the local kindergartens and elementary schools. It struck me as a really nice way for residents to get a broader sense of their community, and see how their neighborhood school compares to others in the area.
November 25th, 2008 at 1:01 am
So Cool! THanks