Pop Culture Passion: Armored Crysanthemum

In as far as memes can be considered pop culture, I'd like to present my favorite meme from Japan. First a little history. Following the massive earthquake earlier this year, most advertisers chose to pull their commercials to allow for longer, and in some cases continuous, coverage of the disaster. As such, most of the commercials that were left to air came directly from the Japanese Advertising Council, or AC. One such advertisement was the "Greetings Are Magic" campaign, which aimed to encourage Japanese youth to use proper everyday greetings. Here is the original in it's entirety.

Not long after, some enterprising individual, no doubt feeling a certain special something was missing from these commercials, posted this video on Nico Nico Douga. In it, one of the animal mascots leaps out of frame and transforms into a giant robot. Inspired by the hand drawn awesomeness of the first video, several others soon followed. Here are a few of my favorites.
This meme is referred to as either the Hard Lined Armored Empire or Armored Chrysanthemum (AC). It has naturally expanded a bit from the original commercials to include things such as fake anime openings and episode previews. Despite the more serious tone of these clips, I believe the idea that these animal robots are supposed to be helping children make friends has gone unchanged.

Elementary Poster

Saw a rather amusing poster about proper eating habits at my school this week. It features a comic in which a boy is steadily losing ground against his rival due to missing too many meals.


I like this frame in particular because of the way it's arranged with the folded piece of paper revealing the protagonist's score without it being said outright. I also enjoy how everyone who isn't a key player in this scenario is rendered as a simplified blob, giving a literal element to the protagonist's state of mind. To him, only he and his rival matter, with all else falling to the background.


Nothing says crushing defeat in Japan like losing a soccer game. I like the expression on his face after he fails to block the shot.


But the best part by far is the protagonist's anthropomorphic brain letting out a mighty yell as he eats. Just try to ignore the fact that this poor kid's brain has just punched two holes in his skull.


I like the notion of using cartoons to relay important messages to kids, so long as it isn't as heavy handed as some of the PSA's I've seen elsewhere. It allows for an expressiveness and freedom that is simply lacking in simple photographs or information packets.

Photo Friday: Sports Day Mascot

Every year, the sports day teams paint a mascot that is judged as part of the competition. This year, the white team chose Keisuke Honda, a famous Japanese soccer player. I joined a few of their after school painting sessions and managed to get this picture. Sadly, I couldn't get a good one of the opposing team's picture of Napoleon. The picture they chose appears on the linked Wikipedia entry under the "French Consulate" heading. I'll try to get a good shot of it come sports day.

Cursive Writing

I saw Mirei write her name in cursive on the board before science class today. After lunch, I asked her if she could write it for me again. She was really shy about showing me at first, but her writing was really good. Misato and Mei also wanted to learn how to write their names. We proceeded to spend the rest of teeth brushing time and most of recess practicing everyone's names, both first and last. All of them wrote their names in their journals and wanted to show me and see if it was alright.


This whole exchange had nothing to do with what we're learning about in class right now, but it was still a lot of fun. Due to Misato's avid interest in English, this time of the day has sort of turned into an impromptu class. Regardless of what we're doing, she'll ask me about relevant English words. Case in point, last week we were collecting bugs to feed to the school's fish and I taught the kids a good number of bug related words. Add in Mirei's boundless energy and Mei's quiet genius and it makes for some really great moments.

Children's Games: Cops and Robbers

Today, my entire fourth grade class organized a game for recess so we could all play together. First, they took suggestions of games we could play, followed by voting. The game we ended up playing was cops and robbers, though it took an awful lot of explaining and the fortuitous fact that my kids knew the word "police" despite me never teaching it to them. Basically, the game was a variation on tag, where tagged people had to go to the sandbox, or jail, until they were rescued by their friends.



There's kind of a standing rule at this school about how fast I'm allowed to run. It's a brisk enough pace to get me tired, but not so fast that catching me is impossible. One student was super excited about catching me twice. I played with them for the whole recess period and when we finished, they asked if I had fun playing with them, which I totally did. I have great students!

Children's Games: Janken Variant

For a good thirty minutes of tonight's kendo practice, I didn't actually practice kendo. Instead, me and the two girls who had showed up played a variation of janken, or rock, paper, scissors. I'd seen them play it before, but hadn't payed close enough attention to the specifics. Basically, the winner of any given game gets to advance a certain number of steps based on what they won with. Winning with paper gets you パ-イ-ナ-ツ-プ-ル (pa-i-na-tsu-pu-ru) or six steps. Scissors is チ-ヨ-コ-レ-イ-ト (chi-yo-ko-re-i-to), another six steps. Finally, rock is グ-リ-コ (gu-ri-ko) which means only three steps. The goal, for us anyway, was to be the first to make it across the dojo and back again. I realized pretty early on that the respective words began with the same sound as the object that won. For example, rock is "gu", hence the reason that every game of janken starts with 最初はぐ literally "first is rock". It took me much longer to realize we were spelling the words pineapple, chocolate, and Glico, the Japanese chocolate company. It was a strange but very amusing game that I thought I'd share it with everyone.

Well, the first thing I do is...

Recently, my friend and fellow ALT posted about her schedule and her various schools’ expectations and methods of approaching her about classes. I thought this would make a nice entry myself. So for all of you curious about what, exactly, a day in the life of an ALT is like, here is a rundown of a typical day for me:

7:00- Wake up

8:00- Leave for school

8:15- Arrive at school. In the strictest sense I’m supposed to be at school at 8:30, but I’ve found that most schools want me present at the morning meeting, despite being able to understand very little of what they are discussing.

9:00-12:30- Class time. Most of my mornings are spent at the elementary schools and I can have anywhere from two to four classes a day. Most of my schools that have me teach 1st-4th grade limit the class time to about 10 or 15 minutes while 5th and 6th constitute an entire 45-minute period. When I’m not teaching I do one of four things: plan for class, attend other classes, study for the JLPT, or write. Of those, I prefer going to other classes. There’s time elsewhere in my day for studying and writing and most of my lessons are already planned well in advance.

12:40-1:15- Lunch and teeth brushing. All but one of my schools has a lunchroom, which I’ve gathered is somewhat odd in Japan. Usually, students sit in groups by grade level, though there is one school that divides them into mixed groups. Some schools have me on a rotation that they’ve determined, ensuring I spend time with every grade or group equally, while others let me pick where to sit. Immediately following lunch is teeth brushing time. I brush my teeth with whichever group I had lunch with.

1:15-1:45- Recess. I try to stick with the grade I ate lunch with for recess, but the kids usually break off to do various things anyway and other students often approach me about playing with them instead. Popular recess activities include tag, jump rope, seesaw, soccer, hide and seek, and basketball. There are also a bunch of kids who want me to spin them, give them piggyback rides, or let them hang off my arms. Recess is usually the best part of any day.

1:45-1:55- Travel to junior high.

1:55-2:10- Cleaning time. Students in Japan are responsible for cleaning their own classrooms, a task I try to help them with every day. Just as with lunch, I try to visit various classes and areas to help them clean throughout the week. The kids usually have me sweep and move desks, though I’ve occasionally cleaned the board and washed windows. Once a week, we clean the floors with wet rags. I think the kids like me helping with that, as it’s probably the most physically demanding activity. Cleaning time is a good time for the kids to get a little English practice in or learn a few new words like cleaning, broom, etc.

2:20-4:10- More classes. It’s seemingly random whether or not I’ll have a junior high class on any given day, but I’m given a schedule for the week so there are never any surprises. Junior high classes are worlds apart from elementary. I’m always T2, or assistant, at the junior high and while I’ve made a few worksheets for class, I’m not responsible in any way for their planning or implementation. Honestly, I prefer elementary over junior high, though I know some have the opposite mindset. The same things about free time apply to this part of my day as well, though I’m a bit more likely to eschew classes for study or writing.

4:10-4:30- Prepare for sports activities. During this time, my students are having their last homeroom class. I use the time to get my things packed and change into sportswear.

4:10-???- Club activities. Depending on the time of year and a number of other factors, club activities can run anywhere from 5:30 to 7:00. On Mondays and Tuesdays, I have to leave around 5:30 for my study session and elementary kendo respectively. I don’t do club activities Friday, as I have to drive out to Kuratake to get Amanda from the port. I rotate which club I go to every day. With seven clubs, this means I visit each one about once every week and a half.

6:00-???- Evening activities. On Tuesdays, I practice kendo with the elementary kids until 8:00. Monday’s study session is “scheduled” until 9:00, but we’ve been calling it a night around 8:30. With a twenty-minute drive back home, this usually means I get back home around 9:00 anyway.

???-11:30- Me time. Depending on the day, I’ll get home anywhere from just after 4:00 to 9:00. My house is in a constant state of ruin, so I try my best to tidy it up a bit. I chat with Amanda over Skype every night. I may also read manga, study, write, watch TV, etc.

11:30- Sleep. I remember a time when I could stay up until 2:00 or 3:00 and be fine the next day, but no longer. I’d feel old if I didn’t know my exhaustion was from running around with spastic children all day.

So, there you have it. I don’t know if my experience is what you would call average, but with so many different positions and ALT personalities, I don’t really think there is such a thing. I’m just trying to make the best of the time I have left here and while the work is exhausting, it’s very rarely boring. I love my job!