The Speech Contest Adventure Continues

About a week ago Alejandro was invited to do another speech contest!  COOL!  This one will be in August.  We do not know if we will be able to participate but Alejandro is interested in doing so.  Also,  Alejandro’s school got a hold of me today to ask me if he would do his speech in the upcoming performance day in December.  Alejandro said yes to this request.  It seems Alejandro is becoming famous in our little town.  Our children did get invited to join an international children’s club recently.  That sounds rather interesting.  We shall decline this invitation though, because we have too much on our plate as it is.

Young Minds are Amazing

Young minds are amazing.  My 6 year old, Alejandro,  is already reading…in Japanese and English!  WOW!  When we went to see his coach and practice his speech for the contest, the coach wrote his speech in English lettering.  He asked her if she would change it to Japanese lettering because Alejandro prefers to read in Japanese.  Still he loves to read and write in both languages.  Alejandro also sees a tutor to help further his understanding of the Japanese language. Sometimes he would get worried that he did not know enough Japanese to stay in his Yochien.  His tutor is very happy at how fast Alejandro is learning the language.  Also, ever since Alejandro placed first in the speech contest he has had much more confidence in how much he knows Japanese.

Check out my Slide Show!

School Buses in Japan

From what I have observed, Yochien age school children only ride the school buses in Japan.  Once children graduate from Yochien and start elementary school then they start to walk to school.  The Yochien that I chose allows for children age 2 1/2 to 6 years old.  For a long time I just dropped my children off at school.  Many parents do this as well because there is a waiting list to be on the school bus.  Then our opportunity came up to be able to have the children ride the school bus!  We were excited.  Why would we be excited to ride the school bus?  These are not any old school buses.  Yellow is not the only color on these school buses (some buses do not have the color yellow at all). When your school bus looks like a dinosaur from cartoons how can you not be excited to ride the school bus.  All the school buses for the Yochien kids are adorable.  Like I said my children’s school bus is shaped like a dinosaur.  I have also seen a panda school bus, kitten school bus, train school bus, and polar bear school bus.  WOW!  School buses here are really cool.  Such excitement and adventure just in riding the school bus to school.

Gazing at the Stars – Spirited Away

On Saturday our family packed our jackets into the car and headed to the great outdoors to be able to do some star-gazing with our telescope.  We left at about 8pm.  We headed to a park up in the hills which we have nicknamed the “Ninja Park.”  Once we got to the “Ninja Park” we discovered that even though the park was closed  there were too many lights still lit to be able to do star-gazing.  Not willing to give up we headed to where we knew there was a vending machine out in the middle of nowhere.  To get there we took a drive through the countryside of Japan.  It was a nice drive on small country roads.  The roads get really narrow at times.  We have driven in this area  a few times and knew that some roads were so small and windy that all you want to do is hustle and hope no on coming traffic comes our way.   When we approached the vending machine in the middle of nowhere we saw a sign for the a  campground that we had been hiking near before so we headed for the campground instead of stopping at the vending machine.  We figured this would not take much longer than the vending machine out in the middle of nowhere.  We pressed forward thinking this place would be easy to find because we had been there before.  We drove for a long while keeping an eye out for the campground.  Then we saw the bridge that lead to the campground only to find that it was a town! WHAT!  A TOWN!  STRANGE!  We started to feel like we were in a Japanese Cartoon show (anyone know what those are like?).  In particular we felt like we were in the Japanese cartoon movie called Spirited Away.  I mentioned to my husband that if we did not find the campground that would be a bit creepy.  We wandered by car for a little longer.  STRANGE!  We know we went to a campground near here before.  Where is the bridge to the campground?!?!  My husband was pretty determined to find this campground.  Every time we went through a tunnel the kids acted like we were being eaten by a worm.  Finally we found the campground.  While the boys and I rested in the car my husband set up the telescope.  We only brought cellphone lights to use to light things up a bit to setup the telescope.  Next time we hope to remember the flashlight.  We all had some fun looking at the stars.  We hope we can go star-gazing again.  Stars are neat.  Adventures are fun.  We are glad we found the campground.

Alejandro and the Japanese Speech Contest Part 2

The day of his contest we woke up and had a good breakfast.  Then we headed to the town’s grand concert hall.  We arrived early as was requested of us.  Then we waited.  We were happy to run into friends to wait with.    The waiting area was filled with many students/contestants and their parents.  Each contestant was excited.  Some were also anxious.  Several minutes later we were asked to have our children take a seat in the auditorium.  Parents were requested to be seated 15 minutes after the contestants were seated.  Soon after being seated the contest began. There was much of a ceremony feel to the occasion.  There was introduction of judges.  There was introduction of guest speakers.  There were both Japanese and English-speaking guest adult speakers.  The event was to foster more friendship between the Japanese and the Americans in this area.

Then the contest began.  First the Japanese children went.  The younger students went first then the older students.  Some of the students were dressed in their school uniforms.  Others were not.  One young Japanese girl spoke about her teddy bear and had her teddy bear their as a prop and also wore her pajamas.  It was pretty cute.  

Around two hours later it was time for the American children to go.  Boy oh boy!  I am glad Alejandro survived the wait!  He did a great job sitting on his own over with the other contestants.  Being without us he still did a great job listening to the other speakers and contestants.    Alejandro was the first American contestant to give his speech.  Alejandro got a first place medal in his category.  Additionally he was given a certificate of achievement.  We all enjoyed the experience.  Alejandro says that he really had a great time.  The next day we saw his picture in an article in a local Japanese newspaper.  Alejandro also got to go to each of the first grade classrooms at his Japanese school and give his speech again.  We were all so excited for him doing so well.

Alejandro and the Japanese Speech Contest Part 1

Recently a friend of mine called and  asked if my oldest child Alejandro would be interested in participating in a Japanese/English speech contest.  She and I both have children the same age and our children are best friends and they go to Yochien together.  In this contest Japanese children would be speaking in English and American children would be speaking in Japanese.  I left the decision up to Alejandro as to whether or not to participate in the contest.  He told me he would participate in the competition.  I made him promise he would work hard with practice and meeting with a speech coach.   He said to me “OK mom. I want to participate. I promise I will persevere and not give up.”  Our new adventure began.

My next step was to sit down with Alejandro and figure out how much Japanese he knew and what kind of speech he wanted to do.  The only rules were that the speech had to be under 60 seconds.  We could talk about family, dreams for the future, what we liked about Japan, pets. . . Alejadnro decided to talk about colors.   We composed the first draft in English.  I did not compose the speech for him I just helped.  Then we got some help from an Alaskan friend of mine who speaks Japanese fluently to get it written in the Japanese alphabet.  By the time we got to the first session with the speech coach we had a lot of our work done.  She was impressed, I did give credit to my friend from Alaska.  The coach looked over the speech and did a little revision and made it sound more smooth in the Japanese language.  Then we proceeded to practice with the coach for several minutes.  We headed to the speech coach everyday for about two and a half weeks.  With the speech coach Alejandro would read his speech 5 times.  Then she would read the speech and have him repeat after her, line by line.  It was a lot of fun to see Alejandro get better and better with his Japanese.  The speech coach was really great.  She would often say how proud she was of Alejandro.  Then three days before the competition the coach stressed that the day before the contest/competition I needed to have Alejandro practice but only give him “good job” as feed back.  She said that this would boost his confidence and help his memory.         

Alejandro’s speech is:     

There are many colors in this wide world.
Red is like a delicious apple.
Yellow is like the hot sun.
White is like the cold snow.
Blue is like the spacious sky.
Green is like the forests with fresh air.
Black is like a fancy Mercedes Benz.
The beautiful rainbow that emerges after it rains has many warm colors.
I love them all. 

kono hiroi chikyu ni takusan no
iro ga arimasu, aka wa oishii ringo no yo, kiiro wa astui taiyo no yo
shiro wa tsumetai yuki no yo
ao wa hiroi sora no yo
midori wa kuuki no oishi mori no yo
kuro wa kokyusha no bentsu no yo
ame agari no utstukushii niji wa
yasashi iro ga takusan
boku wa zenbu no iro ga
daisuki desu
iro wa honto ni subarashi

Our Garden Yard

The Japanese people love nature.  Yards are generally small here (Japan is small but there are a lot of people here).  My town here in Iwakuni is like the size of Eagle River, Alaska but twice the amount of people.  Basically it is countryside Japan.  Still, it is crowded compared to countryside America.  Nonetheless they take great efforts to make beautiful yards.  My landlord is the same.  She created a beautiful garden atmosphere in our yard.  During the meeting where we discussed our lease she discussed her desire that we tend to the yard, unlike the last tenant did.  I was so excited to have a yard. 

I love flowers and gardening.  It truly is a beautiful yard.  I spend much relaxing moments in its calming beauty.  I can open my shades of my computer room and feel as though I am sitting in my yard working on my computer.  In my living room I can kick my feet up and watch the view of the forest  out one sliding door.  At dinner I can look out at the forest through another sliding  glass door.

The yard abounds in plants of many kinds.  There are large flowers and small flowers.  The flowers come in many colors.  These include purple, pink, white, red, and  pinkish orange.  I have many  trees in my yard (and many different varieties)  I do have some grass which grows in my yard.  It sure is a strange variety that I am not used to.  It is green and beautiful but it never needs mowing (nice feature).  There is even sometimes when we have bamboo growing in my yard. 

Additionally, in my yard I have a rock pathway.  A few big boulders adorn the yard as well.  One very unique part of my yard/house is that my garage is built out of the side of a hill.  We call it the bat cave!  Most Japanese homes do not have that feature.  I just lucked out with one awesome garage (my bat cave in the hillside!).

Sports Day 09

On Your Mark, Get Set, GO! (Annual Japanese Sports Day ’09)

Sports Day was outside this year because there was no rain.  We had a lot of fun but it was rather hot.  We ran around a lot doing all sorts of relay races, dancing, and more.  I participated in a mini-basketball game with Alejandro on the opposing team (parents vs kids).  Then I also participated in a relay race with Carlos on my team.  Some parents participated in a tug of war (I think that this was for the fathers).  That was pretty fun to watch.  The boys and I participated with the parent child dance.  Most of the American parents said they were astonished that so many of the children could last a whole day of sports.  The event lasted from 9am to 3:30-4pm, with a lunch hour in the middle.  Some American families had to politely excuse themselves and leave, for their children were too exhausted for the full event.  My children fit right in with the high energy Japanese kids and lasted the whole day, no sweat.  Ever since they were born my children have been high energy kids who very rarely take naps.