| Current mood: |  full |
| Current music: | It was news on the radio. Now, it's the fan. |
Again with the orientation.
All right. These are some thoughts about this year's prefectural orientation that I wrote down in a moment of idleness. I will expound on these rough sketches as I type.
Really wasn't feeling the three-day orientation in Hiroshima this week. For the first time, I went to the ￥3,500 all-you-can-eat/drink (ha!!) event featuring the new people. I only met a couple of new people I actually wanted to talk to, and I re-met a bunch of second- and third-years from last year. The enkai (as these types of events are called) was not worth the price paid, but I doubt they ever truly are when foreigners are eating. They put out a few pieces of chicken, some fries, and some cheesecake. And there was a small all-you-can-eat salad bar. Luckily my stomach is relatively small and is easily filled up with salad. The bar people were noticeably overwhelmed by our Western appetitites, but learned to ignore the cries for more chicken wings and cake. They also started ignoring group drink orders. People were encouraged to come up and order their own beverage, which is understandable somewhat.
Mmm...yes. There was this one young woman named Carla at the orientation (she hails from Jamaica) who latched onto me this week, and I had to be a mom, translator/interpreter, and guide in my spare time. (Yes, me, who sickeningly easily finds herself turned around and lost even in a department store or mall--and especially on the mean streets of Hiroshima.) I don't like being a translator/interpreter, especially not for ungrateful people. And a word to the wise for poeple traveling to/planning to live in a country where you don't know the native language: gestures and facial expressions (and pictures) accompanied with some kind of words goes a long way on the road to communication. Even if you don't know the word for "water" or how to say "Water, please", in the target language, don't just point to your glass and look expectantly at your waitress. That is rude. If you must point, ask for what you want in your native language in accompaniment to your gestures, for goodness' sake. Otherwise, I will begin to loathe you and your demanding personality. Tone of voice also plays a role in effectively communicating with gestures and speech. Just be a pal, and try, okay?
Anyway...anyway...I was kinda peeved to have the leisurely night I'd planned on turning into show-Carla-around-and-cater-to-her-selfish-foreigner-whims type evening. Okay, that was unfair. But I'm a complainer, and I can't fight it. My final opinion on the orientation incarnation of Carla was that she was a bit stuck on herself and suffering from acute homesickness. She hasn't even had a chance to really suffer from culture shock because she's still wrapped in the Gaijin Bubble, and won't be forcibly released from it until school starts. (And what the hell? She has a sister who's been doing the JET program for a year already somewhere else here in Japan, so it's not like she doesn't have family on the same side of the world. But she doesn't seem to want to work with what she has/ask her supervisor to help her get stuff she wants for her place. I just don't understand.) Okay, back to the Gaijin Bubble again. Hanging out with just English-speakers is not the way to go in a country like this--especially when you'll eventually have to leave that foreigner bubble and go back to the real world, where you may be the only one out of a thousand people in your whole town who looks like you. It's like living in a dream world, a place that's only going to make you more homesick and negative when you wake up because you're not trying to adjust to your new situation.
I really wish that Carla would have tried meeting people who were not black and trying to get to know them. Maybe she did at Tokyo Orientation. If she's smart, she'll try to find some friends at the mandatory newbie language seminar next week in Saijyo, Hiroshima.
Having someone attached at my hip like that made me feel weird at the orientation. Other black people unerringly gravitated towards us when sitting or standing, and it was a bit annoying. Most of them seem to be tools. Must be something about most of those boys who come from Caribbean islands that make them into asses. It's not just the accent that makes them seem that way. Becoming a blob of black guys and gals made me feel more conspiciuous than I usually do alone in a band of J-people. Keeping to a cluster of five black people whom I really wasn't interested in (there was one guy I already knew and liked, one guy I knew and didn't like) didn't give me a good feeling of togetherness. It made it seem as if we were wary of making friends outside our own race, and I was uncomfortable with being a part of that message. Yes. That's exactly how it felt. I have some kind of hang up about associating with people of the same color all the time (stemming from relationships in high school and at university, where cliques and bitchiness abounded), just because we share the same ethnic heritage. I like to hang out with people I like, not just people who happen to resemble me physically.
Blah. Enough complaining. Back to the actual orientation. Though everything wasn't interesting. I felt that the JETs who worked on it were great. I know they heard some second and third years complaining about how "useless" some of the presentations were for them, but hopefully those hardworking JETs realized that these people were ignorant. It's obvious that these orientations are for the new people, and that us old salts are only there to explain stuff more thoroughly/answer area-related questions. Maybe those complaining JETs have since realized this. I only realized it this morning, two days after the orientation ended, so who knows if anyone else already has.
Okay, I've had enough of this disjointed topic, and shall now close with a spirited period.
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