The Weekend, Part 1

OK so first off, Friday was the speech contest, which I had been dreading for a few weeks. I mean, not only was my speech almost cripplingly elementary, but I had yet to memorize it the morning of the contest. It was at the point where, when my teacher asked me to present during third hour (keep in mind: around 11:30, just two hours before the speech contest), I couldn’t remember past the first two paragraphs. Anyway, it didn’t help that the speech contest was surprisingly legitimate. I was kind of expecting a little room just big enough to seat the families of the participants, but it turned out that all of HIF was required to come. Plus, the contest was held in one of the banquet rooms of the international hotel, with a stage and judges and everything. On top of that, we were expected to dress “semi-formal.” Now, I’ve decided that I hate this term, because it seems to mean different things to different people. So I showed up to the contest with a button up shirt, sleeves rolled up, and some cargo pants. First person I see: Juan Miguel, sporting a suit. You know the expression, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going”? Yeah, definitely not me. I’m more of the “when the going gets tough, quit” types. This trait does come somewhat in handy, however; it helps dull most of my nerves. So I was pretty together, compared to other people. Mikia and Pedro, who were at my table, were freaking out, worrying about remembering their speeches and appearing professional. Of course, I figured there was no point in worrying – I already looked the least prepared, so I was ready to go up and bomb. Anyway, the contest was split into two groups, essentially the kids who were good at Japanese and those who weren’t. The not good group went up first, and order was:
Juan Miguel –Linguistics of Japanese
Dan – Privacy in Japanese families
Jeremiah – An Important Dream
Me – Life in Japan and America
Mikia – First impressions and prejudgements
Pedro – Culture Shock
Group 2, the good kids:
Bryce – Something about multinationalism
James – Something about music and education
Elliot – News broadcasting in Japan
Joseph – Something about politeness in Japan
Chien-Wei – Something about photography
Jackson – Something I understood very little of
We were judged on both the fluency/correctness of our speech and our ability to answer 1-2 questions from our teachers. I think the Q&A is what really showed how different the standards were for the two groups (compare my question, “What is the best/most memorable experience you had since coming to Hakodate?” to James's, “Do you have any recommendations for changing the way [insert translation of operative Japanese word that I missed] is taught? Why do you think it should be changed?”). Anyway, everyone was really good. Of course, I forgot chunks of my speech and ad-libbed a little bit, but whatever, I made it through.
So anyway, after both the groups presented, there was a little break while the judges selected their winners. It was basically a chance for all of us to be glad we were done and reassure each other that we had done fine. Anyway, after the judges returned, we were called up to the stage for the “awards ceremony” After they talked in Japanese I couldn’t understand for a bit, they announced 2nd place for the lower group: Pedro. I was pretty surprised, because I figured he was going to take first place. But everyone had done well, so it wasn’t outrageous. Anyway, the judges then announced the winner, which somehow turned out to be me. Now, before you react to that, I want you to realize that this is clearly a mistake. I’m still expecting them to come up to me and be like “Oh sorry, we counted your scores in the wrong column… added an extra 0 in there. Sorry…” But when the dude called my name, I didn’t immediately realize it, so I just started clapping along with everyone else. About 10 seconds later, Dan kind of nudged me and was like “Dude… they’re calling you.” And after that, I still didn’t realize I had won – I couldn’t understand anything they were saying (which, again, is a testament to the fact that it was a clear mistake) up until Professor Yamazaki handed me the little certificate, at which point I had the “OH” realization moment, which made him laugh. James won second in the upper division, with Jackson taking first. Can I just talk for a second about how Jackson makes me feel like an awful student? He’s like… thriving so much in this program, it’s kind of ridiculous. Like… he NEVER break the Japanese Only rule. Even outside of HIF. When we’re hanging out. Which is kind of inconvenient, sometimes. But seriously, he’s only taken a year, used the same textbook as us, and only actually covered the first volume of it (whereas we covered two), but still placed a full two levels higher than us. Anyway, after the speech contest, my host mom took me out to a congratulatory dinner. Chioma and her host family were going too, so we also invited her, Jeremiah, Mikia, and Austin along. It was a fun time – we ate at an Indian restaurant called “Goa” (which was good, but made me miss home a lot) and just got to talk. Afterwards, we went to this concert that had been advertised since the beginning of HIF. It was called “Meet America,” and was supposed to be a musical representation of American history by this white guy named Michael Williams. Oh my god. This was possibly the greatest/worst experience of the trip so far. I don’t know if I can do it justice, to be honest. But I’ll try. Here were notable points in the lineup:
The Independence era
He marches out, summarizing America’s struggle for independence with “Yankee Doodle”
Ashok’s thoughts: Holy *** what is this?! He’s wearing a white blazer, a bright blue shirt, and red pants. And marching to the beat. Trying to make Yankee Doodle sound like a classy piece of music.
The Emancipation era
He had a gospel choir come out to back him up as he sang a song whose name I forget. He also had a Japanese soloist come up to lead the “prayer.” I don’t know if he realized that the crowd was pretty much as minimally Christian as it could get. Intense awkwardness. Plus, he tried to sing insanely high notes and… yeah.
The 1950s
Ohhhhh my god. He tried to sing “Hound Dog” by Elvis. So he comes out in this leather costume with an acoustic guitar (that he didn’t know how to play) and starts fake strumming. Like, not even trying to make it look like he’s actually playing the guitar. Oh my god. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, he tried to dance like Elvis. He started out trying to do the slide, which was the most awkward and contorted thing ever. Like, he just shuffled his feet really fast, but he always hunched his shoulders when he did it, which threw off his fake guitar, making the entire thing really awful. And then he also tried to do some hip gyrations, forgetting the fact that he was almost… 60something? This was also just remarkably uncomfortable.
And just as a general statement, he SUCKED SO MUCH AT JAPANESE. Oh my god. Like, nothing in this program has given me as much of an ego boost as watching him try to speak to the people. He’s been living here for 17 years and has a Japanese wife. AND STILL CAN’T SAY ANYTHING. He would mess up things like “thank you” and try to blend casual speech with really really polite verbs, which confused everyone.
Anyway, Saturday was a pretty busy day. First, it was the last kendo practice, which was really sad – I’m going to miss having the ability to hit stuff with sticks. I still suck after the 6 weeks, but it was a good time. Ah – gotta run, but I’ll finish this up later.