My year in Japan is winding down, and it's impossible to not be reminded of it every day. There are many tasks for me to take care of before I return home, but in doing many of them, I am reminded of how much I have improved my language skills and cultural knowledge this past year.

I went to the city ward a few weeks ago to file a cancellation form for my health insurance. I was able to negotiate the entire affair using only in Japanese. When I think back to the beginning of the year, I went to the city ward with Okaasan, and she filled out all the necessary forms and negotiated everything for me when setting up my health insurance, so being able to do this on my own is a huge accomplishment.

On Friday morning I took my final two Japanese language class examinations. After those examinations were completed, I had finished my final Japanese language class! It was so easy to improve my Japanese here because I was able to study the language intensively for two hours every day in a classroom setting. I have realized after being here that it bothers me when people try to speak to me in English just because I look like it is my native language. But in the United States, I constantly approached people who spoke Spanish or Japanese and tried to converse with them. I wonder if that bothered those people. As much as I like to speak foreign languages, maybe I should save my conversation attempts for language classes and language group meetings, as opposed to speaking it with any person I meet on campus or around town.

At my school's international student office, I saw for the first time yet another difference in United States and Japanese culture. I told the administrator that I would be traveling to Okinawa next week, and she wanted me to keep my student ID card to use for discount purposes. But then when deciding when I should hand it into the office to be voided, she had to confer with another office personnel, who then got another two staff members involved in the conversation. It turned into a giant affair with many of the office staff conferring together in order to decide when I should turn in my student ID card. If this had take place in the United States, one person would have decided and informed the others later of her decision. But in Japan, everyone decides and approves of a plan together.

Yakushima and Tanegashima

I just returned to Kobe after a wonderful trip to Yaku Island and Tanega Island, two islands which are part of Kyushuu and located an hour south of Kyushu's southern-most tip. Today is the last day of Golden Week, an annual five-day long holiday which occurs every year at the beginning of May. Roads, buses, and hotels were crowded because everyone has time off during Golden Week, and most people decided to travel. Some people, my host family for example, decided to avoid the crowds and stay in their hometowns during Golden Week, but my host family also said they noticed an increase in traffic and people in Kobe due to everyone taking vacations.

Yakushima and Tanegashima are very different from Kobe in terms of climate, especially because they are further south. Yakushima has a lot of very tall, forested mountains, and it receives a lot of rain. Yakushima is famous for its giant cedar trees, some of which are thousands of years old. I went hiking in the mountains and saw a good number of them. I also saw wild deer and monkeys during my stay on the island.

Since Yakushima was very crowded and it was hard to find a place to stay, I cut my visit there short and made my way over to Tanegashima, which is one hour away by hydrofoil boat. Tanegashima was much less crowded, and it was very beautiful as well. It has a lot of tropical-looking plants, and it has two claims to fame. It has Japan's space center from which Japan launches rockets and space crafts, and Tanegashima was the place where weapons were introduced to Japan when the Portuguese arrived at the southern tip of the island in 1543. I went down to the southern tip of the island to see the point where the Portuguese landed, and I also went swimming at a beautiful beach near the space center. The following day, I went up to the northern part of Tanegashima to Urata beach, and I went on my first scuba dive!!! It was challenging, but I had so much fun, and I saw some incredible fish. The instructor stayed by me the entire time, guiding me, telling me when to remove the air from my ears, and changing the air pressure in my vest. I received the entire explanation of how to scuba dive in Japanese, so I'm really proud of my progress in being able to understand the explanation, follow the rules, and have a successful dive.

This morning I arrived in Kobe, and since I have Japanese language final exams during the next two days, it's back to work!

Today I saw a performance of The Scarlet Pimpernel. This, however, was a performance done by a very famous, all women's theater group in Japan. I'm lucky enough to live less than an hour away from Takarazuka, the town in which the theater is located.

The cast is composed only of women. I think there are men in the pit orchestra, and the conductor is a man, but other than that... Women play all the men's roles, so they sing like men, dress like men, and put on makeup to make them look manly. The women playing men's roles sang with very deep voices, and they carried themselves in a rather manly fashion to help create a convincing performance. But almost all of the men's roles included, in the costume, two-inch tall high heeled boots, so the women must be able to dance and move comfortably in high heels.

The entire performance was in Japanese, but if one read the story ahead of time, I'm sure the action would be fairly easy to follow. Also, it was a musical, so with a lot of singing and dancing, it was visually entertaining, even if I didn't catch every word that was sung or spoken. Maybe this was due to the setting of the specific story being performed today and the overall character of Takarazuka theater, but the costumes were elaborate and delightful to view.

The actresses in the Takarazuka theater group are extremely popular. Some of them have their own fan clubs, and the members of these clubs are always buying the front row seat tickets, which are thus impossible to obtain if you are not in a fan club, and the fans are always mobbing the actresses after the shows. But these women work hard, training from the time they are in high school, and instead of going to a regular high school, they go to a school especially for Takarazuka theater training. All of their training really pays off, as one can easily see when one watches a performance.

The United States may have Pi Day, but Japan has Ear Day, Eye Day, Teeth Day, and even Good Couple's Day. These are all recent phenomena, of course, and while Good Couple's Day actually is used as a marketing ploy, the other days' nicknames are used as educational tools.

First of all, how are the actual dates for these days decided? Well, Japan uses kanji, which originated in China. Since, however, Japan took kanji from China, Japanese language has applied several different readings to a single kanji. The kanji for numbers are no exceptions. The kanji for "3" can be read as "san," "mi," and maybe other ways that I may not even know of. But if "mi" is one of the readings, then March 3rd can be read as "mimi," which is the Japanese word for ear. Thus March 3rd is Ear Day. Teeth Day is June 4th, because one of the readings for the number "6" is "mu" and one of the readings for the number "4" is "shi," and mushiba means cavity. Okay, so maybe instead of Teeth Day it's Cavity Prevention Day, but I'm sure the general idea is clear enough. Also, I think October 10 is Eye Day because the "1s" and "0s" look like a pair of eyebrows and eyes. On these days, schools do things such as encourage the students to bring toothbrushes to school and everyone brushes their teeth together after lunch (which usually does not happen). Also, doctors will issue notices such as "get your eyes checked."

Good couples day is April 22nd because another reading for the number "4" is "yo," and a reading for the number "2" is "fu." The Japanese word yoi means good, and fufu is man and woman together as a couple. On this day movie theaters make ticket prices very cheap, but only for couples fifty and older, which I think gets a lot of people to the movies. But having April 22nd as Earth Day isn't a bad idea, either.

Today there was a speech contest held amongst all of the foreign exchange students in my program. Based on the speech test that we all had last week, representatives from each of the five Japanese classes were selected to compete in today's speech contest. There were ten contestants, but one passed at the last minute. I was one of three students from my class to be asked to participate.

I gave a speech about learning keigo, or honorific speech, and my emotional triumphs and struggles associated with the learning process (the learning process is ever-continuing, by the way). I mentioned that keigo is difficult to learn because there are many types of keigo and few chances for me to use it on a daily basis. I talked about a time with one of my Japanese language teachers when I slipped and forgot to use keigo but wasn't scolded, and then a time with my host father during which I didn't use keigo and was reprimanded. I concluded by talking about how happy I am to have learned keigo and how one may use honorific speech to really shape and nuance relationships with others. I didn't win a prize for excellence, but I received a sort of honorable mention. Most importantly, however, I was proud of myself for what I accomplished. I am completely satisfied with how I performed in the contest, and I think that's just as good as winning.

Geisha (whom I will hereafter refer to as geiko) and maiko (apprentice geiko) are a symbol of Japan that appeal to and trigger curiosity from most foreigners. Myself being one of these foreigners, I had to make it to Kyoto this month to see the famed Miyako Odori, Dances of the Old Capital, an annual phenomenon that takes place each year during the month of April in Gion Corner, an area of Kyoto known for its population of geiko. Kyoto is an ancient town full of tradition, and in fact it was one of the ancient capitals of Japan, hence the name of this dance that the geiko perform. The dance is composed of eight scenes that illustrate the passing of the seasons in Japan. Kyoto in particular has distinct spring, summer, fall, and winter seasons, with cherry blossoms in spring, summer greenery, fiery autumn maple leaves, and winter snow, wind, and chill.

It was a little difficult to tell who were geiko and who were maiko as I watched the hour-long dance performance. All the girls had white paint on their faces, necks, hands, and forearms (probably up to their elbows). But I learned later that the maiko all wore the same blue kimono with red and pink flowers on it, but the geiko wore various kimono of different colors and patterns. All the women's hair was up in artful hairdos, with flowers and showy combs inserted for extra attraction. The nape of the neck is said to be a very beautiful place, so all the maiko and geiko had the top of their kimono lowered a few inches below the nape of the neck so as to expose it. That area of each person's skin was also colored white, but I believe the maiko had three upside-down triangle shaped patches of skin that were not painted so as to differentiate them from geiko. The maiko have very long sleeves on their kimono called furisoude, and their obi, or kimono belts, are very long and hang down the backside of the kimono. Geiko, on the other hand, have short kimono sleeves, and their obi are tied so that the belts do not hang down the backside of the kimono but appear short and only cover the mid and lower back.

The dances themselves were very elegant. Movements are subtle, including a lot of tilting and turning of the head and delicate hand movements. About fifteen maiko danced, and another fifteen or so played traditional musical instruments such as the shamisen, a special Japanese flute, and various drums. All the geiko danced, and a few sang some narrations during one of the dance scenes.

Japanese college students are persistent in their recruitment for clubs and "circles" (extra curricular activities groups). The school year in Japan starts at the beginning of April. Compared with the University of Illinois, which has Quad Day once a year (an event at which students can walk around the quad and talk to members of registered student organizations who have set up booths to advocate for their group), Konan University students recruit much more often. For the first two weeks in April, student groups set up tables every day along the walkway and in the commons area on campus, with group members at the ready to explain information to interested first year students. Students will call out to people walking by to come over to their table and check out their club information. Other students stand in the pathway and force flyers into the hands of students walking past. One day all the students in clubs even lined up on the two sides of the entry walkway and formed a sort of tunnel. New students entering the school grounds would have to walk through the two rows of people and probably have dozens of flyers forced upon them before entering into the building where their morning class is held. Wiser students who wanted to avoid that sort of attention would have to walk outside the tunnel of people on the edge of the walkway and almost be in danger of falling into the rain gutter. There are over 2,000 new students entering Konan University every year, but despite this number, I wonder how successful club recruitment is with such aggressive recruiting tactics.