JET Program CIR Report
CIR Report from Kanazawa (8)By Sophie Bocklandt Well my dear readers, you are in for a long report! Only 3 months have passed, but I had enough work and personal adventures to fill a whole year! Sleeping is not much on my mind these days, but I am enjoying myself to the fullest! Let’s get started! After my return from Belgium in April, I was welcomed by a new Korean colleague. Her predecessor and good friend of mine returned home after 2 years as a CIR at Kanazawa city hall. Although I was sad about her leaving, I now had a friend I could go and see in Korea! Which I did right away, during the Golden Week, besides New Year the only week of holiday for many Japanese. Because of that, many Japanese decide to travel that one week, which makes it very expensive, but I really wanted to see Korea, if only it were to see how different it would be from China and Japan. Seoul actually has a lot of resemblance with Tokyo, a big city, many people, many foreigners, many shops and restaurants, skyscrapers, interesting architecture. Remarkable are the many churches all around town and the huge Han river that runs through the center and next to which you can walk in an agreeable atmosphere for many kilometers. Seoul has a more laidback atmosphere than Tokyo, and for someone who loves spicy food and meat as much as I do, it is definitely the place to be! Staying at my friend’s house, I got to enjoy the Korean hospitality, which equals the Japanese one. Every morning a huge delicious breakfast (yes, rice, meat and spicy kimuchi vegetables from the morning on), taking me all around town to see as much of the city and of Korean traditions as possible, giving me presents like the Korean metal chopsticks (no wooden ones like in Japan) and delicious nori seaweed. But most impressive was my visit to the border with North-Korea, a very scary place, where you are watched the whole time by armed soldiers and where you have to sign a paper that says you are self-responsible for your life, the soldiers cannot garantuee your protection for a 100 %. Unbelievable that this kind of situation still exists in the 21st century… May and June were probably the busiest months I will ever experience in my JET work life! Right after Golden Week the Belgian ambassador came to Kanazawa to give a presentation in two junior high schools about the establishment of the European Union. It has been 50 years since the EU had its head start, so time to refresh everyone’s memory and to point out the growing significance of the EU. For me it was a first time to interpret during a dinner with the mayor of Kanazawa, in a restaurant amidst the beautiful scenery of the Kenrokuen garden. At the end of May a French delegation from Nancy lead by the mayor, came over to Tokyo for a French-Japanese meeting to commemorate the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. For me this meant a business trip to the Japanese capitol to interpret. During my free time I paid a first visit to the Belgian Embassy in Tokyo. The Ambassador remembered me and was again very laudatory about his recent visit to Kanazawa. The same for the French delegation members that accompanied us back to Kanazawa to see a bit more of the Japanese sister city. All those official visits were interrupted briefly by another kid’s event I did with my Brazilian colleague. This time we introduced Easter and some of its typical activities in our respective countries. In Brazil it is custom for children to make their own chocolate eggs and bunnies, while in Belgium children often decorate eggs to hang in a decorative Easter branch. There are several ways of decorating, the toughest being to blow out the inside of the egg and then paint the vulnerable egg shell. Some eggs cracked, but overall a nice break from all the official stuff! The biggest work challenge these passed months was the visit of the Ghent mayor Termont to Kanazawa at the beginning of June. The mayor came over to see the Hyakumangoku festival, the biggest festival in Kanazawa. I spent an entire week with the mayor, accompanying him to several meetings, museums and restaurants. The long days and the constant interpreting were tiring, but the mayor was an agreeable man and thanks to him I got to see the Hyakumangoku festival from the front row. By far, the most memorable event was the Kaga Yuzen lantern opening ceremony. The mayor was invited to put a beautiful Kaga Yuzen silk lantern afloat on the river, as was I. Thousands of lanterns floating on the Asanogawa River, lighting up the evening dark… Truly a Kanazawa memory that I will never forget! The mayor had never experienced a traditional Japanese festival, so he was very exuberant about watching the Hyakumangoku parade, the nighttime dance procession, the folk singing and dancing performance at the Kanazawa Theatre and the outdoor Noh theatre performance on the castle grounds. The traditional costumes in particular made a big impression. His final judgment－“Kanazawa is truly a city of culture and tradition.” The last two days of his stay in Japan we spent together in Kyoto. The mayor had the luminous idea to rent bicycles, so we could easily go all over town and see a maximum. We visited World Heritage monuments only: the Silver and Gold Pavilion, the Kiyomizudera temple, the Ryoanji zen garden, the Nijijo castle. Our bikes took us further along the Philosopher’s pad, the Kamogawa riverbanks and authentic small shopping streets. Even though we all got burnt by the sun, it was a memorable trip and a great work experience! The Ghent mayor had only just returned to Belgium, when I had 3 cooking classes waiting for me! For my Belgian home cooking class in neigbouring Nonoichi city I chose “asparagus a la flamande” (asparagus covered in a butter sauce and topped with a mix of eggs and parsley) as appetizer, “Ghent waterzooi” (a unique dish from Ghent, a chicken stew with vegetables and potatoes, served with bread) for the main course, and for a sweet ending two common Belgian desserts: Belgian waffles and chocolate mousse. I made chocolate mousse again for my next Belgian dessert class, accompanied this time by cacao bread pudding. My last dessert class was a parent/children event, so the easy chocolate mousse was again on the menu. These 3 cooking classes were all requested by organizations within or outside Kanazawa. They sent out a request to the city hall for my presence and when it fits within the international character of my job as a CIR, I get the permission of city hall to participate. Kanazawa International Exchange Foundation on the other hand is a foundation directly connected to the International Exchange Section of city hall, and for this foundation we CIRs have to come up with our own events. So by popular demand I added one more cooking class, Belgian homemade cuisine. Asparagus for appetizer, my dad’s “carbonades a la flamande” (beer and meat stew), accompanied by apple mousse and potatoes, for the main course, and for dessert the traditional chocolate mousse. Next event on the list is another kid’s event with us 4 CIR’s introducing games and entertainment from our respective countries. It may seem that all I did was work these last months, but you would be wrong. In fact I have never been so active in my free time! After participating in the recording of a CD and the making of a movie, it was time to show my talents as a model! A new free paper on Kanazawa will come out this summer and since it is aimed at foreigners, the creative team of the paper wanted to put a foreigner in a Japanese setting on the cover page. Therefore I was asked to pose with a Japanese kimono and umbrella. First stop was the kimono museum where I was dressed and got my make-up on, next a shoot at the professional photo studio and then a whole afternoon walking around town to get pictures of me in kimono at several beautiful sightseeing spots. It was extremely hot that day and the sun often blinded my eyes (which made me realize that non-Japanese seem to be more sensitive for the sun and therefore wear sunglasses. Japanese barely wear sunglasses, except for fashionable reasons), but being a model is a nice boost for your self esteem! Taking my role as coordinator of the French club seriously, I invited all members to join me on the Kanazawa Green Walk, a 16 km walk leading us into the mountains of Kanazawa. We were the last ones to get back, but what do you expect of a bunch of foreigners walking, talking, picnicking and enjoying the sunshine lol Dinner parties are a regular in my agenda. With the French club we did a lasagna and crepes night, I invited many friends over to taste Belgian dishes, we had an international dessert potluck and another chocolate fondue at my place, I got invited at Japanese, Korean and English dinner nights and a Brazilian dinner night is on the agenda. But most impressive food-wise was the nagashi soumen noodle event I attended a few days ago. It’s not the noodles that make it special, but the way you have to eat them. A pipe construction is set up from a higher place in which water is run down and the noodles are thrown in. Meaning you are waiting at the end of the pipe construction and try to catch the noodles that come sliding down with your chopsticks! Summer in Japan means festival and firework season, so in my free time I like to hop from one event to the other. An interesting one was the Otabi festival in Komatsu, known for the kabuki performances done by children. And the yosakoi festival (yosakoi is a sort of Japanese folk dancing on fast music) gave me the will to try out this type of dance myself, instead of salsa, that I quit after 6 months. Talking about salsa, a friend of mine from Saitama-ken came over for the weekend to explore Kanazawa, but mostly to dance the night away at our local salsa club! Having collected a lot of overtime, I decided to treat myself on another overseas travel for my birthday. Preceded by 2 birthday parties with colleagues and friends, I spent my actual birthday on the plane, to arrive in Belgium at night, spending the last hours of my 27th birthday with my boyfriend and my family. The following week I travelled around my country (a first visit to Dinant and the famous “Sangliers des Ardennes” restaurant in Durbuy, which has a sister restaurant in Kanazawa, called “Le marcassin”). But the main purpose of my holiday was a visit to Spain, to the World Exposition in Zaragoza. Three years ago I worked at the World Exposition in Aichi, Japan. I had a wonderful time there, making friends from all around the world. Knowing that some of my Belgian colleagues from that Expo are now working at the Expo Zaragoza, I decided to pay them a visit. Good weather, good food, good friends and an interesting expo devoted to the theme of water, a succesfull summer holiday! Of course the return to Japan did not mean my summer plans were over! Only 4 days later I took the train to Tokyo to climb Mount Fuji, one of the goals I set myself upon arriving in Japan 2 years ago! It was a first mountain climb for me, so I bought a whole new gear, including hiking shoes. I knew the climbing season had started, but I did not expect the amount of people that came with the same idea as me: climbing all night in order to see the sunrise from the top! The climb was hard, many rocks, lots of gravel, and when you see it in daylight, in fact not so beautiful. The higher you climb, the colder it gets (fleece jacket, scarf and gloves are no luxury) and we had to wait for a long time like in a theme park. But you forget all that when the sun shows its first beams, rising over the clouds, on a height of 3776 meter. When I reached that top and walked along the crater, I was immensely proud of myself! I climbed the Fuji beast, woohoo!! The climbing or rather sliding down in the gravel actually wounded my feet and eventually it had taken us 12 hours to do the whole climb, but the idea that I was on top of Mount Fuji is more satisfactory than I can express by words!! In August my third and last year as a CIR in Kanazawa will begin. I can only hope it will give me as much fun and satisfaction as the last few months! But with the official request of accompanying the mayor of Kanazawa on his travel through Europe in October, I have no doubt many new challenges and interesting experiences are awaiting for me! Warm greetings to all my family and friends in Belgium and all around the world! |