Work Party - Friday Night

I attended my first work party (compulsory) tonight and I would have to say that it was probably the best work party that I've ever been to!

All in all it was quite a good day. This morning we had a small but formal ceremony (with a lot of bowing) to receive our formal contract. At least I think it's a formal contract as the only things I can read are my name and the amount of money I'm earning. All of the new and old JETs were seated together and one by one our names were called out. When each name was called we said, “hai” (yes), stood up bowed and walked to the front. The man who was presenting the certificates at the front bowed, so we bowed, then he gave us the certificate (which was accepted with two hands – very important) and we bowed again (making sure that we left the piece of paper at chest height), he bowed then we sat down. Like I said, there was a lot of bowing! I need to work on my bowing – make sure I go the right angle at the right time and not bend my neck too much ..... but at least I know when to bow – all the time!!

We then gave a short self introduction to the staff working at the board of education. Today mine went something like this (it changes subtly everytime I give it):
Hello, my name is Naomi Palmer. I'm from Canberra in Australia. I like to play the saxophone. While in Japan I would like to visit hot springs. Nice to meet you.

So tonight at the party everyone talked to me about hot springs! I was surprised and impressed that they a) understood what I said, b) knew which JET said what and able to remember it, and c) were confident enough to talk to me about it. They didn't have much English and as you know, I don't have much Japanese (but at least now I'm using every word I know) but we were able to converse. A number of times while I was talking with a group of people and they didn't understand one of them would call out to one of my supervisors across the room to come translate. The other guy from Australia, Cheng, also did some translating for me.

Did you know that you don't wear clothes/swimmers in hot springs? But men and women are separated (my supervisor thought that was really funny when I asked about that at work, so funny in fact that she repeated it at the work party so that all the other board members could have a good laugh about that too!). We were talking about baths at work because we are going on an English camp during these school holidays. And yes, we will be using public baths – one bath for everyone! There is also one shower, and even I could do that math – most of the JETs (new and old) wanted to have a private shower, (there are 17 JETs all up) there are also some Muslim students who will have their own shower. So we're looking at four hours for a shower?! Besides, now that everyone knows that I want to visit hot springs, I had better get used to bathing naked pretty quickly!