Sapporo Yuki Matsuri

Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Jeri who dreamed of one day traveling to Japan and witnessing the glory of the giant ice and snow sculptures at Sapporo’s Yuki Matsuri. She waited and waited, until she could wait no longer. Then, one day, all her dreams came true.

Okay, so that story isn’t completely true. It’s more like “Once upon a time Jeri got placed in Hokkaido and subsequently learned that the one awesome thing about the winter was the aforementioned festival”. But hey, both are equally valid reasons to attend, right?

Whether you’d been dreaming about it for ages like imaginary Jeri, or had only heard about it this year like real Jeri, chances are you were looking forward to the Yuki Matsuri this year. Let me tell you something, it did not disappoint.

 

I don’t live in the city, so I didn’t have a chance to visit until the weekend. When Friday finally rolled around, I was ecstatic and giddy as I hopped into Jessica’s car at 2 pm to go pick up Tracy and head into the city. We drove for an hour, sampling classics from my winter playlist, and finally arrived, parked the car, and walked out towards Odori park, where the festival was being held. 

 

According to the website, there are thousands of spectacles to behold at the festival. They had 2,416,000 visitors last year, virtually doubling Sapporo’s population (although I’m slightly confused as to how they count visitors at a free festival). The festival also boasts 228 ice and snow sculptures at its three sites. Most of them are small, but many are massive and unbelievably impressive. In fact,  there is so much snow needed for these sculptures that it takes them 6.500 five-ton trucks to move it all around. With all this in mind, I was ready to check out the sites for myself.

The first thing I saw when we got to Odori was a giant castle made of ice. The intricacy and detail of the sculpture was stunning, and I couldn’t take my eyes away. Everywhere I looked I saw smaller pieces of art made of snow, the subjects being anything from Totoro to the Taj Mahal. 

 

The second thing I noticed was the insane amount of foreigners that had come into the city. In general, I just assume that if I run into another foreigner in the city, I probably know them. I know this isn’t always accurate, but it holds up a lot of the time. Not this weekend. As soon as we got there, the three of us were accosted by a group of very drunk American Navy soldiers who promptly made it their duty to make Jessica very uncomfortable. Tracy and I acted like bad friends and laughed and snapped photos. Oops.

 

We walked along the park, admiring the artistry and ducking into a conbini every so often to try to bring some feeling back to our numb toes. Once we had travelled the length of the park, we decided to walk to the Susukino festival site, with help from Jesse, our incredibly wonderful Sapporo guide. 

 

The sculptures at that site were more beautiful in a sense. Since they were made of ice and not snow, they seemed more delicate, more dainty than the ones at Odori. We walked and looked and walked and sat in ice cars and had our pictures taken, and did all the wonderful fun Sapporo Snow Festival stuff. At that point, we were starting to get hungry, so we decided to indulge in what is probably the best (and most underrated) part of the festival: festival food.

 

 

We returned to Odori and frequented the Indian food stand, since as a vegetarian, it was probably the only stall I could eat at. I got hot mango juice and vegetable curry, which turned cold as soon as I sat down to eat it. In the never-ending war of temperature, the heat of my food definitely lost this battle. That being said, the food was delicious and hit the spot. Also, if you haven’t tried it, hot mango juice is absolutely delicious. It’s my new winter drink. For real. The others satiated their taste-buds at the international area of the festival, where they could purchase the kebabs that they had been craving all afternoon. Was it worth it? I don’t know, ask them.

 

 

Then, finally, came the moment we had all been waiting for. Ever since we had showed up, Tracy had wanted to go to an ice bar. She’s from Australia, you see, and is completely unused to all the interesting and exciting things that the winter can bring. That said, with our stomachs full, we headed to one of the many ice bars. We ordered warm drinks and stood next to a table made of ice, smiling and chatting with each other while reminiscing about the wonderful day that we had had. It was truly a great, albeit cold, end to a great, albeit cold, day.

In conclusion, if you missed the festival this year, shame on you, but I  just gave you the highlights so fret not. If you were there, I hope you had as much fun as I did!

The Interview

I figured I'd write about my interview so that anybody looking to prepare for interviews next year could have a little bit of help, so here goes!

To prepare, I asked everybody I knew to help me come up with possible interview questions, and I made answers to all of them. I did as much research as possible on Japanese culture, language, history, politics and geography. I memorized some phrases in Japanese (my language ability at the time was zero). I did practise interviews with my friends. I bought a business suit, which I recommend to anyone regardless of whether you get the job. I scoured the forums for tips.

The day of the interview, I had class beforehand, conveniently located in the building right next to the interview building on McGill campus. I went to class in my suit, then I walked to the building. I arrived about 30 minutes early. There were 2 former JETs working the tables outside, and I highly recommend using this time to ask any questions you have about the job and their experience, no matter what the questions are. It was really helpful.

Then, they called my name. I walked into a bright room and sat down on a tiny wooden chair 6 feet away from the 3 interviewers. One was Japanese, and two were foreign. They did the whole sort of good cop bad cop thing, with two being very strict, and one of the foreigners being super down to earth and accessible.

Some of the questions I was asked:
- where did you say you wanted to be placed? Why did you pick this placement?
- why did you choose to do JET?
- what do you want to do in your life and how do you think JET will help you get there?
- what cultural aspects of Japan are you most excited to experience?
- what cultural aspects of Canada would you teach Japanese people about?
- tell us about a time when you overcame an obstacle to achieve something.
- do you know what the JETAA is? What would your role be in the JETAA?
- what are the three main goals of the JET programme and how would you contribute to them?

After this, I was asked to do the role play portion. They told me they the JTE had just left the room and I was in a class full of seventh graders. I was supposed to teach them about winter in Canada. During this period, one of them (the happy one) played the role of the super genki student. The Japanese lady played the role of the troublemaker, throwing erasers at the other two and the foreign lady played the role of the tired student, sleeping at her desk. During this part I ended up attempting more class managing than teaching, and I was pretty sure I bombed. But that's just my experience.

Then, they told me they'd let me know, and off I went.

Words of Advice:
- I did a lot of research on Japan that I didn't need, but Id recommend doing it anyway. Just in case.
- show up very early.
- prepare questions to ask, but don't be surprised if you aren't given the chance to ask them. In my case, they said if I had any questions to ask the two ladies outside.
- Be succinct, but answer their questions.
- invest in a suit and wear it.
- no matter what happens, stay calm and go with it. One of the main characteristics they emphasize is adaptability. You will probably have to show this.
- smile when you walk in the room and as much as you can during the interview.
- don't worry too much! They just want to see what you can do!

Sorry that was so long, but I hope it helps!

Christmas in Japan

Alright, as promised for the maybe 3 readers who consistently read my blog, here's my post about Christmas traditions in Japan.

I decided to write on this topic because of the tens of classes Id been asked to give on the opposite topic, Christmas in Canada. The more I taught about it, the more perplexed my students seemed and I realized that this was because their customs were completely different to ours. I mean, sure, they celebrate Christmas, but they celebrate it in the most curious way. Like anytime they adopt Western culture, they celebrate Christmas in an attempt at Westernism that is so amazingly Japanese. Because of this, I’ve made a list of my top five Japanese Christmas traditions.

5. Christmas Cake

For some reason unknown to me, Japanese people buy cake to eat on Christmas Eve, whether it be with their families or friends. And not just any kind of cake. In general, the cake is a very special white sponge cake, covered with whipped cream and strawberries. It’s like strawberry shortcake, but in actual cake form. In fact, I actually got to make this with some of the san-nensei Home Economics students before I went home for the holidays. It is delicious!

4. Dating

For many young Japanese people, Christmas is seen as a dating holiday. Many young couples go out on super romantic dates, and profess their love to each other, or whatever people do on dates. I haven’t been on one in a while, so I kind of forget.  I’m also unsure of how this tradition started, but I know that many Japanese women get quite upset when they are single on Christmas. The poor things.

3. One-way Gift Giving

Apparently, since the Western idea of Christmas is relatively new in the country, they have adopted some practises but not others? Japanese parents tend to give their children gifts, but the children are not expected to give any back. Also, I don’t think they give anyone else gifts, just their kids. And only until they are the age when they stop believing in Santa Claus. Because like in Canada, the parents ARE Santa. Sorry, kids.

2. The complete absence of Religion

One of the most perplexing parts of these Christmas rituals is that according to the very scientific completely scholarly source of Wikipedia, less than one percent of Japanese people are Christian. The main religions are Buddhism and Shintoism. Because of this, many Japanese children think that December 25th is the birth of Santa, not Jesus, and even more people don’t even realize that Christmas in other parts of the world has a religious origin. 

1. KFC on Christmas.

This has got to be one of the best things about Christmas in Japan. I know I’m a vegetarian, so I shouldn’t be repping this, but many Japanese people eat Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas. This tradition has become so popular that many KFC chains offer special Christmas packages. Once again, I’m not entirely positive how this tradition started, but from what I understand, it is all part of an advertising campaign done by KFC back in the 1970s, when they started promoting the idea that Christmas = Kentucky. This was done because apparently one group of expats realized that in the absence of turkey, fried chicken was the next best thing. Obviously, KFC capitalized on this possibility and the trend grew and grew, being adopted by the Japanese people as an essential part of Christmas in Japan.

So yeah, that’s Christmas in Japan! Next time, I may or may not write about something more relevant to my life. We’ll see how I feel.