Cleanliness at School

Cleanliness at School

The japanese philosophy of a responsible cleaning routine, that leads to a tidy, organized and healthy educational environment and society.

From the outside perspective of an exchange student.

Being from Germany, where the majority of schools are rather untidy, not to say messy, and where the duty of students to clean their classroom is mostly not taken very seriously, I was very happy to encounter a highly praised duty for keeping the learning environment clean and nice for everyone; at my japanese high school. [in case you have been wondering: I’m currently a student of Takeo Senior High School located in Saga prefecture, Kyushu , Japan. The picture at the beginning of this post, shows my school]  As far as I’m concerned a nice environment helps me immensely to focus and enjoy studying. I absolutely dislike chaos or worse: garbage lying around….

The tradition of  O-Soji

Please prepare yourselves for the shocking news: [especially my german readers, maybe you would like to sit down?]

Ok take a deep breath, now:

In Japan students clean the entire school building and grounds themselves!

And yes this includes stairs, windows, toilets, school garden, genkan [the japanese entry, where you are supposed to take of your shoes and, at school, change them for your school slippers] and all the hallways. Yeah such a thing exists! I’m serious! No kidding! The poor students, who are already suffering deeply from the task of daily studying, are turned into cleaning employees! Why would the school officials be so cruel? [Please don’t miss the sarcasm in this paragraph *winks* ]

Ok let’s hit the details: According to my timetable my classmates and I have O-Soji from  3:00 until 3:30 in the afternoon. [afterwards we have one more period and „homeroom“ so lessons regularly end at 4:30 pm] During this time every student and also some of the teachers [don’t get me wrong they are cleaning alongside their pupils and survey their work] are supposed to clean the school. The differences to the common method of tidying the school in Germany are 1. that not only everybody, instead of only two pupils per class, are obliged to clean, you also clean 2. all parts of the school not only your classroom and 3. after you’re „work“ there will be no additional cleaning by hired janitors. This makes everyone equally responsible for a tidy and nice study/school environment, where everyone can feel comfortable in. 

There are groups of students of each class who form a „cleaning team“. The area you are supposed to clean, rotates every month, so no one will get bored or is stuck with the toilets all year long. [brings us back to the fairness in the game] 

The following are some examples of the cleaning tasks:

• wiping the windows with newspapers [trick to not leave any remaining „drying marks“ on the windows]
• cleaning the toilets [wiping the sink area, sweeping the floors, checking the cabins and restoring toilet paper if necessary]
• school garden [collectig fallen leaves in autumn, taking care of the flower beds, the task of trimming the hedges is usually left to the P.E. teachers, because it’s thought too dangerous for students to use the big gardening clippers]
• the school’s pool [twice a year the pool is cleaned: the water is drained out and for one day every class skips their P.E. lesson that day and takes to clean the swimming pool during the period they’d usually spend in the gym]
• the hallways, the stairs and the individual classrooms  are swept everyday.
• cleaning the blackboard, refilling the chalk box if necessary and at my school dusting off the electronically blackboard as well.
• the gym and the outside trails, that connect the several school buildings with each other, are also swept.

It may sound like a lot to do, but remember: everybody does their part and in the end, together, it is completed and the school is clean again!

This brings us to the tradition/meaning behind it:

O-Soji is practiced to teach the japanese students/children/teenagers, that it is important to contribute something to society in order to get things done in the most convenient and fulfilling way possible. Only if everybody takes their task equally serious, the result will be satisfying and everybody will be happy. If not, there will always be the gap/inequality between those, who worked hard and those, who were lazy and did almost nothing. This might sound a little „over-interpreted“ for foreigners, but actually it is not: the contribution to the community you live/work/study in, is thought to be extremely important and is a big part of the japanese mentality! The Common Good is a very important factor of Japan’s society and social engagement is highly regarded and also thought necessary for a strong nation, which will lead to a happy life in the end.

At Takeo high school there are also no dash bins. What?, I hear you ask yourself now, How is that supposed to help the cleanliness? Ok let me explain: This is another lesson the students are taught: to take care of their own garbage! Public littering is regarded as extremely rude and should therefore be emphasized in education: Do not litter! Always take with you what you have brought with you and don’t leave your remains [such as packaging and the same]. Taking care of yourself and being aware of your effect on others and the environment you live in, is another part of the japanese mentality.

What to learn from O-Soji and why it is part of the educational system in Japan:

1. You should learn, that it is important to contribute part of your work/efforts to the community you are part of. It is important to remind yourself, that obstacles/tasks can be overcome, if only you remember to work together and everyone takes it equally serious.
2. You shall learn to view your role in society from an outside perspective. Be aware of what you are doing, how you are acting and most importantly; how it effects others. Are my actions reasonable and a welcomed contribution to the society? Or are they rather working against the Common Good?
   

I think these are very important aspects of growing up to a responsible member of society and therefore I think very positive of O-Soji. I like to experience [everyday] that this concept is not only working out in theory, but becomes reality:

Today one of my classmates offered me a chewing gum and as I was just about to put the wrapping in my backpack in order to get rid of it at home, she was like: „No, please I can take it!“, took it out of my hand and then put it in her own bag. In the end, she was the one, who offered me the candy so she regarded it as her duty to take care of the litter. This made me feel warm all over and I thought to myself: „The world [and Germany] could use a little more of this kind of polite attention/awareness.“

That’s it for today’s post then. I hope you enjoyed it and that you might think twice before throwing garbage on the floor or that you’ll take your cleaning task a little more serious next time. Think about the deeply routed tradition and thoughts, that lay behind it in Japan.

If only…if only you’d look carefully and be aware.

Yours Avria<3

#spreadtheawareness

Hortensia mountain

あじさい

On Sunday we went to visit "Ajisai Yama"-> hortensia mountain. It was soooooooo pretty and reminded me of the trip to "Sakura Yama" during the cherry blossom season. I enjoyed Sunday's photo session with my host mom very much and today I'd like to share some results.

I especially like hortensias because of their many pastel colors. It often looks as if somebody painted each flower petal a slightly different shade of pink, purple, blue or red, to make all these colors blend in so well.  Very inspiring to look at a whole mountain of these beautiful flowers. 

By the way: The Japanese celebrate a few flowers per season (cherry blossom=Spring, hortensia= beginning of summer/ rainy season).  If used in poetry, these seasonal words are called Kigo:

"Kigo ("season word") is a word associated with a particular season, used in traditional Japanese poetry."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kigo

Hopefully you've enjoyed today's quick update!

Have a blossoming day! Until next time!

   Avria <3  

The Tale of Genji

The world’s first novel?

what I’m reading at the moment…

 Indeed The Tale of Genji [jap. Genji Monogatari 源氏物語] is considered to be the world's first ever written novel. It originates in the Japan of the Heian period and was written by the court lady Murasaki Shikibu. It is still highly praised and one of the most important pieces of japanese literature. Over the centuries it eventually found its way on to western bookshelves and has ever since inspired many readers. The complexity of the characters involved in the life of "Genji the Shining Prince"[the protagonist of the story] has left a lot of readers utterly blank, if asked to 'briefly retell' the tale. That is why I chose to reach out to a "Readers's Guide" for assistance of understanding this challenging book. 

Today I’ll be talking about the translations of this very special book.

After I’ve battled the approximately 800 pages, I will make sure to update on the content and give a review. I’m reading other books as „sidekicks“, because the english is kind of difficult and there’s a lot of cultural and historical background knowledge required, which means a lot of research while reading.  I'll need a break once in a while. Something easy to relax my mind again and step back from the story to fully understand the content. So it might take a while until the promised review. [In the mean time I will of course keep updating you guys about the other stuff I'm doing. :-) ]

Until then, I hope you’ll enjoy today’s post:

more than just one…

Several attempts were made to translate the famous work of Murasaki Shikibu.

The thing about the Japanese of the Heian period, in which the „Tale of Genji“ was written, is, that it is very different from the Japanese nowadays. The biggest problem here is the variety of meanings of the used Kanji characters! Not only does Japanese use rather a whole lot of Kanji, the meaning of a lot of them has also changed over the past centuries. Some Kanjis, for example, had a completely different meaning during the Heian period, than these Kanjis have today! Others are not even used anymore. That makes it rather difficult to find exactly the meaning, Murasaki Shikibu had in mind, while writing her novel. It’s one of the reasons that makes  reading this highly complex story even hard for native speakers. Not to mention translating it „the right way“.

To help you understand this battle of translation, I’ll have to go a little more into detail:

Kanjis were originally adapted from the Chinese writing. Where as in China everything is expressed/written with these characters, in Japanese there are also the two Kana tables [Hiragana and Katakana, which are both syllabaries], to specify the way of writing a little more. Written Japanese is therefore a mixture of three different kinds of writing. 

Back to the adapted chinese characters: Each Kanji has a meaning for itself and can stand on its own. It’s very common for a kanji to have several meanings. Especially when combining them, the way the Kanjis  are read varies rather srtongly. Though there is a formula to study, it can still be confusing for foreigners. As I am myself only just beginning to understand, yet alone study, Kanji, I unfortunately won’t be able to give you concrete examples. But this is how far my knowledge goes:

When a Kanji is connected with another Kanji, the meanings of the connected Kanjis, create a new meaning. To speak in mathematics:

„A plus B equals C“ 

[Something plus Something creates Something else/Something new…]

For my german readers: you could compare this to the freedom of combining german nouns. Putting two or more nouns together, connects their meaning with eachother and creates a new meaning-> A new word is formed!

So to be able to read a Kanji properly you not only have to study how it’s read out loud when standing on its own, you also have to memorize how it is pronounced/read, when connected with other Kanjis. And to get even more complex: with each combination, the Kanji you’ve studied, is most likely to change its pronunciation, yet again. So to to say: how to read a Kanji correctly depends on (1.) wether it is standing alone or (2.) with what other Kanji it is connected.

Due to the fact that the reading of Kanjis is so complex, the characters themselves are often redescribed, with little Hiragana signs standing next to or above the actual kanji character, to indicate the correct pronounciation. You will find these „reading helpers“ in japanese books, as well as in magazines, the newspapers, at public explanation signs, at school and so on….

There are more than 50. 000 Kanji! [But the majority of them is no longer used!] The japanese "Ministry of Education" came to the conclusion that about 2.000 kanji are necessary for everyday-life. Therefore the media [TV, newspapers, most of the books, excluded are scientific works, public speeches, etc.] work with these Kanji. However, the average educated Japanese knows about 5.000 Kanji [at least passively].

So to tap it of, as if it wouldn’t be confusing enough already, for foreigners to translate modern japanese texts, the translators of ancient japanese literature, also have to cope with the problem of finding the „ancient“ meaning, or „the meaning the author of the literary work meant“ before being able to look for a matching word for their translation. In many cases it is hardly or not possible at all to track down the exact „old“ meaning of a certain Kanji. This makes the author improvise which translation is, in his or her opinion, closest to the original. That makes the translation itself a very subjective piece of work, because obviously certain things are understood differently of certain people. So with translated japanese literature, there is hardly ever only one right translation, but a combination of several translations that, considered together,  get quite close to the original. Reading the stories in Japanese it’s the same way: the „real“ original can only be read by the author himself. 

I hope you've enjoyed my going-on about literature :-D.

XOXO Avria