Introducing Mystery Class #10
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Congratulations, you found us! We are a homeschool in Onjuku, Japan called the Onjuku Schoolhouse. I am Mindy, the teacher, and the students are my daughters Laura and Nina. We are Canadians, but we have lived in the Onjuku area since 2001. Here are several photos of our family and our cats, along with some additional information about Onjuku and what it's like to live and go to school here. We have really enjoyed being a secret Mystery Class this year, and hope you enjoy learning more about us and our community.
The other members of our family include John and our cats Gem, Gianni and Ginger. Our cats look related but they are not. We found Ginger about 6 years ago, and the two kittens came last summer when they were only a month old. We also have our own chickens.
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| Our City of Onjuku, Japan | |||||||||||||
Onjuku is a very unusual little seaside town located east of Tokyo, Japan. Specifically, Onjuku is located in Chiba Prefecture, which includes a large peninsula known as the Boso Peninsula. This peninsula is located on the east side of Tokyo Bay, across from Tokyo. Our town of Onjuku is on the outer, or eastern, shore of the Boso Peninsula, facing the Pacific Ocean.
Many things make us a little out of the ordinary on this coast. First, there is our famous white sand beach. One reason the beach is famous happened on an evening back in 1923, when a poet and songwriter by the the name of Masao Kato went for a walk on our beach. The crescent shape of the beach land and the moonlight shining on the white sands inspired him to write a song called "Tsuki no Sabaku" or "Desert of the Moon." This song, about a prince and princess riding across the sand dunes, has become famous all over Japan. Tourist buses arrive every day filled with people who want to see the white sands and the statues of the camels carrying the prince and princess across the dunes.
For those of us who live here, however, I have to confess that we are sometimes a little tired of the famous song, as it is played on the town’s loudspeakers three times a day in its entirety, at 7 a.m., noon and Would you like to get a birds'-eye view of the coast in Onjuku? There's nothing like a ride in a paraglider for that aerial view from above...(but only if you're not afraid of heights). Ready for takeoff? Watch this YouTube video of the Onjuku coast
We hope you aren't afraid of heights! Another interesting thing about our town happened a little more than 400 years ago, in September 1609, when the Spanish galleon ship called "San Francisco" was blown off course while sailing from the Philippines back to Mexico, and the ship was wrecked on our shores. Women known as “ama divers” (who collected abalone and other shellfish) rescued 317 of the 373 sailors. Given that this number was roughly equal to the population of the town at the time, rescuing and caring for these men was a heroic feat. Moreover, at that time in Japan’s history, the country was heading into a period when it would be closed to foreigners, so rescuing these people was dangerous on more than one level. One of the sailors was Don Rodrigo de Vivero, who had just finished his term as Governor-General of the Philippines. Rodrigo was taken to meet the local lord, Tadatomo Honda at his castle in Otaki and later went all the way to Edo (now Tokyo) where he met the Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada and the former Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu whose authority was still paramount. The Shogun provided the sailors with a ship and eventually they sailed safely back to Mexico.
That meeting was the first official contact between Japan and Mexico, and Onjuku has had an important role in Mexico-Japan relations ever since with ongoing cultural exchanges. Last year we celebrated the 400th anniversary of these events with many commemorative activities including an opera in Japanese by Mexican artists, the visit of a Mexican tall ship Cuauhtémoc (see the photo), numerous wonderful concerts and many special guests. The Crown Prince even came to one of these events where a statue was presented to the town and installed at Mexico Park, a breathtaking site established in 1928 that overlooks the ocean and contains a 17-metre-high Memorial Tower. The new statue, by Rafael Guerrero Morales, was one of our clues and you can also see the tower in the background of the photo.
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| Living in Onjuku | |||||||||||||
Much as we love the ocean, we don’t actually live near the beach, but instead about 3 kilometers away from it in the surrounding forested hills. We used to live about 15 km north but we bought a house here two years ago and still feel lucky to have found one in this area. Between the hills and the sea there are not as many houses here as in some other towns up and down the coast. We were very fortunate to be able to buy this house, which is set in its own private valley and surrounded by beautiful forests. Here is a photo of the cherry trees blooming in our valley in early April:
Cherry Trees Blooming in April
People have really welcomed us and we feel we are part of the local community. We have even started some of our own Western traditions here such as Trick or Treating at Halloween, and the local families were all very eager to particpate. Our house also happens to be in an area that is famous for fireflies. Every year at the beginning of June we find many cars gathering at the bottom of our hill just after dark. People walk along the river and admire the lights of the fireflies which twinkle like Christmas lights. Fireflies are a good sign that the environment in our area is very healthy.
We also have a lot of wild animals such as wild boars, small deer, Japanese tanuki (also known as a raccoon dog), foxes and badgers. Large birds such as great grey herons and Japanese egrets are usually in the rice fields around our house, and in the winter many small birds come from Siberia to enjoy our warmer climate too.
We have our own chickens and also harvest our own rice. Here is a photo of Nina harvesting rice last August, and a photo of Laura conducting the equinox egg balancing experiments.
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| Going to School in Onjuku | |||||||||||||
We used to homeschool fulltime, but about a year and a half ago our private Japanese teacher moved away and we decided to try going to the local school part time to continue our Japanese studies. Now we go to school 2.5 days a week and homeschool 2.5 days. At home we study in English and follow the Waldorf curriculum. We have done the Mystery Class as part of our homeschooling. Our local school is called Fuse Elementary School. It only has 59 students in 6 grades, so it is really like a big family. In fact, our principal graduated from our school and still lives around the corner. There are many things about school in Japan that you might find unusual. For example, at the beginning of every period, a child says, “Now we are going to start the (first) period of study. Bow.” Then everyone bows. And then at the end of the class, they announce, “Now we are finished with the (first) period of study. Thank you. Bow.” Then everyone bows again. Here is a photo of the school:
Most subjects at school are pretty similar to schools in Canada with a few exceptions. For example, once a week we study Morality. The teachers will pay close attention to the relationships among the students and various behaviours. Then she or he will use stories and anecdotes and discussion to bring up various subjects without ever mentioning any names of course. And Japanese schools also have a very strong health program. We have a fulltime nurse and we have to keep a lot of records about our health. We are supposed to take our temperature and bring a health report to school with us everyday which has to have one of our parent’s official stamp on it. Even during holidays we have to write down how many times a day we brush our teeth and bring a report to school with us. No Janitors The Principal had to climb the roof of the gymnasium to saw some branches recently, and the Vice Principal always cuts the grass and prunes the trees so everyone helps to keep the school clean and looking good. You can learn more about students cleaning schools in Japan on this video from CBS Sunday Morning that aired on Sunday May 8, 2010:
Our school year in Onjuku is April to March so we recently we had the Grade 6 graduation and Laura also graduated. Like everyone, she had to wear the Middle School uniform for the graduation. The ceremony was very formal and everyone rehearsed it over and over again, but it was also very emotional and by the end everyone was crying, including the teachers.
Sunset from Mexico Park, taken by Nina in January 2010 Well, we hope you enjoyed learning some things about us and about Onjuku. If you would like to reach the Harris family you can write to us. |
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