Let me start this with an aside: if you ask a Tokyo resident about the Imperial Palace you’re likely to be met with a blank look and an answer along the lines of ‘what is that?’. Turns out it seems most Tokyoites don’t know that’s the name for the Kokyo, more likely if their English isn’t so good as well. I’ve tried it with about twenty people so far, and only one didn’t return a look of consternation at me.

Anyways we went to the Imperial Palace the other day. Located near Tokyo station (that always gets tourists too it seems), it’s the proverbial jewel in the Imperial family’s crown. I’ve got to admit though, it’s pretty average as far as jewels go. Don’t get your hopes up too high should you come to visit, and I’d even say you shouldn’t make it too high a priority on your list either. Kyoto has a lot more to offer on that front.

Imperial, royal and other -al ending adjectives related to god like classes and associated with a building generally mean something pretty imposing and interesting. Thing is with Tokyo’s Imperial Palace is that you can’t actually see the Palace itself - it’s off bounds, apart from two days a year. Bit of a bugger that really. Not that I wanted to see every angle of it, but it’d be nice, what with the name and everything. What you can see is a bit of the building from far off, the moats and some of the gardens. Which is nice, but again a bit of a downer. I’ve seen a few royal lodgings in my time (ho hi hon [pronounced in a snotty French accent]) and this one is by far the most uninteresting. Hell even Buckingham Palace was more interesting.

The moats and gardens are nice, but pretty quickly seen and taken in really. I actually found the surrounding skylines and streets more interesting than most of the Imperial Palace. Ah well. On the plus side we did stumble upon what seemed to be a huge gathering of Goth fans on our way out of the area - and I mean huge, with thousands of black clad, boots wearing, pasty faced teens meandering down the street towards a concert arena. Actually the stereotypical Goth image doesn’t really do these guys justice. There was enough of them to provide us with a veritable kadeiloscope of variations on the whole Goth theme. Which was interesting, culturally I mean  :lol: Seriously though walking through the hordes of fans was a pretty surreal experience, which more than made up for my missing the cosplay days at the Tokyo Game Show.

While we didn’t stop to immortalise the moment when we were amidst said hordes, we did decide to stop and snap some of them on their way out of the nearby station. So as usual there’s a bunch of pics on Flickr you can check out, as well as some pics from that Imperial thingymajig.

Imperial Palace Flickr set 

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written by Laurent \\ tags: Japan, pictures, Tokyo

Following on from my quick blurb about Alex Case’s recent post on the mysteries of Japanese motivation in the classroom, I’ve got round to formulating some thoughts on the issue. While it’s definitely not something I can claim to have much experience of, having worked in Japanese classrooms (or the pretence of depending on how you view Eikaiwas) for the last 10 months has definitely given me a whole new insight into what the motivations for learning a language can be for Japanese people. In contrast to my short but intensive time training for a CELTA degree last year, and during which I dealt with learners from a variety of countries and levels, dealing with the motivation of certain Japanese learners on a daily basis can be a totally mind boggling experience, and one that definitely forces you to also reconsider your own reasons, and motivation.

The issues with motivation in a Japanese classroom can be varied - some people come it seems just to tell you how great Japan is, others are obviously after a chat and will seemingly do anything they can to delay any sort of teaching, others yet will take any form of trying to teach them pretty badly, some will want your opinion on anything and everything and yet more come because it seems that learning English is their current hobby. The last one is probably the one that winds me up the most. Don’t get me wrong we all need, and have, hobbie especially in this day and age of over consumption and capitalism, but personally I’ve never once considered learning a language as a hobby. I don’t know, I learnt languages because I needed to, and I practice them because I want to, or need to for work (my current employment being a strong case in point). I can understand why someone might want to learn a language as a hobby, especially if they’re older. It passes time, it can be stimulating and it brings a certain amount of cultural learning with it too.

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written by Laurent \\ tags: Japan, motivation, school, Teaching