Why I love teaching English

On Thursday night I had my English class with Keiko. Keiko is a social worker with 2 high school students, Leon and Anna. Her husband's name is Ken. Needless to say, they are not your typical Japanese names. Her family lived in North Carolina for a little over a year when the kids were in elementary school while her husband did a teaching exchange at Duke university. He is a history professor at a local college. We get together 2 times a month to talk about whatever and share things with eachother, just to keep her English up. She speaks pretty good English.

So I was at her house and she was telling me about Obon and the traditions they have. Obon is a Buddhist holiday where your deceased ancestors come back to visit. She showed me their family altar where her mother, father and grandparents' pictures and "gravestones" were located. The minature "gravestone" was more like a small plaque that had their buddhist name. This isn't exactly what her shrine looked like, but pretty similar. It is set off in the corner of her tatami mat room.On the first day of Obon (13 Aug) families burn special wood outside so that their ancestors know where to go and to come faster. On the altar they also had a straw horse so that the ancestors could ride faster back home. Each day of Obon, Keiko will place specially prepared food on the altar for her ancestors. She let me try several kinds of food that she made for them. One was mochi balls (pounded rice) with a soy sauce and one with red bean paste. Second I tried, a carrot, pumpkin, lotus root vegetable mix.

On the 16th of August, their ancestors will return to heaven, this time riding the straw cow that is on the altar. No rush this time, they can take a slow cow.

I felt really honored that Keiko would share her traditions with me and even let me try the food that she had prepared for her family. These are the kind of things I would never know about Japan if I wasn't teaching English. It was a neat experience.

Keiko even sent me home with homemade tempura and a 6-pack of Japanese beer. I had the veggie and shrimp tempura as soon as I got home. It was awesome! I'm saving the beer for Glenn to try with me.Thanks, Keiko.