– Schedule –
10/16-10/20 have the classes @ high school #7
10/21 Excursion@ Yarenche
10/22 eat SUSHI@ Ivano-Frankivsk

Vol.5 – weather –

Most of all people suppose that Ivano-Frankivsk is very cold now but the average temperature is only -5 degrees even in winter. Of course, it is cold in the morning. For example, it was 2 degrees at 9:oo am yesterday. The diurnal temperature is over 10 degrees now. There were some people who only got T-shirts on when I arriverd here. According to the weather news, it is about 18 degrees this week.

I went to Yarenche (like Hakone in Japan) by the train last weekend. It took 2h from Ivano-Frankivsk. The town was under the mountain so we chould see leaves that turned in autum. It is not so different from Japan about weather except that the temperature in the morning and night is colder than Japanese. The weather and view give me an illusion that I am in Japan sometimes. By the way, some people are surprised when I tell them we have four seasons and also have snow in winter. However they know Sakura. That is little bit strange I think….

Vol.6 – High school –

We met about 250 students in high school last week. They gave us great response different from IME Univ. The questions from them were like these…

“What kind of music do you like?”
“Have you ever been to another country?”
“Do you like Ivano-Frankivsk?”
(“What do you think about Ukrainian boys?”)

These seems really simple questions but you can see background of theirs.

At first, they are really like music. There is always music in the break time in high school. The sound of mobile phone is also great. The students who live in our dorm give us music in every early morning. They can stand cold wether for three hours for the concert which is taken place outside. And they love THEIR music. I could hear traditional one was arranged for rock when I went to a bar young people go at night. It was REALLY WONDERFUL!!!

Secondly, I could see few students who have been to foreign country. Most of all students have never but some of them know about Japan through books or films. (I met a girl who was reading Murakami Haruki in Ukrainian!)

The thing impressed me is they love their hometown. Some students invited us to the tour to introduce Ivano-Frankivsk to us after the class. They could explain about their history smoothly. There were girls took trouble to bring traditional clothes to show us or gave me a special coin and explain about the meaning of symbol was carved on that.

I tell them some Japanese in the class by using callygraphy. They try to write their name and some favorite words in Japanese. Waht is the popular words??

“Love” “Peace” “Respect” “Dream”
and girls ask me everytime “How to say, I love you or I need you in Japanese”
You know, they are just 15-17 years old…haha

I suppose they have potential sufficiently to open up their future. Students I met last week must take 20 subjects, including three foreign languages. Some boys taught me math but I could not understand at all.

They are certainly treasure of this country.