Interview with Elizabeth Nijdam
Ok, firstly what is your name?
My name is Elizabeth Nijdam.
And where are you from Elizabeth?
I'm from Vancouver, Canada.
What are your hobbies?
I like camping, skiing, hiking. I don't like team sports.
I like the outdoors a lot and I also like to read and watch movies.
What schools in Kanoya do you work at?
Kanoya all girls high school, Tasaki elementary, Nishihara elementary, Nishiharadai and Minami elementary school.
What surprised you most about Kanoya when you came here?
That it smells like farmland a lot. Sometimes, when I first moved here, the awful smell used to wake me up because I am a very light sleeper.
Although now I am used to it and I don't smell it at all which is a bit scary.
What are some of the differences between Japan and Canada?
What are some of the things that really stand out?
School life is really different. In Canada we don't have ‘kyushoku' or any cleaning time but we do have insulation. So when it's cold outside, it's warm inside, when it's warm outside it's cool inside. In Kanoya the schools are very nice but in Kaogshima city it is a different story. Many of the schools have no air conditioning, no heating, and all the windows are open. So in Kanoya you are lucky, but not all Japanese schools are as nice as Kanoya's.
In Vancouver, where I live in Canada there are lots of Asian people, so when I came to Japan all of my friends back home asked me, "doesn't it feel so different (to Canada)?" But for me in Vancouver, everyone is short and we all eat Japanese food so it's like being in Chinatown or Richmond. So many parts of Japan are familiar to me because I started eating Japanese food when I was like 5-6. I never remembered learning how to use chopsticks.
When did you come to Kagoshima?
I came to Kagoshima in August 2007 and I lived in Kiire city south of Kagoshima city. But after a year I moved to Kanoya because my husband lives here.
Ok next I want to ask you about this movie project of yours (Elizabeth recently won 1st prize in an international mobile phone video competition). Can you give us a brief rundown?
I'm a German student; I studied German, German literature and German film when I was at university and there is a German cultural organization called the Goethe Institute and I was looking on their website and I saw a window saying “Mobile Phone Video Competition” so I thought, “I have some free time and I have a mobile phone” so I asked my husband and some fellow teachers to help me and I made a video about gesturing/ body language. Many people say that body language is the only international language so everyone understands hand gestures right? For example: ‘I want to eat' (pretends to put food in her mouth), ‘I want to sleep' (pretends to go to sleep) but this is not always true, sometimes hand gestures are confusing. Another example is in Japanese when you say ‘wakaranai' you often wave your hand in front of your face but in English this action means ‘something smells'.
The video wasn't the best quality, so I thought I would never win but they weren't looking for quality they were looking for good ideas and they liked my idea so they chose me.
You get a free trip to Berlin right?
Yep a free trip to Berlin and 1000 euros for a one minute video that I made on my cell phone.
Oh and another interesting thing is that I got married in Japan. I had a shinto wedding and it was in the local newspaper. And I was on TV, you know Sukkiri!! ? It's a morning show, it's from 8-10 every morning. For Mike's (Elizabeth's husband) birthday in Tokyo I organzied a ‘ninja day'. We trained to be ninjas.
Did you run around Toyko dressed like ninjas?
No, we had a training session with real ninjas. They were really cool, they changed their names for the event and they had real weaponary and apparently the ninja master, whose face you could never see, helped train the imperial body gaurds. It was very interesting. Sukkiri did a special on interesting tours for foreigners in tokyo so they followed us around for a whole day ... in the end we were only on tv for 2 minutes.
Next I want to ask you about you about customs, for example in Japan you can't stick your chopsticks into your rice right?
Oh I learnt about that before I came to Japan, it means death right? I was very surprised about Japanese eating customs. The ‘itadakimasu' before meals, the ‘hashi-oki (chopstick rest)', all of these rules like no hands under the table when you eat. These customs are very strange for me but Japanese eating is very beautiful, it's like a ceremony even though it is just a meal, everything in Japan is done beautifully and with grace … except when they slurp noodles!
Tell us about your favourite place/shop/restaurant/ area in Kanoya?
I have never really been shopping in Kanoya but my favourite restaurant is Pizza Shop Rabbit. She (the owner) is so nice, it's a pizza delivery place that's close to Sun Road. We order pizza from there and she always knows my name, she knows where I live, I just have to call her and tell what pizzas I want and she says, "is that Elizabeth?".
And they have good pizza?
They have really good pizza. It is my favourite restaurant. I love nature and beuatiful things.
So whats kind of places are we talking?
I really love that shrine on the beach…
Arahira?
Yeah it's really beautiful. And I also love cosmos…
Cosmos?
Yeah the really beautiful pink and purple flowers that are everywhere at the moment.
Is there anything you would like to do while you are still in Kanoya?
Well, I would like to get better at Japanese so I am looking for a Japanese teacher.
I would also like to learn something cultural but my husband and I are going back to Canada in August so I'm afraid I don't have the time.
Nathan's Comments:
Because we don't work in the same office I rarely get a chance to talk to the Kanoya City ALTs. This interview was particularly interesting because I got to hear about Elizabeth's movie project. Sometimes we think that hand gestures are an international language but after watching Elizabeth's movie, I have decided that it might be a good idea to do some research before going overseas.