Lunch works differently over here, or at least it does in Jr. High. At 12:30 4th period ends and there is 15 min 'Lunch Preparation' time. Everyone, including the teachers, eats the school lunch. I am no exception. And, because I am the resident ALT I get to eat with the students, a new class each week. This week it's class 1B.
Each class has designated 'lunch kids' (they may have official names for them, but until I find out what those are I'm calling them 'lunch kids'). They don huge aprons, face masks and kerchiefs, and they dole out the food, which is brought up to the front of the class. Quite frankly, they look scary: like evil nurses in miniature. Actually, forget the 'lunch kids', they're Evil Lunch Nurses.
See! This is the sign that hangs outside the room where the Evil Lunch Nurses pick up the lunches. It's an Evil Lunch Nurse, out to get you! (sorry about the picture quality: I took it with my cell phone)Today the lunch consisted of: white rice, vegetable pickles, a bowl of miso soup with fried tofu and vegetables, teriaki salmon, and a quaint glass bottle of milk. Since I'm lactose intolerant, I didn't have to drink the milk and was given strict instructions to tell anyone who asked that I was allergic to the stuff. The rest of it was ok and since I didn't eat breakfast, I rather enjoyed it. Until about 30 mins later. All I will say is that the school lunch tried to kill me, and very nearly succeeded.
Another thing: I was all prepared to chat up the kids, trade japanese for english etc. But the kids don't talk! Barely a word was said. Now, this may be because by the time the Evil Lunch Nurses have finished serving everyone, the students only have about 10 mins to eat. Or maybe it was because I was there. But it was still rather creepy.
I don't know what I'm going to do about lunch tomorrow.
5 comments:
I have heard about the silence, that is not you. They are just having functional eating time. And that lunch sounds fantastic. And they love the fucking masks, just love them, multipurpose things that they are.
Mia
They DO look like Evil Lunch Nurses! Dude, you are going to have to develop an iron stomach while you're over there. Good luck with that ;)
Everything sounds amazing. Can you get soy milk instead of cow's at lunch?
I wouldn't be surprised if the North American diet discourages many healthy bacteria from developing in the stomach. I'm sure it isn't so much an iron stomach you'll need, but an active one.
The fish on a stick looked great. Did you bring an eel home?
fish on a stick was tasty, and no eels came by my apaato :-)
Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stonger! Just make sure the school lunch doesn't succeed. Ron.
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