Farewell to Asahi JHS ☹

July 2007

I have been teaching at Asahi JHS for about 7 months now but my time there is over and I will soon go to another school. The teachers were so helpful and I have made many friends there and I am very sad to be leaving. On the last day of school I had to give a speech in Japanese to the teachers and then in front of the whole school. I was presented with flowers, gifts from teachers and letters from students in my homeroom. All the students in my homeroom had signed a card and there was a photo of all of us inside it! When I left school that day for the last time many teachers followed me out to my bike and “banzaied” me! (sort of like a hip-hip-hooray type good luck cheering thing!) It was very cute!

My beautiful flowers.


Me with most of the girls in my homeroom!


The front of the card that my homeroom gave me.


Inside the card.


Letters that my homeroom gave me.


Cards from the special class.


Gifts and a letter from Ayame a student in my homeroom - how cute!


In the second week of the holidays the teachers had a farewell party for me and two other teachers who were leaving. We went out to dinner and I had to make another speech and got presented with flowers again! Then the principal called me up to the front and read a page about me in Japanese (I didn’t understand too much but another teacher translated it for me – it said that I had done a lot for the school, had a kind heart and should enjoy tonkatsu in Japan!) Then I was presented with a painting of me which is very cute!

The speech and the painting of me!


When I went back to my seat there was a bag of gifts on my chair. These are some of the gifts that I received . . . (There was about $30 in each of the white envelopes from various teachers as it is a Japanese tradition to give money to people when they leave your workplace - I was shocked to get this money!)



This is the best present ever! This is from Kimura-sensei who is one of the English teachers at school. He had this hanko (signature stamp) made and it is my name in kanji! How cool is that! My name in Kanji means "Shirasagi" which is the name of the castle and the white egret bird and the second kanji means falling in love! Everyone tells me it is a very beautiful kanji! In Japan everyone uses a hanko to sign papers and open accounts but ours are all in katakana (Japanese alphabet used for foreign words) but now I have a beautiful real hanko!



I was also asked to give a couple of the male teachers hugs! Very funny as they asked me in English – Can I have a hug?!

At the end of the night I got “banzaied” again! This time by all the teachers! And then a line was formed and the teachers made an archway for us to walk through so everyone could wish you well!

It was a great night and I will really miss all the teachers and students from Asahi JHS.