Nagoya Maruzen and Culture Shock Kyoto

Up and early and out to Maruzen Bookstore. Today’s workshop was again in a separate room ( apparently last time old people were complaining about the noise!), it was a smaller group ( 15-20) of people who already knew Genki English and as I have another workshop here next month I figured I’d just do something completely different and just ask people what they wanted presenting.

The first thing that came up was a Summer theme, so I thought “OK, let’s let them choose what they want in it and I’ll put it up on the members area of the site!”. In the end though it turned into a “sea creatures” theme which I already have the plans for, let me see what I can do!

It’s always good to ask people what they want, and for the few people who hadn’t bought the Superpacks, it was a great incentive to get access to the members area. That was basically the main problem today, people were asking great questions and wanting to do activities and things for 6th graders and stuff. But today’s workshop was paid for by the bookstore so it was difficult for me to do so many other things that weren’t tied in to products as unless Maruzen sold a lot they wouldn’t break even ( rooms, equipment and PR aren’t cheap in locations like this!). Which got me really thinking again about just doing paid for workshops. If everyone paid to attend they could spend as long as they like, I could go through the games as well as the songs and there would be no need to tie anything in to a specific product. Of course I could then let people use the entry fee as a discount on the superpacks, which would mean everybody wins all round.

Up until now I’ve not been sure about putting info about prices etc. on the site as every time is a different situation. But I figured I’d bite the bullet and put up a standard price of 9,000 yen for a minimum of 12 people for a whole day workshop. That may mean I make a loss on some gigs, but if it means getting more of the Genki English ideas out there it’s probably worth while. So have a look at the new Workshops Page.

Then it was off to Kyoto, and wow isn’t this different!! After spending two weeks in Kobe, Fukuoka, Shinjuku and Sakae ( Nagoya) which are all just buzzing on a night, here I went for a wonder round at 9 o’clock and everywhere was dead! I often say that the inaka is better than the cites in Japan, but I can see why people from New York or London or wherever could get major culture shock!! I’ve also for some reason booked myself into a Ryokan ( Japanese style hotel ) – I guess I must have been tired when I did the reservation! Which feels very homely, and I crashed out for an hour this afternoon. But I don’t really fancy going back to live in the countryside full time!

Richard Graham

Hello, I'm Richard Graham. When I was a kid I found school to be sooooo boring... So I transformed my way of teaching. I listened to what the kids were really wanting to say and taught it in ways they really wanted to learn. The results were magical. Now I help teachers just like you teach amazing lessons and double your incomes!