Kindergarten in Japan is an entirely different occasion than in Australia. Those of us who were lucky enough to go to a 'serious' kinder may have experienced better quality paints for smearing, larger variety of songs for bellowing and may have even always had a beautiful teacher to assist you going to the potty all the time.

By the time Japanese kids leave kindergarten, many will be able to read Hiragana (the easier of the Japanese characters), and be able to recognise and speak Romanji (English letters).  In Australia, kindergarten is primarily for having fun and learning how to play well. There is story time and nap time. The latter often being a little longer than perhaps is necessary. In Japan, the children don't wet themselves or have naps. They have classrooms which are lit up with class projects and the colourful output of learning; however there is no fingerpainting on any of the walls.

I'll give you a quick summary of my day there. After having my quick cool drink, I am escorted through the kindergarten and soon attract a mob of kids who are not so shy. They scramble to be the one who holds my hand and beam up at me- saying `Huwow!!' and not much else. So enter stage left for my first class. Immediately, the countenance changes. I put on the high, loud and cherry-pie happy voice on which the kids are totally taken with. I have four, half hour classes one after the other, so speed and gusto are the name of the game.

We do flash-card colours, then I get the kids to stand up and shake (just to make them smile and giggle), then I get them to run around and touch colours. My (not so) favorite bit is when little Johnny (or Taiko) gleefully discovers that I'm wearing blue undies and lifts my skirt with impressive dexterity to show EVERYone. I can only stand and laugh as it's true, and little Johnny has done a marvellous job at finding blue.

Then we sing a song which is by itself, reducing my waist lines - 'Head, SHoulders, Knees and Toes'. I calculate that I am touching my toes at least 150 times a day. The song gets faster and faster and so I am really doing kiddy aerobics in a non-airconditioned room with 30 rich Buddhist children in the sticks of Japan.

Anyways..... after four classes of kiddy aerobics and showing 200 kids my undies, I get to have an hour off for lunch. Someone appears with a tea, then (always) giggles at my rather large form folded up on one of the 30cm high kindergarten chairs sucking gratefully at the ice-cold tea.......they always bring me a second.

During lunch, I get to watch what I have dubbed 'The Maoist Rock Esteddford'. I know Maoist is wrong, but if you saw the little kids wearing red workers caps, you'd agree. The kids scurry around, gathering a range of instruments ranging from a professional-standard Xylophone on wheels, about 20 marching-boy tom-tom drums, girls and boys with flags and poles and a variety of other goodies. Without any trouble at all, about 200 children arrange themselves into formation in the yard, with practiced efficiency. Let the 4 year old band begin, the Maoist Rock Esteddford. A girl with plaits, a steel marching pole and a whistle, keeping everyone in line- leading the brigade. Out come the first row of flags from the inside of the group- marching in time, step step step step STOP bearing the flags like truncheons. Now comes the drums, weaving through to make an intersecting circle with the flags (POM pom pom pom PI POM pom pom) Suddenly, 200 kids are making work of their dusty yard with co-ordination I would gape at if a grade 5 class had done it in Australia. These little kids pull of a big-band WITH choreography and do it as well as anyone who ways less that 25 kilograms could. There are xylophones, drums, flags, keyboards: all professional standard and gripping to the chests of these little tots. The kids are only just mastering getting dressed but they seem to have the spirit of teamwork down pat. They are little champions.

Teaching English in Japan is both harrowing and extrodinarily rewarding.  You simply cannot organize yourself- no matter what kind of mind you have- to cope with the utter difference in culture between Japan and Australia.   You will take time to get used to rice fields in the middle of small cities.  You will get used to them being next to neon palaces. You will see skirts shorter than anything you ever believed possible on school girls.  You will see kimonos on women keeping their eyes down, shuffling along with their heads tilted in the signature of classic, feminine style.

The name of the game in Japan is packaging.  Everything must look savory and clean but underneath it- not so far underneath sometimes- you will find a grotty (some would say, more authentic) interior which for me, is the source of fascination and a growing collection of photographs.

Japan is the land of the rising sun and of history and mystery.  Go there, be enthralled by the differences and pay homage to the similarities.  It's a small world, after all.