One thing that is really strange at school is that classes don't ever start when the bell rings. At home you generally think of everyone being seated and quiet when the bell rings so that class will start. In Japan, the teachers do not head towards the classroom until the bell rings. This means that the classes never start when they are scheduled to. I would not find this so weird except that most things run on time to the second in Japan. Trains always arrive at the station when they are supposed to. So why classes start at different times, I don't know.

Also, I may have talked about this, but the schedules here at work are really hard to follow. Often the Japanese teachers have trouble figuring out when they are supposed to be teaching their classes. They at least have the ability to read the kanji on the schedules and listen to the announcements at the beginning of the day. I am not so lucky. It is quite common for them to rearrange classes without purpose. For example, two thursdays from now, the periods will all be backwards. 5th period, 4th period, 3rd period, 2nd, 1st. Why? No good reason that I can tell. All the times are the same, just the classes have been moved. The leadership just likes keeping the teachers on their toes I guess. This means that sometimes I come into school to discover a class has been moved or canceled. It's just not a good system to use.

Another weird thing about Japan, not just in school but everywhere, is that they are really rude with doors. They never hold doors for anyone. Often you are walking in a store right behind someone and the door just swings back to hit you. The person just doesn't want to pass it on gently. I've had doors closed right in my face as I was walking up to them at school. I don't think anyone does it to be mean to me, because I have seen them do it to each other too. They are such a polite culture, always apologizing for everything and saying please and thank you. However, they don't respect each other with doors. I think maybe they don't understand the concept or something, because once I held a door open for someone after I walked through and he just kind of stared at me and then moved past me, instead of taking the door himself and passing it on.