Quite the pretty problem, which I solved true to form by stepping back only as far as absolutely necessary and consequently still going completely overboard!
As I'd already bought sufficient omiyage for my base school I was now somewhat committed in that I didn't feel like I could reasonably show up to my other schools with less (well, I probably could, but it's not in me to do this). Unfortunately I have been unable to find out exactly how many staff there are at each of my schools, so I've had to have a bit of a guess and run with that. Assuming my base school is the biggest and the mountain school the smallest (with only two JTEs) I've estimated that I need a total of 12 special gifts for school principals, vice-principals and supervisors, approximately 20 little somethings for JTEs, and something in the range of 100 small treats for all the other staff. Fortunately as I was searching the web for ideas the Warehouse had a sale and I was able to buy up a whole box of snack-sized crunchie bars, misc. cadbury bars, freddos and rookie cookies. Yes, lollies would have been smaller and cheaper but apparently the Japanese love our NZ crunchie bars...plus I think there's something ingrained in me that lets me happily spend money on chocolate and not lollies; I don't really like lollies and it seems bad form to give people something to eat you wouldn't want to eat yourself. While I couldn't reasonably get honey for the heads of my additional three schools I've made do with giving them extra helpings of the various goodies. The flip side of this of course is that for the past two weeks I've had a truly astonishing amount of chocolate sitting in a box in the corner of my room, leading to the even more astonishing fact that I've resisted the temptation to eat it!
All of the "special omiyage" I've also given a single taster of a NZ tea, and along with the rest of the goodies tied up in little cellophane gift bags with a silver fern charm and a greenstone bead tied on the ribbon (as symbols of NZ, explained in minimal English in a little card attached). I've also included a small shiny paua shell with each one, on a bit of a whim, to be something non-edible that will be a lasting gift from NZ, and me personally--I collected them all myself from the beach south of Riverton while on the TA. (Note: yes I have cleaned and polished them up a bit, but fortunately the sand had already done a pretty good job). I only hope they like them!
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| Omiyage...well, about half of it! |
So yes, I have gone completely overboard with omiyage. Oh well...I often get a little too invested in the whole "making gifts up for people" thing. That, and I'm concerned that I'm going to make some serious cultural faux pars during my first several weeks in Japan and I think on some level I'm hoping that awesome omiyage might help keep the overall impression of my presence on the positive side! (As I mentioned in my previous post, my predecessor broke contract and left my schools with a bad impression, so anything I can do to remedy that has got to be a good thing).
The good news is, after trial-packing and then more tightly repacking all the omiyage I've somehow managed to fit it all in to my suitcase! Unfortunately the pineapple lumps I bought for my regional advisors don't fit...but I'm hoping I've been over-generous with my guesses and that there'll be enough crunchie bars at least to give a few with my neighbours (to whom it is also polite to give an edible gift to when you first move in).
Only time will tell I guess. Fingers crossed it all doesn't melt into gunge in the 30 degree heat on route! (But if it does, oh well, I tried, and there are worse things in life than a bit of melted chocolate).
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