On the Word "Demolish"

Last Sunday a friend took me up to Akayu to attend a concert given by Futenma Kaori, a singer from Okinawa.  I'm not sure when the connection between my friend and Ms. Futenma originated but it goes back a little while.  The concert was held in the Akayu Civic Hall which is an aging structure which houses an auditorium and probably meeting rooms and a few offices.  I remarked that the building looked like it could use a fresh coat of paint and I was advised that it will soon be torn down.  If I'm not mistaken, it was erected in the 43rd year of the Showa era which was 1968.  I would hazard a guess it's replacement is being erected using government funds earmarked for replacing civic buildings.  The new Yonezawa library is another project funded that way.

During the following week I mentioned in a couple of classes that I had been up to Akayu and visited their civic hall.  My first challenge was trying to get students to understand what I was talking about.  In one class I resorted to finding an image of the building using my iPhone and showing that to the students.

My Friday night beginner's class seemed to grasp the idea of what a civic hall is when I pointed in the direction of the area where the Yonezawa Civic Cultural Centre (re: auditorium) stands.  I mentioned its location next to a former public square and that seemed to do the trick.  Where I lost them was when I said the counterpart in Akayu was being demolished.  I wrote the word "demolish" on the board and made motions with my hands to indicate two walls of a building falling inwards while trying to impress upon them the phrase "tear down a building".  That got me a couple of very puzzled looks.

I didn't want to resort to using Japanese so I tried to think of something the two students could relate to.  One is a young woman who is works in the Kanaike neighbourhood and the other is a junior high school student.  I glanced at the junior high school student and then I hit upon an idea: mention the fate of Yonezawa Fourth Junior High School in Kanaike.  That school's main building and gymnasium were found to be structurally unsound after the March 2011 earthquake.  Both were demolished and right now construction of the main building is nearing completion. 

As soon as I mentioned that school building and its replacement my student's eyes lit up.  Okay.  They got the concept.  Once I clarified that "demolish" was in reference to the old building which is no longer then things were okay.  I don't want to think about what I would've had to resort to if I hadn't thought of that school.


Post script:  The pace of construction over here can sometimes be frustratingly slow.  I used to have a student who attended Yonezawa Fourth Junior High School.  He graduated this past March.  I had asked him last winter "When will they finish building your school?" and he just shrugged his shoulders.  He replied "Yes" to my follow-up question of "...After you graduate?", which turned out to be the case.  So almost all of his time at the school was spent attending classes in two temporary structures.  The structures are three story buildings made of steel girders and corrugated steel walls.  They're probably cold as heck inside in the winter and hot as heck in the summer.  But I suppose they're a better alternative than the modular wooden mobile home-like buildings employed when I was in high school in North Vancouver.