LOCAL!!!!

A new phenomenon has appeared on the rural Japanese horizon.

At present, our high school is in a blissful and short lived period of nonchalance. We are in limbo between school years, between the frantic period of drunken ‘end of year’ enkais and drunken ‘beginning of year’ enkais. I can arrive at school between eight and nine and am free from my despised shackles of suit and tie.

Last week, we had the traditional ‘musical desks’ day, as the teachers who leave clear their workstations and everyone moves to a different desk in the immense staff room. I am one of the lucky ones; I have been upgraded from a desk facing the back wall to one right in front of the windows. I now have a view of the local co op, baseball field and a side view of the hospital. It is bliss to watch the crows swooping and screaming, to see tiny old people creeping to and from the co op; so old that their backs are bent into Quasimodo hunchbacks and they stare permanently at the pavement.

My grey haired Moltisanti crush is leaving, but my hopes are high that the new 23 year old English teacher will be a more than satisfactory replacement. I envisage a young, studious man with good teeth and a killer smile who is fumbling with his forbidden attraction to the better sex. I will take him under my Caucasian wing and teach him the ways of the western world, starting with Seinfeld and we will argue about the greatest character (I will say Elaine; he, of course, will choose Kramer) and then move on to even more uncharted waters. At school, we will blush as we pass each other in the corridor and meet for a secretly romantic lunch of sushi and green tea, using the guise of ‘man to man bonding.’ I will teach him the meaning of ‘clandestine’ and he will laugh and pretend that he that already knew it. It will become his favourite word and he will use it every day, but never quite get the pronunciation right. He will try to teach me more Japanese, but I will tell him I am only be interested in learning the dirty words. He will oblige.

Mr M. is also leaving. He had an English teachers’ lunch for him last Friday, which was a sombre and slightly awkward affair as we toiled over bowls of bland pasta at the town’s mediocre Italian restaurant. I had learnt before lunch that all the other English teachers despise Mr M., and one of them flew into rage and yelled “He is a fool man. He is not a real man. He is joke face.” I was semi speechless and murmured something in agreement. When we returned to school, I informed Mr M. that he had spaghetti sauce on his shirt. He looked down, horrified, and carefully replied:

“I am sorry. Mmmmmmmm......I will now go and cream myself.”

I will miss him inexplicably.

This too-ing and fro-ing of teachers lead to the phenomenon I spoke of; moving day. It turns out that all the teachers must partake in the arrival and departure of all their peers; we have a schedule booked solid throughout the week. First off was the principal; a man with a perfect comb over and steely eyes who has always terrified me, but looked a lot less intimidating in a backwards cap and an anorak tucked into his khaki trousers. The entire teaching staff (a good thirty odd people including the receptionist, the janitor and the school nurse) got amongst it and formed a human chain from the house to moving van, passing along boxes and bubble wrapped armchairs with Amish-worthy precision. Two dozen school students also turned up, for no reason other than that they wanted to help. All the while, the principal’s obedient wife went round bowing and thanking everyone. When we were finished the principal gave us another formal thank you and gave us of as a can of beer and a small bottle of green tea.

This went on all day. Another teacher’s moving session was so emotional that a group of his students started crying. Another one had a bunch of his ex-pupils drive two hours to our town specially to lend a hand with the move. Someone gave a speech and took a photo for the town paper. A small child tried to climb onto the moving van and was pulled off, crying, by his mother. My supervisor explained that the child was sad because the only toy shop in the town had closed down so he wanted to move to Sapporo with the teachers where the toys were. No such luck.

I am expecting another full day of moving ceremonies tomorrow and my only regret is that I cannot take photos to document the bizarre ritual. Unfortunately, my camera is out of action since it fell of a piece of interactive artwork at the top of an Osakan skyscraper. So far, I have ended up with five cans of beer and a lot of green tea. The new crush arrives tomorrow afternoon. I will be sure to shave and wear a tight T-shirt and stand close to the moving truck to keep my eyes peeled for framed photos of Mariah Carey and boxes marked ‘HOT PANTS.’