Out there on the ice

The new English teacher has arrived. He is 23 and looks like he is sixteen. When I met him, he was wearing a baby blue tie with diamantes on it (or rhinestones for you Americans). If this was New Zealand, he would be deemed suitable effeminate to have the homosexual checked and double checked by any curious onlooker. But this is Japan and it’s hopeless trying to tell the gays from the straights in a culture where the macho baseball captains hold hands in class and sit casually on each other’s laps. I once spent an entire evening drinking sake and flirting with the Japanese boy next to me at a salsa bar. After a good hour of (by Western standards) rather forward under-the-table signals, I attempted to seal the seemingly done deal and he told me that he actually only liked girls. What a fucking crock.


Seen from this context, my hopes for the Rhinestone Cowboy are slimmer than his tiny Japanese hips. Perhaps I will have to settle for a buddy to drink sake with; it will be nice to have someone in the town who speaks English and is under 45. The Seinfeld thing was always wishful thinking anyway (the Japanese are a nation of Friends worshippers; argh). And of course, he is a far superior crush to the grey haired Moltisanti. Perhaps a better comparison is that of Twin Peaks’ James Hurley; generating a level of allure that is not quite Seth Cohen-obsession worthy, but definitely a few steps up the ladder and has crush-crossover potential to the outside world.


Two excellent Japanese anecdotes then. The first was the discovery that none of the female
teachers at our high school wear high heels. Ever. Curiouser and curioser I thought and questioned my female English co-teacher about this over a cup of instant coffee. The principal has outlawed the said items for the reason that ‘in an emergency, they cannot run fast.’ I guess this makes sense in a Japanese kind of way, but it does ignore the fact that Japanese women in heels can move faster than steroid- infused athletes. As one of my ALT friends put it: “If Japan ever wanted to win any Olympic sprinting race, they just need to have a woman in heels in the line up and put a man with an empty beer glass at the finish line.” This may sound sexist, but trust me, it is incredibly accurate.


I also suggested that in the unlikely event of an emergency, a woman in heels could simply TAKE HER SHOES OFF. I imagine that shoes would be the most likely cause of death in any Japanese emergency, because the indoor/outdoor footwear code still applies. Even in our semi-terrifying earthquake drill last year, the teachers found time to lay out an enormous, elaborate mat between the front entrance and the tennis court so that as they escaped certain death, their shoes remained unsullied. The same lack of logic became apparent at last week’s moving ceremonies; movers would attempted to change from outside to inside shoes even while struggling under the weight of a half ton fridge-freezer. Surprisingly, there were no broken backs.


The second story comes courtesy of another ALT but desperately needs to be mentioned. At another Hokkaido high school, a rather portly female teacher fell over on the ice and broke her leg. The principal called an emergency meeting of all staff and informed them that the newly incapacitated educator had in fact slipped over because she was too fat. He ranted about how irresponsible the teacher was (I believe the phrase ‘how dare she’ was used repeatedly) and instructed that everyone in the school go on an immediate diet to prevent the same thing happening again. This is, perhaps, the perfect example of ‘adding insult to injury’.


I have slipped over on the ice at least five times this winter (not counting a lot of very close calls) and I cannot imagine anyone making it through a Hokkaido winter without doing the same. The island becomes an ice rink for four months and you are constantly one slip away from a broken collarbone. I have taken to shuffling my feet along the ground penguin-style and have shacked up an impressive collection of bruises. People stop drinking altogether because it’s too dangerous to walk home from the pub. Every car in the island has to change its tyres.


All this is my attempt to try and explain how ridiculous and offensive the above anecdote is, but to be honest, it does a pretty good job of that by itself. I can only imagine the poor woman waking up in the hospital to find a get well card and a bunch of celery.


As I type this, I am starting out the window and can see the buds growing on the trees that have been bare for the last four months. The season is finally changing. I cannot wait to see what perplexing anecdotes The Spring has to offer.