I have my very own number one fan. I ever have it in writing: “I am a fan of Telford!” In some respects, she reminds me a little of Kathy Bates in Misery, except psychically, where she is the complete opposite.
It all started last year. Over a casual bowl of ramen, my neighbouring ALT mentioned that he had a student who had seen me out and about and had apparently fallen into crush mode. I slurped my ramen and laughed. Crushes. Surely a mandatory part of any teaching job. He told me her name and I nodded and then forgot it, as I forget everyone’s name in this country.
Later (a number of weeks if I remember correctly), a drunken Friday night and my neighbour persuaded me to send the said student an ‘I love you’ text from his phone. He told me it would make her freak out ‘in a good way.’ I shrugged and OKed it and he sent the message off and we got kept drinking and soon moved onto more mature topics like camping and rim jobs.
Months passed. Seasons changed. The White house got a little blacker and Susan Boyle made hundreds of hard working music students take to the bottle. The school year ended and a new one began, ushering in a tide of tiny, tidy, immaculately dressed fifteen year olds, with epic fringes and novelty charms dangling from every piece of stationary. I was at my monthly visit to the high school one town over, when I heard a high pitched squeal from the back of the classroom. I ignored it and continued dictating the list of sports-themed verbs.
The second the class ended, a pair of feet pattered up to the front of the classroom. I turned around and looked down. In front of me was the tiniest girl I had ever seen. She had huge eyes and ridiculously long hair that was done up in pigtails and made her look ever shorter. She started babbling at me in Japanese, her eyes getting wider and wider as it became clear I had no idea who she was or what she was talking to. She suddenly thrust her Hello Kitty-themed cellphone at me and said ‘I lub you I lub you I lub you!’ and tried to find the said message with shaky hands. I clicked.
It is at this point where the phrase ‘just nod and smile’ really comes into its own. I nodded and smiled. She squealed and hopped around and covered her mouth with her hands. I have never used the word swoon before, but I think she fulfilled the definition. She actually swayed from one side to the other like she might tip over, but somehow managed to stay vertical. Eventually, I managed to pry myself away and head to staffroom, as she followed my down the corridor waving manically and screaming out ‘kawaii’ (The Japanese favourite word meaning 'cute') as I secured myself inside.
A week later, she added me on skype. I accepted her because I had no idea what her name was and that ‘Yukki’ must have been the name of someone eligible fellow I met in my one and only gay night in Sapporo. This happens a lot; the forgetting names, not the eligible gay Skype buddies. As a result, our first conversation was a terrifying experience as I tried to figure out who the hell I was talking to through my fractured Japanese. It didn’t help that the profile picture was an anime warrior holding a gleaming sword.
I finally figured who was on the other end when Yukki asked when I was coming back to ‘the school.’ I told her I would be there in three weeks which brought on a tirade of giggling smiley faces and the phrase: “OK!!!!!!The enjoyment!!!!”
Throughout the next few weeks, I found out many things about Yukki as she guilt tripped me into numerous Skype conversations. If I didn’t respond, she would play the ‘sad face’ card which works much better on Skype where the sad face actually cries tears over and over again. I discovered that her hobbies were ‘movie watching & music appreciation’ and her favourite food was chocolate with twelve exclamation marks. I told her I liked running and she suggested in capital letters that we run together. I grimaced and told her ‘lol’ but she sent back the confused face that meant she didn’t understand so I gave up and just said ‘NO.’
She approached me on the train on Tuesday and handed me a cellophane bag filled with chocolate treats. I walked to school with her and her friends (who were instructed to stay several steps behind us) and she told me that I was ‘very very very cool’ and that I had beautiful eyes. The friends giggled and I blushed. I let it slip that I was leaving the land of Japan the next month and Yukki stopped dead. She looked up at me and shook her head. Her eyes filled with tears and she yelled at me: “No! No! You stay here! Stay in Japan. New Zealand no! I lub you!” I told her I would think about it.
Eventually she cheered up and asked if we could still talk on Skype if I went back home. ‘Sure’ I said and I meant it. She’s sweet and really means no harm to anyone. Plus, she’s tiny so if she ever tried any Kathy Bates shit, I could blatantly take her.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
"I'm disturbed, I'm depressed, I'm inadequate, I've got it all!"
Working at a meaningless job is a like having motor neurons disease.
When you arrive, you are a normal, functioning human being, dressed immaculately and carrying a packed lunch. You greet everyone in the office (as best you can through the language barrier) with a beaming smile and hand out small treats to your co-workers. You make daily plans for what you aim to accomplish and include highlighted windows to learn the language so as to better find out the office gossip.
As the days press on, you begin to realize that all those lesson planning seminars you sat through were a waste of hours. Your schedule is to help teach two classes a week, and this involves standing behind the teacher and reading a list of selected verbs out of a textbook. On a good day, you will be able to engage in impromptu conversation with your students; on a bad day, you will sit quietly at your desk for eight hours. Bliss, you say. Try it for a year.
And so, things start to shut down. That immaculate suit which you made sure you had dry cleaned once a week is left crumpled on your bedroom floor. You think about hanging up your jacket and decided it against it. On a good morning, you will wipe off the chalky patches with a damp cloth. Usually, you just shrug. The shirts, which you used to iron with a Bree Van de Kamp-efficiency, are now stuffed into a draw and pulled out one crumpled mess at a time. One day, you forget to wear a tie. As with the shirt and the chalk patches, no one says anything. From then on, you go open collar.
Your shaving ritual collapses. You drag a razor across your chin once a week and spend the next five days letting the stubble grow longer and uglier. Instead of getting up an hour before school to shine yourself up in front on the mirror, you roll out of bed with twenty minutes to spare and arrive at school late, your hair hanging limp and sodden from the shower you just jumped in and out of. Some days, you wake up even later and don’t even bother with the shower. You flick the sleep out of your eye and attempt to subtlety pat down your cowlicks with a salivated hand, Bristol Palin style.
Your appearance is not the only thing that disintegrates. After weeks of having your chipper ‘is there anything for me to do today’ plea responded to with the solemn shake of the head, your work ethic finally dies on the respirator. You give up studying Japanese, and suddenly find you can’t concentrate on anything. You spend hours staring at the computer screen, clicking on links on Wikipedia and pouncing on anyone fool enough to sign into Gmail chat. Soon, even this doesn’t satisfy. You find your attention span has completely disappeared. Replying to emails is too much hard work. So is reading books. Sometimes you make yourself a cup of coffee just to see how many sips it takes to drink it.
Your morale destroyed, you also give up caring what anyone thinks of you. You give up the fake polite smiles when you realize no one has talked to you in days. You start turning up late, leaving early, taking naps on your desk. You play your ipod too loud and silently bop along to ‘Raspberry Beret.’
Throughout all this, no one says anything. And you realize, if your existence is a joke to them, then you might as well treat it like one. And now that your spirit is broken, the delightfully awful question arises: just how far can you push these people?
You begin watching TV shows on your laptop, starting with a half hour during lunch and eventually you are having Weeds marathons twice a week. You laugh at the jokes; even the ones that you don’t think are funny. You SLURP your coffee. You yawn loudly. On the morning they have an important meeting about swine flu, you cough and blow your nose loudly and specifically buy pork for lunch. It’s almost fun.
Ten months on, the fresh faced idealist has been replaced with a lazy, sloppy, bitter, nervous wreck of a person, who doesn’t even have enough discipline to wash out his coffee mug before using it to make tea. His functions have all shut down. He traipses the two minute walk from his house to his school at 7.59am and returns the opposite way at 4.01pm. He realizes that everyone in the office despises him but he no longer cares. He no longer cares about making a difference because no one allows him to do any real teaching. This is what happens when you are given a job that could be done by a nine year old. You start acting like one.
In an ironic, blog-themed twist, I have turned into George Constanza. God help us all.
When you arrive, you are a normal, functioning human being, dressed immaculately and carrying a packed lunch. You greet everyone in the office (as best you can through the language barrier) with a beaming smile and hand out small treats to your co-workers. You make daily plans for what you aim to accomplish and include highlighted windows to learn the language so as to better find out the office gossip.
As the days press on, you begin to realize that all those lesson planning seminars you sat through were a waste of hours. Your schedule is to help teach two classes a week, and this involves standing behind the teacher and reading a list of selected verbs out of a textbook. On a good day, you will be able to engage in impromptu conversation with your students; on a bad day, you will sit quietly at your desk for eight hours. Bliss, you say. Try it for a year.
And so, things start to shut down. That immaculate suit which you made sure you had dry cleaned once a week is left crumpled on your bedroom floor. You think about hanging up your jacket and decided it against it. On a good morning, you will wipe off the chalky patches with a damp cloth. Usually, you just shrug. The shirts, which you used to iron with a Bree Van de Kamp-efficiency, are now stuffed into a draw and pulled out one crumpled mess at a time. One day, you forget to wear a tie. As with the shirt and the chalk patches, no one says anything. From then on, you go open collar.
Your shaving ritual collapses. You drag a razor across your chin once a week and spend the next five days letting the stubble grow longer and uglier. Instead of getting up an hour before school to shine yourself up in front on the mirror, you roll out of bed with twenty minutes to spare and arrive at school late, your hair hanging limp and sodden from the shower you just jumped in and out of. Some days, you wake up even later and don’t even bother with the shower. You flick the sleep out of your eye and attempt to subtlety pat down your cowlicks with a salivated hand, Bristol Palin style.
Your appearance is not the only thing that disintegrates. After weeks of having your chipper ‘is there anything for me to do today’ plea responded to with the solemn shake of the head, your work ethic finally dies on the respirator. You give up studying Japanese, and suddenly find you can’t concentrate on anything. You spend hours staring at the computer screen, clicking on links on Wikipedia and pouncing on anyone fool enough to sign into Gmail chat. Soon, even this doesn’t satisfy. You find your attention span has completely disappeared. Replying to emails is too much hard work. So is reading books. Sometimes you make yourself a cup of coffee just to see how many sips it takes to drink it.
Your morale destroyed, you also give up caring what anyone thinks of you. You give up the fake polite smiles when you realize no one has talked to you in days. You start turning up late, leaving early, taking naps on your desk. You play your ipod too loud and silently bop along to ‘Raspberry Beret.’
Throughout all this, no one says anything. And you realize, if your existence is a joke to them, then you might as well treat it like one. And now that your spirit is broken, the delightfully awful question arises: just how far can you push these people?
You begin watching TV shows on your laptop, starting with a half hour during lunch and eventually you are having Weeds marathons twice a week. You laugh at the jokes; even the ones that you don’t think are funny. You SLURP your coffee. You yawn loudly. On the morning they have an important meeting about swine flu, you cough and blow your nose loudly and specifically buy pork for lunch. It’s almost fun.
Ten months on, the fresh faced idealist has been replaced with a lazy, sloppy, bitter, nervous wreck of a person, who doesn’t even have enough discipline to wash out his coffee mug before using it to make tea. His functions have all shut down. He traipses the two minute walk from his house to his school at 7.59am and returns the opposite way at 4.01pm. He realizes that everyone in the office despises him but he no longer cares. He no longer cares about making a difference because no one allows him to do any real teaching. This is what happens when you are given a job that could be done by a nine year old. You start acting like one.
In an ironic, blog-themed twist, I have turned into George Constanza. God help us all.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Next time, use your fingers
Yet another faux par on my part. My, how they do add up.
Our scene is set at lunchtime, or at least the when I choose to eat it. The hour between eleven and midday and hunger pains in my belly from the lack of breakfast I should have filled it with four hours earlier.
Breakfast in Japan is a rather dreary prospect at the best of times. With the lack of any kind of bread that isn’t sliced and bleached to within an inch of its life, and two kinds of cereal flakes, both of which taste like cardboard chips, the only real option is the Japanese version of rice, miso soup and natto. Call me westerner but the thought of rice as the start to my just doesn’t gel, especially when it is frequently the staple of the day’s other two meals. And natto, a revolting product made of fermented soy beans is possibly the most revolting substance ever to pass my lips. The beans are held together with sticky strands that remind me of seamen but smell like chemicals. I one discovered a packet of the stuff I’d left at the back of the fridge for several months and on opening it, it looked and smelt exactly the same. All of the good ALTs persevered with it until it gelled with their taste buds. I gave up after a week. It makes me oddly nostalgic for brunches and boyfriends.
And so lunchtime arrives early and greedily. On this day of blunders, I had homemade udon bento box in front of me, A cup of black, hideous coffee sat steaming to one side and a Frasier episode sat ready and waiting on my laptop (I am pretty sure that watching sitcoms at work is overtly frowned upon, but now that my work week consists of a single of hour of teaching over five days, I have given up trying to look busy. I have no idea what I am expected to do for the other 39 hours...sit in composed silence perhaps?). Suddenly I realized that I was sans chopsticks. A wave of panic rushed over me; the coffee, the noodles, Daphne...was the highlight of my dismal day to be cruelly taken from me?
Suddenly, I spied the container of chopsticks on my supervisor’s desk. They were the disposable kind, the kind that we westerners tap on the edge of the table before we break them in the hope that they will split evenly (this does NOT work). Please consider the following points before you judge me on my decision:
1) There were at least sixty pairs of chopsticks in the container.
2) These chopsticks can be bought in bulk for a few yen at any supermarket in Japan and are available for free at every convenience store in the country.
3) In all the months I have watched my supervisor eat his lunch, he has never once snapped apart a pair of these disposables. He instead employs a trendy black pair which matches the lunchbox set that his wife fills with delicious Japanese treats.
4) There was no one in the staffroom.
5) Daphne.
And so, I reached across and eased out a pair of the dratted things and, breathing a sigh of relief, settled down with udon and the Crane boys.
The next day, I could tell something was up. My supervisor hadn’t spoken to me since I arrived at 8am, but then this wasn’t particularly unusual (When I got back from my trip to Tokyo, no one spoke to me for two days. Apparently they are all just really busy). It was only when I snuck a peek at his desk that I saw the pathetic jig was up.
Each pair of chopsticks in the container had been accounted for. The closest pair had a tiny ‘1’ written on the left hand chopstick in black vivid and a tiny ‘2’ on the right hand one; the next pair had ‘3’ and ‘4’ and so on. The numbers reached into three digits; rather impressive given that this called for six numerals crammed together on a single pair of chopsticks. It may well be the most extraordinary example of passive aggression I have ever witnessed. Even the great Gareth Keenan would have trouble keeping up.
Today, I bit the bullet and offered my supervisor a pair of the same disposable chopsticks, apologizing for my actions and telling him it wouldn’t happen again. He gave me a tight smile and went back to his report without saying a word. I have a feeling this could drag on for the rest of my tenure.
And people wonder why I hate my job.
Our scene is set at lunchtime, or at least the when I choose to eat it. The hour between eleven and midday and hunger pains in my belly from the lack of breakfast I should have filled it with four hours earlier.
Breakfast in Japan is a rather dreary prospect at the best of times. With the lack of any kind of bread that isn’t sliced and bleached to within an inch of its life, and two kinds of cereal flakes, both of which taste like cardboard chips, the only real option is the Japanese version of rice, miso soup and natto. Call me westerner but the thought of rice as the start to my just doesn’t gel, especially when it is frequently the staple of the day’s other two meals. And natto, a revolting product made of fermented soy beans is possibly the most revolting substance ever to pass my lips. The beans are held together with sticky strands that remind me of seamen but smell like chemicals. I one discovered a packet of the stuff I’d left at the back of the fridge for several months and on opening it, it looked and smelt exactly the same. All of the good ALTs persevered with it until it gelled with their taste buds. I gave up after a week. It makes me oddly nostalgic for brunches and boyfriends.
And so lunchtime arrives early and greedily. On this day of blunders, I had homemade udon bento box in front of me, A cup of black, hideous coffee sat steaming to one side and a Frasier episode sat ready and waiting on my laptop (I am pretty sure that watching sitcoms at work is overtly frowned upon, but now that my work week consists of a single of hour of teaching over five days, I have given up trying to look busy. I have no idea what I am expected to do for the other 39 hours...sit in composed silence perhaps?). Suddenly I realized that I was sans chopsticks. A wave of panic rushed over me; the coffee, the noodles, Daphne...was the highlight of my dismal day to be cruelly taken from me?
Suddenly, I spied the container of chopsticks on my supervisor’s desk. They were the disposable kind, the kind that we westerners tap on the edge of the table before we break them in the hope that they will split evenly (this does NOT work). Please consider the following points before you judge me on my decision:
1) There were at least sixty pairs of chopsticks in the container.
2) These chopsticks can be bought in bulk for a few yen at any supermarket in Japan and are available for free at every convenience store in the country.
3) In all the months I have watched my supervisor eat his lunch, he has never once snapped apart a pair of these disposables. He instead employs a trendy black pair which matches the lunchbox set that his wife fills with delicious Japanese treats.
4) There was no one in the staffroom.
5) Daphne.
And so, I reached across and eased out a pair of the dratted things and, breathing a sigh of relief, settled down with udon and the Crane boys.
The next day, I could tell something was up. My supervisor hadn’t spoken to me since I arrived at 8am, but then this wasn’t particularly unusual (When I got back from my trip to Tokyo, no one spoke to me for two days. Apparently they are all just really busy). It was only when I snuck a peek at his desk that I saw the pathetic jig was up.
Each pair of chopsticks in the container had been accounted for. The closest pair had a tiny ‘1’ written on the left hand chopstick in black vivid and a tiny ‘2’ on the right hand one; the next pair had ‘3’ and ‘4’ and so on. The numbers reached into three digits; rather impressive given that this called for six numerals crammed together on a single pair of chopsticks. It may well be the most extraordinary example of passive aggression I have ever witnessed. Even the great Gareth Keenan would have trouble keeping up.
Today, I bit the bullet and offered my supervisor a pair of the same disposable chopsticks, apologizing for my actions and telling him it wouldn’t happen again. He gave me a tight smile and went back to his report without saying a word. I have a feeling this could drag on for the rest of my tenure.
And people wonder why I hate my job.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Buddhist shrines & puppet freakshows
Twelve days around Japan and a large chunk of token Japanese tourism can now be satisfactory crossed off. Tokyo’s futuristic architecture and acid trip teenagers have been sought out, drooled over and snapped with a digital lens. We strolled dreamily through the most beautiful gardens in Japan (located in the captivating city of Kanazawa; my first choice for my teaching placement), stood captivated beneath the breadth and beauty of a snow covered Mt. Fuji and sipping green tea in a traditional Geisha district. We even sat front row at a sumo wrestling tournament, watching hour after hour of morbidly obese men in G-strings try and wrestle each other to the ground. I’m sure there is a lot of tradition in it, but most of the westerners around us spend the whole time whispering things like “Oh my god look how fat that one is!”
The highlight of the trip was a trip to the local town of Takayama, famous for its traditional Japanese craft shops and locals wares. We stayed in a Buddhist shrine run by a bald American called Woody. He wore massive baggy jeans and stunk of cigarettes (later on, we saw him smoking in the temple). He claimed to have lived in Japan for eleven years and had run the Buddhist hostel for five. He told us he was a ‘Buddhist apprentice’ in a voice that made it clear that we would never understand his inner Zen.
The shrine itself was a rundown affair; the hot water was turned on for approximately four hours a day and the floors creaked. It appeared that Woody was the only person who lived in the temple; he informed us that the head monk was in Tokyo for a conference (??) and there were no other monks to be seen. The temple itself was off to the side, in a dusty room with the lights off and the curtains closed. Woody informed us that we could use the room for our own private meditations if we wished. We did not wish.
The walls to our room were actually made of paper, and as a result we could hear Woody’s swishing baggy jeans from the other end of the corridor. He spent most of the time in his office, smoking and watching his flat screen TV. He told us he meditated a lot, but I would have guessed something else.
The markets at Takayama consisted mainly of precious things and pickled vegetables. My hopes for a Japanese Scarborough fair faded away in a medley of wooden dolls and small gherkins on toothpicks. Dispersed throughout these delights were variants on the town mascot; a hideous, faceless rag doll thing, reminiscent of Tubbs off The League of Gentlemen.
In typical Japanese style, it was available in every colour and variant from key rings to jelly moulds. I freaked out and had to go out onto the street to escape from it. Still, it is not much better than Sapporo’s mascot, which is a small bald green man with a bulging erection.
We finally managed to find the museum Shi-shi Kaikan; a supposed must see in Takayama for having over 500 lion masks on display. Inside, we instead found ourselves at a bizarre puppet show, in which magnetised emperors hacked each other to death with samurai swords. A small child ran around the stage and showed the audience how all the tricks were done; the whole thing was in Japanese so I had no idea what was going on. The highlight came at the end, when another emperor changed from a human to a lion and fought a duel with a meddlesome pumpkin. I managed to record it through spasms of laughter.
Back at the shrine, Woody told us that there was no hot water for a shower because he forgot to turn it on, he muttered some half-assed apology and walked away scratching his ear.
I stole an umbrella when we left.
The highlight of the trip was a trip to the local town of Takayama, famous for its traditional Japanese craft shops and locals wares. We stayed in a Buddhist shrine run by a bald American called Woody. He wore massive baggy jeans and stunk of cigarettes (later on, we saw him smoking in the temple). He claimed to have lived in Japan for eleven years and had run the Buddhist hostel for five. He told us he was a ‘Buddhist apprentice’ in a voice that made it clear that we would never understand his inner Zen.
The shrine itself was a rundown affair; the hot water was turned on for approximately four hours a day and the floors creaked. It appeared that Woody was the only person who lived in the temple; he informed us that the head monk was in Tokyo for a conference (??) and there were no other monks to be seen. The temple itself was off to the side, in a dusty room with the lights off and the curtains closed. Woody informed us that we could use the room for our own private meditations if we wished. We did not wish.
The walls to our room were actually made of paper, and as a result we could hear Woody’s swishing baggy jeans from the other end of the corridor. He spent most of the time in his office, smoking and watching his flat screen TV. He told us he meditated a lot, but I would have guessed something else.
The markets at Takayama consisted mainly of precious things and pickled vegetables. My hopes for a Japanese Scarborough fair faded away in a medley of wooden dolls and small gherkins on toothpicks. Dispersed throughout these delights were variants on the town mascot; a hideous, faceless rag doll thing, reminiscent of Tubbs off The League of Gentlemen.
In typical Japanese style, it was available in every colour and variant from key rings to jelly moulds. I freaked out and had to go out onto the street to escape from it. Still, it is not much better than Sapporo’s mascot, which is a small bald green man with a bulging erection.
We finally managed to find the museum Shi-shi Kaikan; a supposed must see in Takayama for having over 500 lion masks on display. Inside, we instead found ourselves at a bizarre puppet show, in which magnetised emperors hacked each other to death with samurai swords. A small child ran around the stage and showed the audience how all the tricks were done; the whole thing was in Japanese so I had no idea what was going on. The highlight came at the end, when another emperor changed from a human to a lion and fought a duel with a meddlesome pumpkin. I managed to record it through spasms of laughter.
Back at the shrine, Woody told us that there was no hot water for a shower because he forgot to turn it on, he muttered some half-assed apology and walked away scratching his ear.
I stole an umbrella when we left.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Those crazy kids
Being an ALT in Japan is about as close as I will ever get to being Zac Efron.
I assume it is different teaching in a big city, but in a small League of Gentlemen township like mine, the white man really does walk alone, mainly because there are no other white men within a radius of 50 kilometres to walk with him. For many of these young, country schoolgirls, the only westerns they have seen have been separated from them by a TV screen and several time zones. Even these avenues are limited. There is a movie theatre in my town but it is one of those rickety Cinema Paradiso things without the charm. It sits slumped down a backstreet with peeling paint and posters of films features Japanese boys who look like they have had way too much Ecstasy (but ironically will probably never touch the stuff) and girls with pigtails wearing Alice in Wonderland dresses. The cinema has shown three English films in the last nine months; Atonement, P.S. I love you (Hilary Swank doing a romantic comedy about a treasure hunt from her dead boyfriend played by the lead Spartan off 300) and Mamma Mia, which arrives next week, a year after its western release.
The next ‘real’ movie theatre is in Sapporo, several hours drive away. Apparently movie going in Japan isn’t quite the lark it is back home; a fellow ALT went to see Burn After Reading and found that he was the only one who laughed the whole movie while the rest of the audience sat in complete silence. This is rather impressive slash mortifying if you have seen Burn After Reading, which IS hilarious and would surely a laugh from the drabbest individual when Brad Pitt calls John Malkovich a ‘dickwad.’ Also, Japanese people don’t get up and leave when the movie finishes but sit stonily until all the credits have rolled. Then they leave quietly, in an orderly fashion, not speaking until they are well outside the theatre. Even then, I doubt there is much in the way of banter.
Anyway, back to Efron. My arrival in the country prompted a Mexican wave of Japanese wonderment from the girls in my Local town. My two former ALTs were both girls and as far as I could tell, this was the first time most of these schoolgirls had set eyes on a Western male outside of a Harry Potter movie. For months, my route around the school could be traced by the sound of screams, giggles and sharp intakes of breath. Girls would cower into whispering groups in corners, waving to me and then shrieking with delight when I waved back.
Months went by and things didn’t end. I would be spotted by two girls in the local supermarket who would proceed to peek at me from behind the minimal produce section. The next day, I would be informed dryly from one of the teachers that someone in his class had seen my buying a bag of eggplants and now everyone wanted to know if this was true. The first question I was asked in a new class was “Do you have a girlfriend” to which I would smile secretly and shake my head. The group of girls who had plucked up the courage to ask this would then become hysterical and, after another few minutes of feverish whispering, usually follow it up with the slightly more awkward “what kind of Japanese girls do you like?” For this, I would stare out at the eager classroom of 15 year olds use my favourite Japanese word: Himitsu (Secret). This didn’t do much to calm them down.
Believe me, this is not a subtle attempt to blow my own trumpet. I could have rubbed myself raw with a cheese grater and pulled out a row of teeth and I don’t imagine the reaction would be any different. And I tried to feign off the fawning in any way possible; food stains on my shirt, unwashed hair, deep sighs whenever I was waved to in the corridors. For I while I even adopted a limp, but this only resulted in sympathetic glances and kindly smiles from the girls and at the end of the week, a ‘get better’ anime pencil charm turned up on my desk in the staffroom.
Good grief, they were persistent. Once, I received an email from a fifteen year old student from one town over. She insisted we could be ‘good friends’ if we met up sometime (wink face). I have no idea who she was or how she got my email address. She sent me a follow up email a week later when I didn’t reply, which was empty except for a sad face and the phrase ‘I cry now.’ Another girl accosted me in a classroom during cleaning time and showed me a tiny purple condom nestled in her Hello Kitty wallet. I smiled nervously and vowed to stay as far away from her as possible.
I hope that when I leave, my successor will be a women; kind, maternal, preferably late thirties and hair in a bun. There has been enough excitement in Local town for the next few years; Zac Efron has no place trying to steal the preciousl things of the shop. Heck, she could even get a cat.
I assume it is different teaching in a big city, but in a small League of Gentlemen township like mine, the white man really does walk alone, mainly because there are no other white men within a radius of 50 kilometres to walk with him. For many of these young, country schoolgirls, the only westerns they have seen have been separated from them by a TV screen and several time zones. Even these avenues are limited. There is a movie theatre in my town but it is one of those rickety Cinema Paradiso things without the charm. It sits slumped down a backstreet with peeling paint and posters of films features Japanese boys who look like they have had way too much Ecstasy (but ironically will probably never touch the stuff) and girls with pigtails wearing Alice in Wonderland dresses. The cinema has shown three English films in the last nine months; Atonement, P.S. I love you (Hilary Swank doing a romantic comedy about a treasure hunt from her dead boyfriend played by the lead Spartan off 300) and Mamma Mia, which arrives next week, a year after its western release.
The next ‘real’ movie theatre is in Sapporo, several hours drive away. Apparently movie going in Japan isn’t quite the lark it is back home; a fellow ALT went to see Burn After Reading and found that he was the only one who laughed the whole movie while the rest of the audience sat in complete silence. This is rather impressive slash mortifying if you have seen Burn After Reading, which IS hilarious and would surely a laugh from the drabbest individual when Brad Pitt calls John Malkovich a ‘dickwad.’ Also, Japanese people don’t get up and leave when the movie finishes but sit stonily until all the credits have rolled. Then they leave quietly, in an orderly fashion, not speaking until they are well outside the theatre. Even then, I doubt there is much in the way of banter.
Anyway, back to Efron. My arrival in the country prompted a Mexican wave of Japanese wonderment from the girls in my Local town. My two former ALTs were both girls and as far as I could tell, this was the first time most of these schoolgirls had set eyes on a Western male outside of a Harry Potter movie. For months, my route around the school could be traced by the sound of screams, giggles and sharp intakes of breath. Girls would cower into whispering groups in corners, waving to me and then shrieking with delight when I waved back.
Months went by and things didn’t end. I would be spotted by two girls in the local supermarket who would proceed to peek at me from behind the minimal produce section. The next day, I would be informed dryly from one of the teachers that someone in his class had seen my buying a bag of eggplants and now everyone wanted to know if this was true. The first question I was asked in a new class was “Do you have a girlfriend” to which I would smile secretly and shake my head. The group of girls who had plucked up the courage to ask this would then become hysterical and, after another few minutes of feverish whispering, usually follow it up with the slightly more awkward “what kind of Japanese girls do you like?” For this, I would stare out at the eager classroom of 15 year olds use my favourite Japanese word: Himitsu (Secret). This didn’t do much to calm them down.
Believe me, this is not a subtle attempt to blow my own trumpet. I could have rubbed myself raw with a cheese grater and pulled out a row of teeth and I don’t imagine the reaction would be any different. And I tried to feign off the fawning in any way possible; food stains on my shirt, unwashed hair, deep sighs whenever I was waved to in the corridors. For I while I even adopted a limp, but this only resulted in sympathetic glances and kindly smiles from the girls and at the end of the week, a ‘get better’ anime pencil charm turned up on my desk in the staffroom.
Good grief, they were persistent. Once, I received an email from a fifteen year old student from one town over. She insisted we could be ‘good friends’ if we met up sometime (wink face). I have no idea who she was or how she got my email address. She sent me a follow up email a week later when I didn’t reply, which was empty except for a sad face and the phrase ‘I cry now.’ Another girl accosted me in a classroom during cleaning time and showed me a tiny purple condom nestled in her Hello Kitty wallet. I smiled nervously and vowed to stay as far away from her as possible.
I hope that when I leave, my successor will be a women; kind, maternal, preferably late thirties and hair in a bun. There has been enough excitement in Local town for the next few years; Zac Efron has no place trying to steal the preciousl things of the shop. Heck, she could even get a cat.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Cleanup time
My supervisor, possibly realizing that my school day malaise is largely the result of having absolutely nothing to do, has given me the task of aiding with the daily classroom cleaning of him form class. Every day, from 3pm to 3.30pm, I am summoned to assist class 1A to cleanse their home room on the third floor. This is a school-wide ritual, something I assume was established to slice janitors from the school budget (although there are two little old men in overalls who are part of the staff and whom I often see fixing broken chairs and carting rubbish to the incinerator).
Upon arrival at the said room, the class (42 students in a tightly squeezed desk grid, girls on the left side of the room, boys on the right) bows politely and begins to divvy up the tasks at hand. In the corner of the classroom (and in every classroom in the school) is a cleaning cupboard, stuffed with mops, buckets and squirty things galore. On the classroom wall is a task sheet, made by some administrator with no life in which the class divided up into different ‘task groups’ on a daily basis; window washing one week, mopping the next.
The chart is so confusing that usually Mr. X gives up and lets his students decide on what tasks they want by way of ‘Jung Ken;’ the Japanese version of ‘Rock, paper, scissors.’ The difference is that ‘Jung Ken’ is played in massive groups of ten-twenty people, in which everyone stand in a circle and yells “Jung ken....ho!” and displays their paper/scissors/rock hand manifestation. Of course, this doesn’t work so well with more than two players, and the general rule is that there can be no result unless there is one rock and nineteen pieces of paper. As you can imagine, this can take hours, and I have to stand in the corner and grit my teeth as the students yell out “Jung Ken...ho!” over and over again, completely unperturbed by the fact that they could be trapped in their ridiculous circle for the rest of their afternoon.
Once the tasks are allocated, the cleaning can being in earnest. And I mean that. The cleaning is carried out with the precision of a nuclear bomb scare; the desks are suddenly stacked at the front of the room and a team of moppers begin to sweep across the floor with eyebrows furrowed. A group of girls grab the squirty stuff and begin to deal with the windows; carefully scrutinizing every corner for the fingerprints of some foolish third grader during lunchtime. Another team is put on dust monitoring. They work their way around the room in a chain, checking every sliver of surface for particles and also attacking everything with the squirty stuff. There is a two page print on how to dust off the blackboard. I attempted this seemingly simply task on the first day and had the handout shoved at me by six horrified girls. Apparently the key is to start with vertical strokes and move on to horizontal after that. Good to know.
Because this mission is carried out on a daily basis, the whole cleaning thing becomes redundant. The girls squirt cleaner onto windows which are already spotless. The boys with the mops are unable to find anything to mop up. The dusters haven’t given the dust enough time to settle from their particle scouring 24 hours prior. The inside/outside shoes distinction already takes care of most of it. To be fair, I have never seen a cleaner school in my life, especially compared to my debris-infused high school in the Hutt Valley.
Talking of trash, last night I was fool enough to watch John Waters’ Pink Flamingos. It was a film that made me miss my group of Gummo-adoring friends, as scene after scene of celluloid offensiveness went reeling by me. Especially of note were the heinous Marbles couple (the wife looks like a hideous B-Grade Tilda Swinton) who keep pregnant girls chained up in their basement and sell the babies to lesbian couples. They also give each other orgasms by sucking ravenously on each other’s toes. Across town, the obese drag queen Divine lives in a trailer and puts a steak between her thighs to warm it up for dinner. Her similarly obese, brain damaged mother sits in a play pen and is obsessed with eggs and her son, Crackers, likes to have sex with the chickens. It is a fucking offensive movie and I loved every minute of it. If only cleaning could be this Divine.
Upon arrival at the said room, the class (42 students in a tightly squeezed desk grid, girls on the left side of the room, boys on the right) bows politely and begins to divvy up the tasks at hand. In the corner of the classroom (and in every classroom in the school) is a cleaning cupboard, stuffed with mops, buckets and squirty things galore. On the classroom wall is a task sheet, made by some administrator with no life in which the class divided up into different ‘task groups’ on a daily basis; window washing one week, mopping the next.
The chart is so confusing that usually Mr. X gives up and lets his students decide on what tasks they want by way of ‘Jung Ken;’ the Japanese version of ‘Rock, paper, scissors.’ The difference is that ‘Jung Ken’ is played in massive groups of ten-twenty people, in which everyone stand in a circle and yells “Jung ken....ho!” and displays their paper/scissors/rock hand manifestation. Of course, this doesn’t work so well with more than two players, and the general rule is that there can be no result unless there is one rock and nineteen pieces of paper. As you can imagine, this can take hours, and I have to stand in the corner and grit my teeth as the students yell out “Jung Ken...ho!” over and over again, completely unperturbed by the fact that they could be trapped in their ridiculous circle for the rest of their afternoon.
Once the tasks are allocated, the cleaning can being in earnest. And I mean that. The cleaning is carried out with the precision of a nuclear bomb scare; the desks are suddenly stacked at the front of the room and a team of moppers begin to sweep across the floor with eyebrows furrowed. A group of girls grab the squirty stuff and begin to deal with the windows; carefully scrutinizing every corner for the fingerprints of some foolish third grader during lunchtime. Another team is put on dust monitoring. They work their way around the room in a chain, checking every sliver of surface for particles and also attacking everything with the squirty stuff. There is a two page print on how to dust off the blackboard. I attempted this seemingly simply task on the first day and had the handout shoved at me by six horrified girls. Apparently the key is to start with vertical strokes and move on to horizontal after that. Good to know.
Because this mission is carried out on a daily basis, the whole cleaning thing becomes redundant. The girls squirt cleaner onto windows which are already spotless. The boys with the mops are unable to find anything to mop up. The dusters haven’t given the dust enough time to settle from their particle scouring 24 hours prior. The inside/outside shoes distinction already takes care of most of it. To be fair, I have never seen a cleaner school in my life, especially compared to my debris-infused high school in the Hutt Valley.
Talking of trash, last night I was fool enough to watch John Waters’ Pink Flamingos. It was a film that made me miss my group of Gummo-adoring friends, as scene after scene of celluloid offensiveness went reeling by me. Especially of note were the heinous Marbles couple (the wife looks like a hideous B-Grade Tilda Swinton) who keep pregnant girls chained up in their basement and sell the babies to lesbian couples. They also give each other orgasms by sucking ravenously on each other’s toes. Across town, the obese drag queen Divine lives in a trailer and puts a steak between her thighs to warm it up for dinner. Her similarly obese, brain damaged mother sits in a play pen and is obsessed with eggs and her son, Crackers, likes to have sex with the chickens. It is a fucking offensive movie and I loved every minute of it. If only cleaning could be this Divine.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Death by horse
The Rhinestone Cowboy has lived up to his name. An awkward conversation with him in the lunchroom led to the revelation that his arrival at the high school had seen him promoted to the head of the equestrian club. No surprise really I though, given that he has the petite frame and hardened calves of a jockey. However, it turned out that the poor kid was no jockey and had in fact never ridden a horse before in his life. He even admitted that he had a slight trepidation towards the beasts in question, hence the lack of equine skills.
Despite this, and the fact that he had coached basketball for the last three years, it was the horse club where he was placed. No question. The rule for Japanese high schools is that a new teacher must teach the club their predecessor taught, regardless of preference, ability or logic. My supervisor spends four hours a day coaching volleyball, even though he had never played it before in his life. At his last school, he conducted the school band and ran the music department.
Unfortunately, upon his arrival in our Gummo town he was informed that the musical department staff was already allocated, and so he was to coach the girls volleyball. Every day at 3pm, he heaves a mighty sigh and puts on his neon red bib. If a western actor had to play him at this precise moment, it would be Alan Rickman.
The whole situation reminds me of that scene in that Family Guy episode ‘Da Boom’ where the Griffins establish a new town after the world blows up. Every time a new person comes to the town, Peter makes them pick a job out of the ‘job hat’ so that a qualified doctor is given the role of village idiot and the dentist in a horse. In this society, that wouldn’t surprise me anymore.
Also, there are no sip top bottles in Japan. Why? No matter how many convenience stores and supermarkets I traipse through, I am cursed to settle for the runner’s worst enemy; the screw cap. As a result, Japanese treadmilling is a much more perilous experience than back in the west. Trying to get that damn cap unscrewed and then rescrewed takes both hands while your legs are whirling takes skills verging on amateur acrobatics. Oh, how I mourn the humble pump bottle.
Despite this, and the fact that he had coached basketball for the last three years, it was the horse club where he was placed. No question. The rule for Japanese high schools is that a new teacher must teach the club their predecessor taught, regardless of preference, ability or logic. My supervisor spends four hours a day coaching volleyball, even though he had never played it before in his life. At his last school, he conducted the school band and ran the music department.
Unfortunately, upon his arrival in our Gummo town he was informed that the musical department staff was already allocated, and so he was to coach the girls volleyball. Every day at 3pm, he heaves a mighty sigh and puts on his neon red bib. If a western actor had to play him at this precise moment, it would be Alan Rickman.
The whole situation reminds me of that scene in that Family Guy episode ‘Da Boom’ where the Griffins establish a new town after the world blows up. Every time a new person comes to the town, Peter makes them pick a job out of the ‘job hat’ so that a qualified doctor is given the role of village idiot and the dentist in a horse. In this society, that wouldn’t surprise me anymore.
Also, there are no sip top bottles in Japan. Why? No matter how many convenience stores and supermarkets I traipse through, I am cursed to settle for the runner’s worst enemy; the screw cap. As a result, Japanese treadmilling is a much more perilous experience than back in the west. Trying to get that damn cap unscrewed and then rescrewed takes both hands while your legs are whirling takes skills verging on amateur acrobatics. Oh, how I mourn the humble pump bottle.
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