You got yr. cherry blossom bomb....

School has been like Fort Knox during the last week. And I mean that.

Let me go over a few of the exam procedures undertaken by Japanese high schools. First off, during the days in which students are taking their future determining tests, teachers, receptionist and caretakers and not allowed to leave the school grounds. Two intimidating teachers are stationed at the front entrance to keep an eye of the rest of us; heaven forbid we should sneak off to the supermarket across the road to plant answers in the sushi trays.

Needless to say, the rest of the school is also out of bounds. Teachers have to eat their (pre-packaged) lunch at their desks as the lunchroom is somehow off limits. The true level of bizarreness became clear when I was told that for the five days of exams, No one was allowed to use their cell phones or the internet. Exams apparently call for complete and utter isolation from the outside world, even to those people who have no idea what the exams consist of and cannot speak the language.

For the five days I speak of, I sat at my desk from 8am to 5pm, occasionally dipping into my T.C. Boyle book and listening to lots of Grateful Dead. I watched Even Dwarves started small on my lunch breaks which is a highly offensive film about a bunch of German midgets who take over a mental institution. My favourite scene involved two of the midgets getting locked in a bedroom and ordered to copulate. However, they cannot go through with it because the key German midget is too short to get up on the bed. Many of the teachers gave me stricken looks as they walked past, but I remained indifferent and chuckled quietly into my udon noodles.

However, the highlight of the exam period was the bomb scare. A few days before the dreaded lock in commenced, I was joyfully tinkling away at one of the school’s grand pianos in the music room (there are actually TWO grand pianos side by side in the music room, another phenomenon I have not been able to figure out; do they expect two people to practise different pieces at the same time? Anyone who has ever played ANY musical instrument knows that this is completely impossible) when the door flew open and a gaggle of anxious teachers practically dragged me into the corridor.

It turns out that once, a good decade ago, a couple of cheeky high school kids rang their Hokkaido high school (not this one) and in an inane attempt to get out exams, said that they had planted a bomb in one of the classrooms. Obviously the plan worked like a dream. The bomb squad was called to check not only the school that got pranked but in fact EVERY high school in Hokkaido (there are about 250). The boys eventually confessed (and probably got life sentences or deported) but even so, every year during exam period, each Hokkaido school has a series of bomb drills. This involves checking every classroom and evacuating the whole school. Then the police arrive and check every classroom again. This happens for three days in a row.

I wondered quietly as I stood freezing on the tennis court how many years this futile exercise would continue. Surely after a decade of checking for evidence of a glorified practical joke, common sense would kick in. The police would hang up their helmets and students would be given one less thing to worry about during the most stressful part of the year. Things would go back to whatever kind of normal things were beforehand.

And then, I saw the police talking into their intercoms in Die Hard mode and I and I suddenly knew that this charade would never end. This is Japan and common sense comes several notches behind tradition on the cultural hierarchy.

The teacher who sits opposite me wears the same Christmas tie every day. It has reindeer and snow covered Christmas trees on it. Sometimes it makes me laugh. Most days, it makes it makes me want to cry.

Exam-attack!

Panic gripped the student body today. It is exam period at my high school and every teenager who knows what’s good for them is stressed to breaking point. In the depths of winter, girls in round rimmed glasses mop the sweat from their foreheads. Boys develop nervous twitches and teachers have private tutorials booked around the clock. One cannot walk down the corridor without hearing the sound of hyperventilating or quiet sobs. This is how it goes in a culture where one feels that they have shamed their family by playing a wrong note on their clarinet during concert recital. Once, after I failed an inept student on a communication test, she slumped down on the desk and cried for the rest of the lesson. The test was worth 10 % of her final grade.

Amid this whirlpool of pressure, Mr. M once again surfaces in our narration. A gaggle of befuddled school girls cornered him in his office and asked if the English exam would include an ‘either or’ question; the hardest thing we’ve studied this year. Mr. M paused for a moment, and then said “mmmmmmm....” and shook his head. The girls breathed a sigh of relief and ran off to tell the rest of the class. For the next two weeks, they studied all the relevant sections of the English course, calling each other on the phone between cups of coffee and practising their street directions till the early hours in the morning.

As it turned out, Mr. M had got it completely wrong and the ‘either or’ question was the main part of the exam. As a result, only four students passed and a lot of them drifted through the corridor to my office post-exam, too tired and exhausted to cry. When he found about the dire mix up, Mr. Y yelled at Mr. M, who didn’t say anything and pouted quietly in the corner.

There may be no more terrifying moment in life than turning over an exam paper only to find a question you have no clue how to answer. The heart stops beating for approximately ten seconds and then starts moving at triple speed. Things start to blur and you realize that you have three hours to plead your case before you hit the liquor store for that critical bottle of vodka. And so, I pledge you all to have a little sympathy for these kids of mine, who cannot drink and who may well have their futures severely dented by the most useless teacher in Japan.

On another note, Mr. M did tell me I looked like Tom Cruise last week. I smiled shyly and batted my eyelids. To be honest, I am not sure whether to take it as a compliment or an insult. I think I will take the former; it would probably the first compliment I’ve ever got in this country.