Musings of a Drunken Monk: Individual Entry Archive

Yesterday I had my first day here at　行田しんしゅうかん. I gave a speech to the assembled staff of the school, which was relatively easy. Then the hard part. A speech on the stage for 800+ assembled students. I guess they liked it.

The weird part will be getting used to everyone (students) seeing you in the hall and wanting to talk to you. When they do, and you talk back, they collapse into giggling fits (the girls at least). Do I have something hanging out of my nose? Is my fly down? It's quite a hassle I tell you. Nerve-wracking, really. But it has been fun. I need to learn names of course, which could take a long time.

Unsurprisingly, rumor spreads like crazy here. I showed some advanced features of my keitai to the English club last week, and today a random student asked me to show her the dictionary/camera feature. At least they're interested in me and my stuff as opposed to hating my guts! I found love notes and lots of photo-booth (really popular here with girls) pictures (with hearts on them) photos in my predecessor's (and now mine!) desk. And as much as the students seem to know nothing about English in class, they have enough guts to hang out of a window and say "I Looooooobu Yoouuu!" at the top of their lungs. Cute, really. As Ryan (my predecessor) says, you do feel like a bit of a superstar. However, one must keep it in perspective. To them, I am a green man. I stick out like a sore thumb and as stated previously, the Japanese don't seem to have a particularly refined taste for physical attractiveness in foreigners. I also have a sneaking suspicion that to them, I look the same as Ryan. Consider it the "all look same" syndrome asians often receive, except turned on its head. It's about time it happened to whiteys so we know how it feels.

In other news, I'm getting the hell bitten out of me by uber-mosquitos here, and swelling up like a balloon. The heat and humidity this year makes for crazy mosquitos (蚊)　and roaches (ゴキブリ). Gyoda is so filled with rice fields (rank, stagnant water) that the kanji for rice field (田) is part of its name. Imagine (and realize) that said stagnant water is perfect breeding territory for evil little biting insects. And according to Japanese superstition, they like O-type blood. Guess what I am!

I've got some more pictures coming up, taken last weekend at a nearby dance club. Breakdance competition!