In Japan it's widely known that umbrella theft is the most common crime. Second to that is bicycle theft, followed by (obviously) less common and more serious crimes. It's a wonderful statement about the relative safety of this country.
However, it brings to one's life a whole new set of problems that may be completely unheard of back home. Parking a bicycle, for example, is an exercise in figuring out which of (at least) two locks to use. Umbrella theft being the crime most committed, it calls for a special set of personal strategies one must adhere to.
Until relatively recently I have been immune to this heinous crime, at least at my school. Since I park my bike in a certain place and every student in the school knows it's mine, in my infinite naivety I figured they would keep their paws off of my stuff. Sadly when it starts suddenly raining and a student is left to walk home without an umbrella, anything not bolted down and close by is fair game. I have lost two umbrellas in the past month to sudden rainstorms.
There are, as I said, things I have to keep in mind when it comes to maintaining ownership of my umbrellas. If it's raining in the morning when myself and all of the students are coming to school, I'm safe. No student leaves the home umbrella-free, so the odds of him being caught without one after school are low. It's those midday storms I have to worry about. It's those that send me scurrying down to my bike to retrieve my umbrella before someone else does. If I don't, naturally I'll end up the loser going home wet. On these days I actually find myself a little tense if I can't get down to the bike before classes have finished.
Regardless of such grueling strategizing, I still have to keep a backup at my desk just in case.
Yesterday each class at school was carefully herded outside so that pictures could be taken for the yearbook.
What this means for the students is that they're required to dye their hair back to their natural black, and remove all makeup and piercings.
I was oblivious until I noticed the startlingly high number of girls without eyebrows.
Today I prevailed upon one of the Home Economy teachers to give me help in sewing a blanket for my friend's soon-to-be one year old daughter. I wanted to give a gift that was something a little more special than a generic baby toy, which I'm sure they have a billion of. I remembered my own baby blanket and wanted to make one.
The problem was that I haven't sewn enough in my life to actually be able to put together something even as simple as a blanket. Horiguchi-sensei really helped me out and enabled me to make a pretty kickass (in a cute way) baby blanket.
I'm glad that in this country there are still plenty of people who are willing to help out instead of defaulting to "I'm busy." She saved the day!
Yesterday our third grade (the equivalent of senior) students graduated. The ceremony was predictably very long, filled with formality and speeches and tears.
For me it was a particularly poignant time because I had to say goodbye to two of my dearest students, we'll call them A-san and A-san. They were scared and small first graders in the English Club when I first came to my school, also scared and small. I feel closest to them because we all grew together and we're all leaving.
Of course, I really doubt they feel so strongly about the whole thing seeing as to them I'm only a teacher, but seeing them go has made me reflect a great deal on my time here.
I hope I see them again.
This past weekend, my school had its biggest-yet 文化祭 (bunkasai: culture festival). The students spent months preparing some very elaborate scenes as bases for their shops/gamerooms/etc. The results were quite impressive, something pictures can't really express. But I'm gonna show you pictures anyway.
Note: The people pictured in the thumbnail are not in costume. They dress like that normally for "fun." You know the drill. Click the thumbnail for the full gallery.
Yesterday two of my teachers were discussing how they could get moved from this school. In Japan, you have no choice as to which school you work in; the prefecture (in the case of High School) decides it for you. One of them suggested that another teacher was prematurely moved out of a bad school because he got into a fight with an "important person" at the school. Both of them then proceeded to muse about who they could fight for maximum possibility of transfer.
It brings to mind a few things:
- The level of my school really has dropped that dramatically in only a single year.
- The prefectural educational system may be in need of some changes...
- A fight...! You don't see those much in Japan, especially amongst teachers. Just the idea of that certain teacher (a smurfy kind of guy) in a fight is giggle-worthy.
Remember when you were in school, you always used to snicker about how the teacher couldn't figure out the simplest of technology, like the VCR or the projector?
I'm no stranger to technology as you know, but in the past two days I found myself on the receiving end of a big dose of irony. I spent five minutes at the beginning of each class struggling manfully with the DVD player. The sudden realization that I had just dated myself made it all the worse.
There is a strange parallel, I've observed, between the lonely warble of a loon on a still lake and the screech of high school girls echoing through a hallway.
Beauty and the Beast, if you will.
Today I reviewed with my teacher the use of the very popular and very useful English modifier fucking. The new head principal at the school has proven himself to be rather strict about something which doesn't need such tight policing, and we were voicing our displeasure about it. He asked me to express it in English.
Of particular note were fucking stupid and this fucking sucks.
There's a lesson I wouldn't mind teaching every day ...
I have over the past year been reading, with increasing irritation, the regularly-released promotional material that is produced at my school. The purpose of these pamphlets/books/etc. is to promote our school to parents and students of junior high schools. Students in Japan have a choice of which high school they may go to, as opposed to simply being relegated to whatever school is in their district.
The problem is that despite the fact that I have been here for two frickin years, they keep printing pictures of my predecessor. Perhaps they haven't figured out that there is a huge difference between the two white dudes who have been at their school, but he left years ago. It's a real nice way to be reminded that to the people designing/deciding/editing these things, I am just a faceless foreigner. Every time I see his face once more plastered across something describing their great English program, I get more annoyed. I know there are pictures of me teaching class, because God knows every 2 weeks someone is sneaking around taking pictures in classes. I know I'm not exactly the most photogenic ALT ever to grace the JET program, but come on, sadly the picture they chose for him isn't flattering either. Get with the times, people! Grr.
I am given respite in knowing that my fellow English teachers also think it's stupid, and that probably they will do this to whoever my successor is. But at times like these, you really do wonder about what kind of value you have for the people you're working with.
Today upon leaving for lunch a group of students asked me if my hair was permed. It's long and foofy now, leading me to resort to desperate measures to control it, but hardly permed. I told them it was my own natural hair upon which they launched into a chorus of "ooh jealous" and so on.
Japan is one of very few countries in which such a question could be posed to a straight male and still be considered reasonable.
I took part in an exhibition lesson for one of the student teachers today. It was standard with group work, loud students, and generally no one caring about English.
First I was reminded once more that teenage boys in this country (perhaps everywhere) border on mentally deficient in their lack of maturity.
Then we listened to "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," by which I was reminded that he is a complete psycho.
I mean if He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake doesn't creep you out, I don't know what will.
In discussing our plans to go to lunch today, I and a fellow teacher were trying to decide whether or not to go on foot. The distance to the restaurant is quite walkable, but just far enough so that the limited time we get for lunch grows short. She said, "so it's closer by car then?" I readily agreed.
At that moment I recalled that I've heard that expression a great deal in my time here. It's closer by car. The fact of the matter is, of course the restaurant gets no closer if we go by car; it's not like us taking a car prompts the destination to spontaneously move closer to the starting point.
Of course in English we say "it's faster to get there by car." In Japanese, many people say "it's closer."
Nothing special, just a smile-inducing observation. I'll admit the idea of the restaurant growing a pair of enormous bird legs was appealing.
I had a very slight epiphany today:
Only people who aren't having it talk about sex.
It's why my technical school boys talk about it all the time.
I have a 10-student Level 2 English Conversation class. 9 of its students are female, making the last the lone male. On the first day when he walked into the classroom and saw the roaring femininity presented to him, his face registered visible trepidation. On the same day he told the teacher he wanted to quit the class.
Every day he sits and stares out the window with a look of despair on his face. It's almost like he hates women, and I'm pretty positive he's not gay. Why, Masashi, why? Celebrate, for this is an opportunity you will likely never have again. Revel!
Men in this country are so weird.
Today 進修館高校 (Shinshuukan koukou: my high school) had its first combined 卒業式 (sotsugyoushiki: graduation ceremony). Last year the "normal" school and the technical school were combined by the prefecture, and thus this year all of the seniors graduated together. This class was the first class that I had for a full year (and a little more), so it was a little sad. I imagine next year will be moreso, since that will be the first class that is exclusively "mine." Weird exclamations of student ownership aside, I made a few observations:
- High school students the world over cry at graduation, apparently unaware that the best moments in their lives are yet to come.
- Japanese high school graduations are infinitely more boring than American ones. Specifically, 進修館's was one of the most boring events I have ever survived through.
- Japanese mothers have very little bladder control. That, or they didn't have the foresight to realize that the ceremony was bound to be long and boring.
- Kids everywhere can't help but be smartasses, even at the most important function in their lives to date.
- My camera is dreadfully lax at taking movement shots in a gymnasium, thus giving me no useable photos to prove that this event ever occurred.
- I am still hot in a Japanese suit (aw yeah!), though getting old isn't helping.
- Standing still for almost two hours straight is an exercise in endurance and suffering.
- I am still a wuss and fight back tears, even if I don't know what the weeping student is saying.
This marks my third graduation ceremony to go to, and I hope during my final ceremony next year I'll be able to understand more of the formal Japanese that is used. That, and I hope to get through without wanting to gouge my eyes out in boredom.
It's nearing the end of the school year (everything starts here in April) and that means two things for classes: there are very few of them in the next month, and we start focusing on future-tense. It leads inevitably to the "future plans" unit.
One of the activities we did involved students making a timeline. Most write "get a job" or "go to professional school" instead of "go to university." There's one boy (in the aforementioned two-boy class) who I'm trying to draw out of his shell of teenage-angst. I asked him what he'll go to professional school for.
"Fashion," he said.
In my high school and I suspect many others back home, that's at least a two year sentence for merciless you're-so-gay teasing. While foreigners often comment on the femininity of Japan's men, I give it props that things like this can happen. On the flip side, the discrimination runs deep in other ways.
The above is a quote from the famous-in-japan, born-in-my-hometown Dr. William Clark. He helped found Hokkaido University and has something big to do with the University of Massachusetts as well. Cool dude.
Anyway, today it pertains to the boys in my class and their apparent complete lack of cajones.
In my middle class, there are two boys and 16 girls. That is an incredible ratio of 8:1. It doesn't get better than that. I think in high school and college, I would've killed for something like that. These boys have no idea how good they have it. Yet, instead of taking full advantage of the situation like I thought they would, they pretty much hide. Are Japanese women so scary? I think not. Whenever we do pairwork activities or group activities that involve mixing the class, the two boys inevitably end up talking to each other and no one else. "Back in my day" I would've been all over this chance to talk to cute girls in my class. Naturally I would have been met with resistance and derision, but hey, I tried valiantly.
It happens in other classes too, where the girl:boy ratio isn't so extreme. At first I thought it was because they were so outnumbered, but larger classes disprove my pet theory. Everyone says that Japanese men are really passive and "weak" when it comes to approaching women. It really is disenheartening to see this trend start at such an early age.
Start thy pimphood young! Boys be ambitious!
Let me teach you a little tidbit from the vast collection of ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) folklore.
Today I want to focus on the Legend of Hot Sensei. You see, being that we all teach at schools with dozens, if not hundreds, of other teachers, odds are that some of us should have some pretty fine teachers to call coworkers. I recall watching at one of JET's countless seminars a video recounting the day of an ALT who lives and works fairly close to 行田. Pretty much the only thing anyone had to say about the video afterwards ran along the lines of "man, his teacher was hot!" Indeed she was, regardless of rumors that she was, in reality, the devil. You see, we are repeatedly drilled in the art of "team-teaching." In theory we are supposed to be teaching in pairs with a Japanese person at all times, though for most of us that's rarely the case. In such cases that we do have a teaching partner, it would be pretty awesome to have a smokin' one, wouldn't it? That's the idea.
The problem is that somehow, though we have abovementioned dozens/hundreds of coworkers, rarely do we have a single hot teacher mixed among them. It's like winning the lottery when the teacher swap happens in April and one happens to come to your school. You're pretty much the luckiest ALT alive if you actually get to interact with one on a regular basis. I had a hot sensei sitting next to me last year, and I didn't realize how awesomely lucky I was until she was gone. Woe!! To actually have a truly beautiful/handsome teacher to teach with is something that legends are made of; wholly inconceivable. But we're constantly hoping that the next teacher shift might send one down on the winds of chance. It's one of those thing where you might hear "oh yeah, so-and-so five towns south has a really hot teacher..." but you can't find anyone you actually know who has one.
Within my group, we each have quasi-hot-senseis. It's kind of a compensation mechanism. You see the thing is that we so rarely have a true hot sensei. We have to make do with what we have, which has given rise to the "relativity" rule. Basically you may not have a hot sensei, but you probably have a "relatively hot sensei." For most of us, that's good enough. Sometimes, for instance, you may show your friends pictures of hot-sensei. Your friends look at you like you've got size 7 beer goggles on. All you have to say is "...relatively!" and they'll instantly throw their hands up and nod. "Oh yeah! Relatively hot sensei!" (S)he may not be particularly amazing on the eyes, but in comparison to whatever else to have to look at in the school, it's a Godsend.
Sometimes you're trying desperately to drag yourself out of the bed (futon) on a cold morning, and the only things you can think of to motivate yourself are "oh boy, another full classload of sullen, unmotivated 16 year olds." The moment you get up is when you remember "hey! Maybe I'll get a glimpse of hot sensei!"
Better than coffee, my friend.
On a typical morning, I drag myself out of bed (futon) and get dressed as quickly as humanly possible in a piontless attempt to ward off the cold that pervades the apartment. Somehow my early morning ministrations drag out longer than they should, and I end up at school at around 8:25.
Today, I showed up at 8:20. Previously I had this vision that I was the laziest teacher at the school, with every single other teacher arriving at least a half-hour before me to do mysterious and wonderful teacherly things. Instead, the 5 minutes this morning gave me a wonderful insight. 5 minutes earlier, the parking lot is filled with still-parking cars. The shoe-box area is not crowded but there are several teachers still arriving and changing their shoes to "school sandals." And in my own office, everybody has either just arrived or hasn't even arrived yet. I'm proud to say my misguided vision stands corrected.
It's funny what 5 minutes will do.
I had the privilege today of watching a most interesting event at the school here. Four times every year, all of the students are gathered by grade (there are only 3 grades in Japanese high schools) in giant gyms to ... be inspected. It reminded me of way back in the day as kids in elementary school when we sat quietly at our desks while the school nurse picked through our hair looking for lice. The teachers weren't looking for lice this time. They were inspecting hair color, earrings, hair length, skirt length, and a variety of other things.
In Japan, it turns out one way to judge the quality of your school is to look at the kids. If they have multicolored asian dyejobs and pierced ears, you have a bunch of delinquents. I guess the higher quality the school, the more they look the same. It reminds me of my dad's story about catholic school, when a golfball would have to roll down the inside of your pant legs, otherwise they were too tight (this being when tight-ass pants were in, I imagine). So I watched as a bevy of teachers sifted through an entire grade of students, 280 in all, looking closely at hair color, earrings, fingernail length, even traces of makeup. Girls aren't allowed to wear makeup here, though it seems to me every single one does. I guess right before this thing (at least it wasn't a surprise inspection) there were fleets of girls in the bathroom wiping off their faces and hiking down their skirts.
I don't know as there is much disciplinary action available for kids who are "delinquent" and end up getting a checkmark for hair color or holes in their ears (guess that means I'll fail the test ...), but there's some sort of routine in the whole thing. I can't see how it is very effective due to this lack of disciplinary action (there doesn't seem to be anything like detention, and suspension happens very rarely), though the students do still follow the rules to a certain extent. I'm glad at some level for it, since I guess the asian mullet which appears so popular on young people in Japan would be rampant through the school. Sometimes I do find myself alarmed at the level of conformity that is expected, but of course my perspective derives from a very different culture. After all, per capita, how much violent crime do they have compared to the United States?
Nuff said. Maybe if my High School had a policy like this, I wouldn't have been driven to do something as stupid as grow my hair long and dye it black. Shudder.
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!