Miracle of miracles
Life has been pretty freaking good to me here, I can’t lie, but I have this habit of idealizing and putting pressure on myself to make other people happy, specifically, the students. Lately, I’ve been getting really frustrated with the situation at work. Without going into great detail, I’ve been rained down on with extra projects, meetings and lessons with teachers. Some of these might sound nice and helpful, like the Geology lesson I taught with another teacher today, half in English, but they turn out to be only superficially enriching. The lesson itself was just one long lecture, throughout which most of the over 50 students in attendance dozed off or tuned me out. Leading up to it there were several meetings and practice runs which were pretty worthless, and after the lesson there was an hour-long discussion with visiting teachers from other schools. I’ve had to break promises to students over and over—saying I’d carve a pumpkin with them after school or go to their club—which hurts me and them, just so that I can go to these meetings and things. And it’s not just this one lesson…

I’m caught between contingencies—I want to keep the man happy at school, but I also want to do what I call, my job, which is basically spending as much time as I can with the students. Over and over again, I’m moved and impressed by students kindness, gifts, willingness to learn and talk to me, and some of the diamonds in the rough who speak so damn well, but never speak up in class. I’ve gotten gifts from over ten students and they take time to teach me Japanese, calligraphy or slap high fives with me when we finish a track workout. But these things are running thin, as my time is stolen by the man…

Why is the Japanese student suicide rate so high? Because we bark grammar at them, ignoring the social and emotional aspects of education. It really hurts me to see some of these kids made into robots, it really does. I actually heard that there’s like some condition where kids literally shut off socially, and just study all day, all night—I think I maybe know one or two of them. They just fade into the woodwork. It’s a kind of murder, I think, to ignore the problem.

On a lighter note, I found out that I brought the first two jack-o-lanterns to my school, as far as my teachers know. I was floored. How can that not have happened before? Also, I threw like the craziest Halloween party I’ve ever been to. Over 100 students came, and I put over 100 bucks into the things what with decorations and candy and costumes. I’m sure someone didn’t approve of it, but it was so freaking sweet, I don’t care. Some of the teachers dressed up too. Special thanks to my sister who sent some good supplies. That was almost a sentence. It needs another verb. And a subject.

We went on a school trip to a mountain—Mt. Kongo-san I think. I didn’t look around much because I was literally talking with students the entire time. It was mostly in English, but I somehow managed to fill up 60 flashcards with new expressions and stuff. There’s this one line that a student taught me that is so cheesy, and it goes over so well in any situation, even if you don’t use it correctly, and it goes like “sono hassou wa nakattawaa!” which is like a Leave it to Beaver-esc “Golly, gee, I never would have thought of that,” kind of thing. I’ve won over bar crowds and random people with this baby. It’s that sweet. If only I could teach the English department how learning phrases outside of the grammar books can help communication. Who’d have thought people could learn language without a book? Miracle of miracles.

The name game never gets old. I’m up to probably over 70 student names. But it is a bad feeling when students come up to me, pointing at their nose, smiling, waiting, and then the smile fades when they know I’ve forgotten their name, and then sometimes physical violence follows, of which I am the recipient.

Test me
Now Playing: Orenji Renji
(Written almost two weeks ago)
The school has gone into exam mode, where students are taking midterms without any normal classes for about a week. The second years started early, as they’re going on a school trip to Hokkaido. How cool is that? The entire grade goes. Everything about the school is more community-oriented like that which makes me wish I had that experience. I asked about going and I might be able to next year…we’ll see I guess.

So I have a lot more free time, in which I just study Japanese and do odd jobs. Like I’ve appointed myself the English Department janitor—anything I can do to help. During lunch, I go to the cafeteria, and while most of the boys still kind of treat me as a novelty, and most of the girls just smile and nod and don’t say much, I’ve found a couple steady groups that take an honest interest in speaking English and trying to teach me some cool Japanese. And these aren’t the so-called nerds of the school, but some of the more outgoing people, which surprised me. Since the kids really get a kick out of me attempting Japanese, I always check to see if they’re teaching me offensive words, but I’ve found I can trust kids for the most part. The only frustrating thing is that they often tell me their nicknames or just make something up, so that name game is still hard. I think by the end of the school I’ll be able to name all 450 students that I currently teach. I’ve got maybe 50 right now.

In other news, I had the second cancer scare of my life, but this was a very long shot—I found a hard lump under my left nipple that had a discharge. OK no more details, don’t worry. And while yes, I know breast cancer is extremely rare in men I managed to get worked up over it—I even called a family friend that day and embarrassingly forgot to check the time, which ended up being about one a.m. for Minnesota. But I got into the doctor today, and it’s nothing. One of my Japanese friends was there to translate, bless her soul, which made the four-hour hurry-up-and-wait process much easier.

The Force of the Prosaic
So the lesson we taught today was based on a passage from, “A Walk to Remember,” by the best-selling, sellout author, Nicholas Sparks, who brought you other cliche tearjerkers as, “The Notebook,” and “The Nice Guy Who’s Lonely and There’s This Girl Who Likes Him But for Some Reason Can’t Tell Him at Present.” You get the idea. It’s bad enough the kids have to suffer through this, with English that’s too complex for them. If we have to shove American Literature at them, at least make it something we’re proud of, I’m thinking. The selection can be explained by the fact that the text was written by the reigning English teacher, a guy who likes a little romance, I guess.

But seriously, it’s bad enough that this kind of book infects America, but now it’s making it’s way to other countries. This is the kind of book that makes chicks ask their boyfriends, “How come you never do anything that romantic?” or “Can we do something else besides watch football?” and the guys are like, “I sent you flowers on Valentine’s Day, what else am I supposed to do?”

And guys, those of you who haven’t figured this one out yet, I got news for you. You can do all the things that the guys do in the movies, including coming up with the cheesiest, fluffiest, Victorian analogies to her beauty—which I officially do not recommend, notwithstanding—but women will not stop wanting things from you until they have your very soul.

So what do you do? You burn every one of those books that you find. I recommend purchasing a welding torch, but a standard Bic lighter will do the job. Matches, I discourage, as you may not be quick enough with them. Good luck, men, and may the force of the prosaic be with you.

I Write, and What's Better, Express
Even the most extroverted (as much as I hate using the words, “introvert” and “extrovert,” I do here…), friendly student in class will not let out any kind of expression beyond looking straight forward and using their tape recorder voice in class in their responses to me. I’ve tried everything I can to get them excited about sharing something in English, but they’ve been trained so well by Japanese culture, that only outside of class can I succeed in this. It’s discouraging because this is how I like to teach, and I know some students want to learn this way in Japan, but I can’t give the chance to them.

This is what’s on my mind—that and trying to desperately learn Yamamoto’s name and Kitagawa’s name and the complex characters that stand for them. Sometimes I can’t come up with any image or mnemonic device to remember them and that’s trouble.

This, and one of my teachers was critical of my participation in class. I barely have any involvement, but I try to shine when I’m on. It’s hard to pay attention when all the directions are in Nihongo, and so I start trying to do something useful like learn a name or two, but then I’m distracted from the lesson.

I try to involve the students and get them to speak whenever I can because most of the teachers never ask them to, unless they’re asked to translate something, in which case they speak in Japanese and in the quietest voice imaginable. I seriously cannot tell which student is speaking unless I know where to look.

So I went to a student that I knew from calligraphy club and got her name wrong, but quickly recovered.

“Do you like calligraphy club?”

“Yes.”

“And what do you like about calligraphy club?”

“Ahh. Misuta (whiteguyinjapan) ees een carigurafee curabu.”

“Oh, great! Thank you very much. Okay,” I said, going to the board. And I write in penmanship more ugly than the teacher’s a sentence that relates to the relative pronoun construction of the day. Miss Yamamoto likes calligraphy club, and what’s better, Mr. Bly is in calligraphy club. My plan is that the students will wake up since I’m talking to one of their classmates, and also the girl can feel proud because she contributed to class. My teacher, who is one of the teachers I enjoy teaching with, doesn’t think this is so thrilling.

After class, she criticized most of my participation, especially this sentence, the only one I got to make.

“It has very mild relation,” she explained. Maybe she’s right, maybe I shouldn’t risk asking students things, at the risk of making a difficult sentence. (She was looking for something like, “Tom is smart, and what’s better, clever.”) I don’t think I can change the way I teach—no other way makes sense to me, but I am in a foreign culture, so maybe I’m not giving enough and trying to force what’s natural to me. And so, I will not bother the students. I will teach simpler, and what’s better, not controversially.

Japanese TV
It's hard to express the overlying trends of formality, organization, and intensity in Japanese culture. If you're going to go, go all out. If you're going to do something, you got to have the right uniform. There's a freaking uniform for everything. I bet some people even change into a TV watching uniform. I bet there's a different uniform for light strolling vs. walking or moderate-paced walking, but I'm not keen enough to pick it out.

The soap operas basically redefine the genre, with ultra-dramatic scenes that could squeeze a tear out of Dick Cheney and make their American counterpart look like a Jim Carry movie.

Right now there's all these music videos on, but they go so fast I can't tell who's who--there's a new one every 10 seconds. The dancing in the videos, I don't get. And the decorations vary from millions of pink and white balloons to a screen flashing cartoon designs with smoke coming down through stage lights. The singing...well...they try, and they throw in random English words a lot--it's common for them to write half a phrase in English and then switch to Japanese.

The there was this talk show I was watching earlier that was like a combination of Oprah, The Price is Right and Iron Chef--yeah, it's as awesome as it sounds. From what it looks like, honestly, what I think is happening is either a dude or a hot chick comes out with something they just cooked, and they serve it to several judges, who consist of celebrities and food critics, and then the people have to evaluate it and guess if the food was made as a joke or if it's actually a very odd delicacy. Sometimes they'd get up and spit it out. It was great. And then there's all these other people that comment randomly and a studio audience--I can't figure it out.

The commercials are by far the best. I've seen all kinds of washed up American celebrities endorsing things, as well as some pretty creative acting. I just watched this one where a shop owner comes out, starts yelling at the customers, and then all of a sudden, two customers come out with a limbo bar and the shop owner starts partying. I kid you not, friends. Or, there was one where people are eating rice in different situations and look really surprised. At the same time, there's this clapping and chanting I can't make out, and then they zoom out to hundreds of rice packages lined up in a bright room. And then my favorite was a bunch of car sellers sitting on top of a tall, computer-drawn garage, and they all shout something. That's it. Oh, and let's not forget the random cute cartoons that appear throughout all commercials. Those are
pretty sweet too.

Caligraphy Club
“You want to join calligraphy club?” K-sensei asked, a sudden interest coming through in the normally dry, careful way she speaks in English.

“Yes of course,” I replied.

K-sensei had just finished showing me how to make newspaper prints for student worksheets in the downstairs office, a fairly small chore, but one that I always hesitate to ask. I really don’t like bothering the English teachers so much and it seems like there’s always something. I had tried on several other occasions to do so, but the senior teacher at my department had always made them for me, as he enjoys taking my drafts from under my nose like fresh meat. It’s a bit flattering, but also alienating since it’s hard to retain ownership of anything I do. And then he tries to change things…

“I am in charge of calligraphy club,” K-sensei continued, as we abruptly changed course to go to the calligraphy (shodou) room. K-sensei is still an enigma to me—I don’t really know what she gets out of teaching. When she said she’s in charge of calligraphy club, I think it’s mostly a formality since she doesn’t participate with the students. I had met some of the students before, maybe two of all five that were there.

I was introduced to the calligraphy teacher, who was a very warm, friendly woman that smiled and nodded a lot. She had drawn the Chinese characters for my name a month earlier as a gift, but I never got the chance to meet her.

The participants were all girls, except one boy, who was a third year student and just kind of hung out there while he studied—third year students have too much pressure from entrance exams so they quit their club activities.

There was a big debate over what I should draw first and it turned into more of an ordeal than I expected. Finally, I just pulled out a simple one—“TEN,” which is the character for spirit/energy, as used in weather and stuff. The boy student, y-kun—the kind of person that’s all smiles, asks the shiest girl in the corner to draw it for me.

“She is the besto,” he explains.

K-sensei nods. “She has been practicing since she was a little girl. Yeah,” she says, still nodding.

The girl wiped and wiped the brush, took some practice strokes over the page, planning her attack. Then, slower than I imagined, and with great care, she drew the character stroke by stroke. It looked exactly like the sample sheet she had from class.

Then I took a stab at it. I don’t think I did that bad for a first time, but there was a very obvious difference in my creation and her work of art. The teacher chattered in Japanese that I didn’t understand and worked with me on drawing, guiding the brush as I held it. Other students worked with me and showed me some of their favorite characters, or just talked with me about school.

I joined the club in order to learn the characters, but already after my first day, I discovered how beautiful the characters can be. The brush stroke is unbelievably sensitive, and although I have a very poor conception of the art, I can appreciate the power behind it. Learning Japanese, I’ve felt more and more like a kid playing with his dad’s gun, which I’ve never done. The more I learn, the more easily I see how I can make mistakes and make even offensive or at least impolite, crude statements, on accident, or because I don’t know any other way to phrase myself. But the students are unbelievably patient and appreciative of my effort, more than I could ask for.

In return, I drew their names in the Japanese alphabet, which they were amazed at, but shouldn’t have been—I’m ashamed at how little Japanese I can speak. I titled it “shodou club,” and the boy y-kun promptly pinned it up on the wall, looking sort of like a two-year-old’s fridge finger painting.

Tea at the Track
“What’s my name?”

“Ah, Chihiro-san.”

Another member of the badminton club pointed to her nose and smiled.

“Ooh. This one’s hard,” I said.

Another girl told me the wrong name, a joke that everyone understands but me. I’m assuming she changed the name to mean something silly like noodle or curious or worse.

“Kyoko-san.” And I continued down the line with moderate success. Just wait until tomorrow when I get all of them wrong, I think.

They smile when I get their names right. And when I get them wrong or don’t remember them, they act as if I just insulted their mother and their mother’s mother. So understandably, I hesitate to ask names—it’s a really big commitment, considering my memory is like a 70 page notebook with 69 and a half pages ripped out. I’m sure there’s some explanation for that—maybe it’s because my family used lead cookware up until last year. Or because my parents relived the hippie era for 9 months in 1980. I’m sure I’ll hear the story some day.

Even though I’ve come down with another cold, I decided to try and run with the track team. It started when I finished playing dodge ball, which I was invited to by chance when I was returning from my last class. I was on the athletic field, and I know that the track team met near there, but I wasn’t sure exactly.

I went to talk briefly with the chemistry teacher, who I can communicate only a little better with in English than Japanese, which boils down to about like two mice trying to describe how a star fuels itself. I’ve been roped into these weekly chemistry in English classes, which are about as much fun as bathing a cat. Make that 30 cats. Maybe that’s because we’re doing cat bath experiments. Better stop those. And this humor thread.

So I went back to the athletic field, saw no one, and started running around the castle area, where they practice. I caught up with random student groups and asked them what club they were in. I ended up running with members of the basketball club, volleyball club, tennis club, and of course, the badminton club.

Finally I found some of the runners on the track team, but only the sprinters, not the long distance runners, who were apparently taking the day off, except for one student, for some reason. After making a lame joke about the long distance runners being more lazy than the sprinters, I decided to join the sprinters.

They were doing an intricate series of exercises outside the athletic field on some mats. I recognized one of the more outgoing students form a first year class I taught, who happened to have played the role of a woman in one of the school plays over the ‘bunkasai’ (school festival).

The exercises were a lot like track exercises we did, only way different. Yeah. In a group of three, we took turns counting to ten, letting me count in English and Japanese. One of them attempted an English count to. I was happy they let me jump right in with them. After you say a number, the other guys answered back with “hai” or “ee.” It was something we never did in track at home, and it gave me a very strong sense of belonging and teamwork, like they were supporting you through the exercise.

Then we did a lot of sprints, and I basically got my ass handed to me, although I at least was able to keep up through the whole workout. Another great perk was how they yelled, “Fight-too,” as their encouragement to each other. I didn’t actually figure this out until the end of practice. I thought they were saying maido (every time). It really sounded like that. Japanese is full of odd standardized greetings and cheers to meet different social situations, and as far as my narrow, hindered perspective can tell, they don’t vary much. For example, you always say, “otsukare sama” at the end of the day to a coworker, which means, “good work,” basically. Litterally, it means, you must be tired. In America, I would change it up with, “nice job, I appreciate your help today, go home and have a beer, man, you rocked the party, or you really put in a lot of time today huh?” and other longer personalized sayings. As far as I can tell, they don’t really vary them at all, or at least, not as much or often.

Along with some of the immature jokes that the guys try to do around me—like telling me their friend is a fag, crazy or foolish, etc., I had some good talks. I can’t communicate very well—I tell them what I think are useful expressions in English, like “how’s it going?” or how to respond to that question. My favorite part was after I helped myself to some water from the fountain, the only boy who’s name I knew offered me some of the tea the rest of the team was drinking.

“Here,” he said, handing me the drink.

“Oh, thanks. Tea?”

“When you’re done you just—“ he said, pointing to a bin where they put the plastic, multicolored reusable cups. I nodded and he smiled, going back to practice. It’s a big risk when you’re an adolescent boy to bring in someone to involve someone new with your group, especially a teacher, and especially someone who doesn’t speak your language. He did it with a kind confidence, but without losing his cool attitude. When I finished the tea, they were already lining up for another sprint series.

“Buria!” One of the students called. “Fight-too!”

I Speak English. I Don't Grammar English.
How many languages do you speak? I remember my mother introducing me to distant relatives or friends, saying, “Oh, and he lived in Italy and Spain. He can speak Greek, Italian, Spanish…” And I couldn’t understand how you could learn so many languages, when I was struggling to understand the Spanish news broadcasts they made us watch in college.

How much language do you need before you can say you speak it? Why do people learn language? Do you want to just be able to order at a restaurant or find a solid friend from another culture? I just want to be able to chat up whoever I come across.

These are the kind of things I think about when the teacher is going on about English grammar in Japanese in class. In one of the third year classes, there’s a girl who spent time in an English school in Europe, and she can speak better English than the entire staff. I can speak to her in a way that’s lost on the teachers, but the other teachers have a more expansive vocabulary and knowledge of the language, so she still takes the classes to help her on the exams.

I finally decided that this is what’s important about language, at least to me: expression. The superficial parts of language are the vocabulary and grammar. What’s important to me are the more elusive elements like the music in the language and the creative twists people invent. I like the way people change language in dialects and contractions—it sounds more natural. But that’s not what they teach in school.

No less than half the students were sleeping in Y-sensei’s class, who has a talent for engaging students, but the other day, in his 6th period class with me, he decides to embarrass me by asking a question about grammar.

“Ah, Mr. (whiteguyinjapan), I have a question.”

“Oh, good. I like questions,” I said, trying to sound interested and stir up some of the students.

“Many students are confused by the word, ‘home.’ You can say, ‘I am taking the bus to school,’ but not ‘I am taking the bus to home,’ that is incorrect. You are a native speaker, so can you give us a satisfactory explanation?”

“English is strange.”

“That is your explanation,” he says, still smiling wide.

“Yes.”

“Ok, I will tell you. ‘Home’ is adverb, or a modifier, so you do not need to put a preposition before it…”

Another look at the class and only a few stragglers are managing to stay awake. Most of them have collapsed on their desks.

I like being involved in the class, instead of hanging at the side, or walking up and down the aisles, glancing at the Japanese translations that I can’t understand, but I wish he’d involve me by letting me ask students questions or somehow engaging them. I don’t think me talking about grammar in English really helps them. Are they going to go to America and chat up a guy about adverbs? In L.A they’d be robbed, and in New York they’d get punched for bringing up adverbs.

I haven’t been able to make myself get up at 6:00 to run for the last two weeks. I’m just getting more and more lazy as time goes on. I’m waiting for something to change, but I’m the only thing that needs to change. I forgot my lunch and my tea thermos at home today, and I ride to school slowly. I don’t worry about how I’m going to get involved inc class today, no, when I’m alone I think of darker things. I imagine what it would be like if the big earthquake would strike today.

I go by the train station and people are running to catch their train. Businessmen suck down cigarettes, nursing hangovers. Kids in different uniforms ride or walk to their schools.

I get philosophical and wonder what people want out of life. The English department head wants students to pass the Tokyo examinations, and to deepen his understanding of grammar. My mother wants to see our family together at Christmas. I don’t really know what I want, but I think it’s something very simple. Sometimes I just want coffee or beer or a good gyoutsa. But I’m wrong. A student rides by me on her bike and smiles. I have no idea what her name is, but I can recognize her face. She’s in one of my 17 different classes of 30 students each. They all have black hair and the same uniform.

“Good moring!”

“Good moaneen!”

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you. And you?”

“Sleepy.”

“O, aa, me too!”

Laugh, I Speak Japanese Like an American
Now Playing: Radiohead, Greenday, Elliot Smith, Martin Sexton, (Old-school) Howie Day, Cibo Matto
If I ever complain about my job, I hope someone flies out here and slaps me. But I will critique the finer points that get me down. Bewcare, my English get's stranger each day, as I begin to think the sketchy English in the grammar books is correct.

The whole reason for the JET program is to improve the English speaking ability of the teachers and the students. Why does it need improvement? Because it doesn’t happen. Almost no one speaks the language except the teachers, and even they won’t speak it in the company of the senior teacher—they’ve been trained so well to be embarrassed of their miraculous language skills. No kidding, the teachers know so much English, although most of them have a pretty thick accent, it’s amazing they speak at all after the traditional Japanese school system has discouraged any spontaneous dialogue exchange.

The current language system is based on getting kids to pass the college entrance exams—some of which I would struggle with. Teachers just teach grammar all day. Some of the books I teach out of are ironically called, “Grammar for Communication,” but have grammar constructs you might only find in a 19th century novel. No kidding. Things like, “A whale is no more a fish than a horse is.” Hell, I can’t even figure that one out. Or what about, “What with the weather, I became late to class.” When’s the last time you used that puppy? I think I used it in an English paper back in ’96, but not since.

The head English teacher writes most of the textbooks at the school, which are full of strange sentences. “If only you can improve on questions, that is our greatest joy,” I think was one of the lines.

It’s really amazing how much they know, but it’s so tragic that they’re trained to be ashamed of their speech. When I speak to them, I can see them hesitating to flinch, like a dog that’s been abused. They wince and smile when they finish a sentence. Most of them, anyway. Two of them are very proud of their English and successfully get me to make spelling errors in class.

So my job is to let slip minor errors. In a dialogue we a teacher and I made for class, I even said, “What is he talking [saying] to you?” as per the script. I do double takes at some of the sentences in class, and sometimes read them incorrectly in order to make it natural speech.

It’s hard to get myself involved in class beyond reciting things and speaking about my day in sentence constructs relevant to the grammar-of-the-day. More than that—kids sleep through class or restrain ADD impulses in sheer quiet for the entire course of the class. I see some of the more talkative kids almost shivering in their seats, wishing they could act out, but they never do. When called on, students speak in the quietest voice imaginable. Sometimes I whisper in class as part of my act, and you can hear it across the room perfectly. I catch smiles from students, but others pass out from boredom. And some students keep pace with the lesson—those who learn well from lecture.

But the teaching style isn’t likely to change, unless university exams become more focused on speech communication, but that won’t happen. So Japan’s solution is to throw ALTs like me to try and force teachers to let me chat up the students. It’s a kind of half-solution. It’s a very strange job—it’s as if your parents hired someone to be your friend.

Many of the students are responsive, and I make some meaningful connections. But it’s hard sometimes because I have no authority. I am rarely addressed as “sensei” by either teachers or students. Sometimes the students don’t even give me a “san”—just, “burai,” which they would never do to another Japanese person—you always give some kind of ending. They learn it from the teachers, and I can’t demand being called, “sensei,” since I am not a legal teacher. It would also be very disrespectful. It’d be like a secretary in the doctor’s office demanding to be called Dr. Sally.

Lately I’ve been losing my…I don’t know what you call it…urge to…do things well. Motivation? Maybe. I learn more and more Japanese every day, and I speak less and less, as I realize how little I speak. It’s also hard to motivate myself when I know everyone speaks English, and since they always laugh. Yes, they always laugh. One of the world’s oldest jokes is listening with arrogant pleasure to a foreigner attempt your native tongue. Okay, it’s funny at first, and there are some pretty comical things that come out of it, but it gets to be oppressive when you get laughed at every time. If I get the word wrong, oh that’s funny—that’s a no brainer. But if I get it right, that’s even more funny for some reason. I used to ask teacher how to say things all the time, but now I avoid it—I think it annoys them, and they like to teach me funny words too. Words that haven’t been used in common speech for over 50 years. I knew how to say, “parchment,” before, “paper,” for example.

I never really had a sense of humor, but I had a way of making things seem funny, and I seem to be losing it along with my energy. Every day brings something new. It’s neat to see everything in Japanese at first, but after a while it beats into you how little you know, and how long the language acquisition process is. I still don’t really know how to use my air conditioner, microwave, TV. How do I buy food? I guess, usually. I’ve been eating a lot of this red fish, which I think is mackerel, but it could be salmon. I desperately try to learn how to cook by inspecting other teachers’ and students’ “bentos” (specially packed lunches) which are intricately put together with all kinds of goodies. Everyone is genuinely entertained to see what I attempted. Each lunch basically has some kind of fish, something pickled, a steamed vegetable, and rice with some strange seasoning—anything from purple stuff (I’m not sure) to seaweed—I’ve memorized the four main kinds of seaweed too, I’m so proud of myself.

I dragged a teacher to the post office today to help me send a money order and it took three tries on the form for us to get it right. I was late to my next class, but I managed to turn it around by making up a story about my tardiness. The newspaper is written at an 8th grade level or so, so you have to know the 400 some characters in the phonetic alphabets (I got that down, believe it or not) and then 2,000 Chinese characters. More if you want to read other things. Like bills—forget about reading those—I have to ask teachers every time. I don’t like bothering them, and they don’t like being bothered I’m sure, but they’re very helpful.

And I guess that’s what always turns me around—someone smiles and decides to help me. A student gave me some minidisks of Japanese bands he likes, and I gave him Weezer. I don’t have a minidisk player, but someday…someday. Another student took the time to explain the difference between the 8 or so teas in the vending machine—that’s like their pop. There’s some really good tea—I know the popular one now. I easily impressed a student by opening the door for her and her friends, which they apparently don’t do here. “Oh, burai-sensei, sankyuu. “Radies faasuto (Ladies first)! Nihonjin otoko no hito wa...” Then there’s the boy in class who drew a fantasy car that could fly, naming it the “super bly,” with a sweet drawing of a man all too close to my likeness behind the wheel. And then that one student that didn’t laugh when I spoke Japanese. Yes, there is only one that doesn’t. One of the janitors fixed my bike after I inquired about a 14 mm wrench in my hack Japanese. He was so proud, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I worked in a bike shop for 8 years. And my last happy memory is the students who screamed when they saw me at the supermarket, and helped me find baking soda, which I used to make sweet and sour pork in my best “bento” lunch yet.

Sensei!
Whoah, man, that last entry was pretty heavy. Whew. If you just read it before this one maybe you should get cold, artificially-flavored grape drink or at least stand up and stretch. Me, I’m going for the grape drink. Do they sell those in America?

After my predecessor mentioned something about the office social structure, I’ve been noticing little things beneath the surface that escaped me before. The head of the department is an experienced female teacher, but that just means she has more paperwork and responsibility for little extra pay. The authority in the department is the once-retired, now returned H-sensei, who is a little too involved with his job.

He takes his work home and brews up strange projects for everyone. He’s overly interested in nutrition—I think because he’s realizing how old he is. He eats something in the morning—it must be like a pickled fish, or something, but it smells like something died.

One of the events he organized recently was the visit of some Australian high school students that were taking a tour of Japan. The lesson consisted of lining them up in a panel on one side of the classroom and grilling both them and the Japanese students with questions like, “What country do you like and want to visit?” “What comes to your mind when you think of fruit?” “Do you think an army is necessary?” That last one was very sensitive, especially for the Japanese students. He dragged answers out of them and the tension in the room was so thick you could bounce a sumo wrestler on it. I guess it would have been too fun and social to let the students talk over green tea ice cream or something.

Besides H-sensei, there are some very talented teachers that I work with, but they always submit to whatever he has planned. He’s so used to getting his way, it’s fed his arrogance to the teeth. The guy even makes the textbooks, which are full of strange English. If he has me proofread something, I usually point out maybe a quarter of the mistakes, so as not to threaten our working relationship. He’s always very surprised when I do show him a mistake, and before I can correct it, he suggests another way of rephrasing, which is just as bad as the first.

The other teachers aren’t spineless—they have their opinions, but because they follow the traditional culture of not challenging the elders, they never say anything. They avoid eating lunch in the break room most of the time because then they have to discuss things with H-sensei, and he’s very invasive in conversation. If they do come in their with me, they are totally different people. First, I noticed that they don’t speak any English to me—only H-sensei has the privilege of translating when he feels like it. They also are much more reserved than usual. I could tell they’re putting on an act, but it made me feel more excluded and alienated than before. I think they don’t speak English to me because they’re afraid of being criticized by H-sensei.

I also haven’t earned the “sensei” title that they referred to the previous ALT with. They just call me my last name with “san,” “kun,” or sometimes no suffix, but then only in English. Sometimes I get a “sensei” from them in the classroom, but not always. And the students pick up on this.

The lessons are very traditional and I have a hard time getting involved with them with some teachers. Sometimes I’m just a tape recorder. The other day, a student began hyperventilating in class, and I was completely useless. A student yelled, “sensei,” cutting me off halfway through my pronunciation drill. The class sat still and looked at their desks while the teacher went back to attend to the student. It was like that for maybe three minutes, but it felt much longer.

In most classes, I think I learn more Japanese than the students learn English, since most of the lesson is in Japanese. On the other hand, sometimes I learn English, as one teacher insists on giving me spelling tests in class, in order to prove that “even native speakers sometimes make mistakes.” I’m not a goods speller, and I can only spell if I write the word down, not in front of the class.

One teacher, T-sensei, who loves American comedies, I’ve been very involved. We organized a mock court trial with the students one week, which was fun. Last week, following a lesson on etiquette, we had students invent good and bad things they’ve done in the last week and share them with a partner. It was priceless hearing students say, “I told a lie!” “I crushed father’s car,” “I smoked.” At least I’m getting somewhere with one teacher.