Self Help Books Are Killing Philosophy
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SELF-HELP

Every famous poet’s work
I’ve ever read contains
A poem about poetry.
I’ve always thought it was
Arrogant to glorify your own craft,
But as in many things I’ve said,
I find I’ve become a hypocrite.
In fact, I think it’s an important
Part of manhood to admit that
You contradict yourself. Maybe not.

I read a poem that a friend
Showed me, taken from a
Self-help book. By the way,
Self help books are one of the
Most brilliant marketing decisions
Of our time. Some press realized that
People in a philosophical crisis will
Buy anything. Fortune tellers have
Known this for years. The poem

Gave good advice on nearly
Every level of human life,
“Don’t compare yourself with others…
…Nurture relationships…Love, teach, share…”
As if the author were trying to conquer
Every corner of wisdom in one,
Fell pen stroke—or, rather, several
Keystrokes on the word processor.

It was good advice, but then, I’ve
Never been able to take purely
Good advice—not honestly, anyway.
I don’t think poets and philosophers
Would have begun writing if
Cliff Notes could teach you
All about life and death, although

My ‘A’ in high school English
Would tell you differently. To pass
On wisdom, you have to
Experience it—read Blake, Shakespeare,
Or make a stupid mistake and try
To figure out why it was a
Stupid mistake. The good advice
That would have you avoid that
Mistake won’t teach you why
It was such a stupid mistake,
So you make the mistake at the
Risk of becoming an idiot, but

Not an ignorant idiot at least.
This may not sound like good
Advice, but that’s why you can
Take it. And also why children
Eat sweets when their
Mothers warn them about
Cavities; why boys still break
Girls’ hearts; why I keep
Getting my manuscripts back
In the mail with words of
Discouragement. And why
I made the stupid mistake of
Moving across the sea as far
As possible from the one
Person who made me want
To follow all the good
Advice I’ve ever gotten.

No one is going to Abiko station
I haven’t had that much teaching experience, little bits here in there, most of my working conception of what it means to teach coming from working with the best science teacher I’ve ever come across, Mr. C back in Minnesota. I still have a lot to learn about teaching—no one can ever be a perfect teacher, I don’t think there is such a thing. All my textbooks and professors in school talked about things like “professional development,” “student motivation,” and “classroom management,” but they all seemed like (and I say this knowing my professors may very well be reading this) artificial names that don’t really capture the elusive art of teaching.

I don’t mean to discredit the creditable institution I attended or teaching texts, not at all. I think teaching people to be teachers is not always possible, and I can’t really see improving the program that exists. A teacher’s education begins with their own attitude and approach to life. I don’t think there’s a certain “personality type” that will make the best teacher, although some may have an advantage.

The most important thing about being a teacher, is caring for students, not trying to impress them, not trying to force feed them material, not being their friend, and definitely not being their enemy. Everyone has their definition of a good teacher—someone who inspires students to learn, someone who helps them get better grades, someone who helps them decide what they want to do with their life. I’ve read all kinds of fluffy, flowery stuff like this that make you feel like you just watched a Julia Roberts chick flick. My classmates at teacher school came up with all kinds of tear-jerking responses, hoping to be granted recommendation for licensure. These are good definitions, and if teachers can actually do these things then I agree: they are good. But it’s much simpler than this.

A good teacher makes a student less afraid to grow up. Everyone’s afraid of growing up. Even the kids that act like they’re 30 or 40 hide behind a mask of maturity so that they can pretend they’re not growing up. Others, myself included, pretend they’ll never grow up.

That said, there aren’t a lot of good teachers. Most of mine made me more afraid to grow up, but looking back, I remember there were maybe three that made me think I could make a pretty decent adult, and two of them were actually licensed professionals in the public school.

On the JET program, there aren’t a lot of these people, but I found one yesterday, and it wasn’t someone who I thought it would be. Previously, at a language institute that we went to, a place that they send diplomats and such for Japanese language training, we had what I called, “language camp.” It was pretty much a hotel with classrooms. Very nice place. Some idiots with JET got drunk and trashed the karaoke room there. I was angry.

As a JET, we’re representatives of our respective countries, and it’s easy to make a negative impression. And given the current international perception of America, that’s not good timing.

We’re also representatives of the program we’re on. JETs are paid by the people’s taxes, so when we’re off at language camp, I would have expected people to do what I was doing—studying in my room until I fell asleep.

The next week I worked hard at school, trying to figure out what I would be doing this year, teaching some more lessons—the third year students start early, and the rest of the students a week later—and trying to figure out Japanese.

That Saterday, I got up early, made some coffee, studied Japanese, went for a run, and completely forgot that I had a meeting that day, where I would be assisting with interviewing new teachers. When I got back from my run, I had five missed calls from the same number, and that kind of jogged my memory—pun intended.

I called the number, spoke with my board of education supervisor, and he was upset, but not that upset. It was 9:30 at the time, and I was to have met him at 9:00 with the other 10 JETs. The Japanese value punctuality almost more than the actual work you do after you’ve been punctual, so it was not a good idea. I could have made up an excuse—I’m actually much more comfortable doing that, but I told the truth. It’s a strange habit I’ve acquired—whenever it can benefit me to tell the truth, say, about something I’m good at or something, I usually make something up. On the other hand, if it can benefit me to lie, like in this situation, which I’m perfectly capable of, I always tell the truth. I don’t know how I got that habit—it’s the exact opposite of what a successful person would do.

Luckily, this incident was with the board of education, not my specific school, and with no one I work with there, so my coworkers wouldn’t think any less of me. However, it’s good to keep the board of education on my side, since they directly employ me. Of course, I’d really have to get them angry to get fired, since it takes a year to recruit a new JET.


At the next meeting I had, the following Monday, I made a point to dress nice and come really early, as to make my apologies in person. I left on a 7:30 train, and this was my first experience in the real rush hour of Osaka. The train was already full when it arrived at my stop, which is still a half hour from downtown—not a good sign.

It’s really the most comfortable crowd I could ever imagine being in, but it’s difficult to describe what it’s like to ride Japanese trains. As I’ve said before, everything in Japan is faster and smaller and has internet access, and the trains are no exception. I’ve got to watch my head going in, and the arm holds dangling form the ceiling are at about nose height.

I think one of the reasons trains have flourished in Japan is that they fit right in with traditional culture. I do still have a very simplistic conception of Japanese culture, but I’ve noticed a common thread through it all. The martial arts—a Karate kick is brutally efficient, terribly dangerous, perfectly in control, and requires intense concentration and talent. Swinging a Samurai sword—the same thing. The food is organized in an artful as well as utilitarian manner, as are the houses, and the flower arranging also has a similar artful organization. A place for everything and everything in it’s place, fits Japan, as well as the right tool for the job. People’s uniforms are tailored specifically for what they want to do—whether it’s go for a run, go to work, practice karate or go to a concert. There’s a kind of intense deliberation, organization and efficiency to everything, and all of this can be summed up in a train ride—it gets as many people as possible, as fast as possible to the same places at predictable times. The 7:30 train comes at 7:30 and it goes where it says it will. And it’s crowded as hell.

I usually give up my seat to an old woman, so I stand when I ride the train anyway, but it’s usually not this crowded. People fall asleep sitting down and standing up, mostly the businessmen. They will sometimes fall into the person next to them, but they don’t do anything. If they did that in New York, they’d get thrown out the window. I suspect they don’t wake the person who’s drooling on their suit here not out of fear of them getting angry, but out of kindness or sympathy.

People play with their cell phones—people of all ages. Grown men listen to pop music with their iPods, young girls text message their boyfriends on their cells, some read newspapers or novels, or do one of these in vain and fall asleep. About half of everyone stares at the floor or out the window.

No one speaks. Maybe there’s one pair of old women that chat quietly, but that will be it. The announcer’s monotone of the next stop, the ka-chunk rhythm of the car and the high pitch of the breaks are the only sounds.

It’s hard to keep balance and I try all kinds of postures to keep my footing since I don’t want to hold the handhold dangling from the ceiling—that would defeat the challenge. About half the standing people do like me, at the expense of occasionally making a footing adjustment here and there. My back continually hits the person behind me, but I don’t bother to check to see who it is.

More people cram in at each stop, and despite the air conditioning in the car, body heat from all around makes me sweat. I had my pocket dictionary out to try and learn some new phrases or quiz my memory, which is pretty awful, especially with Japanese. Everything still sounds the same “Takatakataka…” If you’re in someone’s way when they’re trying to get on or off, they won’t say anything, and will just try to slip past you unnoticed, but I try to keep my lumbering frame out of the way.

I’ve heard stories about women being harassed on the trains regularly. One of my better acquaintances here said that the same man harassed his Japanese girlfriend’s close friend every day on the way back from work for a year. From another friend, I heard that he was riding the last train back from the city and this drunk dude was slouching over on the girl next to him. This happens all the time on a crowded train—at any time on the train, probably half the people are sleeping or dozing, so people lean into each other’s shoulders, chests and laps. The drunk guy would get off at each stop, look around, and then come back in and sit down right next to the same girl. She tried moving, but he would just sit down almost on her without saying a word. That would never happen where I come from. The girl would either, a. Smack the guy b. mace him—every woman carries a can of mace now, or at least hair spray c. lecture him on woman’s rights d. explain how painful childbirth is, or e. ask him if he wants to just be friends. Of course women resort to these defense lines on the slightest display of interest, as has been my experience. I’ve experienced items a-e on regular occasions, the only provocation being a look in their direction or asking them if they’ve gained weight. If I wanted to experience items a-e, I’d pull out one of my “A”-lines on asking women out, like, “Hey, why are you walking that way, my car is over here,” or, “Are you tired? Because you’ve been running through my mind all day.” I actually don’t use lines, if I’m seriously interested in a girl. In that case I usually avoid eye contact and leave the area as soon as possible. So far, it hasn’t been very effective.

I got off at Tenguchi station and made my way to the subway. I stared at the map for awhile, which looks like a colored spider web layed on top of a pile of snakes. I figure out where I want to go and buy a ticket. As I go through the gate, there’s the strangest sensation that something’s strange—I get this feeling here and there in Japan, like when I discover still moving squid in the package at the grocery store. Fresh means something else here.

The sound of moving feet and tickets clicking through the machines filled the station—a kind of emptiness with a clicking beat. It finally hit me—no one was talking. Half the people ran for a stairway, while others just walked fast. I had no idea where to go—I’m illiterate here and I haven’t been this way. It reminded me of when I was little and got lost in the grocery store, looking for mom. Instead of mom, I found a map on the wall and stared at it a good ten minutes. At last a Japanese angel stopped and asked in perfect English, “Do you need help?”

I had just figured out my route, which was a little less complex than the plumbing in New York, but any man who is of my sexual orientation does not refuse help of any kind from beautiful women.

“Take this subway. Down these stairs on the left,” she said.

“Ah, thank you,” I said as she turned and literally ran down the steps with everyone else that knew what they were doing. It’s still a strange feeling to have so many people dressed in business suits running past me. I looked back to find the woman who’d helped me, but she had disappeared in the crowd, just like the 1920’s novels say. I barely took my eyes from her and she was gone. I got on the first subway car I found, standing while everyone faces forward, staring at anything but another person. The loneliest place might be a crowd, especially when everyone is going somewhere you’re not.

Herding Foreigners
The train station is always busy, but during rush hours it’s really busy. I headed into Osaka with three of my fellow English teachers from Kishiwada, my best acquaintances so far. The trains are air-conditioned and if you don’t mind making an old woman stand, you can get a comfortable seat. Of course, I do mind making an old woman stand, unlike most of the Japanese youth here, who fall asleep on the train or don’t seem to notice that there’s a woman who’s about five minutes from dying several inches from his knees.

So we stand. We found our way to orientation very easily and sat through some of the same old. The Japanese formalities aren’t that fun, but the arrogant and usually unhelpful speeches by the experienced foreign English teachers were not much better.

One of the presenters tried making some lame jokes, about how his girlfriend was controlling. One of my friends just said, “psh!” audibly.

Of course, there were a lot of successful jokes by the presenters, but I don’t really appreciate those anymore. More and more I notice the polite type of humor in speeches, and I don’t find it funny or amusing or creative or insightful, just a waste of time. More and more, I appreciate people who are brief, concise and sincere. I even get annoyed with myself when I try to make amusing speeches, which in hindsight often seem haughty or even cruel. Humor is overdone. Everyone claims to like it, but no one really understands it.

Afterwards, we went to a bar for dinner and social time. The longer this “program” goes on, the more it feels like freshman year of college, and a lot of people certainly act like that. It seems that there aren’t many expectations for us to act professional, and people pick up on that.

At the first bar, we mostly talked about how little we know about ordering food in Japan. I had my phrase book, and tried my best to help people, but one of the guys there kept trying to use English and body language, even cutting me off mid-sentence, which really bothered me. He’s one of the guys that I rode into town with, Mr. C, and he seems to enjoy being in control more than anything else. I think he’s just getting impatient with being in a foreign country, and I think he’s going to have a hard time adjusting to the culture. Control freaks can adapt to new cultures, I think, but lazy control freaks just get frustrated, like Mr. C.

Another person, Ms. A, seems to be doing all right adjusting. She likes the outdoors, and is one of the more sane people here. But she had me try to order soba noodles with no mayonnaise or eggs, which I did, somehow, but she needs to relax the eating pickiness before she can really enjoy Japan. I’ve been down the vegetarian road myself, but I think social priorities should come before diet preferences. Some of the most annoying people I’ve met in my life are of the vegan or animal rights crowd, who seem to put animal rights above those of humans. I’ve got no problem with that, but they seem to be doing it in order to shame everyone else, instead of out of their own ethical sensibility.

The next bar we went to was the Blow Bar. I don’t know about the name, but the place is nothing special. Our advisor, one of the English teachers, who is kind of counselor/advisor for the English teachers in the area organizes social events like this. I’m pretty sure he gets some money from the bar for dragging a bunch of foreigners there—there’s lots of foreigners that get all or part of their cash flow from being bar/club promoters I’m finding out. I think he took the job as the advisor in order to make cash this way.

The bar is full of loud, lonesome foreigners. It’s funny what alcohol and being starved for social contact in your native language will do to people. The way people approach you is completely different—like you have been working with them for years, but never really got to go out together, when you really don’t have much to talk about.

I got up to get drinks for people, which is still a challenge in Japanese, but I did. Everyone I got drinks for paid up except for this larger girl I was sitting with, who I’d met for the first time that night. Everyone else I knew.

When I told her it was 500 yen, she said, “I’ll get you on the next one.”

She could have actually asked if that was okay to do that, or actually not assumed that I was going to drink anymore, or that I was leaving soon, but she didn’t.

“All right,” I said, reluctantly. I was sick that night, so I didn’t want to drink much.

I was taking a while to finish my beer, and she quickly finished hers.

“I’m already done, and you’ve barely finished yours. What’s the matter?”

“I’m kind of sick, so I’m trying to pace myself.”

“You’re a lightweight!” she said.

“No, I just don’t want to drink a lot tonight.”

She brings someone else into it. “I just finished this beer in the time it took him to drink a quarter of his. Can you believe that?”

“Why is this a contest?” I asked.

“You pacing yourself,” Ms. A asks.

“No, I’m a little sick, so I don’t want to come down hard, you know?”

“You better finish that before I finish this next beer. You drink less than my girlfriend,” she said.

“Thank you. I feel much better now,” I said. At this point, I stopped talking to her, and listened to other people talk about how they wanted to climb Mt. Fuji. I could tell that girl—I forgot her name—was insecure about something, and I thought it was her weight at first. But since she brought up that she was gay, that puts the whole competition with me in a new perspective. I’ve had a few gay friends, but gay or not, I can’t stand people that hostile just because of prejudice. It makes me sick inside.

People drank a lot there. I left my heavy drinking days in college, for the most part. I don’t enjoy getting heavily drunk or recovering from it the next day.

One of the better-looking girls in the crowd, probably the cutest here was dancing with a guy in a more than suggestive manor.

“That guy’s a doosh-bag,” Mr. Mi said. I don’t know the guy, but I can tell just from looking at him, that he’s an airhead. A wooden smile and too much attention given to his own body-building, a typical Arizona college student.

“Well, they’re not wasting any time,” I said.

“I can’t believe she’s doing that. You know Ms. Al has a boyfriend, right?” He said.

“Really? Well, that’s not going to last long.”

“I don’t know, I think she’s just flirting, but maybe she’ll break it off soon.”

“Lot of that going around,” I said. The long distance relationship seems to be popular here. I think it’s because people have a poor conception of the seriousness or meaningfulness in their relationships. Especially people like Ms. Al who can obviously date very good looking people, that kind of clouds over the emotional connection in the relationship. I’ve already seen a lot of relationships caving in here. I don’t know if it’s because people are week, they’re realizing there’s other fish in the sea, or if they really didn’t like whomever they were with.

Mr. Mi says that a girl he was talking with said I should be kicked in the head because she thought I was ignoring her. I was staring at the floor when a girl came over to meet me and the two guys I was with because I was sick and really warn out. It always intrigues me when someone says they don’t like me, so I go over and talk to her. I have a pretty pointless conversation that involves her spitting out ideology on appreciating other cultures. People love talking about how progressive they think, but never about the progressive things they’ve done. She seemed to think she was a saint for touring China and seeing the Great Wall. “

How about working with AIDS patients in Africa or leper colony in Indonesia?” I asked her.
“Yeah, I think that helps too, but I’m not the kind of person to do that,” she said.

Well, I’d had enough of that, so we snuck out before most of the people. I forgot my stuff in the bar and went back to get it, while my fellow Kishiwada friends went ahead. Some friends.
I got on the wrong train on the way back—it was a limited express, which consts extra, so I switched trains at the first stop, somehow avoiding the extra charge. Then I got on the local train, which makes about 30 stops on the way home, instead of five or six, but I made it. The train car was almost completely empty. At each stop one or two or no one would get off. The two men on the train were sitting on the other side of the train. When the train conductor announced the city name, one of the men roused an older man who had fallen asleep. He repeated the name of the city to him, which I couldn’t hear, and helped him up and off the train car. The old man staggered out and onto the platform, looking confused. I wondered how the hell he got on the train by himself in the first place. The other man got off before me too at another stop, leaving me and the empty train car. Japan is a very crowded place, but if you wait long enough, you’ll get your moment of peace, but it won’t last long, so be ready for it because it will sneak up on you. The train car went shalack, shalack, shalack, and the roofs of houses blurred in the window, and I stared for a long time.

Summer lessons
Students are always in class on time, usually before the teacher is there, and it’s summer vacation. The third year students come to school for supplementary English classes, which is a large portion of the university entrance exams. Kishiwada high school is the most difficult school to get into in the area, so students that go here usually try to get into Tokyo or Kyoto Universities, the Harvard and Oxford of Japan. It gets intense, which is why there’s a high suicide rate.

Just this morning, when I was stamping my hanko in the attendance book, a teacher remarked that a former graduate had died, as was written on the whiteboard in front of me, which I of course could not read. “But how…” she murmured in English. Another English teacher stared hesitantly at the whiteboard behind her. I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept quiet. I was told by a friend that if someone dies, and they don’t say how, you never ask because it could have been a suicide.

Students come to class in uniform—boys wear white button down shirts and navy blue pants (navy blue is big here), and girls where a very light, light blue shirt with blue plaid skirts. Everyone leaves their shoes at the entrance and puts on sandals. The sandals don’t fit me, but I try.

I went around class checking to see if students had done their homework, which I can’t help with very much because the majority of the problems involve translation from Japanese, so I can only say if it makes sense or not.

I went up to a student that hadn’t done his homework and make a confused gesture. “Where’s your homework? You didn’t do it?” It’s not actually required, since these are supplementary lessons. I point to the student next to him who has the assignment completed.

“Here we go,” I said, “He is a good student.” I speak slowly and clearly. It sounds funny to me still, but I force myself. If I were to speak like that to a native speaker, they’d probably think I was being sarcastic.

When class finally starts, H-sensei has them do some exercises to wake up, and today they are particularly strange. First he asks me if I know any that they could do, and I shake my head. He has hold their hands with all their fingertips touching the fingertips of their other hands, and then twiddle each finger around another. To my surprise, all the students do this, although I can’t see that this will help get their blood pressure up.

The material they’re studying is very difficult. The text consists of different essays, about 500 words each, with advanced grammar and idiomatic phrases. The topics range from communication among bees to culture shock. Today, we’re reading an essay on how history repeats itself.

First, I read a paragraph, all the students following closely in their books. I sound like a news castor in slow motion.

As soon as I finish, H-sensei says, very quickly, “Ok, thankyouverymuch!” similar to how the Japanese quickly say, “Arigato gozaimasu!”

Now, H-sensei dissects the text, reading and translating every part as the students follow. Each student has a thoroughly prepared case of pencils, erasers, rulers, pens, and whatever else one needs to write, in addition to an electronic translator that looks like a small laptop. They look like architects. They underline phrases in different colors and make notes on the side. They use a ruler to underline—no sloppy lines or highlighter.

H-sensei periodically asks me for a synonym of a word, or what the difference between two words are. For example, he asked me what the difference between “adjust” and “adapt” were. Well, there’s a difference, but I don’t think the students really need to know, or will remember. But I explain it, which is met by a, “Ah, yes, yes!” and he writes the words on the board. Two students are sleeping on their desks. When I read the next passage, I pace around the classroom and wander near the sleeping students.

H-sensei always likes to surprise me by asking me to explain something that we didn’t discuss beforehand. I’m pretty good at improvising, but it’s helpful to script things out beforehand in simple English, so I don’t really appreciate these surprises. He asks me to explain why “the past is not dead,” as it explains in the text. I think for a second, then grab a student’s dictionary.

“This is your favorite book,” I tell H-sensei. He nods. “You like it very much. I want this book, but you won’t let me have it.” Then I point behind H-sensei and say, “Look! There!” and then grab the book from him. He makes a sound of defeat and the students laugh. “So, then, next week, you get another book that I want. And I see you again,” I say, walking up to him. “Look! Over there!” I say again, but H-sensei has of course wised up to the trick. I make a futile grab for the book, and the students laugh again. “So, what happened?” I ask H-sensei.

“I learned a lesson,” he answers.

“You remembered the past.”

“Yes.”

“So would you say that the past is important?”

“Yes. Ok, thankyouverymuch!”

Late, he asks me to explain how history repeats itself. I write “past” on the board and next to it I write, “1988-1992.” Then I write, “the present.” I go up to one of the students I know and ask him who was president of The U.S. during 1998. He says, barely audible, “Bush.” I asked him to repeat it, holding my hand to my ear. Japanese students hate repeating themselves, but he does it. “Bush,” I said, repeating it louder for the rest of the class. “What about now? In the present?” I ask another student. “Bush,” she says, barely audibly. “Ah, so, would you say that history repeats itself?” No answer. I ask the question more slowly. “Yes.” H-sensei translates into Japanese and there are a few chuckles. For the most part, students only laugh at the more obvious and physically based humor though.
Japanese students don’t speak English, for the most part. There are a few talkative types, but they are very rare. The entrance exams focus almost exclusively on reading and writing, with a small portion of listening. So students don’t usually speak anything besides, “Good morning,” and “How are you?” If you ask them how they are, it’s always, “fine, thank you.”

After class, there’s a girl who has me check essays that she has written on the previous day’s topic. She tries to use very advanced grammar and words, and it takes me a while to figure out what she’s saying. I try to make as little corrections as I can, since I know the students get discouraged easily. “The dog could not eat food when owner adapt,” is one sentence. There’s so many possible ways to change this, but I don’t want to modify her word choice, since that would me discouraging. I don’t remember how I resolved it.

It’s lunch break, and there’s a lingering group of boys. I go up to them and say that I think they should stay in the classroom in study instead of going outside. They smile and say, “No, no.”
Outside, I go up to another group of boys, and ask them if they’d like me to read out of the book some more, so they can practice listening comprehension. I pace through their circle, they laugh and try to repeat words I say. I stop after a couple sentences. I chat with some of them a bit in my poor Japanese, which isn’t much worse than the level they can speak at. They ask some of the typical questions, “Do you eat sushi,” and “How tall are you?” I eat whole fishes, and I am 5 meters tall, are the usual answers.
“Ok, now I teach you some Japanese,” one of the boys says. He points to his groin and says, “chaka.” I’d been expecting this one, but hadn’t really thought how I’d answer. I’ve heard stories about students going to their foreign English Teachers and asking them if they have a “bigu diku?” or about their sexual habits, but it doesn’t really phase me. The best thing you can do is to command enough respect so that this doesn’t happen.

The boy repeats himself, trying to get popularity points with his other friends. I put my hand to my ear and say, “What? Louder. I can’t hear.”

He looks around to see if the group of girls nearby is within earshot. They are.

“Chiisai desu? Chiisai to iimasu?” I asked.

He shakes his head, “no, no!”

I had said, “It’s small? You said, ‘small?’” Thinking back, this may not have been the best answer, but it’s what I did, and I stand by it. That was enough English teaching for the day.

One Tequilla Two (Part 2)
Now Playing: Bach

We stop by another bar, recommended to us by some more experienced Japan foreigners because everything on the menu is 380 yen, about $3.50. This party of four white people and one Japanese girl sits near us and Mr. Ma ends up pulling them into our conversation through his mad people skills. These are maybe not the best people I’ve met in Japan so far, but definitely the most interesting.

The girls—Miss A and Miss Li—Mr. Ma and some of the people from the other table suck down cigarettes. Everyone but me takes tequila shots over the course of our stay, but I stick to a steady diet of beer and water since it’s a school night for me.

Mr. Tr is from New Zealand, has been teaching English in Japan for four years or so and is a former BMX rider. When I join the conversation, he’s elaborating about his latest injury, where he broke his wrist. He talks about how the doctor had to re-break it twice and put in so many screws and whatever else. He’s broken a lot of other bones too, I guess, I don’t remember because I was tuning in and out. I worked at a bike shop for a long time, so I can fake an interest in what he’s saying. I usually don’t try to talk to people I’m not interested in, but Mr. Ma has discovered that he and his friend, Mr. Cl, practically run the night life here, which is exactly who Mr. Ma has been trying to meet.

I have a gift of either being able to slip out of a conversation unnoticed or dominate the entire thing, so I perk up at this point and try to use whatever people skills I have. Mr. Cl is part Asian, from Canada, and is dating the distractingly attractive Japanese girl at the table, who’s name I forgot as soon as I heard it, but I think it was Miss J. Mr. Cl and Mr. Ma make extra money by organizing parties and as liaisons for D.J.’s and things; I don’t quite understand how this works. They’re also just starting a business that sells the first green tea cocktail in Japan. The idea is unique, but it seems almost a cultural sin to put alcohol in something so symbolic of Japanese culture. Why don’t they just open up a Temple-bar where take shots from Buddha’s belly. Mr. Ma is interested in all their business happenings and is throwing out names of D.J.’s and people who can help them with their work. I’m so utterly lost in this idea, but manage to hold a foot in it all, for fear of not attracting interest of the most popular foreigners in Japan.

Mr. Tr plays metal guitar, and I try to relate, but with no success. The way he talks about everything, it doesn’t sound as though he’s actually interested in the subject itself as much as he’s interested in telling me about it. He speaks quickly and builds up each sentence with such excitement that he can’t wait to get to the next one, like a kid devouring sweets. His eyes dart all over the place when he talks like a coke addict, and one point he mentions that he’s done the drug scene. Everything he answers is either a, “oh Hell, yeah,” or, “no way, man.” I don’t think he has enough attention to read a single sentence. He does mention that he’s learned Japanese entirely from his first Japanese girlfriend, and is proud that he never studied out of a book. I think it’s funny that he admits that, knowing he’s in a land where students are required to study English early on in school.

At this point, Mr. Ma’s drug use comes out too, how as working in music promotion, he’s been on about every drug out there, touring clubs in Europe. Mr. Tr. talks about the drug scene in New Zealand, which he describes as totally out of control.

Everyone does it there. “They do everything—pop X, acid, snort a line of coke before you hit the club.”
But that’s over. He’s a different person now. And he’s not going to do anything crazy on his BMX bike anymore—his hand is too messed up to afford another accident.

Everyone’s had a lot of alcohol at this point, and the fourth member of our new friends, one of Mr. Tr’s friends who’s visiting from New Zealand looks like he’s chasing imaginary fairies with his eyes. Mr. Ma talks to him a lot because he has some of the best D.J. hookups, apparently. Mr. Tr brags about how good Mr. Drunk is at the drums. It doesn’t look like he could even lift a drum stick right now.

We leave for another bar, one where Mr. Cl knows the owner. He knows a lot of bar owners. He calls ahead to get us on the guest list of the most difficult club to get into in Osaka. Yes, he’s that good.

En route to the said bar, Mr. Cl’s girlfriend tries chatting me up, and I get a bit nervous because I don’t want it to look like I’m interested in her. She’s genuinely impressed with my Japanese ability, and refuses to believe I’ve been here only two weeks. This doesn’t help. She wears this orange-brown camouflage hat and smiles a lot. I thank Mr. Cl for getting us in, but he seems to be really happy to have met us, probably because he gets a percentage of our cover charge when he recruits us for clubs.

I get a Bloody Mary at the next bar and everyone else gets at least two more drinks. On the wall there’s a menu featuring the cocktail drinks, “B-52, Cock-Sucking Cowboy, Crazy Dog, Quick Fuck, Dr. Pepper” and so on. The girls and I play Jenga for a while. Later, I try a gambling game in the corner with no success.

We leave and wander the bright streets of the Osaka night. Mr. Ma was talking to Mr. Cl about his attempt at a long distance relationship.

“How long have you been dating, man,” Mr. Cl asked him.

“Ah, like three months now.”

Mr. Cl laughs. “No way man, no fucking way. Not a chance.”

“Hey, man, I don’t know, you know? I’m willing to try it, and if it doesn’t work out, so be it.”

“Dude, you have no idea. There’s just—there’s so many hot girls in this town, man, it’s impossible.”

“Well, she’s coming to visit in three months, so we’ll see,” Mr. Ma answered. Like everything Mr. Ma pays attention to, he’s mildly amused by Mr. Cl’s doubt, and laugh talks about the issue of his girlfriend.

“Well, if you can make it three months in this city, man, I’d say you’ll get married,” Mr. Cl said.

“If it’s going to happen, I’ll text her and say it’s over ‘cuz I’m not going to cheat.”

We get to the club at about 11:30, and it’s dead. We get in for less than half the normal cover charge, and Mr. Cl gives us free drink tickets.

In passing, I mention to Mr. Cl that I have to work tomorrow.

“Man,” he says, laughing—he smiles a lot, “You ran into the wrong people tonight!”

After about an hour, the place is packed. Every single girl is ridiculously good-looking. Mr. Ma points out girls that are dressed a little to enthusiastically, and we both make faces. I didn’t really have a great time, but my companions were too drunk to even care. I was pretty sober, and did a lot of sitting at the side. It was a hip-hop club, so occasionally a black guy would come buy and Mr. Ma would exchange a handshake, and introduce me. It’s funny how black guys have an unspoken brotherhood and just talk to each other—I asked Mr. Ma about that. He said, “I don’t know why, we just do.”

Mr. Ma plays with his phone a lot, and he has a picture of his girlfriend that he checks out and shows me every few minutes.

“Man, look at that. She’s so hot. These girls got nothing on me,” he said. I wondered who he was trying to convince. “Look at that—she’s got no ass—I mean, no ass. These girls are just so skinny—that just doesn’t do it for me, man.”

Just after he says this, he starts smiling at a girl in a lounge room behind us, separated by glass. Of course, she smiles back, so he waves and she waves back, and then he goes to try to talk to her. Language is no barrier for him, and either is a comitted relationship.

Mr. Cl is a really good dancer. The music has quick, syncopated rhythms that make it feel like you’re running all the time. Mr. Drunk is really drunk at this point—he definitely has a problem. He’s classic white trash—he’s wearing a tank-top jersey and earlier he was dancing on a wall behind the dance floor. So ungraceful.

Mr. Ma is getting pretty sick, although he hides it well, so we head out of the club, full-well knowing that the trains won’t start up until 6:00 am. I don’t stop him because he convinces me it won’t cost more than 5,000 yen to cab back, but it ends up costing just under 7 grand yen, and that was after bartering with about ten taxis, and begging one random dude with a van to drive us there.

On the ride back, Mr. Ma’s girlfriend calls him, and he tells her what we’re doing. He seems to have a hard time explaining exactly what we’re doing.

“No, there’s no funny business at all, I swear. We’re just now going back to are town. I’m in a cab. Yeah, I’ll call you when I get there, I promise. Okay. I love you too. Okay, goodbye.”
We don’t exactly know our town that well, so it takes some time to direct the taxi to my apartment. Mr. Ma is wasted and can barely ride his bike back to his place, but he is so happy that he’s met the party liaisons of Osaka that he doesn’t care. I’m not quite as thrilled, as I’m spending cash a lot faster than I’d like to, and I’m not so concerned with the night life of Osaka. It’s a novelty now, but I know it will get old soon. It already is.

I can’t help but think it’s such a hollow life that some of these “English teachers,” live here. It seems like they’re always sniffing out the next party at the same time as recovering from the last one. A lot of these veteran teachers, like the ones I’ve met tonight don’t seem to really enjoy teaching. It’s as if they have no other aim in life than getting enough cash to eat and party. Maybe that’s why Mr. Tr talked so fast—drowning himself in his own words, parties, women, drugs and metal guitar. That way there’s never any silence or calm, and he can hide from himself forever. Or maybe one day he’ll cut out of a party before the 6:00 AM trains are running and he’ll find himself in an abandoned train station. He’ll remember something—his mother’s meat loaf or the smell of her perfume, maybe even start to cry, and suddenly have the urge to go somewhere—anywhere, as long as he can keep moving.

One Tequila Two (part 1)
Now Playing: Mozart

One Tequila Two Tequila Three

Innocently enough, I confused the name of, “Namba,” with, “Nara,” the latter being one of the older parts of Osaka prefecture, where there’s some temples I want to see. I had my Sunday afternoon clear, and Mr. Ma—this suave black JET from LA who lives not a block away. He just wanted to know what I was up to and we went for a bike ride. I had to come back at two when Yo-sensei would be delivering a fridge to my apartment, free of charge.

“Dude, I’m meeting some chicks I met last night in Namba today—you want to go?”
“How’d you meet them?”
“At this bar, they’re pretty cool. We’re just going to wander around there and take some pictures,” he said casually. Mr. Ma has a way of making everything he does sound like the most relaxing and enjoyable thing you could ever do with your life. And he doesn’t like details. If you asked him to describe the sky, he’d say, “it’s up there.”

“I could be down—yeah, I’ll go. I was only going to go shopping, anyway.”

“Coo,” he says, the “l” in his cool barely vocalized. That made the word, “cool” sound even more cool than it is.

Of course, I thought he meant Nara, since all the names sounds the same to me. I almost made a similar mistake today as well, when I confused, “Chuui shite kudasai” (be careful) with “Chuu shite kudasai,” (give me a kiss), reminiscent of a blunder my sister caused me to make when I lived in Mexico.

As we ride around town, Mr. Ma, who knows maybe five Japanese words, says “konnichiwa!” to almost everyone we pass, and likes to smile and wave at any little kid that is alarmed by his enormous stature and blackness. He has a way with people that I’m jealous of—I thought it was kind of cheesy the way he grins at everyone, but for some reason, everyone smiles back and answers, “konnichiwa!” As I often do with people, I’d judged him too quickly as a superficial, ignorant guy always looking for the next ex-girlfriend, which I think was in his past somewhere, but he’s really a genuinely good person. He’s trying (probably in vain) to keep his girlfriend back home, which I respect.

Whenever we talk, I have to summarize my argument in five words or less, or Mr. Ma’s ADD changes the subject, which is frustrating for me, and I don’t think I get to ever really express myself to him. Still, it’s strangely relaxing, since he’s very easy to talk to, and I could be as open as I wanted with him with no fear of judgment.

We also had a conversation about a JET participant he met that was on the sketchy side. I guess he looked like a military soldier, buff in body and bland in personality, but liked his students a bit too much. He talked about how hot the Japanese school girls are at length.

“He was slimy, dude,” Mr. Ma explains.

“How do you mean?”

“I think he pumped some of his students. Former students, I mean. He was talking about some 19-year-olds that he dated, man, it was sick.”

“Oh,” I said, with a groan. I hate people like that. It’s hypocritical for me to say that, because I also profess to believe that if you could understand everyone completely, you would also love them, but I can’t hold back my disgust. I’d be a liar if I said I’ve never been attracted to a student here or anywhere else, but when you’re someone’s teacher, you play a critical role in their social development, and if you violate that role, you’re messing them up for life. And to me, that’s an unforgivable sin. And yet, with the way some of the suburban, American girls dress these days, it’s hard to bounce your eyes sometimes. But I have the curse of not beaing able to separate my ethics from my physical desire, so I could never have a relationship with someone that young. Most guys I know would laugh at me for saying that, or just not believe me, but it's honestly not something I could do. I know becasue I've already passed the test.

We move my fridge in later, and make for the train station. On the ride over, I do a lot of people watching. Whatever you’ve heard about Japanese people sleeping on the trains is true. It’s funny to watch girls flinch as an old man nods off to sleep in her face. I also tried to figure out my cell phone, which is still confusing to me. My laptop is less complex.

In Namba, we meet up with Miss Li and Miss A. Miss Li is on the JET program as well, and Miss A is her friend visiting from San Diego. We start walking around downtown Osaka, and I try to chat up both of them. Neither is very attractive, but they have a kind of confidence in their character—something I don’t have, that makes me nervous first off. They both went to school there in San Diego, Miss Li an international relations major, and Miss A did one of the party majors—art history, I think.

Miss A took two years off in the course of study—obviously due to sheer academic strain, and is supposedly going to finish this coming year. Whether or not she does finish, I think she is one of those people who never really leaves college. I see those type of people all the time—they’re the ones who never really fall in love, or at least don’t know it if they do, and they wander the Earth as housewives or salesmen, wondering when prince/princess charming will take them to the ball. Well, it's not me, honey.
We’re wandering around the heart of Osaka, one of the craziest places in Japan. It reminds me of a futuristic amusement park that got bought out by Starbucks. The people are the most fun of it all for me. The Japanese seem to have no happy medium in clothing choice. There’s either a stiffly dressed businessman or the most wacked out punk dress imaginable. It’s as if the 80’s hit in a science fiction age, plus striped tights. Always the striped tights. Some of the girls dress like they’re six, and some of them dress like they’re six and got into chest in the atic. A friend of mine mentioned, "Sometimes you can't tell if they're 15 or 25. That's going to cause some problems for me. Some really serious problems." One thing is for sure, while the girls do dress with a certain sexual suggestion, they don’t really expose a lot of skin like American girls do, which is refreshing. I really admire the expression here and it makes me wish I could redo my adolescence.

While I enjoy people watching here, it’s not interesting in the same way people-watching is in America. With Americans, I can take one look at their face and instantly I form a fairly accurate image of what their life is like. I used to play a game with my little sister, where I’d rattle off a brief life story of every person I saw. It would go something like, “He was divorced three times, just got done with a midlife crisis that involved getting into rock climbing, and now he thinks he’s gay so he’s moving to San Francisco.”

Here, I have absolutely no judge of countenance. I look at guys and say to myself, “He could kick my ass…he could definitely kick my ass…I could kick his ass if I got the first punch in,” and I look at girls and think, “Wow…yuck…wow…please come over here…please be able to speak English…but not better than me.”

Speaking of the women here, we were trying to find the canal with this huge Ferris wheel, so I, having the most advanced Japanese ability, which is sad, stopped a girl walking alone, and asked her how to get there. She spoke about as much English as I spoke Japanese, which was no help, and resolved to just show us to our destination, another testimony to the outrageous level of politeness in this country. I forgot her name as soon as she told me, as I always do with pretty girls.

We ate at a restaurant that looked nicer than the food was, and my stomach was queasy from two nights before, when I had too much to drink, so I didn’t eat much. More that once, Mr. Ma finds a piece of food on my face or my clothes out of place and lets me know discreetly with an eyebrow move or a finger gesture. After lunch/dinner, we went in to the sketchier part of town and took each other’s pictures by such novelties as European style strip clubs and the canal with flashing lights on each side.

At one point we found a small shrine, where people waited in line to throw money and pray. Miss A thought this would be a great place for a picture, so she waited in line to take a picture of the idol. I was too late to stop her, and I didn’t say anything.

While we were waiting, Mr. Ma asked me if I was picking up the vibe that Miss A was sending. “You could probably pump her in the week that she’s here.”

“Yeah, I noticed that too,” I said.

“You should have seen her last night, man, that girl is crazy,” he says, in this kind of half-laugh half-talk that he does. He loves to laugh, and although he seems very uninterested in most of the things he says, this rolling laugh comes out of him every now and then. That combined with the hot pink shirt and futuristic sunglasses he wears makes him look like he owns a strip club.

My Japanese Microwave
Japan is different in a lot of big ways, like the language, for example, but it’s a nation with a great economy, so it’s easy to slip into a routine and not be shocked by much. Once in a while, there’s something that gets in the way of that slide—it might be the way the plastic wrap on office supplies is just hard enough so that you have to bite or cut it to get it to open, it might be the complex garbage disposal process, or it could be, like today, the seemingly metallic shelled insect I found on my porch this evening. I thought it was a toy at first, but it was the remains of some superior insect that reminded me what an alien land I’m in.

It’s almost too easy to think I’m still in America with all the Americans around and the Westernization of Japan—indeed, Japan has contributed immensely to what we now call, “Western.” That is an arrogant assumption. As I relax into place, I find I have to be careful in what I assume about this place and the people.

My apartment alone, which is much larger than I ever expected, is a place that’s foreign to me. The floor is fake wood, but a soft material with a luster that seems too perfect. The TV shows baseball games with skinny Japanese players and kid’s cartoon shows with constant flashing action. The air conditioner has a remote control with buttons labeled with characters I don’t understand. One of the buttons might be a self-destruct ignition, but that doesn’t keep me from trying them all. All except the big red one. My microwave is equally imposing, especially since it’s a combination microwave and toaster oven, no joke. So far, what I call cooking, is putting my instant ramen in the microwave and pushing the yellow button. For some reason, there’s no number pad, so I don’t know how long I’m heating the food. The ramen is really good—it comes with four packets and dehydrated onions and things with the noodles. The packets contain mysterious ingredients: some kind of yellow oil, seeds, a brown powder, and some other liquid.

My bathroom is separate from the toilet—a Japanese feature. The first time I flushed my toilet, I thought I broke it because a faucet immediately turns on above the toilet, refilling the tank with the water you wash your hands with. They sell these toilet room fresheners that fit right in the drain. It looks funny. When I bought one at a drug store run, I got my choice of a free gift. I didn’t know what any of the items were, but I chose this bottle with a cartoon duck head because I thought it was soap, and I needed soap. It took me a week to find bars of soap. It turned out that it was a toilet room freshener, where you pull up on the head to expose a sponge, and it’s head sticks up out of the bottle like an Ostrich. My sister would love it—she loves anything that looks disgustingly cute.

My teachers have been helping me way too much with moving in. One of them is giving me a fridge, a rice cooker and a washing machine. I did laundry at a friend's today, and the Japanese don’t have dryers, so my clothes have to hang outside my apartment. They sell these elaborate drying gizmos that look like mobiles—you can see them at any apartment on the weekend; it turns laundry into an art. This plays into the Japanese care for the environment. It makes sense that a society with roots in Shinto (nature-worship) would actually act on professed environmental concern—the cars are smaller, they recycle everything, they reuse tote bags instead of wasting plastic bags at the supermarket, and their transportation system is more complex than an ant colony. They bike everywhere. It’s actually faster to go by bike in the city I’m in because bikes can avoid car pile-ups at the stoplights. I was wondering why people all ride cheap bikes--grandma style with a basket, and I realized that if everyone had a racing bike, everyone would die because the roads are so narrow and crazy. For example, by my house there's an intersection with 7 different roads converging on it, and that's one of the more simple intersections. You think I'm joking, but trust me, there's nothing funny about it.

There are many things that don’t make sense to me still. The large target-esc store where I do most of my shopping has no organizational sense to me. I spent a half-hour looking for shampoo—I found cleaning goods, toothpaste, razors, etc. but the shampoo was in a different section of the store with beauty products. The odd thing is, all the other stuff was in the, “grocery” section of the store. The thing is, Japanese stores are organized with different departments, and you have to purchase things separately in each department, or it’s considered shoplifting. I read a personal account of a JET who got arrested for just such a thing.

The grocery store is disorienting on its own—I can’t read anything, and sometimes I can’t tell if a package is food or a cleaning chemical. I’m a fan of the prepared food section, and you can get great sushi or miscellaneous assortments with rice prepared four different ways.

The music in the grocery store is seemingly sarcastically happy. It’s like a children’s cartoon theme song. I heard a song about vegetables today. It’s the kind of memorable happy tune that you'd play in a torture chamber, where the victim first develops an eye twitch, and then slowly descends into insanity. So you have to be quick when buying produce.

Invertebrates for lunch and dinner
Now Playing: Working, not playing
It was Hi-chan’s birthday this morning, so I compiled a compilation of the American candies I brought for my students in a gift bag and brought it out as I was leaving. I’ve also been diving uncontrollably into this horde of sugar, which I should be saving, I think because I’m finally crashing after my first week of what I call the kid in a candy shop effect—seeing so many new things—and no sleep. I feel very worn out during the day, and today I noticed that one of my nipples has swollen hard. This happened before during a stressful semester at college, and I thought I had cancer, but the doctor said it was just a stress response.
I gave the bag to Hi-chan as I was leaving. She was outside petting a stray cat. She normally is so happy and excited, I expected her to open the bag and scream, but she accepts it with a smart nod and, “arigaTO!” I repeat, “otanjoobi omodeto!” (happy birthday) so that she gets the idea that she can open it, but she repeats her thanks, standing perfectly still and holding the bag out in front of her.
After I get in the car with H-sensei, I look in the mirror and see her doing some kind of dance and smiling. I found out last night that she’s an only child, and that when she first came to the H residence, she was very shy and spoiled, but she’s loosened up since then. I’ll never forget the image of her grabbing these fearful cicada bugs right off the tree. I got hit in the head by one today—they’re a very massive insect.
In the afternoon, we played a game based on the Japanese Haiku, which my father would love too, but for different reasons than me. Cards are strewn out over the floor, each containing the first character/syllable of a Haiku poem. H-sensei reads the poem, which I can’t understand, while Hi-chan and I compete to find one of the 40 so characters included in the set. The actual Japanese phonetic alphabet is over 500 characters, but these are old poems, so they are limited to a certain few Hiragana characters. She beats me very badly, but I sneak a few grabs in there.
At work, I gave some of my omiyage (souvenir) gifts. I’m supposed to give my best omiyage to the principal and vice principal, and give to them first, but I’m too impatient and give it to the people who’ve more directly helped me. T-sensei got a moose, and they’re amazed with the description of how large it is. To H-sensei I give a calendar of Minnesota, and he had no idea there were such senic places. He asks me if I’ve been to any of the places on it, and I can only say I’ve been to St. Paul, which is less impressive.
Y-sensei gets a triplet collection of Minnesota shot glasses. I don’t think I’d give this to an educator in America, since taking shots seems to be largely limited to college-age people, but he has professed to be a hearty drinker. He’s pointed out a “shot-bar” and asks me about American beer.
We go out for lunch with H-sensei, R-sensei and A-sensei. In the car ride over, they ask me where else I’ve traveled, and also about the other groups I’ve encountered. They really have no idea what Mexicans are like—H-sensei describes a mariachi and the sombrero/pancho look as his stereotype. I explain how Canadians go, “eh,” and how southerners say, “yall,” all very impressive. But the most impressive, is when H-sensei asks me what Germans are like. I tell him that they’re always angry, and do my gibberish German impression—“einaspizenheimernich! Nine!” and everyone loses it.
We go to a Japanese Italian restaurant, and I get squid pasta, which is recommended by H-sensei. It’s a special kind, with the ink sack broken, so the whole dish is black. It’s a lot like a salty, squishy sausage pasta dish. At dinner, I got to have octopus and baby squids, the first time I’ve had invertebrates for more than one meal in a day, and also the first time I’ve had octopus. I’m not sure humans were meant to eat anything with suction cups, but then again, I’m finding a lot of things I didn’t think humans were meant to do are quite rewarding.

The warrior monk
Now Playing: Yes.
I waited with T-sensei, C-sensei and H-sensei at the airport, holding a sign for Y-san and someone else. We were waiting for two Korean Eglish teachers to find us, who would be staying with T-sensei and visiting our school as part of a teaching exchange for the next week. H-sensei especially seems enthusiastic about this program, and has typed up a detailed schedule for the next week. I think he’s more eager to share his teaching with them than he is to take in theirs, as I’ve judged him as being arrogant about his teaching ability, but I later heard him timidly ask Yoon, a female Korean English teacher, “Why is it that Koreans can speak English than the Japanese?” She explains that the Koreans incorporate more listening and speaking from the very start, and the college entrance exams require listening and speaking sections, where as the Japanese do not.

We get some food first, and everyone speaks in English, with the occasional digression into Japanese by the Japanese teachers. There is a brief discussion over the written language. H-sensei asks The woman how the Korean alphabet came to be, and she explains that, like Japanese characters, they were modified from the Chinese characters. I overhear Yoon, who is a fairly attractive married woman in her 30s, reading the Japanese menu.

“So you speak Japanese?”

“No. I just know the characters.”

“But you said the right words, that’s Udon.”

“Yes, but I don’t understand!” That seems very funny to me, and we both laugh. How strange would it be to be able to read your own language, but not understand it—sort of like reading German or French for me, I guess.

We drive for just under an hour to some Buddhist temples in a neighboring prefecture, Wakayama. The site is called Negorodera, and 500 years ago, it used to be the center of activity in the area.

In the car ride over, it’s me, H-sensei and Yoon-sensei. She’s immediately impressed that I’m trying to learn Japanese, when it’s not even her native language. White people don’t have to do much to impress these days, but if you’re Asian and you don’t speak accent-free, fluent English, you’re automatically an idiot to Americans. It’s sad, but true, like most things in life.

She’s easily amused with me—I say things like how she speaks English better than my president—which is true, and she loses it. The other thing that cracks her up, is I recite some of the English loan words in Japanese—words like, “suturaikuauto” (strikeout) or “Makudorunarudo,” (McDonalds). I’m not sure H-sensei thinks this is so funny.

Almost as soon as we get out of the car, everyone pulls their camera out and I have to suppress a laugh since I think the site of Asian people with cameras is funny for some reason. They snap shots so diligently and carefully. They seem to be primarily concerned with getting the whole temple or building in the shot, rather than taking an interesting angle or focusing in on anything of interest--like, for example, I later took a picture of some ducks, and they didn't seem to understand why I cared.

On one of the stone sculptures outside, I ask H-sensei what the writing is, and he translates it as, “eternal flame.” The Korean woman also reads it, but she gives me the literal translation of the characters, which is “starlight all through the night.” I think it’s a fun coincidence that it rhymes. I wish I could read them for myself since it seems like a form of time travel to be able to read something that was written 500 years ago. Of course, I’ve read books that old and older, but this stone was actually carved 500 years ago, and the books I read the classics from were made by some venture capitalist’s press. I touch it, like a child might touch a book when his parents read it to him, and I’m a bit jealous of the connection that the Japanese have to their own language, culture and land. I start to think that if America’s youth had this connection, we might not be at war, but I can’t explain why. It just seems that our adults in America are running around like adolescents trying to find something meaningful. They go to yoga at expensive health clubs or buy, “tai chi for senior citizens,” and do ancient traditions from their big screen T.V.’s. It seems so ironic that Americans practice elements of a religion that preaches non-materialism in a society that values cable and fast cars.

Leaving the temple, T-sensei tells me that there was a greatly feared man that lived at this temple, who was both monk and samurai—usually people were one or the other. “Sounds scary,” I said. “Very scary,” he says, nodding and raising his eyebrows.

Before we enter one of the larger temples, H-sensei tells me that I’m dirty, and must clean myself as we approach one of these little water fountains that have a dragon spitting water into a basin. We all take the cup-on-a-stick and pour water over our hands. I watch other people do this and pray. Shoes off, no pictures allowed, and I can smell the incense form outside. Other visitors stop halfway on the steps, pause, bow, and continue inside. I am jealous of whatever they’re feeling and thinking (or not thinking…zen) as they enter. I just try to take in the place and see if any of the energy fields will penetrate my body that the trendy, yuppie spiritual scholars are always talking about. I think the Western people that make money selling books that regurgitate eastern philosophy into bite-size pieces that suburban housewives can understand never really understood what they were writing about, but were so amazed at religions like Buddhism, that they figured if they talked about it long enough, they’d finally understand it. Ironic, but Buddhism would naturally discourage overthinking it’s own philosophy, but rather to clear your mind.

The inside of the temple has the similar sacred feeling that a Christian church has—which some people call the presence of God—a sort of warm stillness; but there’s something else here. I can’t quite figure it out at first, but after waiting, meditating, just taking in the environment, it comes to me: care. I am surrounded by so much care. Christians hire carpenters to build their churches in suburbia, where maybe there was an old Indian mound, or at lest an old farm. The temple was built by monks over 500 years ago. The set up of the sanctuary has such intricate trinkets and statues set just so. I saw a monk weeding the impeccable garden of trees, rocks and water outside, which I’d prefer a hundred times over to the sod in suburbia.

H-sensei demonstrates how you do a prayer by taking a pinch of incense, holding it to his forehead, and then putting into a basket. He also shows me that the 50 yen coin is most appropriate, because it has a hole in the middle, making it into a circle, somehow symbolic of the year to come. He said that he prayed for success in our work relationship in the year to come, and says that’s the most appropriate thing to do. He likes the word, "appropriate." I try my best, but I think of someone else when the herbs fall from my fingers.

Very important, please do not lose this
Now Playing: Music
8_1_05
“This is very important. Please, do not lose this,” I’ve been told every day since I’ve gotten here about something or other, I forget them all. My alien registration papers, insurance forms, bank account, work contract, hanko (stamp of my distinctive characters for my name), and this time it’s for my cell phone receipt.
Japanese cell phones are an overwhelming combination of computers, game systems, cameras, stereos, radios, and technology that there is not yet an English translation for—it’s that complex. I think you can control your car with your cell phone and maybe even do your taxes, but I have a hard enough time dialing on them. They make me feel like I’m in a science fiction movie, so I half expect William Chanter to answer when I use it.
My translator is T-sensei, and we’re trying to sign me up for a cell phone, one of the many tasks of settling in a foreigner. I feel like I represent a series of never-ending chores for my coworkers—there’s so many things we need to do to settle in a country these days. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to pull out my passport. This time I also need a credit card. Earlier I opened a bank account, where I needed these items and also my alien registration
When I hand the salesperson my passport, a young girl, she does a half-bow and takes it in both hands—all the Japanese do this with something important, and say, “arigato,” as they receive it. She passes it back the same way. When T-sensei listens, she says the Japanese version of “yes and yeah,” many more times than Westerners do. She sometimes says the, “uun,” with a nod, not making eye contact as she listens. More frequently, she does a three note scale in rapid succession, descending “uun, uun, uun,” with the accompanying head nods. Occasionally, there’s a single, short, “hai.”
The salesperson, on the other hand, always says, “hai,” about every three seconds as she listens. I’ve noticed the informal, “uun,” (yeah) varies with the men. They make more of an “oh” sound.
On the way back, we stop at the 100-yen store (dollar store) to buy a case for my hanko, which the Japanese use like a signature—a distinctive stamp. This is also very important, and I shouldn’t lose it, but they don’t bother to tell me what will happen if I do lose it. I’m terribly afraid of losing this in particular, since it was made especially for me. I remark to T-sensei that they should call it the 105-yen store, since it costs that much with tax. She laughs, but it’s not very satisfying for me. Getting people to laugh here is much easier, and if I try to crack what I think is a really clever joke, people are usually just confused or take what I’m saying literally, which can be much worse. For example, today I told my host, H-sensei, after his wife served us an amazing dinner, “If you’re trying to get rid of me, you’re doing a bad job.” He stared at me, probably upset that I had said, “bad job,” since you never say anything but positive things to your superior. I explained what I meant, and he got a chuckle, but it’s something I’ll have to get used to.
We ride bikes through the crowded market street, which gives me a very peculiar feeling. There are people everywhere, on bikes or on foot. No one makes eye contact or makes an obvious effort to get out of the way, nor does anyone shout or ask anyone to move. And yet, the crowd seems to open up for us like an invisible, chaotic path. I see one of the other ALTs coming the other way, who doesn’t have to report to school yet.
“Hey,” I shout.
“You going to school?” Mike asks.
“Yeah, I guess, why not.”
“See ya then.”
“See ya.”
It’s about as short a dialogue you can have with someone, but it’s the most relaxed I’ve felt all morning. It makes me realize all the subtleties wound up in a language. I’ve been speaking with people who’ve been studying English almost their whole lives, but I speak so differently with them: mechanically, formally and for the purpose of conveying information. There’s so much more music, emotion and creativity I can express in my own vernacular style, that I wish I could share with the Japanese.
“He is one of the new ALTs at another school,” I said to T-sensei from my bike.
“What?” She asks.
We ride our bikes back to the school—really old, heavy, bad bikes, but durable. There’s rust and cobwebs in mine, loaner bikes from the school. Teachers in America wouldn’t be caught dead riding these, but we smile and wave to students when we get back. The students all ride bikes as well since the legal driving age is 18. I can’t imagine what a driving test must be like here—the streets are like an elaborate pinball machine.
We return our keys to the utility room in the school, where there are some custodial/secretarial staff. I met one of the women there yesterday, and she’s enthralled that I remembered her name, which is particularly hard to say—ikeiuchi. I can’t do rote memorization very well at all, so I have to come up with visual or musical representations of things. For this name, I use okay-house. Okay = ikei and house in Japanese is uchi. I used that same kind of techniques when I was in some of my more difficult chemistry courses, but more often I use very perverse or violent names and things to remember, because for some reason they stick better. If you could hear what’s going on in my head during a chemistry test, you’d think you were in a Quentin Taratino movie.
Earlier this morning I saw the principal for the first time. I was escorted to a waiting room by H-sensei, and waited for about five minutes, looking at some of the Japanese paintings. They have a beautiful minimalist style, like the Chinese, but this painting had less color and less stylistic elements that a Chinese painting. It seemed very realistic, and yet upon closer examination, there were wide-open spaces on the paper with no brush strokes that my mind filled in unconsciously. The two visiting Korean professors came in with some of the Kishiwada English staff, but only a few of the Kishiwada English staff were allowed with me into the principal’s room.
“This is a very formal occasion,” H-sensei explains to the Koreans, who rise to follow, “So you are not allowed.” He follows the explanation with one of his smiles. It’s the smile he uses whenever he’s not sure how to react—it’s out of nervous tension, I think, since there’s no other way he can think to react or express his discomfort. It’s a very controlled, purposeful effort—the smile—like I might do holding the door for someone, or pouring a cup of coffee. The only translation I can think of is very simple, as the smile itself doesn’t really express anything specific, only discomfort. “It’s okay,” the smile says to me.
I was escorted into the room, where the principal, a man of average Japanese height and nearly bald, but not as old as H-sensei. The principal doesn’t smile the entire time, but he isn’t strict—he’s very relaxed, despite that everyone is standing. I stand at the center of a long time, H-sensei on the side with the principal, translating for me as the principal reads a summary of my position. It is awkward listening to the English portion, because the principal is staring at me, and I’ve never met him until now. When it’s finally finished, I accept the document with both hands and sit down to discuss the position further. I’ve read you’re never supposed to put away a document someone has just given to you, unless you have made the effort to read it, and writing on is considered impolite as well, so I leave it sitting in front of me. At one point, the principal tells me that if I have any complaints about the job, I should come and see him. I decide to slip in some humor at the risk of confusing him, but my judgment is that it will work. I think I can say it in Japanese, but I use H-sensei as my translator.
“Tell him, that I don’t think he will see me very often then,” I said to H-sensei, who stares at me, afraid to translate. I elaborate, “I won’t have many complaints, so I don’t think he will see me very often.” This of course would make the joke to often to get a Westerner to laugh, but the principal seems genuinely amused. Looks like I won’t be fired just yet.