Student Teachers

For the past three weeks, we’ve had two student, English teachers come and train at our school. A couple points about that:

1. The teachers both went to this school when they were junior high students. Apparently, all student teachers get placed at their hometown school if it’s possible.

2. Kae was responsible for supervising the teachers, but she sat out the lessons. I taught the lessons with them while Kae sat in the back.

3. Going over lessons with the new teachers was entirely tedious. One of them spoke practically no English. (“How is she going to teach English?” you might wonder. “Entirely in Japanese” is your answer) They insisted on going over every point of the lesson with me. Whereas Kae takes for granted that I can read the example dialogues she write, the new teachers wanted me to practice with them. Maybe they just wanted to practice reciting the English, but they way they approached it was as if the practice was for my benefit. I know how to read and speak my own language, thank you very much. Also, these detailed goings-over included things like “now I will put the picture you are talking about on the board.” As if I would get confused/angry if they suddenly put up a picture of the very thing I’m talking about. (Here’s what that would look like: “This is Ken… what… what are you doing? What’s that picture of Ken doing on the board? You never said anything about a picture! Take it off the board! Now, get out of my sight! You’ve failed the student teaching seminar!)

4. The students were so respectful of the student teachers. Even the class that usually goofs around was stone-cold silent and obedient. I was amazed. In America, whenever there’s a new teacher – substitute or student – the kids always test them to see what they can get away with. I remember. I did that as a kid. I mean, sometimes these kids don’t pay attention, or they talk to their friends, but they never maliciously challenge a teacher’s authority like American kids do. In fact, they behaved better with the guest teachers.

At the end of the day, after brass band club, Kae asked me to stay a little longer because we were going to have a small going away party for the student teachers’ last day. I was promised cake, so I stayed. This brings us to 6:30. Everyone sits down in the tea room, with their cake, and instead of just having a pleasant goodbye snack, there had to be speeches. Japanese people can’t do anything without formality getting involved. By the time the closing speeches were made, the little cake get-together lasted almost hour. So I didn’t get home until almost 8 – on a Friday. And I left early. Most of the other teachers are still there.

Apparently There’s a Pool

On Wednesday, my afternoon elementary school classes were cancelled. So, on my way out the door for lunch, I said goodbye to everyone and they said “see you next week.” I figured I was in the clear and wouldn’t be expected back in the afternoon. But then some other teachers, along with the principal, came up to me and told me that, this afternoon, everyone would be cleaning the pool. Then, they said (at least this is what I had thought they said) “we want you to come help us clean the pool.” I obviously didn’t have an excuse (being that I’m usually at that school on Wednesday afternoons), so I said I would. They practically cheered. “Really? That’s so great! Thank you so much! Who would have guessed?!” It’s almost as if they were expecting me to say no. I think they were expecting me to say no. I wish I had known that.

After lunch I change out of teaching clothes and into pool cleaning clothes and head to the pool. I didn’t even know the school had a pool. Apparently all the schools in the area (elementary and middle) have pools. But they only use them, like, twice a year. I guess because the kids don’t have the summers off, a little bit of pool time is put into the schools’ yearly schedule. I don’t know why each school needs a pool though. If they only use it twice a year, wouldn’t it make more sense to have one pool that the kids get bused to on their two pool days? It would.

So, when I get down there, the kids are already there – in their gym/pool-cleaning outfits – blue shorts, white shirt, red hat. I get a look at this pool – it’s filthy. There’s an enormous puddle of mud in the middle of it. No one has heard of a pool cover.

There are actually two pools – a kiddy one (not nearly as dirty) and a big one (filthy). I get assigned to clean the big one along with the fifth and sixth grade boys. Everyone gets a scrubber-brush and a small piece of wood (for the stuff that the brush won’t quite get). We all get evenly spaced along the width of the pool. Everyone gets a small four or five foot wide section running the length of the pool. Then, as coordinated by the teacher in charge, we all clean a designated section at the same time. First, clean the wall. After a few minutes – stop. The teacher comes around with a hose to rinse it off. Then, scrub your area up to the line. After a few minutes, stop. The teacher hoses it off. Then, use your piece of wood to scrape the stuff that’s really stuck. Then we move on. This is how the cleaning proceeds – for the entire pool. Notice that cleaning times and sections are uniformly allotted. So, if you had a section that was particularly dirty (as many were) you were given the same amount of time to clean as someone with a much less dirty section. In that case, you only have enough time to scrape off the first layer of dirt – or whatever you could get to. “We’re finished cleaning this area whether its clean or not” seemed to be the attitude.

This further supports my thesis that, in Japan, the purpose of cleaning (as it concerns school cleanings) is not to make things clean. Rather, it is a socialization ritual. The point is that everyone is there and participates. The cleaning is regimented so that everyone participates equally. While this practice does not result in clean pools or schools, it does have an effect on the kids. None of the kids have attitude or a sense of entitlement. Even the “bad” kids, who goof off a little during the cleaning, don’t challenge the system that forces them to clean. In America, if you did this to kids, you’d get an earful of “Are you kidding me”s and “I’m gonna tell my parents about this”s and “I don’t want to do that”s. It could just be that this is a small town I’m teaching in. Maybe the kids in more metropolitan and affluent areas of Japan have more attitude. Or, maybe the cleaning thing actually works…

Anyway, when we were finished, the pool was still dirty. I mean, the puddle of mud in the center was gone, but the dirt and calcified… things… that were really stuck, remained there. Did we make progress? Absolutely. Do I want to swim in this pool? No. Should they have hired someone to do this? Yes.

Sumo! and other stuff

So, this weekend I went to Tokyo to see some sumo matches. Here are some pictures.


This is the stadium. We got there a little early.


This is the first part of the ceremony - where all the guys in the same class (who are about to wrestle) come out. There's a lot of ceremony for a sport that consists of two guys in diapers trying to push each other out of a circle.


Then this guy comes out and purifies the ring by screaming and stamping his feet.


When the wrestlers come out, they line up and look at each other.


Then they stamp their feet.


Then they go to their corners and throw salt onto the ring to purify it.

They do this several times - going to the center, looking at each other, and then going back to their corners to stamp their feet, slap themselves, and throw salt.

When their ready to fight, they go back to their corners - to get psyched up.


Like this guy right here.


Then they fight - like these guys.


Then someone ends up on his face - like this guy.


Or thrown out of the ring - like this guy.


This guy had a lot of sponsors.


On Sunday, I went to Harajuku where things happen on Sundays.

First, there's the Rock-a-Billy guys with the big hair.


They're there every Sunday.


They have big hair.


And they dance around.

There are also a ton of bands that gather along the sidewalk leading from the train station to the park.


Like these guys.


And this guy.


And his fans, who all know to lean back in unison.


This band is cool. They're an all female (except for two guys) calypso, steal-drum band.


And of course - this band.


In the park, there was a Jamaican/Reggae festival going on. The music wasn't great, but the food was good, and the crowd was interesting.



Check out this group


Um...



More crowd.


And, that's that.

Eternity

Today the principal overheard a conversation I was having with Kae about me returning to America. He interjected by saying that I didn't have to return. I could stay in Japan forever. In fact, he has an open room in his house that I can stay in for free - forever. I can't tell if he's kidding. I don't think he wants me to go.

Speaking of forever, despite the insistence of the girls in brass band, the "official" music room fish are not sleeping, or resting, or taking a break, or on vacation. They're dead. They're floating belly up over murky water. Some of them are decomposing. It's not pretty. I just noticed it today, but god knows how long they've been floating there. I think the filter broke - or someone shut it off. I accused Aiko of killing them. She yelled at me, "Sleeping!". After much arguing, we compromised - they're sleeping forever. For eternity.

Nerds!

In a previous post I mentioned that JETs were nerds. In fact, most of the foreigners who come here are nerds (or, at least nerdy in some way). I had wondered, “what is it about Japan that attracts nerdy people?” Wrong question.

I was talking to Kae about the new JETs coming in this summer. She said that she had heard that the ones coming to our town had all studied Japanese culture. She wondered aloud if they were otaku. I said that they probably were. Most JETs are nerdy – even the ones that didn’t study Japanese culture in school. I wondered aloud why this was so. So, she asked me if I thought that Japanese people were nerdy.

The Japanese, as a people, are nerds. That’s it. It was so obvious, but I somehow never put it into those words. I had previously wondered why Japanese people liked nerdy things like fantasy, video games, and cartoons, but the answer is embedded in the question – because they’re nerds. The people here are polite, obsessive, and lack self-confidence – they’re nerds. They love cute things, corny music, and anything associated with Disney – nerds.

So, I told her “yes.”

Now, the question is “why are Japanese people nerds?” Is it a recent phenomenon or is it ancestral? The samurai weren’t nerds, were they?

Otsukaresamadesu

I don’t know if you read Slate, but I do. Last week they had a feature on procrastination. This is relevant because I am, as you may know, a chronic procrastinator (it’s really a miracle that this blog even gets written). And, if you’re reading this, you’re probably procrastinating a little right now. That’s ok. We can work through this together. I’ll point you in the direction of an article that embodies my feelings about procrastination:

http://www.slate.com/id/2190918/

And one about procrastination in other cultures:

http://www.slate.com/id/2191310/

This article posits the theory that the Japanese may, actually, procrastinate more than Americans. I want to say that this is absolutely true. In Japan, procrastination is not the problem of the individual, as it is in America, rather, it is institutional. Procrastination and inefficiency are actually built into the Japanese system.

Every morning we begin the day with a morning meeting. This is an entirely useless activity. Someone stands up, tells everyone to stand up, then we all bow and say “good morning” in unison. Then, the meeting coordinator gives the date and says that the meeting is starting. Then he/she gives the floor to the principal. He says a few words about how the day is starting before passing the conch to the vice principal, who says something equally useless. Then the homeroom teacher for each class talks about who’s absent today and why, and other useless information. Only occasionally (when the schedule is different or there is some event later in the day) are the contents of the meeting of any relevance. The whole thing is just a waste of time.

And so are the staff’s daily activities. Some teachers are actually busy, but what is the vice principal doing all day? He never leaves his computer. He sits in front of it for almost twelve hours a day. What is he up to? There’s no possible way that the vice principal at a junior high school with ninety seven students has so much work that he has to put in twelve hour days. The principal pretty much blatantly has nothing to do. He’s constantly walking aimlessly around the staffroom, and whenever I look into his office, he’s staring out the window. They’re both wasting time. But the key is that they look busy. You’ll almost never see a Japanese person blatantly wasting time (that’s why the principal’s behavior is so shocking). Everyone masks their procrastination by making it look like they have a lot to do. The appearance of work is vastly more important than actually doing work. That’s why it’s such a big deal that everyone comes in on time and leaves very late. You get paid to be at work, not to do work. If you come in late or leave early, you must be lazy. Even if you only have three hours worth of work to do, you must stretch it to twelve hours. To be efficient is frowned upon. To be efficient is to finish early, and to finish early is to be lazy. To be efficient is to be lazy.

Earthquakes

Last night, before falling asleep, I thought I might have felt a little rumbling. It was very subtle, and I was half-asleep, but I could have sworn I felt something. Turns out, I did. There was a 6.8 quake 100 miles from Tokyo – in the ocean. Apparently, the city got a little rattled. No tsunami though…

Japanese TV Part 4

This one might win…

Over the weekend, I was watching TV late one night, and I came across a gem of a Japanese TV show.

There’s this J-Pop singing group (called AKB 48) that consists of about 40 high school girls (in school uniforms). A bunch of them were on this weird show (in their uniforms – of course). They were broken up into two teams, and they were playing a game that I’m going to call “Guess Who’s Being Electrocuted.” The host of this show (with giant Elvis hair) lines up six of the girls from the Red team, and puts little electrodes on the first one. Then he tells his goofy assistant to turn the “switch on.” The girl flips out, shakes a little, drops to her knees, says it hurts, and then they turn off the electricity. He does the same thing with the other five girls – to similar effect. Meanwhile, the Blue team is watching how each girl reacts to being electrocuted. Then, they secretly put electrodes on only one of the Red team girls, and turn the switch on. All the girls react as if they’re being electrocuted – trying to mimic their initial reaction moments earlier – flipping out and such. Then, the Blue team has to guess which one was actually being electrocuted. They guessed the wrong one.

Then, the Blue team got electrocuted and the Red team had to guess.

That’s all I have to say about that.

Golden Week

This past weekend was Golden Week. It’s a long holiday – not actually a week – rather a four day weekend, but I’ll take it nonetheless. Everyone travels during Golden Week. I went to Yokohama and Kamakura with some friends.

Tip: Don’t travel during Golden Week.

Yokohama was cool. Much like any other Japanese city. It’s famous for its Chinatown. The Yokohama Chinatown is more like a tourist attraction than a residence for Chinese people. The Yokohama Chinatown didn’t seem to be a residence for Chinese people. Rather, it is a place that Japanese people go to get a taste of China within their own country. The place was packed with Japanese tourists. So many filled the streets that it was hard to move. The shop owners were Chinese, but I didn’t get the sense that Chinatown was a community that the Chinese people actually lived in. It was more like a theme park with gift shops and Chinese restaurants.

We stayed a few blocks from Chinatown, in a hostel. The part of town we stayed in was one of the strangest places I’ve ever been. The streets were run down (which is really strange for Japan) and there were barely any young people (strange for a city). In fact, almost all the residents of this part of town were old, crusty looking men. Most of them walked with a limp. And they were all over the neighborhood. Around every corner, there was another group of hobblers. It was like a zombie movie. “Day of the Living Dead,” I’d call it (they all went to bed early, but were up shuffling around aimlessly shortly after sunrise). It was really, really weird.

Also really weird was this sea-world type attraction outside the city. It was celebrating its 15th anniversary, but it looked really run down (eerily atypical of Japan). Also, the people there looked seedier and fatter than the Japanese people I’m used to seeing. And the employees in the (American style) food court weren’t very polite. It was almost like being back in the States…

Kamakura was cool. There’s a daibutsu (really big Buddha statue) there. But, it was super crowded. The trains were packed. Absolutely stuffed. And just when you thought they couldn’t get more crowded, additional people somehow squeezed themselves on. It was so bad that the omiyage I bought for the tearoom at school got a little crushed.

Yatta!

Yay! I actually did it. I got boys to join the brassband. I don’t know if there have ever been boys in our school brass band (in the photos of past year’s brass bands there’s not a single boy – and those go back for I don’t even know how long). But, now there are. Thanks to me. Someone give me a cookie.

A few weeks ago we did that demonstration I mentioned. All the kids assembled in the gym, and sat according to their club activities. All the sports teams wore there team uniforms. The first graders sat in the front – they were the main audience. We went first. We got up there, made our lame little presentation, and played the song we had prepared (or, rather, the students had prepared – they memorized the song, I had not). I thought it went terribly. Then, the tennis team gets up there – they hit a few balls around, etc. Nothing too exciting. Then the badminton team gets up. They hit some birdies around – they all have great form and they really kill the birdies. A good pitch, I thought, except for the fact that whenever a group of girls were volleying, the ones standing on the sidelines waiting their turn all yelled “fight” at random intervals. But they did it in Japanese (“faito!”) and in the most horrible high-pitched screeching voice you’re ever heard (outside of Japan), but at the same time rote – totally without emotion. It was upsetting – like uncommitted banshees offhandedly cheering during a badminton match in hell. I got the chills and covered my ears.

Then, the baseball team gets up. They look cool in their uniforms, they make a brief speech about how much fun baseball is, and then they bust out the big guns. They grab a boy who had expressed interest in baseball and pull him from his seat. They give him a bat. The catcher squats down at one end of the stage (no mask or gear). The pitcher stands on the other side of the stage. They put the interested first grader in the batter’s box, and proceed to throw fast balls at him. He wears no helmet. Swings wildly. Hits nothing (thank god). All I can think about is how dangerous this is – the catcher missing a catch, or the pitcher hitting this little kid in the head, or the kid actually connecting – firing a line drive into the crowd of other children… the lawsuit that would ensue… how fast this would be stopped if we were in America…

Anyway, they do this with several kids. One of them, I wanted to join brass band. His sister just graduated and she was an excellent saxophone player. I was hoping that he’d follow in her footsteps, but the dangerous little demonstration they’d staged made baseball look awfully cool, and the little goofball decided to join the baseball team instead… But I did get three boys to join – one the younger brother of another graduate who I was friendly with – he played guitar, so maybe music runs in the family. I mean, I didn’t force them to join, but I think my presence made brass band look more appealing to boys who would have been turned off to the fact that no boys have ever been in brass band. So, now we have eight new students, which doubles the size of the band. The music teacher thanked me for making brass band look cool, but I think she should have erected a statue. I mean, this could be my lasting legacy in Japan. If there are boys now, in a year, a new crop of students will see that it’s acceptable for boys to be in brass band and want to join. Years from now, in the-middle-of-nowhere Japan, there will be a school that has boys in its brass band club – because of me. At least that’s how I imagine my one contribution to Japan…


Today’s Update: All day, the principal has been hounding me to eat this thing he brought in. Its called nagaimo – literally, “long potato”. It looks like a huge, misshapen three-foot long potato. Last week he talked about it. I said I had never eaten it before. He told me it was delicious. Then, yesterday, he told me he was going to bring some in for me to try. Then, today, he plops two down on the table, wrapped in newspaper. After lunch, he asks me if I want to eat it. (Eat it how? It’s a three-foot long root that looks like it was just pulled out of the ground. You want me to just take a bite?) I tell him I’m full. He tells me that he grew them himself – in his field. Oh, I see where this is going… I tell him that I’d be happy to have some in a little bit. Ok, he says. At three o’clock, we’ll have nagaimo. At three-ten he comes up to me like a giddy schoolgirl and leads me into the tea room (he’s practically skipping). The tea lady had peeled it and cut it up into thin slices. She pours some soy sauce for us to dip it in, and we eat. The slices are hard, but flexible – nothing like a potato. Biting into it, it has the texture of a water chestnut or a bamboo shoot, but once you’ve chewed it a couple times, it reveals its true self. It’s slimy. Horribly slimy. Instead of turning to starch like a potato or any other normal food, it turns to slime. I mask my horror. The principal is staring at me, grinning. “How is it?” I swallow a mouthful of slime. “It’s good.” “He had to dig a meter down in order to harvest it,” the tea lady tells me. I grab another slice, dip it in soy sauce, smiling at the principal as I do it. As I pull it out of the sauce, I notice the slime threads stretching and then snapping – like mucus. He says, “go ahead – eat,” and puts a handful onto my plate. Then, another teacher comes in. “Oh, wonderful – nagaimo,” she says. I tell her this is my first time eating it. She mentions something about my mouth being itchy. The tea lady tells me that many people are allergic to nagaimo, and their mouths get itchy when they eat it, or they get small hives when they touch it. I swallow more slime. “Really?” I say. “If I start to have trouble breathing, give me an EpiPen and take me to the hospital.”

So, now I’m sitting here, ten minutes after the incident, typing this. I’m just waiting for the symptoms. I know they’ll come. I think my mouth might be getting a little itchy…