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…