Fightin' Gaijin!

And onto the third frightfully exciting, terribly written and non-chronological installment that is Geoff’s Japanese adventure: this week, Geoff wings it.

It was my first official week as a teacher at the beginning of this month. My experience so far indicates that the teachers here assumed that because I can speak English I also have an in-depth knowledge of the grammatical rules and nuances of the language. Obviously. How to explain that while I know what verbs, adjectives, nouns, and adverbs are I am not a grammarian and cannot explain prepositional phrasing or clauses?

However, before that could kick off there had to be an ‘opening ceremony’ for the school term. There’s a closing ceremony too, and an end of year ceremony. And a beginning. And, oh, everything. Firstly the principal gave a speech, entirely in English. It was incredibly interesting: apparently, he bought a watermelon that was not empty, which I hear is terribly important. Also, it seems, he did not go to the World Expo in Aichi this summer because he was too lazy. It was fine though, he assured us, because the cartoon mascots for the expo visited him in a dream and made him happy. It was then my turn to give a speech, which of course, after his dazzling discourse was daunting. Nevertheless I ploughed on and received polite applause for my efforts at Japanese. Handily the Principal introduced me as being able to play the trumpet and the piano and that I play rubgy, football, cricket and tennis. This he gleaned from our conversation of a few days before – obviously the English teacher who was translating that conversation had it in for me, for as you all know I can do none of those things. I mentioned I had played the trumpet when I was younger, and that I would like to learn the piano and he asked what sports I liked. Ah well. Actually that conversation was very interesting, to a point. For most of it he wanted to discuss China and the West’s view of China as an emerging competitor. Japan are incredibly wary it seems, and rightly so. He was also very interested to hear, as he is a chemistry graduate, of the commercial viability, the domestic consumption, and the supply levels of North Sea oil; which I was more than able to ad-lib. Or lie convincingly.

Then it was onto lessons, lessons and more lessons. But more of that later.

I might have mentioned that we have discovered an excellent Indian restaurant called Santoshi. Robin and I are determined to become regulars, enough maybe to warrant a discount (fnar fnar). Last week we were there with some other JETs when I popped outside to wait for another JET who had got lost on his way. Outside was an old man hovering by a phone box. “American?” he asked, no Igirisu (British) I replied. “Ah! Enemy!” he said. Hmm. What? “America, Englando, France enemy! Japan, Germany, Italy strong!” Crikey, I thought – a fascist! And indeed he was. He went on to lament the sorry outcome of the war and the current state of Japan: apparantly as an American (ah no, igirisu…) I will get syphilis three times while I’m here. Firstly from teachers, then from housewives, and thirdly from school-girls. He’s obviously been hanging out with the wrong JETs. I thanked the friendly fellow and saw him on his way.　

Part of my introductory lesson is answering questions that the kids have written down for me in a previous class; here is a selection of the finest:
l What do you want now?
l Do you like Japanese boy?
l Do you love girl? Are you HG? (Hard Gay) Teacher’s comment on page “what is hard gay?”
l Why are you tall?
Ah, bless them. Japanese school kids are strange creatures. The girls walk around in groups wearing impossibly short skirts, constantly giggling to themselves over lord knows what. Saying hello, or indeed just walking by, will send them into a paroxysm of hysterical blushing and laughing. The boys range around with their school shirts split to the navel revealing the latest cool t-shirt. They try to be James Dean but end up more Torvill and Dean. The girlish locks and the preening doesn’t really help their cause, nor does their fashion sense: MC Hammer lives on in the hearts and trousers of Japanese schoolboys

It’s Monday morning I am in the teacher’s room surrounded by the sounds of the before-school club activities. Currently I can hear the choir practicing ‘panis angelicus’ by Cesar Franck and somebody else practicing ‘Liebestraum’ by Liszt on the piano. Not content with all being musical demi-gods they also insist on being sports superstars: the other day I watched some after-school tennis practice. Two lower form boys were throwing balls to one older boy who was whipping them back over the net like Agassi himself. This is all with the baseball games that start almost every other day at 6am, and the six to seven lesson school-days. These kids must be on amphetamines I swear….