DECEMBER
December 1st
The strangest thing happened on Saturday, when Ricky and I arrived at Eikiwa only to find there was no-one there. We hadnt been advised or warned that this course of classes had come to an end, or that there was some sort of exception. Moreover, as we were leaving Piatown on our bikes, Ricky was stopped by a member of the class who offered him a big basket of Persimmon, presumably picked from the old guys garden. Perhaps this was meant as some kind of cryptic final pay-off that we cant understand. Either way, the disappearance of our students seems a cruel indictment on our admittedly crap teaching stylings.
I cant tell you how overjoyed I was that my 2.5 hour free conversation" class had vanished into thin air! Free Conversation is a myth. Perhaps my students think they can learn English by osmosis, but their decision not to use a text book not only means that some are lacking in the fundamentals of grammar, but also that any conversation we do have is painfully slow or non-existant. Id have celebrated, only wed just cycled 20 minutes in torrential rain on the public highways, which would put anyone in a foul mood. Moreover, I began to notice that my jeans were literally disintegrating on my legs, my own fault for having worn them practically every day for the last year and a half.
I used the rest of the day to head back to Shinjuku to shop. Every time I travel into Tokyo I get the foreboding of a soldier heading towards the front. The place is just too big for me; Im not a fan! Theres something about Japanese fashion that makes it seem to have emerged from the Twilight Zone. For one, I cant get a pair of jeans to fit me anywhere but GAP (for big-boned fat b******). UNIQLO is like the Japanese answer to GAP, and I thought Id try out their jeans. Now anyone who knows me, knows that Im not a particularly big guy, not even in Japan (remember the Sumo). Yet it would seem that no-one told the Jeans manufacturers that Slade went out of fashion! Their jeans quite literally cut all circulation to the lower half of my body they were that tight! Surely Japanese guys arent THIS skinny! Ive been eating Japanese food for more than four months and I havent gotten any thinner, so I can only presume its the smoking again!
Female fashion is something that would need an entire dissertation (indeed, Im sure its been the topic of many a dissertation). Im not saying that every Japanese woman dresses like a whore. I think its more of a phase between 15 and 25. I dont know anywhere else that women can walk around in knee high boots, fishnet tights and miniskirts (in the grip of winter) with a serious expression on their face and without some sort of public rebuke! Stranger still, no-one so much as bats an eyelid, so I can only presume that the entire population has been desensitised! Perhaps Ill have to do some kind of investigative photography, for the edification of my readers of course!
I spent most of Sunday at Chinatown (perhaps more accurately rendered might read pre-Mao Zedongs cultural annihilation village" in Yokohama. Now this place really is interesting; its a lot bigger, a lot more colourful, and a lot less dirty than Londons Chinatown. It had exactly what you might expect; lots of bright red, green and gold; Bruce Lee memorabilia and Kung Fu weapons, dwarfish elderly gents vaguely resembling an aged Ming the Merciless. Slightly less predictable were the artisans who scratch dragons into your mobile phone cover for a pittance, artists who convert Japanese Kanji into beautiful Chinese style Kanji paintings etc.
I searched for somewhere to eat, but the only thing worse than not knowing much about Japanese-style Chinese food (no crispy duck or sweet n sour pork balls here), is having that food written in Japanese! I eventually wandered down a side-street where an old lady started speaking to me in English, dragged me into her restaurant, chose my meal for me, and chatted to me in a mix of English and Japanese. I think I paid about four quid for a delicious three course meal. Chinese food and Chinese prices! The proprietress advised returning for the New Years celebrations in February Eits a date. Then she pointed out a magnificent Chinese temple around the corner.
Not another temple, I hear you groan! Ive pretty much had my fill of Zen-inspired, Spartan Japanese temples too. Chinese temples on the other hand are much more colourful, much more ornate, much more fun (alive) places (running a thin line with kitsch". There was a veritable menagerie of animals on every carving, a Buddhist dreamscape carved out in Boschian detail. I began to kick myself that Id forgotten to bring my camera! I was forced into buying five foot long incense sticks, which I presumed that I should push into the ash of a shrine to appease the gods or something. I did so respectfully, trying not to look like a complete novice, only to turn round and realise that there were four other shrines, numbered for idiots, and Id spent all my incense sticks in the first shrine. Grade A eejit.
At a shopping mall on the sea-front in the evening, I stared at the Christmas illuminations. They really were terrific. Theres a Singing Tree" which is programmed to move its lights to a medley of Christmas hymns every hour. Everything was very tastefully done (and again wouldve made for nice photos), but I couldnt forget I was in Japan, and it all seemed a little surreal. Why for example, were austere Christmas hymns merged with organ versions of the latest J-Pop hits? Not so long now till I head home for the real thing!
2nd Dec - Send in the clones
I wonder when the kids at this school lost their zest for life. My self-introduction, which usually elicited at least a vague degree of interest at my other schools, has been routinely ignored here. Thats ok, I hate it too. However, there was no excuse for the behaviour in my optional English class yesterday. Half of the kids had already heard my self-introduction earlier in the day, and Id even listened to a number of them whisper AndoriyuuEwhen I walked into the class, but could they do a simple thing like answer the question Whats my name?" Well, I waited. Then I waited some more. Then tumbleweeds began to blow across the room. And then something happened which hasnt happened in a while. I got verbally abusive You know my name! I told it earlier! Youre all so lazy!" and then excused myself from the room to get teaching materialsEso I could calm down. Unfortunately I cant say what I want to, even when I get angry, cos they understand so little.
On my return we played a game whereby I walked around the class asking open questions on small cards:
Q What place do you like in Saitama?
A I like my house"
Q What place do you like in Japan?"
A I like Saitama"
Q What country do you like in the world?"
A I like Japan"
Well then, with this wonderfully international outlook, Im sure these mini-diplomats will soon, I dunno, ignite world war three with their stupendously wide outlook on life!!! Its often said that the Japanese education system creates robot minions who think alike, within the box, and without initiative. Here it is then, in a microcosm.
I could trace the root of the problem to the teacher. Hes a bit, hmmm. Weve been teaching the Time recently, and have uttered wonderful expressions like Its seven oclock in the afternoon "excuse me Sensei, shouldnt that be in the evening?", Oh, no, that would be too complicatedE Hmmm. Let it be understood that AM/PM" is a chain of convenience stores in Japan, so we wouldnt even have to teach new vocabulary to the kids!!
Taoe cracked up at Shiraoka, you know, the last school I was at. Quite rightly too. Shed been marking scripts for final year students who couldnt string together elementary sentences. Its a pity she isnt writing this entry! She reported the standard of teaching to the BOE. So either things will change, or they wont. Id bet my wage on the latter.
4th December - henna gakusei
I have some very strange pupils at this school. I'm still doing my self introduction -sigh- and the only part of my introduction that anyone wants to hear are my opinions about Japan, what I think of Japanese food etc. For one, I'd have absolutely no interest in hearing what a Japanese thinks of Irish food! Strange strange.
My sheer appearance is again making waves - I've marked scripts where students have told me that my nose is big ("hana ga takai"); I just about have the vocabulary to insult them back, but I'm not sure whether reverse racism is allowed. Depending on which class you encounter, you will find that a concensus has been reached that I either look like Michael Owen (original, I'm thinking that Beckham and Owen are the only Brits they know, and as I'm not handsome, then I naturally resemble Owen more), the evil peroxide-blonde wizard child from Harry Potter (a hidden insult regarding my shameful highlights), or Frodo Baggins (a comment, not I hope, regarding my diminutive stature!). I've heard the Frodo Baggins one before, in Northern Ireland, so either I really look like Elijah Woods, or my mop/mullet hair-style was looking particularly unkempt today!
And finally, there's this little pest called Mori (Japanese for "Forest" I think). I'm not the first JET to encounter his rather dubious attentions - I'll swap him for Cockroach boy any day! He hangs around my desk betwen periods and annoys the hell out of me - the other teachers are cracking up, their faces turning red with suppressed laughter! He touches me (Eughhhh) and tries to make me speak Japanese. He responds to absolutely no known hint to get rid of him, and I will kill him shortly if he doesn't go away. Apparently he gives Jeff shoulder massages. Very worrying; I'm beginning to wonder if social services should be called in to check his home environment! Later
7th December 2003
Have had an interesting morning with Mr Funata, the third in command at Minami J.H.S.. I think Mr Funata was pleased to discover that I was reading about Japanese history (in a horribly abridged fashion) and declared that he would take me to some Kofun burial mounds near Gyoda City. Mr Funatas English is great, and he has a refreshingly international outlook on life! He was a teacher in the U.A.E. for three years (I think Dubai) and has travelled extensively throughout Europe because Europe is very close to Arabia (not may I add, a conclusion that I have ever come to!).
Surprisigly, there is a sort of park space that has been set aside for the Kofun burial mounds. One of the mounds had been chopped in half, with a visitor centre added to one end (which as a British Archaeologist, shocks and appals me). Inside, a Japanese Archaeologist seized the opportunity to practice his English (with one of the best accents Ive heard in Japan) and showed me reconstructions of a tomb with a princely burial, and a rider on horseback (which has been inferred from a clay design or figurine called a Haniwa. The mounds themselves date only from the 5th or 6th centuries AD, but are tremendously similar to British long-barrows from the Iron Age (500-1500BC I think). I guess tyranny and personal aggrandisement produce similar results everywhere in the world. And on that rather dubious insight Id like to say that Im ashamed to call myself an archaeologist.
It turns out that Saitama is either named after this style of mound or from one in particular (I didnt quite work that bit out) otherwise known as Sakitama. I hadnt counted on Mr Funatas determination to show me every mound in the area, so we ended up trawling the suburbs in search of elusive ancient kings who have been swallowed up by homes and commerce! Yet another wonderful example of town planning (though I guess the same could be said to a similar extent of Avebury!).
We next drove to Gyoda castle (former home of a Samurai lord/Shogun). As mentioned in the book I was reading (Hokkaido Highway Blues), Japan has only twelve remaining original castles, the rest are reconstructions. Most of those remaining are the crappy little ones that went by mostly unnoticed. This one is also a reconstruction, made in concrete (sigh) rather than wood. The Japanese never cottoned on to the notion of making a castle out of stone, nor did they think about placing wooden castles on hills and promontories where they would be prime targets for lightening. So, hilariously, most of the castles that ever stood in Japan have been razed by lightning (well, that or war). On a side note, they had a whole exhibition on those ninja shoes (you know, the ones that separate the big toe from the rest of the foot, called Tabi), which apparently Gyoda is famous for making.
9th December - Purgatory
I'd never seen my own breath within my bedroom before I came to Japan! I wouldn't say it's particularly cold outside, but the skies are clear and night-time temperatures are hovering a little above zero. Close inspection of my apartment reveals numerous nooks and crannies through which air passes freely, and a certain routine has become necessary in the mornings.
Sleep is my refuge, and the morning my nightmare. I wake up with a frozen nose at 7am. Leap out of bed and hastily locate my elmo slippers, without which frostbite of the toes is imminent. Breakfast is made, then consumed underneath the covers of my bed, to which I retire immediately, but not before turning the kerosene heater on. Kerosene heaters are like a super-evolved 19th century form of heating! They belch out stinking fumes and noisily gobble up fuel, yet are electrically controlled and have digital thermometers on which you set the temperature that you want the apartment to be! Trust the Japanese to come up with something fusing modernity with the dark ages. I lie quivering for as long as humanly possible until the apartment reaches a sub-arctic temperature. Unfortunately, kerosene fumes are rumoured to cause brain tumours, so it is necessary to open a window, kind of defeating the purpose of "heating"!
Just wanted to share my pain.
10th December
I have some fairly disgusting pupils at this school. I got to teach them all about Christmas today (yeah, Mrs Orihara is great, she gives me free reign over a class once in a while). The notion that Christmas was a religious festival was completely alien, and no-one had made the link between Christmas, Christian and Christ. To be more accurate, 95% of the pupils had never heard of Jesus. Fair play I say. Anyway, in the middle of drawing an obese bearded Caucasian clad in red being drawn by a debilitated reindeer called Rudolph, Mrs Orihara pulls a putrid festering bowl of ming from a cubby hole in the classroom wall. Stone Age Japan heats its classrooms wit
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