Unexpected Song

What do you do when the teacher who invited you for supper last Wednesday and volunteered to pick you up outside the post office today at 6:25 PM is a no-show at 7?

You decide that this is how it must feel to be stood up on a first date, and thank your lucky stars you were never chosen last for the (insert sport here) during recess in elementary school. You muse about how your life in Japan is like a series of blind dates - some more successful than others - and how hope-filled and humbling that can be.

You walk home, firing off a few text messages to Fred and Erin because you know they'll both sympathize and appreciate the humour of the situation. 

You throw together a colourful coleslaw salad and cheesey rosemary pizza, mix a glass of "pop" (pineapple juice and soda water) like mom used to when you were little, and devour everything while watching an especially witty episode of "How I Met Your Mother."

You ignore the doorbell. You feel a bit guilty, but you're not expecting anyone and you don't feel like entertaining company. Whoever it is will understand...

You consider the cornucopia of possible ways to fill your remaining hour or so of waking week-end as the spring wind continues to howl outside your sliding balcony doors.

You thank God for your crazy hair, your full belly, your friends and family the world over.

You realize that, this time next week, you will be in Korea, and that, in a little over three months, you will be home for a visit.

You wonder where the time goes, and are grateful to the forgetful teacher (or your miscommunication - you'll find out at school tomorrow) for this evening's unexpected gift.

School's Out

It’s spring vacation!

This means my elementary school kids play outside at their grandparents', my Junior High schoolers show up from 8 am to noon for their respective club activities (some go home for lunch and come back 'til 3 pm), and I roam the school in search of said students, or sit in the staff room studying kanji or preparing posters until my teachers take me out for lunch.

In an effort to occupy myself, I started flipping through my elementary school notebooks to see what I’ve learned over the past eight months. In no particular order:

If you’re the only one doing it, it’s probably not a good idea.

Graduation is a serious (and seriously nostalgic – cue the swells of melodramatic soap opera music) business. Sit up straight, bow as one, don’t stop clapping, and for gosh sake, don’t smile!

Male teachers are either excessively nice or ignore me completely.

Recipe for the most delicious kyushoku (school lunch): consume virtually nothing in the twenty-four leading up to said lunch. (See previous blog.) One-hundred percent success guaranteed.

Principals enjoy speaking to me in Japanese as if I understand.

Although being dragged across a polished wooden floor dressed in professional attire during a game that can best be described as “pull-apart-the-human-knot” hardly qualifies as dignified, it definitely buys you street cred with eight-year-olds.  

Office ladies are a source of hot drinks, some English, and surprise sweets. In short, they are your best friend. You should know your best friends’ names.

When it comes to determining who goes first, who gets lunch leftovers, or who cleans up, Janken (“Rock, Paper, Scissors’’) is indisputable. Seriously, this game could put an end to war.

Often, the most intelligent thing you can do is admit that you have no idea.

Recess is a great time to impress small children by how much faster than them you can run…even if your glory is short-lived and you end up walking off a stitch as they sprint circles around you.

“I like (insert color or fruit in English)” is really all you need to have a mutually satisfying conversation with a first-grader.

Never trust an elementary school child’s attire to indicate temperature. High-spirited grade five boys wear shorts in January while you shiver in layers, long-johns, and two pairs of socks. The solution is to join their game of dodge-ball in a gym where you can see your breath.

Virtually any pastime that does not involve fancy technology (i.e. string games like “cats’ cradle”, juggling, spinning tops) will be referred to as an ancient Japanese game.

No matter how many times you decline coffee, it will appear (with cream, sugar, and cookies, if you’re lucky) and you will drink it. You will even come to appreciate the mild buzz, but you will never learn to like the stuff.

Understanding Japanese is definitely something to strive for. However, if you speak Disney, dodge-ball, and endless English greetings, you can get by.

Well-behaved children are wonderful, but the rowdy gang is more fun. 

Time of Your Life

It’s 7 pm on Monday, March 12^th. You’ve just walked in the door after staying late at school for a meeting of which you’ve understood maybe forty words. (Making progress.) Your apartment is freezing, and after looking in the fridge, you kick yourself for not having braved yesterday’s bizarre thunder snowstorm to venture out for groceries. Today’s weather, while calmer, is no more inviting.

Luckily, you stopped at a konbini (convenience store) on the way home to grab a couple sushi rolls. Add some spinach, cabbage, half a sweet potato, and an old hamburger patty, and you’ve got yourself some semblance of supper. Scarf down the works, and dive under your kotatsu* for a few hours; write a pair of letters, send a couple emails, watch too many Youtube clips, and call it an early night. Tomorrow is graduation, and you’d like to ditch the glasses and as much under-eye baggage as possible.

The best-laid plans...

Despite once being a light sleeper, years of different beds, buddies, and background noise have made you a champ. Especially in Japan, where adequate shut-eye is an unattainable dream; something your junior high school students use to fill in the blank when asked, "What do you like to do in your free time?" So, when you wake up at 2:30 am, you feel odd. Moments later, you feel even stranger. And, your last thought as you throw back the covers and rush to the toilet is, “Well, this is a first in Japan.”

6:15 am: You turned your alarm off fifteen minutes ago, but are still curled up in bed, contemplating your conundrum. To school or not to school? While it might seem like a no-brainer, it’s an awful dilemma. Graduation is a big deal in Japan and missing the ceremony will not sit well with parents or teachers. Furthermore, you really want to be there for your kids’ memorable day, provided public puking is not part of the memory.

7:20 am: You just got off the phone with one of your favourite teachers at Kawahara Junior High School. Your lack of mutually spoken language results in the awkward sort of conversation you normally both find hilarious. With the help of a translation App on his Smartphone, it is understood that you won’t be coming in today.

Ten minutes later: that’s the last of it. You know, because you immediately feel better. Then, an idea pops into your slightly light-headed mind. “If I don’t eat or drink anything between now and noon, I could make it through that ceremony.”

8 am: On a bus, bound for Kawahara. Unfortunately, its route varies slightly from your usual 7:23 am transport and you end up having to backtrack through drifts of swirling snow. Thankfully, between your umbrella, winter jacket and rubber boots, you manage to keep your formal attire – black dress pants, suit jacket, and collared white shirt – completely dry.

Slightly before 9 am: You’ve missed the morning meeting and the staffroom is deserted, with the exception of one teacher who seems to be ignoring you. You apologize for being late. No response. Attempt to catch his eye to try again. No cigar. Suddenly, the enormity of the last few hours hits you like a twenty pound bag of rice, and you are going to puke, pass out, or cry, if you don’t move…now.

You head to the refrigerator of a gym with the intention of people-watching until the 10 am ceremony. The moment you get there, however, most eyes are on you. The parents observe you because it’s their tax dollars paying your salary and they’re curious to know what sort of foreigner they’ve got this year. The students are freaking out because you’ve managed to put in the contacts and brush on a bit of mascara (another first) in a pitiful attempt to “fake it ‘til you make it”. Is it working?

The ceremony is a blur. Singing of national anthem and school song. Special guests and PTA members in business attire. Some mothers in traditional kimono. Male teachers in shiny black dress shoes and their best suits. Female teachers wearing fine bits of jewelry and heels, many of them in skirts (while you think warm thoughts in three sets of socks and two pairs of long underwear.) Students in freshly pressed, dirt-free uniforms. Everyone either shivering or suffering stoically. Everything incredibly serious. Speeches from various administration members. Presentation of diplomas to each of the sixty-six graduands. Lots of bowing. More speeches. The graduating students sing a farewell song lacking its usual (albeit, at times militarian) gusto. The teeth of one of your favourite bad baseball boys are visibly chattering. Your head spins as everyone collectively springs to their feet, stands at attention, and bows for the last time. Dutiful clapping until the newly graduated students file out of the gym under arches of pastel-colored tissue paper flowers. Owarimasu. (It’s over.)

12:30: Back in the staffroom, you sit smiling and shaking in the blasting heat, pleased with yourself. All of the teachers are in a celebratory mood, greeting parents and students as they head home for the day. Enter the very special graduation bento (box lunches). Exit a very green Miss Echo.

12:50: You return from the restroom, race to into the staffroom, request nenkyu (paid leave) for the rest of the afternoon and head to the women’s change room to collect your things. You are followed by half a dozen female teachers refusing to hear of you catching the bus. One of them will drive you, just as soon as she’s finished eating. In the meantime, you are to go lie down in the Nurse’s room. 

1 pm: Curled up in the sick bed, fully dressed, with a thermometer in your armpit. Apparently, you have a slight fever. You doze as a steady stream of teachers come to check on you. 

An hour later: “Echo-sensei, sumimasen. Let’s go to the doctor.” You try to explain that it’s just food poisoning (shokuchuudoku), but they’re adamant, so you reluctantly surrender.**

2:30 pm: A kindly male doctor in his early fifties who speaks complicated medical English examines you, tells you he has sons your age, and informs you that you need an I.V. “You've got to be kidding me!” you groan, inwardly. “How long will it take?” you ask, defeated. 

3:30 pm: The drip is done. You leave with an array of pills and powders you don't plan to use.

4 pm: The lovely teacher chauffeurs you home, leaving you with wishes for a speedy recovery and a warning not to sleep with the adhesive abdomen hot pad she gave you earlier.

4:30 pm: After tentatively sipping some water and apple juice, you partially undress, forget her advice (no harm done), add more layers, turn on the heater, and collapse into bed.

5:30 pm: Nature calls. You eat a bit of bread and drink some more apple juice. Set your alarm for 5:30 am and crawl back into bed.

12 hours later: You are alive, awake, aware, and much more enthusiastic than yesterday, which is great, because Wednesdays are elementary school visits. 

This is the stuff memories are made of.

   

 * This is you (but blond and in a messy room)
sitting under your heated floor table. 

** Weeks later, when you’re granted byoukyu (sick leave) instead of nenkyu, you’re thankful they refused to take “no” for an answer.