Confessions Part II

Some of the best nights of my life are the ones when I’m in bed before 10 pm. 

Others are when I’m out late dancing like a (completely sober) drunk.

With the exception of pudding, I have not cooked rice since I came to Japan. 

Those gooey brownies that earn compliments and marriage proposals come from a box.  
  

It's not uncommon for me to fantasize about smuggling a small Japanese child in my suitcase home. They're just so darn cute!

I’m convinced that, due to a combination of curiosity and carelessness, I have accidentally walked more kilometers of Japanese countryside than I have purposefully jogged or run.

Contrary to popular belief, I am not an interesting person. I am an average person open to interesting situations.

I didn't bother to learn "bad" Japanese words because I don't want them slipping out at inopportune times and I prefer to remain blissfully ignorant when they are directed at me.  

Sometimes I smile and nod even though I don’t understand. Other times, I smile and nod even though I do.

I don't know which is more heartbreaking; the fact that I haven't been to church since Christmas Eve or the fact that I haven't missed it.

Inappropriate interactions with males over fifty or under twenty don’t phase me.* It’s the entirely appropriate exchanges with locals of a similar age that leave me tongue-tied.

We met once, he asked me to go to dinner, but we never did. It’s probably for the best. Falling in love now would be extremely inconvenient.  

I rarely remember April Fools’, but when I do, I make it count. 

The number of books I have read and relished over the last two years can be counted on one hand. Two, if I'm generous. 

*If the latter don’t know better now, one can hope they will one day. If the former haven’t grown out of it yet, nothing one young female foreigner can do or say will expedite the process.

Shake It Off

“Remember, you live your bloopers, but you only ever see other people’s highlight reels.”

I recently came across this nugget of wisdom on an online JET Programme Forum. In this age of tweets and twitters and Facebook photos, it’s so easy to create the appearance of a life that is significantly more attractive and appealing than it may actually be.

As my days in Japan are increasingly numbered, I find myself jogging down memory lane more regularly than usual. While most of the memories I’ll take home will be positive ones, it would be dishonest (and, let’s face it, much less interesting) not to make mention of those less enjoyable experiences.

And, so, without further ado, I give you my blooper reel:*    

Walking into one of your favorite elementary schools at the start of a new school year to find that nearly every English-eager teacher, administrator, and office person has been transferred elsewhere.

When a wonderful staffroom conversation about South Africa turns sour due to one unfortunate word (“volunteer”) on your part, resulting in a pair of grown men harassing you in several languages about how much ALTs earn.

Mysterious bruises and swollen baby toes after “non-contact” Frisbee practices.

The demoralizing exasperation during a poorly planned, mind-numbingly dull, supposedly “team-taught” class, followed by further frustration knowing that, despite your best efforts, you are powerless to do much more about it. This inner rage is only compounded when you reason with yourself that trying to fix what is most definitely broken (or, at least, ridiculously rusty) might damage relations and, thus, actually make the situation worse. 

Those rare occasions where you have to step back and convince yourself that these aren’t your kids, these aren’t your classes, and that you are not solely responsible for their education or interest in English. Those rare occasions where you have to remind yourself not to take your job so seriously, if only for the sake of your own sanity. 

The unsolicited attention – suspicious by day, salacious by night – of middle-aged salarymen.

The absurd assumption that because you are a native English speaker, you are a living, breathing grammar book ready to explain and defend each and every exception of your mother tongue at any and all times.

The icky, overwhelming feeling threatening to swallow you whole in late April as the carefully-laid plans for your dwindling time in Japan, your journey to Canada, and your return to school in September slowly tear, twist, and tangle, demanding undivided time and attention you simply do not have.

*The list is short, and I like it that way!

Time To Go Home

my once-upon-a-time rations in days of yore

“Are you excited to be leaving?”

The nearer my August departure date, the more often I find myself fielding this loaded question. So often, in fact, has it come up in the last four months that I’ve unwittingly created a standardized reply that goes a little something like this:

“Yes, and no. I’m excited to see my family and friends in Canada, but I’ll be sad to leave. I’ve had a really great time in Japan.”

However, despite the fact that my two years in Tottori have been terrific, that I’ve met some incredible people (who I plan to keep in touch with), and that I’m rarely ready to say "goodbye" to a place I may never see again, I’m always happy to go home. 

It’s time.

 

You know it’s time when:

you’re correcting student notebooks, and your pen hovers to change the “l” in “English” to an “r.” On more than one occasion.

you find yourself losing the ability to employ adjectives beyond the requisite “enjoyable”, “beautiful”, “difficult”, “delicious,” and the ever-popular and all-encompassing “interesting.”

, after a year and a half of “I like baseball” ending the conversation, your junior high school boys are getting brave enough to ask such follow-up questions as, “Do you know Yankee players?” and “What players Red Sox do you know?” as well as what team you cheer for (“I cheer for the Toronto Blue Jays” partly because you’re patriotic and partly because they don’t know any of the players…yet.)

the English-loving music teacher starts quizzing you on the names and locations of the forty-seven Japanese prefectures, and you both quickly realize that, due to your lack of knowledge, it’s less fun and more embarrassing than other conversation topics. 

you’ve mastered the art of looking busy. Be it pushing around dirt during 掃除 cleaning time (no point in doing it properly, as five other people have already or will soon clean the exact same spot before the allotted fifteen minutes are up), reading about fascinating and fun English activities your students will likely never get to do, or shuffling papers that will eventually get shredded, it seems to matter less about whether you are, in fact, busy, and more that you appear to be. Especially if others are (or are pretending to be.)

you reluctantly wear skirts to school because your dress pants are in a shameful state, and regularly fantasize about setting fire to your entire wardrobe.

bowing and/or nodding feels normal. Waving feels weird.

“itai!”  (“ouch”), “sumimasen!” (“sorry”), and “arigatou gozaimasu!” (“thank you!”) have become your automatic exclamations.

you, who’ve never been good at saying “no” in the first place, have substituted the hesitant oh-so-Japanese head-tilted teeth-suck rather than risk a verbalized refusal.

something as simple as picking up a package or making a phone call becomes an ordeal to be considered, scripted out, and ultimately (except in the most dire cases), left for another day.

every conversation with old Japanese men concludes with their wish for you to marry a local. To which you respond, “けど、日本語　は　ちょっと…” (basically implying that you can’t speak/understand/function in Japanese.) To which they invariably reply, “大丈夫、大丈夫！” (“It’s alright! No problem!”)* 

you rush to your apartment on a sunny Monday holiday afternoon to escape the celebrity fishbowl you have no choice but star in each time you step into the street.

the opening lines of “Bohemian Rhapsody” cause you to question how many different cultures and continents you can simultaneously straddle before shizz gets surreal.  

you’re running out of granola bars, natural peanut butter, and old cheddar cheese, and have been out of Sour Patch Kids** for longer than you'd care to think about.

  

you haven't accomplished everything you set out to do, and are perfectly okay with that.

*This at times awkward at times hilarious conversation topic may shed some light not only on why young Japanese women are not rushing into wedlock, but also on why the population of Tokyo is projected to decrease by twenty-five percent by the year 2050.

**Courtesy of the marvelous Milo and her fantastic folks!

That's Not My Name*

the eighty-four students and twenty-some teachers
of Mochigase Junior High School (R.I.P.)

When I first came to Japan, I decided that I wasn’t going to worry about learning the language until I had figured out my students’ names. Given the endless possibilities of the former and finite latter (at present, I have about three hundred junior high school students plus their younger elementary school siblings), I thought I was onto something.

A year and a half later, I have not only failed to remember all of my students’ names, I also do a bang-up job of confusing them or blanking completely when out of a classroom context.

In my defense:

I have a Kaito and a Keita in the same class. To make matters worse, one’s last name is Nakayama 中山 and the other is Nakamura 中村.

I have three Ashikawa 芦川 brothers spread over elementary and junior high school. Luckily, they are all extroverted baseball boys who excel at English, so I know their first names, too. But I confuse classmates Y. Otani 尾谷 and H. Ogura 小椋 despite both being active in English. Go figure.

It's not encouraging that I find boys’ names easier to remember than girls’. This is generally because the boys are more memorable, either because they are loud and love English, loud and can’t stand English, or are falling asleep in English. On the other hand, the girls – be they star students or completely confused – tend to keep quiet, united by a (not unfounded) fear that if I learn their name, I may call on them in class.

Case in point: in one of my (now graduated) classes, I had a Rima and a Rina, an Akane, an Ayane, and an Ayano. Three were pretty good at English, but all except one were quiet in class. Guess who got coaxed into giving answers most often?

This year, my grade one girls include a Rena, a Runa, three Rinas, and a Riho. Even if I do call on them correctly, the Rinas have the option of staring at the floor while blushing furiously until I can produce a clarifying last name. I rarely can.

That said, not all of my girls are the stereotypically shy Japanese youths. Like kids across the globe, some are downright cheeky. Miyu, Mayu, and Maho sit one in front of the other, but have such different personalities that it’s no problem to tell them apart. It also helps that Mayu and Miyu are usually together and experimenting on me in a mixture of intermediate English and inappropriate Japanese.

Hibiki is a girl’s name. So are Haruka, Natsumi, and Ikumi. However, Haruki, Namiki, and Itsuki are boys. May some Shinto-Buddhist god be with you if you call a boy by a girl’s name (unless it’s Yuki, which is apparently unisex.) It will be forgiven, but not forgotten.

I also have a Yuna, a Yuka, a Yuri, a Yui, a Yuiko, and a Yurika. They are girls. However, Yu, Yuta, Yuto, Yuya, and Yusuke are boys’ names. I wish I were making this up.

Then there are the names that are so similar (Hiroto and Hiroko, Tomoki and Tomoaki, Miki and Miku) I sometimes get away with slurring "soandso~san" (the suffix used to indicate respect and politeness) to avoid unnecessary embarrassment.

And don’t even get me started on the repetitious last names: Nishitani 西谷, Nishimura 西村, Nishida 西田. Yamamura 山村, Yamamoto 山本 (I have three in one class, and no, they’re not related). I've lost track of the Tanakas 田中, the Moritas 森田, and the Kobayashis 小林.

Mercifully, a handful of my students have English-sounding names. Karen, Charlene-Ann (Shara to her classmates), Sarina, Erisa, Arisa, Anna, Kenii, Jyouji (which, despite its spelling, sounds a lot like “Georgie”.) These, of course, I remember.

Next week, it’ll be a new school year, and I’ll not only have more than seventy new junior high school first grade students’ names to learn, but also a number of new second and third graders, as Mochigase will combine with the neighbouring village of Saji to form a new junior high school – Sendai Minami. 

It's a losing battle. 

*Although my students are rarely brave/outspoken/assertive enough to correct me, I know they think it.

I Was Made For Sunny Days

Still more things I've learned and confirmed in Japan:

I am solar-, sleep-, and sugar-powered. When one is unavailable, impossible amounts of the others are required.

It is important to establish and maintain one’s own work/life balance. Even if no one else agrees. Especially if no one else agrees.

I am not kawaii enough for this country. I am perfectly okay with that.

I am not okay with sexism (traditions are no excuse), homophobia (ignorance is no excuse), or racism (geographical bad blood is no excuse).

Where dodgeball is concerned, I am the strongest sixth-grade boy. Where kanji is concerned, I am a first-grade dunce. 

Be they in English, French, or Japanese, there are few things more unbearable than sitting in staff meetings as delegates "umm", "et ben..." and "eto" through their respective reports.

Sick days are counted as precious nenkyu (paid leave) unless you have proof that you were, indeed, sick. A doctor’s note or prescription proves that you were byouki (sick) enough to drag your sorry butt to a clinic to obtain said evidence. So, on the rare occasion when I’m really, truly, can’t-get-out-of-bed-or-I-might-pass-out sick, I take nenkyu.      

Choose your battles. Or, better yet, choose not to battle, and chalk it up to cultural acclimatization.

I am not gifted at giving heartfelt speeches to a roomful of people in another language and without preparation. Au contraire. Give me a computer and a week’s notice, and it’s possible I’ll produce some semi-precious nugget of something. 

Sometimes my lack of understanding into the way Japan works is a direct result of poor language skills. Sometimes I pretend that’s the reason to avoid disturbing the harmony with my radically permissive world views impossible to articulate in 日本語.

I would visit a fundamentally conservative land in the Middle East (or rural Alberta), but I would not live there. Countryside Japan is as pre-1950s as this girl gets.

“Reading the air” in Japan is the equivalent of “reading between the lines” in Canada. Both are essential, so long as I’m careful not to “read too much into it.”

I could use a little more shame and a lot less guilt. 

If the weather’s fine, get outside, even if you don’t feel like it or have time. Otherwise, when you really need to clear your head and suck in some fresh air, it’ll be pouring sideways. Guaranteed.

If it’s raining in the morning, it’ll be clear by quitting time. More often, it’s the other way around. Always carry an umbrella.

Sometimes, Canadians need to wear five layers, too.

Scarcity makes the things you took for granted (toothpaste with fluoride, stick deodorant, Sour Patch Kids, sunshine) precious.

“Forgive” is the most useful f-word. “Forget” is runner-up. Use them on others. Use them with yourself.

No matter how neglected, my violin is a friend.

I don't like being a tourist. I prefer to unpack and “when-in-Rome-it” for a while.

There is a place for pop music. Namely, all around the world. Repetitive and rhymed at a third-grade level, the accessibility and catchy-ness are undeniable. Hence “pop music.”

If I had to choose between going blind or going deaf (and, yes, this is the sort of thing I think about at school during spring vacation), I would choose the former. Life without sight would undoubtedly be difficult, but I can't imagine living without music.

To quote my celebrity girl-crush Serena Ryder, “you gotta sing sing sing sing sing…” In Japan, karaoke has been key. When I return to Regina, I’m finding a choir. Or four.

Never underestimate the power of being included. You have no idea how important it is until you’re not.

A simple, sincere “thank you” means the world.

  

Both Sides Now

Part of the reason I so wanted to stay in Japan another year was to unravel the mystery of…well, Japan. To claim that, a year and a half later, everything now makes perfect sense would be a whopper of a Pinocchio, but, if nothing else, what I have come to understand is that Japan is a-okay with ambiguity. Where my North American mind craves clarity and is conditioned to choose sides, my Japanese counterparts are very comfortable with contradiction. Here are a few examples:

Getting up ridiculously early on a Sunday to drive to a ryokan* several hours away. Purpose? To relax. Then, after a night of eating, drinking, and merrymaking, dragging yourself from sleep to catch the sunrise while soaking again.

Stripping naked in an onsen change-room full of same-gender strangers, then, in the name of modesty, struggling with a white cloth the size of a tea towel to strategically cover your naughty bits.

Elementary school students sliding, tumbling and rolling around on the classroom floor during breaks between lessons. Junior high school track-and-field students melodramatically collapsing to the ground after a series of ten-second dashes, lying on their backs or curled up in utero-esque positions, panting on the parking lot pavement. Obaasans (grandmothers) and ojiisans (grandfathers) squatting on their heels for the duration of an outdoor event – be it a several hour-long shan-shan performance in the village of Chizu in the heat of an August afternoon or at the 9 P.M. Magical Starlight Parade after a long day of walking around Osaka’s Universal Studios Japan amusement park – so as not to sit on the dirty, dirty (read: spotless) ground. Their children and grandchildren follow suit, of course.  

Eating on the street is considered quite impolite. Drinking alcohol is fine.

After asking my age, locals look at me with wide, round anime eyes, exclaiming, “wakai! So young!” Then, they are equally flabbergasted that I have no husband or children.

To leave home without a packet of tissues is to leave unprepared. To employ said tissues to cover one’s mouth or nose during a sneeze is a strange usage, indeed.

No one bats an eye at the micro minis walking by, but good luck trying to pass a tank top off as anything but suggestive. It’s an undershirt, deshou**, it’s not meant to be seen unless you’re undressing.

The mental tornado of multitasking versus the seemingly endless free time for imagination and monotony. In other words, school and spring break.

My all-in-Japanese Windows 93 dinosaur of a school-assigned laptop versus the multi-lingual 3G SmartPhone I started bringing to the staff room once I had enough work to justify not being able to wait five minutes for Google to load.

The inverse relationship between upbeat, energetic, unflappable work-week Echo and the antisocial, sloth-like, grumpy weekend hermit that friends and neighbours get to associate with on those rare occasions that I seek out or submit to social interactions.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryokan_(Japanese_inn)

**でしょう is, like many Japanese interjections, an opinion seeking confirmation. It can mean “I think that; I am afraid that; it seems that” as well as “Don’t you think that…?” (meaning that you probably should.)

Forget You / Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)

In celebration of saying さよなら (sayonara) to my least favorite month for another year, I’ve compiled a collection of fifty choice words.

Failure: promising to read two books, write two letters, and blog twice a month results in this

Follow-through: lacking this ruins runs and stifles ideas bursting with potential 

Five fifteen: a time I have more than once woken up at to complete a worksheet

Frazzled: how I often feel when Monday morning schedule changes leave me scrambling

Fatigue: end-of-the-week exhaustion so absolute all I want are bakery goods, a movie and bed

Fed-up: getting hit on at the grocery store in Japanese by construction workers twice my age 

Freak-out: an emotional outburst I have no time or energy to indulge

Flexibility: the ability to bend, bend, bend, but ultimately, to know one’s limits

Funny: my san nensei (third grade) JHS boys

Frustrating: a corporate culture where sick people go to work pretending to be robots 

Robots need love, too!

Fever: something you can’t ganbatte* through when you’re shivering at 38.6 degrees

*Faito (ファイト): Engrish term for the Japanese concept of enduring/persevering/trying one's best

Flu: an exception yielding five days of government-ordered isolation followed by endless apologies 

Flowers: left at my door as a “get well soon” by a teacher whose name I'll now always remember

Hello Kitty mug sold separately

Family: the fine folk who took care of me while my own flesh and blood were far away

a gift from Mochigase's sunny school  nurse

Four: the number of work days missed to attend the After-JET Conference in Yokohama

Freedom: stepping off the bus in Tokyo at 6 A.M. Saturday for some sightseeing

Fiasco: were I ever to try navigating Tokyo's transit alone

FUN: a Grammy Award-winning band we couldn’t get tickets for, but still manged to have plenty of

Far-out: the entire “Aida Makoto: Monument for Nothing” exhibition at the Mori Art Museum

Forbidden: taking photos of anything at said gallery, except this: 

behold, "the non-thinker" onigiri head

Four A.M.: the best time to argue coming out, gender equality, and last names over burgers

Favorite: from farmers' and flea markets,
to free hugs and freestyle dance, Yoyogo Park is mine!

Freaky: crazy déjà-vous rocking around Tokyo sans John almost exactly a year later

Fantastic: catching up with Tejas over coffee and cocoa after introducing him to my Tottori gang

Friendship: the most memorable and meaningful
part of my time in Japan

Fourteen: the number of countries I likely ate my way around in Tokyo and Yokohama

Italy, Turkey, China, America, and Mexico to name a few

Fabulous: this Oreo cookie cheesecake

Futon: a surprisingly comfortable sleep,
so long as no beanbag pillows are involved

Fly-by-the-seat-of-one’s-pants: the travelling style of my favorite South African in Japan

Fear: to spank or not to spank this into your firstborns (and subsequent children)

Famous: these cucumbers once we're done with them

Facebook: a social media addiction I’m getting under control during Lent

Flight: a 1.5 hour Tokyo – Tottori trip versus another nine-hour overnight bus

Flirting: a never-quite-mastered art form now rusty from disuse

Fearful: when it comes to matters of the heart

Fearless: when it comes to just about anything else

Fierce: my affection for Canada and my attachment to loved ones there

Ferris wheel: not nearly as exciting as a roller-coaster,
but nevertheless impressive

Fascinating: life in Japan, when I find time to stop (or walk) and think about it

Familiarity: when you notice you’ve stopped noticing the quirks and quarks of a place

Firsts: a year and a half later, there are still so many (including brand-new faux-pas!)

Furious: if I had to drive one of these advertising monstrosities
around all day and listen to the same song for hours on end

Fuel: mine is a combination of solar, sugar, and sleep

Foreigner: a (non-derogatory) word I’ve warmed to while being one in Japan

(Warm) Fuzzies: English affirmations I forced my 104
graduating JHS students to write to one another

Folly: the inspired (illegal) idea to make English music CDs for said students

Finesse: the ability to turn anything into a worksheet

Farewell: an old-school way of saying “take care” or “so long”

Sayonara, little cuties! See you in grade two!

Future: something to keep an eager eye on with feet firmly planted in the present!

(A final fun fact: if you click on the photos, they fatten up!)