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William Matheson's Journal - September 4th, 2008
Sep. 4th, 2008
12:52 am - 113. New Day
I had a bicycle problem tonight. My back tire’s been having a slow leak lately, and I’ve been having denial about coughing up the $25 or so required to service it. It’ll have to wait until after payday, and until then I’ll just give it a little pump before I go out.
Tonight I’d noticed it was getting a little squishy, but it wasn’t that squishy, and I didn’t want to “waste” a lot of time, so I set out for MaxValu anyway.
On the last few blocks before MaxValu, I notice that I’m starting to swerve unwittingly. But the road’s not slippery. I start to hear a thwup, thwup, thwup from the bike. I stop peadaling and coast. I still hear the thwup, thwup, thwup. I stop. Sure enough, the back tire is as squishy as a month-old banana.
I decide to try and find a gas station so I can pump up the tire. I walk with the bike, and using my map I find a gas station – that’s closed. In fact, perhaps permanently. There are a lot of closed-up gas stations in this prefecture. I’m not sure why; a fair number of people drive (though I certainly can’t afford to).
I start walking with faint hope to the next gas station, and as luck would have it I happen upon a little old bicycle shop, with an even older proprietor who’s lazily watching TV. I park my bike and step into the threshold. “Sumimasen. <pumping gesture> arimaska?”
The man nonchalantly indicated a bucket a foot away from me that held five or six floor-type bicycle pumps. Okay! I was almost instantly pumped up and back on the streets. The rest of the evening was a typical supply run (“<clipping nails gesture> arimaska?”), but I do have to lament the passing of the ¥200 Big Mac, which has gone back up to ¥320. While the sale lasted, it was much more satisfaction for the buck than buying two basic ¥100 hamburgers.
Today was a fair day, especially compared to yesterday.
I had the first two periods free for preparation purposes – I don’t usually get much out of the morning periods as I’m usually tired and not terrifically motivated, but I did refresh myself on my plans for the day while enjoying a few good, incidental jokes from M.*:
(While talking about nationality adjectives)
“We’d say Greek Town, but we would say China (not Chinese) Town, and we say Little Italy, not Little Italian -”
“Oh, I know a little Italian. He’s about five feet tall…”
(That leads to…)
“When I was a paper boy I had this boss who had a sense of humour. Every morning we’d have to count the papers to make sure we had enough, and one time I had two fewer than I needed. So I went to the boss and said, ‘Boss, I’m two short.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll grow.’”
BA-DUM-BUM
* - Now that the old M. has gone to Kyushu, M2 is the new M.
We went outside for the festival movements again – this time we even pantomimed a flag raising and a tug-of-war, and this time I felt somewhat prepared, although the tip of my nose got a bit scorched. We didn’t have full sun – it was only partly cloudy – but we still “lost” two students for the second half. Honestly, if I had to march that long in even partial sun in this heat and humidity, I’d be a sweaty, exhausted, seared mess myself. Tomorrow I will take a bigger towel – the hand towel I was using was too small, and I had to use my glasses to help keep it mounted around my ears and neck. My face, being out all the time, is hardy enough, but my other parts aren’t.
I think I understand why certain Muslims in much of the (predominantly sunny and hot) Arab World dress the way they do. There is a religious slant to it, but underneath that, covering up is damn practical. Not adhering to code would be asking for a wicked sunburn.
After lunch, as I was coming back, one of the friendlier Year Twos wished me a “Good morn-” and corrected himself to “Good afternoon meeting.” Ha-ha! No, no, just ‘good afternoon!’ He must have gotten it from the afternoon meetings at the end of the school day, which all begin: “This is the afternoon meeting. Please stand up. Bow. Please sit down. Do the teachers have anything to say?”
Oh, and when I got back into the staff room to get some things (though I was going to the gym immediately thereafter), do you know what was happening? AIR CONDITIONING! Finally! Yes, it’s kind of like locking the door after the stolen horse has sired a Triple Crown winner, but it was welcome just the same. The hard-hatted men had been putting the finishing touches on the system and testing it while we were all outside, and bless them for keeping it on for us after we got back.
Of course, it wasn’t on everywhere – not until certain adjustments had been made. M-sensei, my cooperating teacher, anticipating that they’d be putting it on in our room, had the kids shut all the windows before my class. A reasonable precaution, and all went according to plan, except for the part about them turning it on. I swear it was at least 35°C in there – the hottest I’ve ever had to teach in. I sweated buckets, but I didn’t realize why until the class was over – I thought I was just excited or on edge. When the door to the stairwell opened afterwards, it felt like the draft from an open refrigerator – and that area is never air conditioned or heated. Anyway, it was a successful class, and I’m not complaining. Il est juste vraiment drôle.
Irony of ironies, in the staff room they left the A/C running full blast, and by the time 4:00 rolled around, I could no longer stand to be in there. It was too cold, even though I was still wearing long sleeves and pants. I had to grab a bunch of holiday homework and correct it in a secluded spot in the stairwell. It’s just the damndest thing about A/C – a little bit is great, but I’d rather be too hot than endure too much A/C. A/C is kind of counterintuitive to the mind as well as the flesh – what does “turning down” the A/C really mean – the temperature (therefore “upping” the intensity) or the intensity (which “ups” the temperature)? Heat is a lot easier to work with in almost every conceivable way. Warming up in winter is a lot more satisfying than cooling down in summer, at least for me, especially over any significant time.
Mk. gave us a questionnaire today – she wants to open up a section of the S.G. website to host profiles of the foreign teachers. I think that’s a pretty good idea, so I consented to cooperate. She also broached the idea of having a question-and-answer space, and an area for comments. It would be a “free space,” except that we can’t say anything negative about Japan, and we probably also have to keep up the fairy tale that we’re all accredited teachers. Also, if I were to say that my “hobbies and interests” included creative writing – specifically blogging – that might get me into a wee bit of trouble. =) So I may be, um, a little more reticent with this than I normally would be. Now, it’s not like I’m saying my opinionated tirades have any place on any institutional or organizational website – I’m just wondering why the school would think it their business to open up a “free space” for expression. It’s a confusion of interest at best. Oh well. I guess it’s a way for the parents to get to know the foreign teachers, since we’re not allowed to actually speak to them.
Anyway, on top of everything I really must say that I’m happy to be back in the swing of things – knowing that this term will very likely be my last, I can approach it with devil-may-care confidence. I can do what I feel is right with alacrity. I can be bold. It helps a lot.
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chipper12:37 pm - 114. Lunch?
Gah!! This time, the drills went twenty-five minutes after lunch time (though they finally remembered to let us go after twenty). With less than thirty minutes to go, they stuck us into the relay formations to take the places of absent students, and even just practicing lining up for the relay took us well into lunch, to say nothing of the relay itself. I’m going to ask that they don’t stick us into things that late again.
A digression: There are few things more annoying than being stuck under burning hot sun during your lunch hour while listening to hotheaded Japanese teachers berate their charges to within an inch of their lives. Get a life, sensei. If I never hear certain teacher’s voices again, it will be too soon.
F. says that she was told before coming here that she would see some shocking things, and that questioning any of it would be a no-no. With all due respect to Japan, this is just protecting something clearly wrong under the veneer of “culture.” This is shitty behaviour in any country and it shouldn’t be tolerated. Raising kids with fear is complete bullshit, and I’m not afraid to call it such, don’t-criticize-things-in-Japan admonitions be damned.
I think I may be a few minutes late coming back from lunch… =) I have no classes after lunch today, which a really good thing – unfortunately, most of the other foreign teachers have classes right after lunch. They’re really being pinched at both ends.
In any case, we’ll be sure not to let this particular thing happen again.
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annoyed10:05 pm - 115. Complicity
I got up this morning to find another egg on my balcony. I really wanted to drop it over the side like the last one, but there were ball players doing exercises in a circle across the street, and they would have seen me tossing something off my balcony. It wouldn’t have looked good. So I begrudgingly let it be. Maybe it was just a freak thing, I thought.
I came back this afternoon to find one of those [deity-cursed] [excrement] machines brooding the egg. Stupid birds. Stupid rotten lousy pieces of [excrement] with [excrement] for brains, I want to strangle every [deity-cursed] last [intercourse] one of them. [Excrement]! [Intercourse]! I will recommend that my successor show no mercy. I want to kick and stomp the very life out of them; they bring out the very worst in me. It’s something primal; they’re intruding in my territory and making a mess of it. Be gone, fowl fiends!
Skipping ahead a bit, this evening I discovered I had to defrost my freezer. I guess I should say “absolutely had to” – I’d been putting it off, but tonight the freezer door wouldn’t open all the way because of the mass of ice. I had to give it a tug and crack the inside plastic a bit. Then I gave F. a call, put everything in her freezer, and then unplugged the fridge. As the evening progressed, I started tugging on the ice, which came out in large pieces, which I could then just toss in the sink. It was all easier than I had imagined – all I needed was patience, the sink, a towel to soak up much of the water at the end, and then some paper towel to wipe up the rest. I didn’t need no stinking blow dryers or ice chests.
Today was full of ups and downs, and as I’ve noted, we spent a great amount of time under the cruel, unrelenting sun. I sad that some of the teachers were a little harsh. I did see one handling a few kids rather roughly – there was definitely some arm-grabbing and short-distance heaving / dragging. I also hear of some hitting, but I’m usually looking at the ground when it happens because of the embarrassing yelling that accompanies it. I wasn’t even around yesterday when the worst of it happened – this same teacher lashed out and threw a kid to the ground.
Sheesh.
And this is all on top of the fact that the kids are out there for well over an hour at a go without water or shade – today they had a five minute rest between two gruelling hour-plus sessions. So F. took these concerns to H-sensei and Mk. To their great credit, they were reportedly very receptive. We weren’t the only ones raising an eyebrow – some of the junior high students and teachers (who happened to observe us practicing when they were walking by) were shocked to see what was going on.
What’s more, they’d spoken to this teacher before about her, erm, aggressiveness. That kind of makes it seem like there’s a double standard – one foreign teacher of yore was shown the door after striking a kid, although it was because the parents complained on the child’s behalf. Also, foreign teachers are expendable compared to Japanese teachers, and this foreign teacher may have been on the rocks with the senior Japanese teachers and the administration already anyway. I’m not at all suggesting that this teacher ought to be fired, but she (and at least one other teacher in my opinion) ought to invest in a bottle or two of chill pills. The sky isn’t falling because so-and-so-kun in second grade isn’t raising his knees high enough on the march.
I must thank my lucky stars that the Japanese teachers I’ve shared homerooms with have been as cool as cucumbers the vast, vast majority of the time. I haven’t had a harsh or harshly-delivered word with either of them. They’re fantastic. Not that the others aren’t cool too, but let’s just say that I’m not known for my ability to get along with temperamental people.
Anyway, getting back to the main thread: Although the parents involved in the incident with that former foreign teacher complained, it seems that many parents are complicit with the sometimes cruel manner of Japanese teachers. Many parents feel like they have no control over their children at home, so they see school as the only place where they can have discipline. So many parents are workaholics and so many children are coddled (perhaps to offset parental guilt), and the teachers are left to do the heavy lifting. The parents are more than willing to turn a blind eye to professional misconduct if the desired effect – a subdued, easily managed child – is achieved.
This and more was talked about at that meeting. The result of it all is that we will be getting a reminder about the rules at tomorrow’s teacher’s morning meeting. F. and C. predict a lot of downcast staring and quiet “Sooooooo des”es. Also, the teacher involved in the recent incidents and the teacher who usually translates things for us… is the same teacher. This will be interesting, to say the least. =)
[Update: Nothing more was said about it.]
I was really glad that F. had the scruples to bring this matter into discussion and suggest a meeting about it. Her heart was certainly in the right place. I admired her for this – I even said that I was non-condescendingly proud, not to suggest that she needs my approbation to do what’s right. I said that I was tempted to suggest a meeting myself, but it would have started with, “Hey, can we go at 12?” F. joked, “The kids can run all they want as I long as I get something to eat.”
It’s true, though. I see what the kids are enduring, and I’m like, “When’s lunch, so I don’t have to see or hear this anymore?” I’m as complicit as anyone. All I want to do during these trying times is survive this job and go back to school. I care about the kids I teach, but it’s easy for me to forget that when I’m roasting and listening to kids being roasted.
Way to go, F., for standing up for what’s right, and for doing it in an appropriate way – you got the issue the attention it deserved. [for five minutes, behind closed doors]
Some happier anecdotes:
1. The phone rang incessantly this afternoon. It was one call after another practically begging for a Japanese teacher to come to the phone. None were around. The final time it rang, I took pity on the caller and asked them to wait (while I looked around for a teacher). As luck would have it, a Japanese teacher did come into the room. I indicate the phone, and that the caller is looking for a Japanese teacher. “OK. Understood.” And then he went to the photocopier, and then sauntered to his desk (walking past the off-the-hook phone, which I was looking at expectantly), applied lip gloss, then walked back out again. I couldn’t believe it. I was stunned, and I broke into laughter just after he slid the door shut behind him. To top it off, this is a guy I have “seniority” on. =) Actually, on that note, I think F. has become the de facto Senior Foreign Teacher. Despite the fact that I may be technically entitled to that distinction (we started at the same time, but I was hired before she was), I think it’s for the best. I don’t have a head for the kind of generalities needed to take on a leadership role. F. does, and she’s also really good at seeing other people’s points of view. Meanwhile, I’m getting good at knowing how to do stuff, but it’s mostly technical / logistical stuff – ask me to make up a dance for the kiddies, and I’m completely clueless. Thus F. should really be the Senior Foreign Teacher. We complement each other, and it wouldn’t be bad to be 1A, and as things are it’s not bad being 6D (up from 19Z when D. was still here).
2. Every afternoon, the children change from their S.G. shorts and tees back into their formal school uniforms. The Year Three and Four classrooms are next to each other, so the boys go over to / stay in H-sensei’s Y4 room (H-sensei is male) and the girls go to / stay in M-sensei’s Y3 room (M-sensei is female). There’s usually a bit of a wait in the stairwell as the quicker third-year boys and fourth-year girls emerge from the rooms and wait for the all-clear signal before reentering.
Some of the Year Three girls are notoriously slow changers. Today one of the girls identified A-chan as the last girl who was still changing – not the one who’s habitually the slowest, and one who’s pretty well-humoured – so I playfully shouted, “A---, hurry up!” Boy, did the boys ever latch onto that one. “A---, hurry up! A---, hurry up!” they started to chant. Oh, boy. I apologized to A-chan, and said I wouldn’t do anything like that again.
Alright, it’s time to get myself ready to go to Hiroshima tomorrow. I wish I didn’t have to go this weekend – I’d dearly love another easy weekend of relaxation and sleep, but my train ticket expires on the 10th, so it’s now-or-never. Luckily, next weekend is a long weekend, and I have no plans, so I’ll get my naps – and I hope some catch-up writing – in then. I still have to finish writing about the open lesson just past (#110)!
Cheers!
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awake11:48 pm - 116. Hair, Part Two
Tonight I clipped my hair again - it had gotten quite unruly in the nearly five months since the first time. I think I did a better job this time; I left myself a few centimetres up front so that I still have some bangs left.
The other difference from April is the heat and humidity we're experiencing. Summer has been vanquished, but it's like felling an enemy who has Final Attack linked with Knights of the Round. Its death throes are harder to take than what it dished out in its prime.
Because of the heat and humidity, I'm almost perpetually sweaty, and tonight was no exception. After I finished clipping my hair, I looked and felt like a used lint roller brush, as the hair just stuck to me. After clearing up the clippings, I hopped in the shower. And now I should probably go to bed.
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