William Matheson's Journal

07:27 am - The Hesei 20 Sports Festival

The Hesei 20 Sports Festival
by William Matheson

( Full article )

11:40 pm - 130. Sports Festival Results

Current Mood: hungry

04:14 pm - 117. Temples 87, 86 + Journey to Hiroshima

(Written from notes taken September 5th)

On Friday the 5th, there was a nice cool breeze, and rainy skies. Because of this respite from the sun, we were better able to appreciate the Shinra-like qualities of the opening march. The sun came out again just before noon – mercifully, it wasn’t around long enough to roast us again.

The relay, a source of frustration the day before, was a lot of fun this day. We completed two whole runs in less than forty minutes, and finished ten minutes early. I got to run in the relay – I stood in for A---, the slow dresser from the previous day.

The relay format is ingenious. It’s structured so that everyone participates: Years One through Three run quarter laps around the track, then Years Four through Six run half laps (and they really book it). The entire school is divided into six teams, and I guess that means there are three teams representing each main team (Red and White). Every time it’s run, it’s anybody’s to win, and it stays thrilling right up to the very last lap. It’s a great event – it’s arguably the most exciting thing in the festival, and so it’s the last event on the program.

As luck would have it, I didn’t have any classes scheduled for the afternoon, so I used my time from the open lesson with the kinders to have the afternoon off and leave early to see some temples in Kagawa on the way up. I was going to catch a train at around half past twelve, so I had a few minutes to fold some clothes and pack, singing Quad City DJ’s to myself while grabbing my necessaries.

The train ride into Kagawa was gorgeous – the tracks go through lots of small villages and hidden valleys, and the mountain pass on the prefectural border is something else, with its periodic tunnels and glimpses of greenery and the Inland Sea. I’d been on this line before, but it was at night – I knew we were going through tunnels and sinking into valleys, but I had no idea it was all so pretty. Unfortunately, I was fighting with my camera batteries during this time and have no pictures of any of it.

Temple 87: It’s a long walk from Zoda Station on the JR line, but it’s near the terminus of the Nagao Line of the Kotoden Railway. I was travelling JR, so I had to take the walk. I arrived at the station at 1:52pm and left again at 3:56. I’d recommend budgeting at least that much time, and more if you’re not a fast walker.

Once I got a few blocks away from the station, I was really aching for a place to stash my duffel bag and umbrella. Luckily, I spotted a house that had a very narrow walled-off part of its “lawn” next to its garage – like absurdly narrow; you couldn’t stand two people abreast in it. There was no car in said garage, so when the coast was clear I tucked my things in on the other side of the wall and continued walking. There was nothing in the bag but clothing and toiletries – nothing I couldn’t replace, but I doubted the bag would even be noticed, unless the owners made a habit of peering in the nook beside their garage every afternoon.

I was working my way to the temple based on a photo I took of the locator map that was beside the station, and even with that I took a wrong turn and went on for some minutes before I realized what had happened. Luckily, this was in the early going, so it wasn’t cause for panic.

The temple was lovely – its attached cemetery was in the process of being reconstructed, so there was a lot of equipment and caution tape around. The temple office was being attended by a bona fide young monk – he stamped my book about as expertly as could possibly be imagined. Outside, there was a tour group of pilgrims – they go from temple to temple by bus – and what got me was that for this one shrine they stood off to the side of it in the shade and worshipped from there. That kind of pragmatism in a religious setting surprises me.

On the way back, I found my things right where I left them, and I got to the station with more than ten minutes to spare. The walk was flat, quiet and really gave me the chance to see the area. In the end, I can safely recommend accessing Temple 87 from Zoda Station – just be sure to budget some time.

Between 87 and 86 there’s a place and a station called Orange Town. Isn’t that the coolest thing? It’s like you’ve just stepped into a Pokémon game or something.

Temple 86: Getting off at Shido, you find yourself in a small port town, and there’s a large marina along the walk to the temple. I stashed my things under a row of trees between two parking lots at the marina.

The temple grounds are expansive and filled with trees, and with the setting sun it was hard to get many good pictures, but I managed a few. I got into the temple office just a few minutes before 5, and I’m sure I was the last stamp of the day. The person there had a neat mechanical counter that he thumbed after he stamped my book; I should have asked to see it.

Back at the station, I got my ticket stamped – no more “free” rides for me, I guess. =) But I did hop on a limited express to Takamatsu – thereby making it there non-stop instead of with eight stops. It was lightning fast and would have been worth the extra ¥320, but nobody was checking tickets, so I got away with this one. With such a supreme advantage in speed, no wonder the express surcharge to go all the way from capital-to-capital is ¥1150 – and that’s on top of the ¥1410 basic fare.

Takamatsu: Beautiful! I think I could live here – there’s a really nice waterfront, and the downtown is very walkable. My camera batteries were crapping out again and I was reduced to a kind of Lomography (I couldn’t use my viewfinder), but even shooting blindly I think I caught a few interesting things.

There are all kinds of transportation connections – high-speed ferries were going in and out almost by the minute. The train station is really nice, too. Tokushima’s is in a good location, but it’s not nearly as new-looking once you get to the tracks.

At the station, I had two ¥100 burgers at Lotteria – their ¥100 burgers are slightly better than McDonald’s ¥100 burgers, but most McDonald’s have power outlets – sometimes at every seat! Lotteria’s were sparse and capped-over. I’ve gone into McDonald’s several times just to charge my batteries, so I definitely see power outlets as a way to attract customers.

I was getting on a Marine Liner here – I noticed that after the train pulled in, either the boarding passengers or a JR employee would go up and down the cars flipping the seats around. With just a push the seats and benches on many cars go from facing one way to facing the other way, which is an essential feature on these railways where they don’t turn the cars around for their return journeys.

So far, so good – my adherence to my itinerary was 100% so far. I felt that the real challenge would be coming back. I would have all day Saturday in Hiroshima, which would mean that I could sort of relax, but I’d have a lot of things to cram into that day, too.

Okayama: I had just under an hour here, so I got out onto the streets and took some night shots. There were lots of teenagers hanging out and playing music in the underground passages. I swapped my rechargeables for single-use batteries, and suddenly my camera problems had vanished – I had bought these 2650 mAh Duracell Ni-MH batteries thinking that they’d be an improvement over my fading Panasonic 2100s, but it hasn’t turned out to be the case. When these Duracells give up (and it looks like they are already doing that), I’ll go back to Panasonics.

I was a little bit later than I expected in getting to the local train that would continue the journey – as expected, there was a huge crowd on board, and I didn’t get a seat until just before Fukuyama, when another big crowd got on.

Mihara: I had to switch trains here (from one local to another) - when I first got out and looked at the clock I thought I would be missing my transfer! But it turns out I just misread the analogue clock in haste. And then I realized I’d left my umbrella on the first train. Damn. Well, umbrellas are cheap here – people are always using them, losing them, and just picking them up.

I sat down near the back of the car and smelled something – what was it? Did someone puke or is there some rotten food… and then I noticed that this is one of those local trains that has a toilet on board. Ah. I then moved to the other end of the car.

This was a looooong train ride; I was starting to feel half-dead and we were still a number of stations out. I couldn’t listen to music or podcasts, because my earphones let in too much noise. I made a memo to myself to buy better headphones after payday.

I may haha "bite the bullet" & go back to Okayama on Shinkansen cuz this is ridiculous. It really was. Back in Kansai, the rapid services between Himeji and Maibara are slick - but in this area there’s next-to-no rapid service. Anyone who wants to get anywhere quickly and comfortably is forced to use the $hinkan$€n. I don’t know if the ticket I was using is good for basic fares on Shinkansen, but the basic fare from Okayama to Hiroshima was ¥2940, and the surcharge ¥2410, for a potential charge of ¥5350. OUCH. It reduces a three-hour trip to forty minutes, but still.

Hiroshima: I arrived at Hiroshima at 11:35pm, and was greeted by a dark but lively plaza. I had some difficulty finding the cybercafé I wanted to go to, and when I got there it was full – not to mention that along the way I had the misfortune to walk past a gang of miscreants who tried to frighten me and then laughed about it. I’ll never forget their wicked expressions and hollers. After the first place, I had to carefully pick my way to the second place, and I very nearly didn’t find it as a lot of its complex was closed for the night and the cybercafé elevator was tucked away on the far side of the building – I only got there because one of the all-night-music-store employees helped me find it.

I got to sleep, but I had to fool myself into it – my trick was pretending I was in my aunt’s spare bedroom in Souris, and I was tired enough that I could convincingly delude myself into feeling that way, and so soon I was asleep.

05:22 pm - 126. The Sports Festival Rehearsal Incident

I feel like I’ve overstayed my welcome in Japan. Whenever I go places, I do so with a guilty conscience – deep inside, I wonder if they know what I really think about Japan, what I’ve written about it – that I’m showing the severest ingratitude in the face of the privilege of being allowed to come here. I’m starting to notice the way people look at me in general. I don’t like it anymore.

I’ve always been an idiot-savant, but in terms of my job I feel like people just see the idiot and not the savant. I’m beginning to be viciously mocked by the junior high students – ball players, too, not just the IEC students – and there are even a few primary school students who are doing so as well. I was made fun of quite a bit in Poland and Ukraine as well, so this shouldn’t come as a great surprise, I suppose.

I have to be able to take a little bit of mockery, though. If one’s modus operandi is ridiculousness, it goes with the territory. I wish I’d known back when I was in junior high that I’d always be ridiculed to some extent no matter where I went. And, you know, what’s the big deal? Nobody ever kicks a dead dog – maybe they are seeing the savant. At least sometimes, I hope.

I should also make an effort to be less negative about things. Back when M. and I were joking about the questionnaire, F. stopped me and said, “You know, there’s a lot of negativity coming from you,” intoned with an unspoken, “Stop. It. Right. Now.” Well, you can imagine how I (wanted to) react to that.

I limited myself to, “Well, that’s my business.”

“Yes, but if you express it, it becomes our business.”

Oh, well lah de lah. Is this another thing about what I’m allowed and not allowed to say? And since when do I have to take orders from you? Who made you the Grand High Poobah? It took every bit of strength I had not to say these things.

Somehow – I forget exactly how – the situation became defused and we were joking about it:

“I was tempted to reply, ‘Nyah, nyah… This is why I hate working with other people-’”

“‘- and having to behave,’” she interrupted. “‘Where’s my lolly?’”

Ouch. That hurt.

(By the way, people who tell you to stay positive are usually just trying to tell you to put up with something that you shouldn’t. Just a tip.)

Friday was eventful. We started off with a late morning meeting. We foreign teachers had been waiting in the office for it to start – I almost advised M. to go ahead with it (he was on week duty, so it was his job to initiate it and lead us through kengaku no seishin), as the principal was there, but we waited until quarter after, and then we finally were given the go-ahead. And then, in the course of the meeting, H-sensei lambasted us for not being outside helping them set up for the sports festival rehearsal: “You all work for the primary school, so when you see…” Her tone was completely unnecessary – it was an innocent mistake: the morning meeting usually starts at eight, and it’s a very bad thing to be late for, and while I saw them outside moving stuff around, I didn’t know – nay, none of us knew – whether that or the meeting was the more important thing. (And why are you giving us shit about what we’re supposed to be doing when you – habitually! – won’t tell us what we’re supposed to be doing until after we’re supposed to have done it? All they had to do was tell us the night before or even shout to us as we were walking in, “Hey, please, jump in, don’t worry about the meeting.” Sheesh.) I explained about the not-knowing-what-was-the-most-important-thing to H-sensei and W-sensei after the meeting, and she was like, “Oh, OK.” In my opinion, she erred, but we make ten times as many mistakes as she does, so whatever.

So before long we’re outside under the hot sun again for our “dress rehearsal” for the sports festival. I think the sun and the previous experience with H-sensei had me on a short fuse.

A kid from Year Two came up to me, pointed at my chest, and said, “Mr. Matheson, chikumi!” It didn’t need translation.* I grabbed him by the shoulders and yelled, “You… never… say that!” and with a growl I shoved him away, and he was picking himself up off the ground.

All I saw was rage. I wanted to throttle the little bugger. Of all the sore points he could have hit…

I saw the other foreign teachers talking, and soon F. came up and all but dragged me to the office. Take your water bottle with you. He’s just a kid. You can’t do that. You’re supposed to be the adult. You’re the disciplinarian. You’re supposed to set a good example. She went in to speak to Mk., and it was then that I began to think that this might have been my last day at S.G. This would be a great, worthy excuse to fire me. There was a precedent, as one foreign teacher had been fired for hitting a kid. Maybe I wanted out so badly that I took it out on this kid.

I wondered if anyone there knew the hell I’d gone through to get here. Well, that kid had no way of knowing. He’s a congenital shit disturber – in countenance very much like my cousin Colin when he was that age – but he’s just a kid. I can’t be lashing out at people like that. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

Maybe I’m just not fit for polite company. I’m still the same old screaming, immature piece of crap I was in high school. Who knows what I’m capable of doing? I could suddenly hurt or even injure someone! No, I wasn’t fit for polite company anymore. It was now time to go back to Canada and live in that shack by the river that everyone always saw me living in.

F. and Mk. emerged, and as F. returned to the sports “field,” I sat down to have a very interesting meeting with Mk.

After I talked about my own mistakes first, she allowed me to vent my frustrations – I don’t mean the way that some people do it when you get up in the other person’s face – no, not that, I just took deep breaths and went over the frustrations and contradictions blow-by-blow. In one way or another, I mentioned most of the things I’ve mentioned here, although probably in a more polite manner.

Her answer to some of the questions I posed was, “Management can’t disclose why they do what they do.” Hoo-boy. I mentioned the specific issue of telling the parents or letting them assume that we’re real teachers – it seemed like chicanery, if not outright dishonesty.

Well, this is a private school… parents have high demands. Well, why not raise tuition and give them what they want? Oh, but the tuition is already high – eight times higher than public school tuition.

“How much does a typical public school cost?”
“Um… I can’t say.”
“Don’t know, or can’t say?”
“I can’t say how much public school cost because then you would figure out how much S.G. cost.”
“But I work here. I should know that.”
“Well, you can look it up.”

Well, in any case, I already have an idea how much S.G. costs – about $800-$900 a month, I think (and there are discounts available for the children of staff (50%) as well as second and third children from the same family) – a princely sum, but I’ve heard worse. There’s also an enrolment fee that’s the better part of $1000 and various other dings, but any hardworking family could afford to send a child or two here without having to live off millet rice.

I also admitted to Mk. that I would have left some time ago were it not for the facts that it takes three months to get a new teacher and that they have my airfare hanging over me. But I did confirm that I was still prepared to finish my contract. Yes, I can do this for three more months. (That’s not that long of a time, when you think about it.)

No, there was no talk of me leaving, except what I brought up myself. I wanted to apologize to K-kun out of principle, but she said to wait – sometimes such “discipline” is necessary by Japanese standards. She’d talk to H-sensei about it. And in the end, H-sensei agreed with Mk.’s sentiment: “He did something bad to you, so he needed to be disciplined.” Since he wasn’t hurt and went back to enjoying the festival rehearsal, I wasn’t to apologize and undermine the ‘discipline’ – unless his parents were to complain, then all bets would be off, as they were when that other foreign teacher was released.

Mk. confirmed that they really wanted to keep me for the three remaining months – mostly for the kids (and mostly my homeroom kids, presumably), as they wanted to keep me. Well, jackpot! If I can only have one or the other, I’d much rather have the love and respect of the innocent children than of management. That they find room in their hearts for a curmudgeon like me really says something. It looks like I’m safe for the time being.

I left the meeting, returned to the sports festival rehearsals, and spoke to F. I said that it looked like I wouldn’t be packing my bags just yet. Oh no, she exclaimed, that wasn’t it at all. I thought she was carting me off to be fired – but she was really just acting to defuse the situation, as well as acting in my interest, too.

Things settled down, and the rest of the rehearsal went by without incident – save a dust devil that blew through, knocking some things around and scaring some kids. I’d never seen one before; it wasn’t very big, and it lasted less than a minute, but it was quite the thing to see up close.

In the afternoon after classes were out, we had a very, very long meeting about the sports festival. The principal brought us some tea and Calpis to ease the pain. They could have just given us the Coles Notes afterwards – it was also frustrating because we had to sit in a circle to get the odd translation while the other teachers, at their desks, could do other work (like correcting things) while the meeting went on (and on). They finally let us go just before 6:00, and after that I started working on my preparations for Tuesday. I finally got out at 7:30. “You a very hard worker!” A-sensei exclaimed. “Sometimes,” I grinned.

Just one more little thing that bugs me (and this’ll be it for today, I promise): It’s really annoying when someone is ordering you to “please focus on their pronounciation.” It’s enough to drive you straight up the wall. I think it’s an effective acid test concerning English – you have no business talking about pronunciation if you can’t even pronounce it. =)

Tomorrow: Hiroshima!

__________________
* - During the meeting, Mk. confirmed that, yes, he did mean “tits.” I knew he did anyway because some of the other year two kids were giving me a hard time about it the last time we went swimming, enough to effectively ruin the experience. My homeroom students, to their credit, either didn’t care or were polite enough to keep it to themselves – so the one time when it was just them, I was able to have a happy experience. And yes, call me a hypocrite – I don’t want to suppress my own negativity, yet I condemn these children for pointing out my bodily irregularities that will be sending me to the gym as soon as I get back to school. I think I’ll take the equivalent of four full-year courses instead of five and dedicate the extra time to fitness classes – they’ll be free, so why not?

Current Mood: restless

10:05 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!

Current Mood: awake

12:37 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.

Current Mood: annoyed

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.

Current Mood: chipper

10:38 pm - 112. Sports Festival Preparations

I’ve just spent the last two hours planning my trip to Hiroshima. Actually, that may be misleading – I already know what the things to do there are – it’s the train trips that took time to plan. If I were just going to Hiroshima and back it would be no great sweat, except that I also want to stop in some temples in Kagawa along the way. This requires careful and precise planning.

Since I consider temples outside of Tokushima Prefecture to be “bonus,” though, I can’t be too worried if I don’t get to complete my itinerary. I think I can, though, provided I step lively. The temples I’ve picked out are on level ground and close to train stations. On the way to Hiroshima I’m trying for 87 and 86 – on the way back I’m trying for 68, 69, 70, 76, and 75. The list of trains to catch is sixteen items long and is best left to your imagination.

Today we delved deeper into our preparations for the Sports Festival. We spent the first two periods in the gym, beginning with lining the Year 1s and 2s up into formations again and again for a whole period before the Japanese teachers finally let us get moving and dancing. There are few things I’m less interested in than lining kids up, and among them is deciding how kids should be lined up while standing and sweating in a hot gymnasium without air conditioning. This was one of those moments where I wanted out of this job at any price. For me, these exercises in conformity are a colossal waste of time.

After the recess-like mid-morning break, we spent the rest of the morning outside in the sweltering heat to practice the opening formations. This was pure torture – among the other things I’m not interested in is listening to absurdly hot-tempered Japanese teachers scream and yell at their charges over every fault. Fortunately, there was a breeze. I also garnered a few seconds of amusement by comparing the children's parade to the Shinra's in Junon. I wonder if the music in that part of the game is a nod to the marches played at sports festivals.

I also had the foresight to go and fetch my new umbrella at the outset, but this ended up causing its own problems. H-sensei, essentially our boss, came up and said that I could keep using the umbrella for today, but that tomorrow I’d need a hat. I was cheesed. I could see the probable reasoning behind it – that I had to look busy, that I looked funny being the only one carrying an umbrella, or whatever – but the choices were using the umbrella, applying expensive sunscreen, or getting badly burned. I don’t have a hat, but tomorrow I will wear long sleeves, long pants, and a towel on my head. Lest you think this coping method ridiculous, it is what most of the other teachers are already doing.

I just can’t put into words how utterly infuriated I was that H-sensei had the audacity to tell me I couldn’t use my umbrella. Like I’m being forced to stand around outside and stare at kids forming lines and marching in circles for a hundred minutes straight, and they tell me I can’t even be safe and comfortable doing so? Why should I suffer just to conform? Why are we doing this crap? Why did I sign up for this? Why? Why? Why? This was another one of those moments where I wanted out of this job at any price. I was actually contemplating the consequences of taking a swing at certain individuals with my umbrella. I harbour the same frustrations and aggressive stubbornness that I’ve always had, it’s just that now I allow myself a sober second thought and a chance to walk away.

I’m so happy I wasn’t born and raised in this country. I have a feeling that any individuality I might have had would have been snuffed out by the school system and the broader social norms. A healthy portion of my youthful rebellion (especially at school) was justified, and here it wouldn’t have been tolerated – nor would I, I suspect, have dared exhibit it.

I don’t think it gets better for adults, because the labour environment here is equally caustic. Anyone who needs to claw their way to the top or even the middle has their work cut out for them. Everyone is underappreciated here – they think ¥700 an hour is a good wage, and people work untold hours of unpaid overtime just to keep their jobs. They’re all such sheep! But it’s hard to blame any individual when the whole environment is a recipe for exploitation. Japan is a beautiful country with some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet and the best public works infrastructure in the known universe, but please – think thrice before working here!

If you think this is a vitriolic rant, you wouldn’t want to see what I would have written had I written right after the lunch bell rang. Actually, I mean right after the ten minutes of extra marching they squeezed in before dismissing everyone. After that, I was about ready to scream. But I didn’t write just then, partly because I didn’t have enough time, but also because when major frustrations occur I have a tendency to say things that I regret later. I mean, I would have meant what I’d said – it’s just that the things wouldn’t have been informed by time, new information, and calm, non-flight-or-fight thought. There’s a potential for embarrassment there.

Mk. came in after lunch and gave us a memo she printed about the sports festival and taking proper precautions. “Heat stroke is very popular in Japan,” she warned. (After the laughter subsided, we informed her of the difference between “popular” and “common.”)

She also asked me if I had a particular problem with the sun – the other teachers saw my umbrella usage and became concerned. (This information improved my attitude about a million points.) Well, I guess I wasn’t allergic (as she suggested) or anything – I just burn really really easily. “Does that count?” I wanted to ask. But count for what? Why ask? What could be different?

Anyway, I still appreciated the post-facto appeal to our welfare among all of the Sports Festival “duties.” And one further welcome tidbit: It turns out we’re free to leave for lunch at the noon bell, even if the marches and formations and what not keep going – assuming we’re not personally involved in them, of course. That was good to know. I think they should be holding these drills in the first two periods – that way, if they run over the allotted time, they can just bump into other classes and not disrupt lunch. Classes come and go, but some things are sacred. But this “out” for the foreign teachers is almost as good.

They make many such “allowances” for us foreign teachers – predictable hours, sick days, steady lunch breaks, most Saturdays off – but in my opinion all teachers should be getting these things. Maybe when I say “don’t work in this country,” I mostly mean “don’t teach in this country.” But I mean both.

Let it not be lost, though, that I had a pleasant afternoon. It feels really good to be teaching again, giving and getting homework, and interacting with the students. There are lots of little things I’ll miss about teaching – chiefly, I love that feeling when you get some piece of work that totally exceeds expectations. I love it when kids demonstrate that they’re starting to get something through applying it. From a purist’s perspective, teaching is great. It’s all the other crap that I could really live without. I love teaching, but I hate schools even more than I did when I was a student. Does that make any sense? Maybe I’ve been reading too much Paul Lutus. I've also been thinking about his exhortation at the end of his illustrated, highly technical essay about tides in bays. It reads (emphasis supplied):

To those who do not understand mathematics, the entire preceding section may seem entirely mysterious, black magic. Some might even wonder if such mathematical knowledge is really necessary. Among Americans in particular, very few have the requisite training to follow the preceding section. That is because Americans are rapidly falling behind the rest of the world in many academic subjects, and science and mathematics are near the top of the list of "problem subjects" for American students.

Well, guess what? People who understand mathematics are more likely to understand the world around them, are more likely to be members of the teams that will build tomorrow's world, and colonize Mars. In the future, to be blunt, those who don't understand mathematics will serve hamburgers to those who do. I would like to paint a rosier picture, but as time passes, as the requirement for more technical knowledge grows, people who do not understand mathematics will simply be unemployable.

Current Mood: pensive