Radio Activity

I know it’s hard to trust a guy who never updates his blog, but this is big. Something new happened! And that’s not something you say every day when you live in the Japanese equivalent of Arkansas.

Someone called my school asking for me last week. It was only the third time anyone had called me on the school phone in a year and a half. Naturally I assumed it was my supervisor, but fate was about to pee on that idea.

“Hello” I said.

“Hello,” said a polite voice.

There was a long pause.

“Hello?”

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

Another pause.

“Hello, this is Michael.”

“Hello, Michael-sensei. Nihongo wo shabete mo ii desu ka?” Meaning, "Is it all right if I speak Japanese?" It wasn’t all right with my brain, but I said yes anyway.

The very polite voice turned out to be a very polite man. Let's call him Dave. Dave is the director of FM Hikone, my town’s biggest radio station (as far as I know or care to research). After fifteen minutes of our broken Japanese and English, I deduced that he wanted my opinion on cultural plazas in Hikone.

After another fifteen minutes, I deduced that he wanted me to record identification jingles for the station. Naturally, I agreed because it would be easy at best and really, really funny at worst.

Of course this led to various absurd daydreams throughout the workday that went mostly like this: After my voice jingles air all over Shiga, a visiting TV producer from Osaka hears my soothing tone and says, "Hot DOG, Tracy! That voice is quite a number. Get that station on the horn pronto and find me the name'a that golden throat!" So the station tells him how professional I am and I start voice acting all over Japan. Then from Japan, I go to America. Then I create my own cartoon. Then I buy Nickelodeon and make it good again. Then I give Conan his own show and I go on that show and talk and buy a million houses the end.

So anyway, I got directions to FM Hikone and I found out that it was next to the stone shop in my town. Yes, a shop that sells large stones. For an extra fee, you can get your stone chiseled into something resembling not a stone.

All day long, it was beautiful riding-to-a-radio-station weather, as they say. But as soon as I got on my bike, it became perfect final-showdown-with-Agent-Smith weather.

With no recourse, I rode my cycley-mobile as fast as I could through the rain, which got me just as wet as I would have gotten while walking. Either way, by the time I got to the stone shop I wasn’t completely soaked. If I was to present myself to my temporary boss with any style, I’d have to do it soon.

Unfortunately, this was the first time I noticed there are THREE stone shops on Hikone’s main street. I don’t know how many people are buying humongous slabs of stone every day, but they were really effing me up by demanding that there be three shops on one street.

At this point I was pretty sure my grand plan wasn't going to work out and I wouldn't be getting my million houses. The part where Dave tells the TV producer, "He's really professional" would become "He's always late and covered in rain.

After calling Dave I found out the station was down the road from the second stone shop (of course!) and arrived at FM Hikone. As I entered the radio station, I was met with profuse apologies, which surprised me because I was set to apologize myself. I accepted the apologies on the terms that he never let it rain so heavily again.

Drying off, I sat down in the recording booth to do the quickest set of voice-overs I’ve ever done. Ten phrases, two takes each, no retakes. After fifteen minutes of impersonating Duffman, I was finished. My favorite phrases were “My lovely hall, your favorite spot,” and “Go and go and GO ON!!”

For one reason or another, they didn’t use every phrase they wrote out for me to say. I was under the impression that I was doing the station ID, but what they sent me afterward were the Hikone Culture Hall’s daily announcements mixed with a sign off. The audio plays every morning and night, or so they told me. I don't actually own a radio because its 2010.

One of the main questions that an ALT asks him/herself as he/she gets ready to depart/go away from Japan is, "Did I leave my mark?" Some people do it by carving their name into something prominent like a town statue or the mayor. That was my plan until recently. But I think the fact that my students and their parents will be hearing my voice for years to come (whether they know it or not) is good enough for me.

Here's FM Hikone's mascot named "Kyara" or "Chara" which is short for "Character". Yeah...

Christmas versus Kurisumasu

Jingle jingle jing, my heated lumps of coal! It’s that time of year again, when saying that it’s that time of year instantly conjures thoughts of ho-ing old men and deadly, deadly bees. Wait, not bees. Something else. Tinsel! That’s it.

As the 25th day lurks ever closer like a deadly bee waiting to strike, I prepare myself for a decidedly different Christmas experience. Of course, this is my first Christmas as a wedded man, but it’s also my first Christmas completely immersed in the Japanese way of doing Christmas. And as much as the Christmas tradition has been skewed by the melting pot and corporate mentality of America, it’s only screwed up that much more when America’s Christmas is brought to Japan.

I’ve always been interested in Christmas traditions from around the world, and as far as I can tell, Japan’s is the weirdest. Or at least the farthest removed. I’d like to share with you Christmas as I see it here in Nihon, because most writings about it that I’ve read on the internet have been dead wrong!

First off, Christmas tradition in Japan has been around for a while. I’m not sure how long because no one I ask here seems to know and again, the internet is pretty clueless. One of my teachers said the first time he got something for Christmas was thirty years ago when he was about ten years old. It’s safe to assume, though, that a lot of the American Christmas traditions seen here were brought over after the occupation.

From what I’ve been told, Christmas was geared mainly toward children until about the 1990s. At that point, romantic couplings of people and animals took advantage of Christmas. Couples went on dates on Christmas Eve and exchanged presents. Offices sometimes had Christmas parties. Children still got presents or some type of boot filled with candy. And it’s been that way for about ten years.

It seems to me though, that Christmas has really picked up steam even within the last year. In 2008, I really really really wanted a Christmas wreath for my door. I set out early and searched everywhere. Nothing. Thankfully, Katie made one for me, so it was fine. However, this year, I’ve easily spotted over thirty different varieties of wreath at various stores.

Also, Christmas trees have really become the thing to have. Last year, I got one about as high as my knee for 3000yen ($30USD). Before that, I don’t even know how available they were. The JET who used to live in my apartment had a tree shipped to her from Michigan, and that was only three years ago. This year, you can get a good four-foot tree for 5000yen. I don’t know why.

One of my friends at church told me that it’s only been in the last few years that Japan has caught onto the idea of Christmas as a family holiday. The emphasis on sweethearts going on dates has waned as families have wanted to do more things together. Thus all the trees and lights and craziness.

Thankfully it hasn’t swollen to American proportions, like a child stung by some type of deadly bee. It remains mostly in check. However, when I went to buy lights for our apartment on December 5th, they were straight gone. Something’s happening.

Despite these changes toward Western Christmacicity, there are some parts of Japanese Christmas tradition that were well-ingrained into society long ago.


Hotei awry
First off, I want to dispel this myth that a Buddhist monk named Hotei-osho acts like Santa Claus and brings children presents on Christmas. I don’t know where this started, but I’ve read it all over English websites about Japanese Christmas. Even the Simpsons Christmas special makes mention of it. But in all my time here, I’ve never heard anyone talk about him.

I finally asked one of my teachers about him and she said she never heard the name before. I asked a whole class of students and they didn’t know either. Finally one of the second year teachers knew what I meant once I explained about who he is and what he does. He said there was a Buddhist monk who helped poor children like St. Nicholas, but no one believes he brings them presents nor does he have anything to do with Christmas. He's basically just a regular Buddha.

So the main gift-giving fat man is still Santa. No one really cares about him or sees him appearing in Christmas specials, but they know his basic deal and what he looks like. I have noticed a tendency to show multiple tiny Santas rather than one regular one. On cards and stickers and decorations, I’ve seen gaggles of tiny santas driving cars, surfing, and mostly just swarming cozy houses with their joy. I’m sure it’s mostly due to the fact that a hundred tiny santas are much cuter than a corpulent old man. I can understand that.


Cakes Alive!
Another tradition that’s weird, but not all that bad, is Christmas cake. Everybody orders one and it’s a huge deal. Not that there’s anything wrong with eating cake on Christmas, but it’s just that Japanese Christmas pretty much revolves around this cake. You have to order one weeks in advance, it costs about 3000yen ($30USD) for the tiniest cake, and to top it all off it doesn’t really taste that good. But man oh man, God pity the family without a Christmas cake to eat on Christmas Eve. What losers. There’s no greater jingly shame.

The Christmas cake tradition isn’t so weird because it came from Germany (though my students are all surprised that Americans don’t eat them). But the Christmas tradition that supposedly came from America but actually came from nowhere is KFC. Everybody pre-orders a bucket of Kentucky Fried Garbage to pick up for Christmas dinner. Just like in America! Also the Colonel Sanders statues inherent to every restaurant get dressed as Santa. Creep Factor 5!


Retail Detail
Stores here are all about Christmas as they discover the true meaning of the holiday (the answer is money). Christmas is just as great a time to turn a profit in Japan as it is in America. So there’s Christmas excess all over the place.

One of my favorite things that Japanese retailers do is blare as much of something as the can. During the regular seasons, the grocery store plays its own theme over the loudspeakers in the ceiling. The boom box in produce plays the vegetable song, the amp in the fish department plays the fish song, the meat section has a ham song, and pretty much every section of the tiny grocery store blares its own song. But in the spirit of the season, every depatrment of the grocery store lays down its arms and plays Christmas music…of different varieties at different speeds all at the same time. This is true of the malls and department stores too. It's sheer muzak madness, only desirable for the camp of it all.

On that note (get it?! MUSICAL NOTE!), the most popular Christmas song is still “Last Christmas” by WHAM! and “All I want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey. Katie’s teacher was surprised to hear that WHAM! isn’t popular in America. I have both songs memorized by heart.

One of my most favorite weird things is the children’s Christmas boot. Gone are the stockings of the west, and in their place are big fake boots filled with pre-packaged candies! It kind of defeats the purpose of stocking stuffers, but you can’t deny the coolness of a huge Hello Kitty or Power Ranger boot fixin’ to blast your three-year-old Japanese head off.


Logo a-go-go
The last thing to mention is the “Merry Christmas” logo. Not that there’s an official copyrighted standard or anything, but at some point it seems everyone agreed on what the font and style of “Merry Christmas” should look like forever. I see this everywhere. On cakes, on boots, in stores, on packages, and especially on Christmas trees. Our Christmas tree even has a big gold “Merry Christmas” logo on the front. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it. I just find it perplexing that, for over thirty years, no one has ever wanted to try anything different, but in fact worked very hard to look the same as everyone else.

Actually, I really shouldn't be all that perplexed.

Despite all this encompassing Christmasness swarming around me like deadly, deadly bees, I still can’t manage to get into the Christmas spirit. It may be the simple fact that I’m busier than ever before and haven’t had time to finish decorating the apartment. Or that I haven’t watched “A Christmas Story” fifty times yet. I think the real reason though is that I know none of it’s real here. It’s all for show and sales. New Year’s is the main event and Christmas is just something to pass the time until bounenkai (forget the year drinking party).

But I shouldn't lose hope just yet. The Western world has had over 1000 years of Christmas craziness rolling full force. Japan has had less than fifty. I'm sure in time Japan will catch up and mold its Christmas traditions into something more meaningful. With a little luck, Japan may even gain something in their traditions that we lost in ours. It may become a holiday of true joy and giving, unlike the materialistic grab-factory it is in the United States.

But wherever you are and whatever the state of your Holiday celebrations, I wish the you the best Christmas or other type holiday you could ever ask for. And always remember that "Dracula" is a classic novel that should be read in its entirety and never skimmed through or cheated on with CliffNotes.

Merry Christmas every Brown!



THIS is the kind of Christmas tradition I want to see more of. Dancing Tigers. Booyah.

Death by Piggy

I can’t breathe very well right now. Every time I exhale I get a hot blast of stale air down my collar and up in my eyes. But there’s really nothing I can do about that because my school is requiring me to wear a sick mask.

Rather than explaining what it a sick mask is, it’s better to just show you.



These masks have been worn all over Japan for decades by people who have a cold or don’t want to catch one. It’s pretty common to see them in the winter time and it’s a nice gesture to wear one when you’re sick, seeing as you work and live in such close quarters with everyone around you. However, being forced to wear one when you are not sick and no one around you is sick is kind of aggravating.

If you remember back a few months, I’m sure you can recall the big scare about swine flu. Pigs from Mexico escaped from an underground research facility and started biting tourists in Cancun. Or something like that. One way or another, a special Piggy Brand of the flu started spreading around and making people mildly sick. Yes, some died unfortunately, but the number that did were only a fraction of the number that die every year from the regular flu.

Nevertheless, people got crazy! Swine flu was sweeping the nation and no one was safe, especially not you. Everybody reported on it, everyone was scared of it, and that most certainly included Japan.

During what I refer as the “first scare” (in actuality, pig flu has been around since 1918), Japan joined the U.S. in their obsessive freak-out over the flu. But while America got bored and moved on to other useless fears, Japan stayed on the case and ceaselessly beat the horse until it was not only dead but hardly recognizable as an animal.

Every day in our morning meetings, the school nurse gave an influenza report. People around my desk where always talking about “buta infuruenza” (pig flu) and how many people were infected.

Pretty soon, English-speaking teachers in my school kept coming up to me and telling me new facts about the pandemic. “Someone in Japan was infected. I think it was in Kyoto.” “The pandemic spread to Kobe. One hundred people died yesterday!” “Did you hear the five hundred people died in Osaka? It’s getting closer to us!” These words stirred visions of oinking zombies in my mind. I mean, how could five hundred people die in one day from a mild form of the flu? Zombies had to be involved.

It was around this time that Katie and I went to Korea. We ran into quite a few English speaking Koreans and talked extensively with an American soldier and his family. None of them seemed to care about swine flu and most had forgotten about it. The Korean TV we watched had nothing to do with pig flu and offered three episodes of the Simpsons every night. It was a beautiful break from Japanese TV.

Upon returning to Japan, the airport was on lockdown. EVERY worker wore a mask, and we were required to sign a paper declaring we felt perfectly fine. If it was found to be false we would be imprisoned for five months and fined 500,000 yen (about $5000 USD).

It turns out we got off easy. A week later, flights coming into Japan from foreign countries were kept on the ground for an hour to have people in biohazard suits take everyone’s temperature.

School got worse. People started wearing more and more masks, and schools all over Shiga started to close for weeks on end (mine didn’t unfortunately). The annual sports festival was cancelled because such a large gathering of people would certainly result in thousands dead. The festival, of course, is nothing like the crowded trains everyone rides every day.

The last straw came for me when my friend Patrick was prohibited from going home to America to be the best man in his brother’s wedding. The PTA put pressure on his principal who did not allow him to use his vacation days. Up until this point, it was just some ridiculous and mildly inconveniencing hype. But this took it too far.

It surprised me so much that all of Japan’s attention was on the fact that it was a “new type of flu” and not that the symptoms were actually milder than the average flu. It also surprised me that the signs posted everywhere about properly washing your hands after peeing were still ignored by every man I saw leave the bathroom. And the real kicker is that a country so concerned with hygiene still poops on the floor and (occasionally) washes their hands with a communal bar of soap sitting in standing water.

The one thing I can’t stand about Japan more than anything is the blatant disregard for facts and new information. If you find out that bugs get under your tatami (rice straw floor mats), then put carpeting in your house. If you find your house gets unnaturally cold in the winter, try that new insulation everyone’s talking about. And if you find you’re getting sick, wash your hands after you pee on them!

To be fair, the pig flu hysteria died down but only after the damage was done. Everyone got crazy, kids didn’t go to their sports festival, and Patrick didn’t get to go to his brother’s wedding. But despite it being low-key, it’s still annoying that because of an even newer new type of pig flu, we all have to wear masks even today. It doesn’t matter that no other country in the world cares about this new type of flu. It’s still capable of destroying the nation.

And to make my point one more time, I’d like to show that Center for Disease Control does not recommend the wearing of face masks for prevention of swine flu. I’m not saying that they just don’t mention it; I’m saying they flat out advise against it! In fact, according to mask manufacturer 3M “standards show how well respirators filter out particles in industrial settings, but there are no established exposure limits for biological agents such as swine flu virus” And Dr. Laurene Mascola, director of acute communicable disease control for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health says that, “Masks may give people a false sense of security.”

Of course, that’s what it’s all about in Japan. A sense of security. Scared of pig flu? Wear a mask. Scared of women? Get a virtual dating game. Scared of people? Become a shut-in. Scared of dealing with problems or social expectations? Buy another Hello Kitty charm or character strap to hang off your phone. In fact, buy as many as possible because the more character goods you have the happier you will be.

I'm not trying to be a Japan hater, because I'm not. I really do love living here. Illogical panics that serve no purpose just get under my skin. And I am infamous for buying too many little character key chains and action figures, but I don't use it as my primary source of comfort. I promise you, I really love this country but sometimes it can be the most ridiculous place on earth.

Security blankets for all!

This is what Osaka looked like around May this year.

And here’s the reference I cited. I stole it off Wikipedia.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/30/science/sci-swine-mask30

NEVER FORGET! PATRICK '09!

Promises, Promises

I am married. I am wed. I am, for all intents and purposes, one half of a Mr. and Mrs. The long journey that began when I proposed to Katie six months ago, though truthfully it began even before that, is now over. Of course, a new journey is beginning with the small fanfare of tediously moving all my belongings into a smaller (but cleaner!) apartment.

I say all this because I’m at a point I haven’t been at in a while. The road is open with promise and waiting for me to grasp it by the teets and fill my cup with voluptuous wine. I know you may not have ever heard of a road that has wine-giving teets all over it, but that’s because it’s my road. My road of opportunity. And teets, apparently.

Stupid metaphors aside, I’m at a place to start writing again. Usually when I have a project in my head and heart, I can’t stop until it’s done. But in the previous case, it wasn’t a project but a person. Katie means more to me than anyone in the world and I couldn’t stop until she was mine. Also, spending time with her was way more fun than writing, so the choice was simple.

But now that I’m a husband, I have a much higher responsibility, to her and myself. Not that I’m going to stop spending time with her, heavens no! Really it was the wedding planning that got in the way. But I can’t just laze my days away eating grapes and planning weddings. I have a woman to provide for, and I’ll be damned if I get stuck doing it behind a desk. Unless of course, that desk has a screenplay or comic or art project on it.

The point is, I don’t know what God has for us in the future and I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to do with my life. I’ve spent too much time thinking of blog entries and not writing them because they weren’t good enough. Being in America for the wedding made me realize how precious my time is here. I started this blog to have a record of my time in Japan and to communicate my experiences to people I love (or don’t).

Now my time in Japan is over half finished and almost eight months or so are unblogged. I need writing skill for whatever I do in the future, because Lord knows my art isn’t good enough to stand on its own. And my writing isn’t going to get any better by not writing everything (though the wisdom to know what sucks is pretty invaluable).

So my purpose here is twofold:

1. To have a record of my time in Japan.
2. To increase my writing skill so I know my weaknesses and can work on them and use the blog as an outlet for art projects so I can figure out what I want to do with my life so I can make money someday doing something fun so Katie doesn’t die in a box. Also me not dying in a box too.

Okay, so that’s severalfold. But I feel God has been pushing me lately to develop my skills so I’ll be ready when He throws something my way. Also I’m really gonna miss my kids when I’m gone. They’re such a bunch of punks that piss me off all the time, but they’re really sweet and I’m gonna miss all of them.

I know this is a big promise. I’ve promised this so many times on so many blogs, like the husband who promises he’ll change and then gets drunk and falls in a well. I’m sure it’ll take some blogging then failing to blog and then blogging before I get a pattern down. But the important thing is I’m writing right now.

So to everyone who has stuck with me and keeps telling me to blog, thank you so much. I wouldn’t be writing this right now if it weren’t for you. You know who you are. But other people don’t, so thank you Katie, Mom, Dad, Gioia, Ryan, Aaron, Grandmommy, Aunt Shandee, The Walshes, Eric, Erik, Justin, Glenn, and many others I probably forgot.

Sorry if this entry is too serious. I’ll put something weird at the end. I want to start blogging soon, but it will have to come in between getting back in shape for Halloween and setting up a new home. Thankfully I have a year of Japan experience to recollect with both joy and bitterness in my heart. Also, I’ve been working for about six months now on a nine-page comic that’s both weird and awful. Once it’s done, I’ll post that too. I think it’s the best thing I’ve drawn in years. You be the judge.

Thanks again and it’s good to intend to be back.

-マイケル



Here, this oughta be weird enough to counteract the seriousness. Especially the first clip in the series. By the way, all of these openings demonstrate a hard and fast rule in Japan that holds true even today. Japan loves trumpets. They're in every major and official song. Brass band is a huge deal for my kids. It's just a fact.

Video on my other blog!

For those of you who don't know, or just pretend not to care, I have another more ancient blog from a previous trip to Japan. Not all too previous though. In fact, it happened a month before I started here on JET and gave only a week between flights to and from Japan. It was called K-SEP and it was magical, tragical time I'll never forget. My friend Aaron and I took a lot of video while we were there and put together a bit of a video blog for all to see. The only problem is, editing the video cut into our actual experience in Japan, so we stopped halfway through and decided to edit it when we got back to America.

Nine months later, the baby of our pregnant video footage kicked us from the inside and said, "LET ME OUT!" So Aaron began and finished the last of the video, prompting me to edit the final piece. So as you're waiting for me to write my next entry (It's coming. It just turns out sumo isn't an interesting topic), head on over to:

japandorasbox.blogspot.com

and watch up some video. It's good for you and won't kill you at once. The next video should follow shortly, pending my mustered gumption. See you all soon. Kiss miss.

-Michael

Thawing

Oh. My. Lands. Seriously guys, how long has it been? Weeks? No, we gotta be past counting in weeks. Months now. It’s been months since I’ve poured anything into this arranged word depository. Like a parent with a middle child, I never meant to neglect it. It just happened. I got caught up in the high stakes world of teaching English as a foreign language and couldn’t stop. Every day it was about meeting my quota and shifting my paradigm, all so I could make it to the top. And what did it get me? A sad and jaded blog that I can’t connect with anymore. I’m so sorry. I love you, Bloggy.

No, but seriously, ask anyone who has been around since I started blogging. This is, what, like my fourth blog now? The first one I updated every day for a year because I was in community college and no community college, no matter how prestigious, can occupy your time and engage you at the level required of monkeys learning sign language. So I had some time to kill. The next two blogs were about my Japan trips. Simple enough. Limited amount of time with plenty of material. But blogging is time-consuming. At least when I do it. So no blog gets finished without several hours worth of work put in. Thus, those fell by the wayside.

And so it was with East Meets Worst, I’m afraid. The hours required to make a simple entry just weren’t around once I got rolling at school and especially once the girlfriend came along. But the biggest culprit in this makey-not-bloggy situation is Winter.

Yes, everyone’s least-loved and most hated season of the year. People who say they love winter are lying to themselves and the whole community of season enthusiasts. Winter is a dreadful time of bitter cold, wet cold, dry cold, and skies grayer than Reed Richards’ unnecessary hair streak. Ick.

What a horrible time, especially here. The cold is so biting and the wind is so pushy that there is nothing to do but retreat indoors. The only problem is the indoors have no insulation, so you are forced to hole up next to an electric heater and not move for fear of hitting the cold patches that wrap around the outskirts of the heater’s reach. And that is the only solace to find. In school, where I spend most of my day, there are heaters in the classrooms, but not in the hallways. In fact, the doors and windows are left open all winter for reasons no Japanese person can explain to me. The best explanation I’ve gotten is “because we’ve always done that.” Apparently areas between rooms in Shogun and Samurai houses were open to the elements all year, so for some reason the doors and windows in the hallways of modern buildings have to be open too.

Well, shogun and samurai also pooped in a hole in the ground. That doesn’t mean we should still do that. Oh wait, we do.

I really don’t mean to be cynical, but I think most of you who know me know very well that I hate cold. I love heat. Oh goodness, I’d eat raw heat for every meal if I could. But cold, no thank you. And even though I wear an excessive amount of undergarments (long johns, knee high socks, underpants, undershirt, long undershirt, long thermal underundershirt), going between the teachers room and the classrooms is like a nippy dash through a gauntlet of uncomfortability. Like the levels in video games where there’s dark and light and the light moves around and you have to stay in the light or these bat monsters eat you. It’s like that except there are no patches of light and the ice bats gnawing at my thighs are screaming, “The fool! He’s only wearing three layers here!”

But all that is changing, slowly but surely. The past couple of days have been nice, warmish days. Today is back to sucky and rainy, but even that can’t diminish the excitement I feel for the warm yesterdays I had. The wintertime is beginning to thaw and so is my cold, rough soul. Things that bugged me just don’t bug me anymore.

Like that kid, Jackie. Remember him? The one who yelled ‘vagina’ at me. The last blog I wrote before I went into hibernation was about him. I had pretty much given up on him completely, but it turns out he’s really not so bad. I mean, he is bad and really an a-hole to everyone, but he’s not violent or physically aggressive to the teachers like some students here are. In fact, one day a few weeks ago, I began class by saying I was hungry (I had forgotten my lunch that day), and Jackie came to me at the end of class and gave me a strawberry pastry from his backpack. I didn’t eat the pastry because it was smashed and expired, but I appreciated the gesture and told him it was delicious the next day.

Now he even talks to me from time to time. He just comes to my desk to speak the four English words he has learned in the past three years. Two of those words are ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’, so our topics of conversation are kind of limited. But the moral of the story is, just because someone is a total a-hole doesn’t mean you can’t get along with them.

Though honestly, I don’t feel like my turning point with Jackie came from anything I did. Well, half of what I did. After a while, ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ and their Japanese equivalents really lose their effect, so Jackie didn’t really feel threatening anymore. Kids can smell fear and I guess I lost my smell after several months of hearing the same genital names over and over. But what really pushed Jackie into mildly respecting me was a picture.

There’s a picture on my desk of Katie and me in Kyoto. It’s a pretty nice picture, I think. Just the two of us on a street. Kids always ask if she’s my sister, and when I tell them she’s my ‘kanoujou’ they jump back and yell “Eeeeeeeeee?! Honma?!” Well, that’s how girls react anyway. For Jackie, it went a little differently.

He was harassing me at my desk and trying to get under my skin by messing with my stuff and saying ‘penis penis penis!’, when he picked up the Kyoto picture. He asked if the girl in the picture was my sister. I said “Iie. Kanoujou da yo.” He immediately shut his mouth. Japanese guys think Katie is a total babe on account of the fact that she’s a total fox. I could see his rusty brain-gears grinding in vain to make sense of what he was seeing.

“Dorky teacher…have…hot girlfriend. Me not…have…hot girlfriend. Grrrrrr… gloooooorrr… Hot girlfriend…equal…drrrrr…hrrrrrnnnn…awesomeness. So…dorky teacher…not…actually…HOOOOOORRRK…dorky!”

He immediately sat down quietly and asked for my cell phone email. He sends me emails every now and then trying very hard to ingratiate himself to someone who is now cool to him. Sure, his emails still say ‘penis’, but I can tell it’s very respectful and dignified.

As things get warmer, my spirits lift, so I hope this will be the first of many new blogs to come. I know, we’ve all heard that one before, but for those of you who are still with me, I appreciate it. Either way, I need to start writing for myself, at the very least. I’m sure this blog entry alone is enough to show I’ve gotten stale over the past few months. But once I get a rhythm chugging out of the old brain station, the quality will rise back to its mediocre level.

So, see you all later and hopefully soon. I’m going to go play my new Famicom. Booyah one and all.

Okay, so it's a Famulator and not a real Famicom. But it works better than a Famicom and has ten-times cutestyle! Also, it's nostalgic for me because it reminds me of my first visit to Japan.

Trouble Bobble

I can never seem to keep this word-baby rolling the way I want to.  As soon as I commit to blogging on a semi-frequent basis, I get work, or the flu, or a girlfriend.  And those three things eat up a lot of time.  The last one in a good way.

Have I mentioned her yet?  Apparently, I haven’t because she told me so.  I wasn’t really paying attention, which turns out isn’t something you’re supposed to do in a relationship.  In fact, girls really like it when do pay attention.  Weird, I know, but I’m learning.

So let’s fire off a few quick facts about this new ladyfine I got hanging around.

FACT:  Her name is Katie, which is a name her mother gave her, which is a name her mother gave her.

FACT:  She likes cute things like high-pitched voices, cat feet, and babies.

FACT:  She has the desire to eat cute things like cat-footed babies with high-pitched voices.

FACT:  She doesn’t know how to roller skate.

FACT:  She owns the G.I. Joe movie.

FACT:  She likes ninjas because secretly she is a kunoichi.

FACT:  She has a scar under her chin from an escaped dove that flew into the audience at a magic show.

FACT:  She was asked to join her local police force just because she is so radical.

FACT:  She has never paid for a ticket to a sporting event.

FACT:  On a bet, she arm wrestled an ambulance and won eighty bucks.

FACT:  Her favorite attack is the head butt.  She says it’s primitive and boorish, but beautiful in its simplicity.

FACT:  She broke my leg last week.

FACT:  After being cheated in Blackjack, she cut off the ear of the dealer and sold it to him for twenty-one dollars.

FACT:  One time, she ripped open a pig’s back and threw its guts at me.

FACT:  Martin Van Buren had visions of her before his death in 1862.

FACT:  She never says a word until after you’re dead.

And that’s her!  Super awesome, eh?  But that’s not what I’m talking about today.  I’ve spoken my piece on awesome ladies for the day, so I’m off to a new topic.

Difficult children.

Yeah, it seems to be a redundant phrase, doesn’t it?  But really it’s true.  Some kids are more difficult than others.  And now that I teach around 850 of them on a daily basis, I’ve begun to notice certain patterns in the students I teach.

Let’s get one thing straight before I begin.  Children are evil.  A bunch of devils the lot of them.  I don’t discriminate against my students.  I assume they’re all monstrous all-consuming vortexes of money, attention, and energy.  So I approach each one with the love and patience required to deal with your average prison inmate or resident of Miami (Don’t get mad.  Dave Barry said that joke was okay.).

Honestly, I have some nice quiet students, but they are mostly overshadowed by the loud, obnoxious, misbehaving ones.  But even them I can look past.

Because coming to a foreign country to live for x amount of time is no small task.  No one says “I want to move to Japan and slack off for a while.”  Okay, so maybe most people say that, but I don’t.  I want to make a difference.  I want to help these kids out.  And if there is anything I can do to get through to these kids about life and self-improvement, I’ll do it.  Because I see the potential in all of them.

Except one kid.

For protection’s sake, let’s call him Jackie.  Jackie is one of the punk kids who only goes to class to sleep and yell.  Sometimes he yells in his sleep, but the fact remains, he likes to yell.  I first met Jackie the same way I’ve met many of my students.  He came to my desk and looked at me.  Always happy to help a child in need, I looked up at him with a big Michael-style smile.

“How are you?” I said.

“Vagina,” he said.

From that moment on, I knew Jackie was special.  It wasn’t just the way he said ‘vagina’.  It was the twitch in his eye, and the insane cackle he gave afterward.

The second time I saw him, he was at a school assembly throwing his shoes at teachers.  He came up to me and began to say ‘vagina’ in English and Japanese repeatedly, making sure to cackle after every time he said it.  At the time, I was talking to one of his classmates, who is a punk but a good one.  He pointed at Jackie.

“This boy is ****er.”

Jackie knew this word, of course, and slapped the kid before huffing away to throw more clothing at more superiors.  Usually I would say “No, no!  Dame desu yo!  That’s a bad word,” making sure the student knew I didn’t condone that sort of language.  But this time I agreed.  Jackie was kind of a that word.

My first instinct, of course, was to avoid Jackie at all costs.  It made me look awkward and unsure of myself to interact with him, and I couldn’t look that way in front of junior high kids.  You lose a couple cool points with them and it’s all downhill from there.  But since I taught his class, he was really unavoidable.

My second instinct was to make him look stupid.  But the question remained, how do you make someone feel awkward when they willingly yell the word ‘vagina’ in public?  It wasn’t easy, but I managed to do it once.  

He had called a bunch of people over to show them that I *omg!* felt awkward when someone yelled ‘vagina’ at me.  As he geared up for probably the biggest vagina monologue of his life, I started talking to one of his freinds and ignored him.  He couldn’t stand it and got right in my face.  With all wit of a Yale man, he spouted,

“Oi!  Sensei, sensei!  Vagina!  Vagina!  Vaginavaginavagina!”

Ignoring him wasn’t working.  It was time to bring out the big guns.  Something I’d used to freak out annoying punk students before.  Being insane.

“HOLY CRAP!” I yelled, pointing wide-eyed at the wall behind him.  “Jackie, look!”  Everyone looked at the empty wall.

“Vagina!” he continued.  “No, sensei!  Vagina!”

“Man, look at that thing!” I said in horror.  “Oh, the wings.  Gross.  Super gross.  Aw, it’s spewing goo everywhere.  Gross, look at those eyes.  Oh!  It’s laying eggs on the desk!  Sick!”

No one knew what I was saying, but it didn’t matter.  No one cared about Jackie’s vaginas anymore.  He tried in vain to fluster me, but I was more interested in the alien bug on the wall.

The students around us began to giggle at me, completely ignoring Jackie.  He threw a few more vaginas at me before huffing in anger and stomping off.  I had won.  And why not?  I’d used the crazy technique on milder students than Jackie, and they all gave up on trying to bother me.

But even so, Jackie didn’t stop.  He didn’t say vagina to me anymore.  He moved on to more sophisticated topics, such as “penis” and barking like a dog.

This was when I realized my technique used to alienate students probably wasn’t the best anyway.  I instead tried to kill him with kindness.  There were several of the punk boys who hated me in the beginning, and now they love me because I took time to ask about music they liked.  So I figured just because Jackie was an extra punk, there was no reason he couldn’t turn around.

So I started my nice crusade.  I said hi to him every chance I got.  I smiled and waved.  I called on him in class when he raised his hand.  I laughed jovially when he threw things at my head.  Of course, to no avail.

Saying hi only got responses of ‘vagina.’  Calling on him when he raised his hand only got him to pretend he didn’t say anything.  And laughing when he threw things only prompted him to also laugh, then throw more things.  Then say 'vagina.'

I tried this approach for a long time.  In fact, I still try it every time I see him, but really I had given up hope.  Not so much in him, but in my worth as a teacher.  Wasn’t that why I came all the way over to Japan?  To touch children in a magical way?  (You know what I mean.  Don’t misconstrue it.).  If I couldn’t at least understand Jackie, then what good was I?

Well, I wish I could say there was some dramatic event or realization that restored my hope in myself and Jackie all at once.  But there’s not.  The resolution just came from me thinking.  I thought about all the students who I had written off as punks and then become friends with.  I thought of all the students who had written me off, and later came to like me at least a little.  And I thought of all the students who didn’t like me, but I understood they were just jealous of how well I can dance.

But Jackie was different.  He showed me that some people can’t be understood.  Some people don’t have complicated issues, like bad family or drinking problems.  Some people can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with.  Some people just want to watch the world burn.  And as much as I hate to say it even in asterisk form, some people are just ****ers. 

The end.

Ever wonder what the number one Christmas song is in Japan...still?! Yeah... WHAM!