きょうはぼくはいちごのしゃしんする。　しろのいちごきれね？

いそたんのいちご。　たべたい！

日本語

Up through “Conversations About Japan” was written Wednesday morning. The rest was written Thursday morning.

Arguments and English

Last evening I had one of my greatest moments as an English teacher.

It came during judo practice, when I was doing nioseki [what I believe the wrestling on the mat is called] against a 1st grade [i.e. 5-ish year old] girl. She had me pinned to the ground, and then out of the blue she looks me in the eyes and says, “Hello.”

Naturally, I replied “Hello.”

She then blew me away by asking, “How are you?”

What was remarkable was that this girl is the person with whom I’ve had my biggest arguments with in Japan, and whom I thought loathed me. Details of the arguments have gotten fuzzy, especially as anger clouds my memory even more than booze, but they centered around her wanting to speed through her 50 warmup throws, me refusing to comply [i.e. not count 21, 22, 26] her saying something in Japanese and giving me a stern look, me not understanding the Japanesese, but understanding her eyes and really not appreciating it, then we ended up as partners during sparring and she refused to let me throw her and gave me the look while saying more things I didn’t understand once again if I ddn’t let her throw me to the ground immediately. This left me in a really bad mood.

To be fair we’ve been mending bridges since that incident a couple of months ago, but even within that she never expressed much interest in English, hence my “blown away-ness.” Even if she was merely using my native tongue as a way to distract me and keep me pinned to the ground, I’ll take it. Beggars can’t be choosers, and my current teaching level is barely beggarly.

Taiko Solos

Monday night at Taiko practice I was bummed to find out I’d been taken off the #1 solo for our July concert. While I understand I had not been practicing quite as much as I could have, and that the guy whose replacing me is more dedicated to the team, I was miffed.

Nevertheless it was my fault for not practicing enough. Now I got to learn the 4th solo well enough, or else I might lose that too.

Japanese Taste

Yesterday when I was driving to school in Synai, NHK radio – one of our 2 to 3 radio stations – played an amazing set with a song by Jim Morrison, “Nothing ever hurt like you.” and “Allison” by Elvis Costello. I have never heard either song, and the Morrison one was especially cool. While sometimes in Japan it can get depressing to hear them only play bad American/Western pop music at clubs, bars and so on, that radio show goes to show good taste does exist here.

Conversations About Japan

This week I have had a pair of insightful conversations with teaching colleagues into Japan.

On Monday, with regards to the many local schools closing, one colleague mentioned how a big factor was the costs associated with having a child. Because of taxes it had gotten to the point for many young couples that having more than 1 to 2 children, was prohibitively expensive.

Add to that many towns now no longer had nursery schools [places where working parents could take their children during the day] forcing some working couples to avoid having any children at all.

In everything I have heard and read about Japan’s declining population, this is one factor I had yet to consider or come across.

Then, yesterday I was discussing an activity of mine that bombed quite horribly in class with the other English teacher. There were many reasons why, but that was not the most surprising part pour moi.

In the midst of the activity’s demise – after the car had crashed but right before the gas tank catches fire – the other teacher mentioned how we didn’t have time for this. I agreed, and said “Let’s just skip it.” She immediately said that since we gave out the paper we now had no choice but to finish the task. I disagreed but she said it in a tone I have come to know implies she is not looking for my opinion.

After class I asked her “why? She said something about how “in Japan” teachers are very respected. Because of that, making a mistake like handing out a paper then not using it would “confuse” the children, who look up to the teachers. I disagreed reasoning these were intelligent kids who could recognize that everyone makes mistakes. She qualified that small mistakes like misspelling words was OK, but something like handing out a paper and then not using it was not possible.

I could see I wasn’t making any progress convincing her and in the process getting frustrated and eventually realized I was only making it harder for her to trust me later with doing anything. Nevertheless, it was insightful into sort of the pressures and expectations of she felt as a teacher in Japan, that something like saying “sorry kids I fucked up, this worksheet sucks. put it away and let’s move on.” is completely impossible.

Today at work I brought up this issue with a different teacher and he commented how we both “make mistakes all the time.”