The 6th years at my Thursday school are trying to make picture books. This mostly consists of them copying down Japanese phrases and then showing them to me determinedly, as if they could will me to know Japanese and translate the stories for them. But some actually try to translate on their own. One group was doing The Monkey And the Crab. At one point the monkey slips in cow poop. I’m just wondering exactly what dictionary they’re using that’s translating “cow poop” into “shit” and “goddamned dung.”
Today I was walking up and down the aisles of one of my second year junior high classes, with nothing to do, when one of the girls beckoned me over. She asked me (in Japanese, no less, she didn’t even try English) how big my nose is and got out a ruler.
Well, at least I can always console myself with not being this dude.
A couple weeks ago, the ninensei went on a field trip to Akihabara in Tokyo. The English teacher told me a few of them want to visit a maid café.
A maid café is a restaurant where the women are dressed in frilly rococo or French Maid dresses and use exalting form of the Japanese language (rather than simply the normal, or respectful form) to serve male customers coffee and food. “Here is your cuppacino, master.”
When I was on a middle school field trip into the city, the boys wanted to visit Hooters. We were expressly forbidden to enter Hooters.
And here is we see the defining difference Japanese and American sexuality. The Japanese adolescents want to see women dressed as little Lolitas making them feel important and the teachers think it’s cute. The American boys want to see big tits and short shorts and the teachers won’t allow it.
At home the men visit strip clubs to see bare titties and asses swung in their faces. Here, the men go to hostess cafes where pretty women in low cut and tight dresses pretend to like them.
In one country they inflate their egos, in the other they just inflate their cocks.
I can’t decide whether I’d find the customers more irritating as a hostess or as a stripper.
I went to my first hostess club this month with two gaijin men and our middle aged Japanese doctor patron of the evening. The Japanese doctor tried to hide the fact that it was a hostess club from me. He kept calling it an “international conversation café.” Oh, honey, I’ll play innocent for your sake, but I know exactly where we’re going and why we’re going there.
In elementary school news:
At my Thursday elementary school one of the kids caught me off guard. I could have misheard him but I think he leveled the back of two fingers at my face in the British flip off and said “Fuck,” very matter of factly.
Usually, I only see kids wearing dirty Engrish shirts at my Thursday elementary school. But I have seen the same shirt at both my Thursday and Friday schools. It’s dark blue with white writing. In big letters it says:
Rapid Growth 69
And then there is print all over the shirt that says the following:
Just now growth!
Dynamic
Stability
Action at the right time
Mission Got a backbone
A.M.S.
Mission of men
Today I caught two of the bratty fat 6th graders punching each other in the balls. Well one was punching the other in the balls. The other was just sitting back and taking it, almost like a massage.
A 3rd grade girl was wearing a shirt with Minnie Mouse that said This joy must be preserved in a jewelry casket, so it will never be lost.
And I’ve been telling the kids that my favorite Japanese comedian is Hard Gay.
I only had to teach three classes at my Thursday elementary school so I had a lot of free time. I spent one period amusing second graders by speaking very basic phrases in Japanese (Whoa! She’s mastered the simplicity of “I am.” and “You are.” LOLZ!) and eating gerbil food*. I’m a sucker for cheap thrills.
After school, I found a group of kids talking around the bathrooms. “Why are you all hanging out around the toilet?” The most outgoing of the boys came over to me. I don’t think he understood most of what I said, but he certainly understood “toilet.” He squatted down like he was laying an egg (or hunching over a squat toilet) and made grunting noises. Then he made a motion under himself to mime something being expelled from his bottom.
I followed that group around for a while. A few of the boys made a girl cry and she ran off. They peer pressured each other into apologizing to her and making her laugh. Wow. One day these kids will be unhappy, overworked, suppressed adults, but right now, they’ve got a lot of class.
Thursday night was the typhoon. It was a lot of hysteria in a landlocked area over some rain and wind. Minor train lines were stopped. Private schools canceled class the following day. Classes in Maebashi were delayed three hours on Friday morning, but I still had to go in on time.
The typhoon was bad enough that I wouldn’t have wanted to out walking in it. And I probably would have fallen over on a bike from the wind. But one of the biggest news stories of destruction and injury was that some old person had slipped and broken his/her hip.
My friend is a badass. He donned a swimsuit, put his cell phone and wallet in a ziplock bag and went out drinking until 2am.
*ok So the gerbil food was only raw sunflower seeds, but when I popped one of those into my mouth all the kids were totally freaked out. One of the boys eagerly handed me a second bag of gerbil food and helpfully held out a few green and brown pellets in his hand.
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Right now I’m obsessed with “Hybrid Rainbow” by The Pillows.
The music video isn’t anything special, but check out that gorgeous song.
In first grade we had a unit on Japan. We didn’t focus on the history of Japan or anything, but we dabbled in bits of culture.
They had us make shoji screens out of tissue paper and wax paper. They gave us flowers, butterflies, and star shapes cut of out colored tissue paper, which we arranged on pieces of wax paper. Then the teacher ironed two pieces of wax paper together and hung our shoji screens above our desk.
Then they taught us about haikus with the 5-7-5 syllable pattern. We dictated haikus to our teacher who wrote them down for us. When she came to me, I looked above my desk and said:
Pretty shoji screen
Flowers and butterflies, too
Small stars in the sky
I don’t know why I remember that.
They also taught us a song. I don’t remember all of it, but I’ll do my best:
Cherry trees something in the breeze
In the land across the sea.
Pretty goldfish swimming in the water (I don’t remember this line)
Children laugh and play.
Bamboo gently sways.
“Ah so, konichiwa-
Good day!” in Japan.
Wow. I don’t know whether to be proud or depressed that I remember that much. This is just one little mite bit of the BS they taught me in elementary school.
At the end of the unit, our mothers sewed us “kimonos” out of old bed sheets. We wore them to school and our mothers brought in “traditional Japanese dishes” they had cooked for us to sample. I’m pretty sure most of the mothers just whipped up some good ole fried rice. Japanese. Chinese. Americanized Asian-ish crap. What’s the difference, really? Those people all look the same, after all.
A group of girls were waiting outside the nurse’s room. Probably for one of the many, many health checks the Japanese school system demands of its students and staff. The adorable girl from Tanabata signaled me to come over. The little 5th grade girls were inspecting each other’s chests. She looked at me and said “Cute-o!” Then held her hands over her chest and moved them outward, saying “big.” I think she was trying to tell me I had nice tits.
For all of my post pubescent life I have the chairman of the “Itty Bitty Titty Committee.” This is the first complement I have gotten on my rack since I was 15, back when the boys would tell just about any lie to actually get a glimpse of a bare breast. Even my mother is embarassed by my unendowed bosom. At least I’ve got the Japanese elementary school girls impressed.
A girl in the 6th grade was wearing a light blue shirt that said something like “Searching for love through groping.” I don’t remember the exact phrasing; I was caught completely off guard. But it definitely involved seeking love and groping. I really hope she doesn’t have to ride on the train at all today.
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On an unrelated topic, I heard this Beatles cover by the Japanese band Love Psychadelico on the radio as I drove home from work. The music video is somewhat eye catching, but try to ignore it and just listen to the song. I didn’t have any visuals to help me out when I first heard it.
It’s so god awful I almost LOLed off the road and into a rice paddy in my little yellow plate car. And this bunch of shit is Number 2 on the Ginza Top 20.
Tanabata, or the star festival, is held on the 7th day of the 7th month of the year. This is the day when two mythological star crossed lovers are permitted to meet each other. For the rest of the year they are separated by the Milky Way.
The festival in Maebashi is little more than some cute decorations made by elementary schoolers and a big excuse for vendors to come and line the streets selling octopus balls, donuts shaped like Anpanman and Doraemon, chocolate covered bananas, and Pokemon balloons. But it attracted a lot of people. Quiet little Maebashi was filled to the brim, elbow-to-elbow people jostling each other. (more…)
Today was Parents’ Day at one of my elementary schools. The parents were invited to come in and watch classes. The teachers were very nervous. Lady B, the teacher who speaks the most fluent English sat down and had a meeting with me last week. We crafted the lesson plan down to the minute. She was so anxious about me screwing up that I actually started to hyperventilate at the idea. The parents must be impressed! (more…)
One of my elementary schools is actually following the Maebashi Board of Education’s new curriculum. The fifth and sixth graders have a new unit every week and have to present a finished project at the end. The current theme is “Let’s make a story book.” Last month’s theme was “Let’s be reporters and make a newspaper.” They wrote simple questions in Japanese which their teacher translated for me and I answered in English. Then their teacher translated my answer. Not a whole lot of English practice for the students. But their newspapers about me were pretty cute. My favorite one was done by a group of fifth graders.
