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.

Eric, the ALT.

There’s this one class ninensei that’s just awful.  They aren’t bratty like the ichinensei; it’s far worse.  They’re sullen and deliberately rude.

There’s this one boy.  He’s not the worst but he’s certainly one of the bad ones.  Obviously ignoring the teacher.  Talking.  Sleeping.  These behaviors may not sound too destructive, but he’s infuriatingly insolent.  On Monday last week he was in the teacher’s room getting his hair sprayed.  I don’t care if students lighten their hair but the school certainly does.  If a teacher can tell, you get your hair sprayed black in the teacher’s room.  It smells pretty awful all day.

I had to conduct speaking tests a couple days later.  The room for this particular class was empty so I was using it..  Towards the end of the period, the bad class comes flooding in and making all their shouting surprised noises upon seeing me.  And they’re trying to talk to me as I’m trying to talk to the shyest and lowest English level student.

Suddenly that bad kid drops a wad of aluminum foil on my desk and that’s the end.  I shoot out of my seat, thrust it back at him and demand “What is this?!” with all doom and ferocity.

I can’t quite make out what it says.  “It’s… bake.” Or something and he dejectedly moves to the corner of the room.

Later in the day, during his class, I notice that he’s acting all subdued and I feel triumphant.  What a little anger will do to improve behavior!

As the students were leaving, I noticed a girl carrying a wad of aluminum foil.  “What is that?” I asked her politely.

“Candy!” she grinned and I felt awful.

Apparently some of the students had baked something in the Home Ec. class or made candy in science class.  I’m not sure which.

Maybe that boy had stolen someone else’s sweet and tossed it at me.  Or maybe it was his but it tasted really bad and he didn’t want it.  Or maybe he was trying to make amends in his own nonchalant way at an inappropriate time by giving me the treat he had made himself.  And I rejected him.

Maybe I’m cold, heartbreaking meanie-head.

The man of the hour (or 15 minutes) in Japan right now is Yoshi Kojima.  He’s a Japanese comedian and all the kids (big and little) love him.  The kids are always imitating him and they try to get me to do it too.  I don’t trust them one bit.

As far as I can tell from what I’ve seen on TV, he only does one thing.  He comes in on the camera sorta making low squeals.  Sorta like an old lechy grandpa.  Then he pretends to hump something.  Then gets up and chants something and does a downward punching motion with his hand while kicking back with his foot.

I have no idea what he says.  All I know is that it is rude.  It ends with “Hey, opapi!”

He just does that one thing.   And everyone goes wild.  People are going to get tired of it eventually.  They have to.  But what can I say?  It is pretty ridiculous and charming in a Japan sort of way.  That or I just think he’s really hot.

Even he seems to realize how repetitive he’s getting.  He has a slightly bored look on his face when he does it recently.  It’s like he’s rolling his eyes inside.

But in an effort to get the junior high kids to pay attention to my lesson on  prepositions, I made this diagram.  For you English teachers out there, feel free to use it.

Hey Opapi!

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

Happy Halloween!  I’m wearing a mask.  No.  I’m not going as a sexy nurse.  I’m at work.  I’m sick.

In Japan, it’s considered polite to wear a protective mask while you’re sick.  It’s not so much intended to protect you, the festering germ hotel, but to protect the innocent people around you from your plague infested spittle bits.

Somehow, it’s supposed to be good for me too.  Something about keeping out the dry air and the humidity being good for my throat.  I can’t at all figure out why recycling my damp, disgustingly hot, sour smelling, virus laden breath, is even a slightly good idea.

In Japan, you’re supposed to go to work even when you’re sick and wearing the mask is a great excuse to do shitty job.  However, they won’t let me do anything to make myself feel better.   You are not allowed to eat or drink anything in class.  They asked me if I would be able to speak loudly when I taught today but they told me I may not bring cough drops to class.

All the sanensei are required to write very short speeches.  This is an excerpt from my favorite.

I’m going to talk about Eminem.  He is a great hip-hop musician.  When I was watching TV, he sang a song.  I think he is very cool.  And he has a lot of skill.  He sang lose your self, White America, fuck and so on.
I like “lose your self” in these.  Because I listened “lose your self” at first.  But he use unclean language.  But I like this. 

Today one of the bad ninensei asked me “Do you play sex?”

Before I complain too much about school lunch in Japan, let me say that it is at least far more sophisticated and nutritious than school lunch in the USA. Of course, this isn’t really saying much. I’m pretty sure that school lunches are part of the child obesity problem in America. Canned peaches, canned green beans, and lumpy boiled hot dogs. It’s all sugar, salt, and grease.

But now that I’ve added that obligatory stipulation, let the whining begin. I’m a pescatarian. That means I’m vegetarian except that I eat fish. I used to be a strict vegetarian but I started eating fish so that I could attend the occasional social function where food was served in Japan. Even if I thought I weren’t eating chunks of fish, I would probably be eating something fish based.

A nice thing about being mostly vegetarian is that it gives me an excuse to pack my own lunches and pass up school lunch. Even so, my Japanese colleagues at my junior high school (especially that sweet, awkward school secretary) are always trying to be generous and feed me portions of the school lunch that they think don’t have meat in them. I don’t mind the droopy salads or the canned (or sometimes fresh!) fruit so much. But they’re also trying to feed me the soups and noodles with tiny bits of meat, and really horrible dried out fish. I thought I had seen and smelled it all until today when I encountered the vilest of the vile.

As I sat down where I usually sit, at the end of the table next to the sweet, awkward school secretary, I looked down into the bowl at the middle of the table. To my horror, it was filled with fish. Whole fish. Scales, tails, wide eyes, gaping mouths, everything. Fried until the bones get soft and the flesh gets fibrous. My colleagues tend to interpret eye contact or glances at what people are eating as a desire for more food, so I determinedly stared down at my own packed lunch of cold pasta. But the sweet, awkward lady urged me to get some fish anyway. I could just imagine my teeth pushing through the brains, bones, and guts and felt my throat spasm. Ok. I can probably get this over in two bites. Better start with the most repulsive part, the face. Bite. Chew, chew, swallow! No tongue contact!

I made the mistake of looking into my half fish. Apparently it was a female fish filled with tiny yellow eggs. Oh no. Bite, chew, chew… gu… gu… chewchewchewchew… gu.. gulp! The eggs were dry and gummy, sticking to all parts of my mouth including my poor defenseless tongue. The eggs wouldn’t go down without a fight. They had never made it to life, and dammit, they were going to take me down with them.

The only good thing is that they give me a carton of milk, which I can use to flush whatever nauseating bit of flesh they try to make me eat.

I came back from my third period class with the sanensei and found myself seated next to fish.

Did I take a wrong turn past the window, somehow go down the stairs and walk a few miles to the nearest supermarket? No, rather, the market had made its way to the teachers’ room. On the floor to the right of my desk were rows of fish shrink-wrapped in plastic and lying in gray plastic boxes. And in true Japanese fashion, the fish were complete with eyes and tails. It wasn’t just fish. There was some squid, and some nori, and some pinkish-yellowish stuff that might be kimchi. Some rounder stuff that might have been mushrooms in a sauce. There was a man standing next to the groceries, he had a table upon which he offered samples of squid and green gummy-looking seaweed on toothpicks.

According to the English teacher to my left, this man comes in a few times a year to sell fish to the teachers. It is not uncommon for businesses to solicit teachers while they are working. We often have men and women dressed in suits approach us at our desks and hand us promotional fliers and catalogs. The first time it happened, I wanted to jump up and shout, “What the fuck are you doing? This is a school! Do you have permission to be here? Get the fuck out of here! I’m working!” But all the other teachers accepted the handouts with a casual “Ah… domo.” So I settled down and tried not to glare at them when they came to my desk. Actually, most of them skip over my desk. I don’t know if it’s because they don’t want to bother with the gaijin or they can sense my anxious hostility.

The entire room has a bit of a fishy smell now.

Like I said during the Tea Wars, I always have to wonder if people are trying to tell me something. I can’t speak Japanese so it’s difficult to say anything to me anyway, but the Japanese are renowned for avoiding direct confrontation.

For the past week, there has been no toilet paper in the one stall in the teachers’ bathroom that has a Western toilet. Everyday the kids are supposed to restock the toilet paper during soji. They’ve been doing it for all of the squat toilets, but not for the Western toilet. I always forget that there’s no TP, so I end up making a dash for another stall in the middle of my business. I just hope that nobody happens to walk in while I’m holding my pants up with one hand and hobbling around.

Probably they just forgot because I’m pretty much the only one that uses that stall. But I still can’t help but wonder if there’s another message. OK, gaijin. We’ve been coddling you for over three months. Now grow some thigh muscles and learn how to squat like the rest of us.

Anyway, today was the last day of work before summer break. I don’t have to worry about any of this until the end of August.

On this last day, my shy Japanese students finally worked up the nerve to sexually harass me. At the end of the school day I stopped in on a group of boys holding a meeting for the baseball team to say “goodbye.” As I left one of the boys tentatively stepped out the door to call “yummy” at my retreating back. As he turned to flee when I turned around, his friends locked him out of the meeting room. Over three months of probing them to speak English and this is what I get? Come on, boys. Even my elementary students know that word.