2002-06-19 - 9:28 p.m.
Last week the rainy season arrived, introducing the only catch to my gloriously short bike commute. Riding a bike in the rain three days a week is no fun -- even for ten minutes. But I’m not complaining. My long train commute already seems like a distant memory, and I cherish the extra sleep. It poured yesterday but today I woke up to chirping birds and bright sun. I actually remembered to take advantage of the weather by stripping the sheets off my futon and hanging it out on the balcony. I’m supposed to perform this chore at least once a week so the sun can work its magic, drying up mold and killing microscopic bed-bugs. The sky was clear enough to afford me my first view of Mt. Fuji since winter. I can report that there is significantly less snow atop the peak than there was a few of months ago.
The school I’m at now is turning out to be a good place to ride out the rest of my job. Besides the easy commute, the atmosphere in the school is really laid back, and I get along well with the English teachers, both of whom are 30-ish women. One of the English teachers invited me to read her collection of English Harry Potter books during my free time, and has allowed me access to the air-conditioned computer room. I’m teaching enough classes that I’m not bored, and every so often am asked to come up with a game or quiz, which makes me feel a little more useful. The kids are a bit rowdy, but since that’s ultimately not my problem, it provides for a lot of entertaining moments. Some ninth grade boys pulled a great prank last week during one of my classes by sticking a magnetic alarm clock atop one of the florescent ceiling lights and snickering as it went off for five minutes before we located it. I had to get it down by standing on a chair whacking it with a meter stick. In the past two weeks I’ve also witnessed a fight among ninth grade boys over a stolen pencil case, and experienced a moderate earthquake (5.2), which rumbled through fourth period last Friday.
This week I’ve been giving conversation tests to the eighth and ninth graders and on the whole they are faring abysmally. Here’s a sample encounter:
ME: Good morning. What’s your name?
STUDENT: Good morning. I’m... (rushed and/or inaudible name)
ME: How old are you?
STUDENT: Eh? Eh?
ME: I’m TWENTY THREE YEARS OLD. How OLD are YOU?
STUDENT: I’mmmmuu... (counts to self: one, two, three...) It’sssssuu.... It’s fourteen!
ME: Do you have any brothers or sisters?
STUDENT: I’m one brother. Eh? No. It’s one brother.
ME: Are you hungry?
STUDENT: Yes! Very hungry! (with confidence, finally an easy one!)
ME: What do you want to eat? (target grammar, much practiced, is “I want to eat...”)
STUDENT: Ehhhh??? (desperately looks to Japanese teacher for translation, which is not forthcoming)
ME: I WANT TO EAT pizza. What do you WANT TO EAT?
STUDENT: Eh? Ohh... (gets it) Yes! Hamburger!
ME: Okay! Good! Thank you, you may sit down.
The World Cup ended for Japan yesterday, as the team lost their match against Turkey. Accompanying the widespread disappointment you’d expect was an outpouring of thanks to the team and its French coach. Since the game the TV has been filled with interviews with fans who seem only to want to thank Team Japan for its hard work and for advancing so far in the tournament. One convention of Japanese sports coverage is for a network to set up fax machines in the studio and accept messages on-air from fans all over the country. I’ve found this kind of annoying, both during the World Cup and the Olympics because the faxes all say the same thing. “And now we have a fax from Miki Yamaguchi, a thirteen-year-old from Ibaraki Prefecture. She says, ‘Good Luck Japan! Fight!’ And here’s one from the section chief at Mizuho Bank in Tokyo. It says, ‘Fight! Good luck Japan, from the employees of Mizuho Bank!’” Anyway, my point is that after the game, all of the faxes were thanking the team for their hard work. It seemed almost like an orchestrated campaign of thanks -- but then, that’s culture for you! The girls at my junior high school are wasting no time on sadness -- they are too busy obsessing over David Beckham, the wonderboy of the English soccer team. During cleaning time in one of the ninth grade classrooms, I noticed one of the ceiling beams was plastered with about a dozen pictures of Team Japan and about two dozen close-ups of David Beckham, on and off the field. Several girls had written “I love Beckham” on their desks. Near the window I noticed a small Kleenex figure dangling in a noose crafted from a piece of wire. A mohawk and a frown had been drawn on the head with a ball point pen, and “Beckham” written in Japanese. I think the boys are jealous.
