excelsiora

Haiku!!!

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 03:27:36 GMT

Wow! I an so excited... Do you remember back in November when I wrote that my students were writing haiku? Here's the LINK to my journal I don't know if I mentioned at the time, but one of the big tea companies in Japan was holding a haiku competition and so we entered all of their haiku in it..

And..

One of my students, actually the first one in the list WON the prize! Can you believe it, she won ￥200,000 which is about a thousand pounds, and her haiku is now featured on tea adverts all over Japan. Isn't that utterly insane? I'm so proud she won, although that's a little tempered with the weirdness of creative prostitution that her haiku now will help sell tea, but ANYHOW. Isn't it incredible?
And HERE is the website..

And the haiku: Icicles are my xylophone
Sounding silent melodies
Cold morning

Stupidity and Aomori

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 03:46:45 GMT

Today is a strange day. The air is strangely thick, maybe because it's so humid if you put a pen on its point it could balance there, just lying on the air. This weather makes me so stupid. Guess what I did this morning? I set my washing machine to wash clothes early so I could hang them out before school.. and then when I got up I accidently hung out all my dirty clothes and left the clean clothes in the washing machine. Then I had to take all the dirty clothes down again and hang up all the clean clothes from the washing machine and finally put the dirty clothes in the washing machine. I really hate hanging out clothes at the best of times, so my hanging out everything twice serves to emphasise quite how stupid I am at the moment.
I am currently at school and trying to work out how to gag one of my teachers as she keeps laughing at the students whenever they make mistakes, which really doesn't help when they're terrified to speak English because of worrying about making mistakes in the first place. Imbecilic woman.

I went to Aomori prefecture this weekend (literally "blue", i.e. green, "forest", and actually that's pretty much all there is there). It was wonderfully green, gloriously wet and the rain rained a lot. We went to take part in a charity fundraiser for building schools in Nepal by doing quizzes but I have to say, for me both the quiz and the charity ended up being somewhat irrelevant.
Hummmm it's lunch time now, I'll write a little more later..

Being a grandmother or a watchman of the spirit

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 00:37:28 GMT

On the subject of "what is your dream?" or "what do you want to be in the future?" one of my students has written (I didn't correct the English),

"I want to live Japanese house when I'm grandmother.
Spring, I see cherry tree in my garden.
Summer, I sun with dog and cat and I eat watermeron!
Fall, I go to "Momijigari" and I make "siori"
Winter, I dring hot Japanese tea and I sleep in my "kotatu".

It is my plan.

I hope my dream has come true."

momijigari = the trips japanese people take to go and see the red leaves in autumn
shiori = a bookmark, i think
kotatsu = a heated table you sit underneath in winter

I think the most disturbing thing is that this is written by a 15 year old, who wants to by pass the next 40 or 50 years and become a Japanese grandmother as soon as possible. To me while the lifestyle she describes sounds pretty idyllic, and certainly contrasts favourably to the average salariman's life of 9:00-21:00 every day if they are LUCKY, it seems sad she has no interest in the bit in between. I don't think much of me wishes I was 60 right now.

Masakun, one of my favourite students (he's the one who previously wrote in his self-introduction, “I like the neglect of Takeda Mirai. I don't like his face. My favourite sport is cricket. Don't put your greedy hands on my money.” And also, “ I forget to bring my eraser every day, so I haven't had a good school life for the last three years”and“Ms. Sato makes an abusive use of her powers.") wrote,

"My dream is become watch man.
Watchman is guard for your spirit.
My dream is very, very easy.
But, I hack computers."

I don't know what it means but he seems to have a slight obsession with people stealing each others' spirits.

We also have, "I want to be a broad-minded person! I want to be a make-up artist, too."

Of the students who I have marked so far the aspirations are as follows:
1 baker
1 government official
1 footballer, 1 table tennis player
1 watchman of the spirit and computer hacker
2 scientists
2 designers (although one would rather be a grandmother), 1 illustrator
2 air hostess, 1 ground crew
5 musicians, 1 actor, 1 make-up artist (and broadminded person)
3 doctors, 2 nurses (one male, one female), 1 pharmacist, 1 vet

The return

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 11:33:56 GMT

Remarkably I seemed to have managed not to update for a period of three months. I think the main reason is that I've been writing other things, such as the beginnings of my novel which has been taking all my energy. The other reason is that I HATE uploading photos as it takes me too long.
What I've been doing includes,
1. My parents visited Japan. My dad found he could barely endure the ludicrous cuteness that pervades all aspects of Japanese life. I have to say, I no longer notice it, and although some of the girls around are sickening in their pink and teddybeared sugary coating I actually love the fact that being cute is fine for both males and females. My mum on the other hand decided the Japanese are a warlike and violent race and dangerous to be around. I think she based this impression solely on the Kyoto Peace Museum whose depictions of the crazy nationalism before WWII certainly shows that...but things have changed. I'm coming back to London next month and I was walking home at 2am down an unlit back street when I remembered I'm going to have to be careful when I return to that delightfully unsafe capital.
2. I went to Tokyo a few times
There I visited, the Meguro parasite museum (it makes me itch thinking about it again), a maid cafe (quite frankly the least sexy place with the most cardboard boxes on display of any cafe i ever went to), the Ninja restaurant (whose name can only be whispered on still nights), the O-hanami in Ueno (cherry blossom viewing, utterly beautiful), then...fastforwarding to the next visit, I tried out a love hotel (karaoke! in bed! fairylights! on the ceiling! bath as big! as a bed! jacuzzi! wow!), wandered around the secondhand book and record districts, met a kofun and the tokyo tower, was shown around Tokyo University (rather like St. Johns without the river and lots of Japanese people exercising at midnight in a vast barn-like gymnasium), climbed a few of the really high tower blocks in Shinjuku's highrise city and looked at the view, ate Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese and Mexican food, went to an imperial iris garden and probably did other things I can't remember.
3. Went to Saitama Kofun Park
And got to see some of the most beautiful kofun ever. I was so excited. Nori seemed utterly bemused by my excitement.
4. Went to a Paleolithic site in Sendai
Also very excited.
5. Had a crazy spitting fit with my employers who managed to underpay me by £150 and drive me crazy in four dozen other ways over the last few days. This includes requiring me to fill in a form in kanji by myself. I cannot read the kanji so essentially I'm just copying out several dozen meaningless characters, and I keep making mistakes so I gave up.
6.Had another party with teachers
But didn't bite anyone this time.
7. Saw FatboySlim in concert
Even if you don't like his music go and see him. He's an incredible showman.
8. Spent a weekend chasing random dancers with fans around Sendai
But Tetsuya was disappointed we couldn't get any amezake or however it's spelt. I also realised I like carp very very much and wish to have them swimming around my aparto.
9. Had my birthday party
It was fun although possibly free tequila isn't a good idea.
10. Ate some incredibly good sushi
Incredibly good. Yum yum yum.

I'm sure lots more things have happened since then, but maybe I'll start updating properly soon. I'll also put photos up when I'm in less of a mood like this where uploading photos could potentially tip me over into insanity.

Love Roz

Goodbye to teachers

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 01:39:51 GMT

Imagine the scene. A school hall packed to bursting with students. First and Second years, plus all the graduated third years in roughly accurate school uniforms and a wonderfully louche air, as of course they’re not even members of this school any more. In the back loitered some high school girls from previous years, pink and cute with exceedingly short skirts. The teachers leaving promenaded onto stage. A short speech was required. And then Ando-san reprised her winning song from the Enkai. The three verses and choruses of the school song, in an even more wavering soprano as her tears came. I love Ando-san, I think she,s utterly awesome and her dismissal from the school is basically criminal, but...
I applaud the students for not becoming hysterical, although certain faces reflected my feeling that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

More food

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 01:36:32 GMT

Fortunately I was not hungover as today was Pride and Prejudice official marathon. Today we watched the whole of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice and I consumed;
1 umeboshi onigiri
1 egg mayonnaise sandwich
1 yakitori stick
1 home-made scone (that we made from about 9pm just before home time)
1 piece of Christmas cake (Tescos' import)
1 bowl miso soup
1 piece of chocolate containing nuts
1 glass of apple juice
3 bottles water
3 pieces of homemade banana cake
3 bottles mugicha
4 pieces of bitter chocolate
7 carrot sticks with guacamole
about 7 nuts with seaweed
8 strange onion-flavoured crisps
8 cups green tea
12 tortilla chips
about 40 small deep fried fish in salt
…and probably some other things too. My heart was wrenched and then gladdened by the film in spite of the dull predictability of Mr Darcy. We also managed to work out the animal equivalents of all the main characters.*

*(For example Jane who usually looks like a horse;

But here looks more like a toad)

Enkai!

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 01:23:10 GMT

Last night was the goodbye party enkai at my other school (the school where I'm generally ignored by the staff, not the school where I bite people). I was informed just yesterday morning that it would cost 1man, that's £50 but as I was too late to cancel on grounds of insane extravagance I was quite happy to attend with no feelings of guilt.
I arrived at the hotel with a couple of other attendees (note: it seems, from all such events I have attended, that as a young, unmarried woman I am expected to wear a tight black suit...) and was ushered to coat removal (as usual the slight Japanese woman buckling under the weight of mine while a ferret-featured male ran around looking concerned and helpful but actually achieved absolutely nothing). We took the lift to a tatame banquet room with dark overhead beams, where more kimono-clad women encouraged us to remove our shoes and placed them in lockers for us and then entered the main chamber. Each of the 25 attendees had their own tiny table and floor-chair, complete with an initial set of food, all arranged in a horseshoe shape. There were delicate paintings and calligraphy hanging in alcoves and a decidedly indelicate huge lion's head and big wooden bucket-thing. The tiniest and most Japanese of all the teachers swung the handle of the bucket gently while examining it, propelling it through the paper wall of the room. We spent the next five minutes positioning the handle so you couldn't see the hole she'd smashed through.
Finally all the teachers had been ushered (women in kimono tend to do a lot of ushering) into position and the 6 departees came into the room. We were nearly all in intensely formal dark (or black) suits and yet the teachers, for reasons best known to themselves, had chosen to decorate the departees with tinsel. Old, formally attired, calm sensible Japanese people with red, green, yellow or pink tinsel wrapped around their necks like boas entering the room with a wedding-like step. I managed not to giggle. We bowed. They bowed. The tinsel slipped a bit. And then the speeches began.
..
...
..
For each teacher was the Kyoto-sensei's speech, then the departee's response, then another teacher's speech, and then the departee's speech. Then the receiving of flowers and envelopes.
..
.
..it seemed to take a very long time..
..
The dinner lady, Ando-san, has been kicked out for reasons of expense after 10 years at the school (Tomiya Town Hall is new and made entirely of modern. Modern is very expensive and hence they're cutting things from the school budgets such as Dinner Ladies and new toilet paper). She cried at her farewell and tonight again. Then she sang the school song in a high and wavering soprano.
..
...then we watched a compilation film of all the annual formal photographs of the teachers over the years.. watching Ando-san morph from a plump middle-aged woman into the slightly haggard limping one she now is was interesting... 10 years is a very long time..
..
..
...
Finally it was time for the KAMPAI and we drank and began to eat..

The initial set up on my personal little cute table.. (tofu, baby squid with daikon, soy sauce)

...women in kimono continually fluttered in and out to bring new food to our tables..

Next (+ sashimi, huge meatball soup, mysterious dish with a green lid)

..Next (+ vegetable and miso thing, fried chicken, grilled fish)

..Next (+ small bowl of vegetables)

...and finally... (+ pickles, miso soup, fried rice, coconut icecream)

After a while the courses eased off and people began to pour alcohol for each other at an exponentially increasing rate. First, of course, they were eager to show respect to those leaving, in particularly the short, stinking, irritating man who was our Kocho-sensei. This can be clearly seen in this picture.

If it’s not clear, let me explain that all the backs are teachers waiting, kneeling, facing the teachers departing. The Kocho-sensei is therefore in the middle, on the other side of the table. All those teachers are trying to fill up his glass.
By about 30 minutes to the end the male teachers had become so drunk they were queuing to fill up my glasses (I am wondering whether they’ve heard rumours of my enkai-related craziness from the other school). I had a range of conversations largely focussing on Whisky and Jomon Archaeology. My favourite questions included, “So, where are you from in America?” and “When did the Jomon age begin in England”. The Jomon is a period in Japanese prehistory named for its cord-marked pottery specific to the Japanese archipelago. Yes, in England people were living there at that time, but no, they weren’t Jomon people.

We left (my teacher drove us to the centre..she doesn’t drink, but of course was just as drunk as the rest of us). At the second party we sat and chattered more about things and ate some more food and drank a lot more beer and things. We had mini-kegs at the table to compliment the Caesar salad and kimchee soup. I think I am going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Everyone attended, and it was a drinking and eating affair, very distant from the stripping and singing event that happened at the last nijikai I went to. Which was probably a very good thing. I think Liz’s parties should be limited as otherwise they would cease to have their special appeal.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 06:01:15 GMT

*
This cat haunts my dreams. It leaves my home and attacks people when I'm not there. I have to bury the corpses below the cherry trees but I'm running out of space. I don't know what to do.

*Present from Russell

Seku Hara

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 02:43:23 GMT

I was browsing to find equivalent Japanese-UK bra sizes (although I think the sizes given are wrong... here bras seem to be measured from the size they APPEAR to support rather than the goods inside, so to speak...the degree of padding in certain bras is just extraordinary) and I found this http://www.asiansexgazette.com/asg/japan/japan04news51.htm
I feel odd propagating it, as it seems to me to be child porn.
However, in the same pages I found this article http://www.asiansexgazette.com/asg/japan/japan04news98.htm which is pretty interesting. Ainsley was talking before about her experience of being harassed in the post-room and how uncomfortable it made her feel. Maybe this reflects that in the UK, it is only regarded as a problem when power politics come into play. I think that there is a valid point here of some sort; if someone in power puts you in such a position things grow murkier but obviously all people should have a right to freedom from harassment from anyone. Here, hierarchy is all and the system seems in a worse state than that of the UK, even. Recently an ALT from Miyagi left, and while she was apparently bad at fitting into the system; putting recycling out any day she felt like, exploding at school when things didn't go the way she expected, being very rude to her teachers, the reasons for her leaving were unconnected with this. She left because she was badly sexually harassed by her Kyoto-sensei. I was initially very shocked in a way most people weren't (and very shocked that no-one else was as shocked as I)...they completely accepted the fact she left, that it would never be investigated and that nothing would change. How can this be right? I think she may have put herself in a more awkward position than necessary; if she had had better relations with her co-workers maybe they'd have been more willing to help, but the fact remains most people felt it unthinkable that someone in such a low position as herself could cause trouble for someone as high as the Kyoto-sensei. I think not only does this re-emphasise how lowly us ALTs really are, but also how much hierarchy counts here. And nearly all the people in positions of power are men. I have only met one head teacher who was a woman in the whole time I've been here. At each school there is a row of photographs of all the previous head teachers and they are all men, stretching back up to 40 years. Women rush to make tea when visitors arrive. The visitors may be formal guests or former students popping into say hello, but they all are served and always served by the female teachers. Women here tend to rush around moving chairs, rearranging things while the men generally saunter in and take their positions. Similar to the way we take to our knees to scrub the floors as they look important playing with network connections.
This being said, there are also ALT-related sex-scandals in school also not resulting in dismissal. I have heard stories of male ALTs getting their students pregnant but not being sent home, merely being made to change schools (although this may be apocryphal I know that sleeping with one's Senior High School girls is not that uncommon and loudly bragged about on the JET message boards I avoid). Currently a female ALT in Sendai is apparently sleeping with a student. A Sannensei student, so he is 15 and she is 27. All such relationships, imbued with an inherent power element seem wrong to me, particularly given the extreme youth of the kids involved. Yet, as already mentioned, we are the ones who would be believed or at least absolved; the views of the students reduced to nothing.
Another person I have talked to, however, has a Kocho-sensei who not only sexually harasses all the women leaving them no course for redress but tyrannises all teachers making them bow and scrape. Allegedly upon laughing at the Kyoto-sensei knocking his own glasses off when drunk, one teacher was forced to supplicate himself on the ground before him.

Akiu

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 02:34:49 GMT

This morning after last night not really sleeping thanks to clubbing at Ripperu (again) it was time to go to Akiu, one of the most famous onsen towns in Miyagi. But, before lying naked in a big hot bath we had to make traditional glass beads. In a traditional place with traditional slippers and traditional cups of coffee that I didn't drink.

Here is Hannah, a beautifully English person. Sometimes I feel I'm just too English for words, then I meet Hannah and my identity goes wandering again. To make the beads we had to melt glass rods in a flame and then loop the molten glass around a rod. By spinning the rod the bead became spherical and then new exciting things and decorations could be added.

Russell spinning his bead. I am grimacing in the background. Russell seemed intent on making his beads as ugly as possible; I think the activity had him questioning his masculinity. Oh and we're not wearing glasses as we're part of a cool glasses club. They were to protect the eyes from glass which had a tendency to explode in the flame from time to time.

Laura being helped by the traditional glass bead making woman who spoke no English but enjoyed paying gloriously backhanded compliments in Japanese (my bead was, "beautiful if you looked closely"). It was very hot near the flames and without the glasses it felt like ones eyes might melt in their sockets.

That's me burning the rod prior to making a bead. The t-shirt has monkeys on it but cannot be seen as we were all wearing old-woman aprons of the type worn in Japan by all old women, many primary school teachers and all small children doing messy things.

Our final beads. Don't we look proud.

Then we went to the onsen. The really really posh one which cost about £5 but was worth every penny. We were welcomed by the kimono-clad women and neurotic running men that seem to inhabit every posh hotel in Japan. I didn't mention but the wind has been insanely strong the last couple of days, bringing down tree branches and stopping me sleeping as the house around me creaks ominously. So, after washing we ventured to the outside onsen down three flights of stairs, entirely naked and wet and got very cold indeed. The onsen itself was huge and night was falling so gently illuminated with a series of waterfalls behind. Finally we collected Russell and went home via a plate of rainbow sushi each.

Promoting creative thought. Attempts at.

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 06:40:58 GMT

I spent a large portion of the last week at school chatting with ninensei and giving them marks for their conversational abilities. I have suddenly become obsessed with making my students think creatively. I think this must be because without thought they will become copies, one after another just like everyone else. I was talking about it with someone the other day; the teachers here are often wonderful but so hidebound, they cannot think outside the tiny narrow world they live inside. In some ways I'm dangerous to them, from an entirely different place...without me being here they could more easily pretend it didn't exist. Most people here warn me about the dangers and excesses of the people from Osaka or Tokyo (my friend from Kobe on coming to visit was surprised at the quaint politeness here), while many have barely left Tohoku in their lives. If that's their attitude about someone 2 hours by train away then what can they really believe about foreigners? I really am an alien. Another friend told me that Japanese men (he is a Japanese man) generally find English women far too "strong", that is too forthright and confident. Personally I find the women here too subservient, they often seem to sacrifice their comfort for that of the man's. So, when the students clean the school tasks are divided equally but when we clean the staffroom the men move most of the furniture and then stand chatting and looking important as the women literally crawl on their hands and knees scrubbing the floor with cloths. I have never seen a male teacher deign to scrub the floor. I think there must be some balance between the two worlds, but even without the language barrier cultural differences are sometimes overwhelming. My closest Japanese friends are those who have lived overseas and have stopped believing their way is the only way of doing things (although maybe they still believe it's the best way, and sometimes of course it is).

Anyhow, it is the same in lessons where I get bored at the continuing lack of thinking along anything but the accepted lines; precisely translating the textbook, learning the grammar and yet never challenging it (I know I am not much better, my Japanese is still at such a level I get frustrated in about 3 seconds and switch to English; I cannot communicate any nuances of thought). So each ninensei student wrote a short speech about their favourite なになに (the dull ones about their favourite season as that was in the example) and I then had to question them upon it and chat about it. I don't think any of the conversations were inherently interesting by themselves, it was just good to relax a little (although mostly they were un-relaxed a lot) and talk. I also (being slightly evil) induced several of them to sing their favourite song to me. Bwahahaha. Haha. I also got some classic reasons for their choices, "I like winter as I am allowed to sit under the kotatsu all day", "I like autumn as I can read" (autumn is viewed as the best season to read, I just find it funny that all other seasons are regarded as bad times to read). One student went on and on about how much she loved Japanese culture and wanted to visit everywhere in Japan. I asked and she's never even left Miyagi, has been to Sendai very rarely and has absolutely no desire to ever leave Japan. I think she'd have to be tied up before she'd submit to it. Another boy claimed that November was his favourite month and August his least favourite. After a small moments thought he declared March his second favourite. One speech talked about Octopus only, declaring, "Octopus is the destiny taste", and I wasn't going to argue with that. Finally, after interviewing all 120ish of them I was getting tired so my questions grew increasingly difficult. The student I asked, "Why do you think there are no aliens?" nearly fell over backwards.

Then, this week, I developed an activity for ichinensei to use their imaginations in English too. The task was to complete sentences and I gave more points to the more interesting sentences. We started with, "I was...dying" or "I was.. Mr Kichuchi's hair" and things rapidly went down or uphill from them depending on your perspective. "We had an excrement", which I figure must mean ate for dinner, was only given two points as it was too simple (and the fact I gave it points and corrected the spelling seemed to convince the class that anything was acceptable which was my intention). "We had a great vacation but Takuya exploded" was given 5 points for being utterly insane and using English they only learnt last week. There was also a great obsession with hair; "I was Mr Kikuchi's hair", "We had hair but now we are bald", "I was bald but I have a wig", "What is Mr Kikuchi's hairstyle?" (I'd call it an untrained bouffant), "Can you make Mr Kikuchi's hairstyle?"....

Too much Guinness and afterwards

Mon, 27 Mar 2006 02:40:31 GMT

I spent two evenings this weekend mainly at the Irish pub and while I was sitting in two different chairs the moments are kind of melded into one. I know some American bought me bizarre drinks (including a variety of Irish alcohol) which had irritating names and served no purpose other than to make one want to throw up. Also people were behaving really very oddly, probably due to alcohol. I ended up leaving. That was on Friday.
Saturday was the pub quiz which was 247% more enjoyable although Tarokyo was far too slow at using his keitei internet to effectively cheat for us. Most unfair. We came second although should have won because we were the best.
Later we went to Elephant Magic where it became apparent the elephants had been designed to stop people riding them. Painted with invisible slippy paint or something. Or containing a miniature gaijin-repelling emitters. Probably made of squid.
After that I carried a very drunken Japanese person and his bike back to his flat and unsuccessfully tried to prevent him from riding the said bike which he promptly fell off twice in a row. Next morning on the way to work he couldn't understand why his clothes were covered in oil. Conclusion: Japanese people drink too much.
Sunday in Sendai was surprisingly pleasant and I bought an orange t-shirt covered in monkeys.

A Magic Elephant. Stolen from the internet but given a good home here where he will be tended to frequently.

Completely Random Crap

Sat, 25 Mar 2006 14:39:21 GMT

I must have already discussed at length the way Japanese women walk. As if new born colts who haven’t quite worked out which way is forwards. Anyhow, I maybe haven't explained my hobby which is watching Japanese women run. I might begin videotaping it. I enjoy the spectacle to such an extent.

I’m currently watching TV. The usual shows have experts doing something expert (yesterday women in a factory making gyoza at a rate of 8 per 45 seconds) and then celebrities doing the same thing inexpertly (the women were all crossing their arms in disgust at the celebrity’s attempt) with a small box in the top right corner showing other celebrities’ reactions. Oh and I think many of the celebrities are celebrities simply by dint of being on the programmes themselves. Anyhow, today’s programme seems to be a real show not about celebrities at all, but rather a moving and vivid documentary about an apprentice paper-maker and how she can’t make paper without bubbles. The girl has now been shown making at least 8 sheets of bubbly paper and we now have a close up of her face, almost tearful, as she bemoans her lack of skill.
Having switched channels, the paper documentary having finished, now it’s a home redesigning show in which a house which is far from square is being remodelled. All antique furniture are having wedges removed from the back to fit the acute angles. This is necessary as seen in a 2 minute plaintive section in which the old woman attempted to open her drawers only to have them bump against one another thanks to the angles of the rooms. The sorrowful piano music in the background only served to emphasise the distress felt by all involved as the drawers gently bumped again and again.

I refound my favourite game which in many ways sums up a lot of why I like this country so bloody much. It’s not pleasantly balanced flower arrangements, women floating above the ground on tiny steps or ancient temples, it’s the insanity.. the insanity which is embodied by DOLPHIN DASH http://www.mausland.de/swfcontent.php?file=14.

Russell has to remember this evening for ever..

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 02:00:43 GMT

Last night, hangover not withstanding, I was forced out of my house against my will. After a pleasant meal of Chinese food we went to meet a random female at the door to the club we hoped to go to. The random female in question had been made to give Russell her ketei email the night before at his enkai but they had never actually spoken before this meeting. This I did not know. Further, unfortunately, the club was going to close within the next 30 minutes. So we went to Sendai. After waiting around for her and her friends to arrive for roughly an hour we realised given they were all underage we couldn't do very much. So we went to karaoke. At this karaoke session we ate icecream and drank melon soda and sang songs from disney. The girl refused to speak more than about 6 sentences to me all night. She and Russell did not speak at all. Her friend was a little bit more forthcoming although I was forced to make all attempts at communication, girl #1 and Russell, both, seemingly having given up. Then two more friends who were both about 14 arrived. Achingly sweet but clearly prepubescent.
I left for the last subway half an hour earlier than it was actually due. Or rather I escaped. Russell has yet to give me a planetarium in compensation for going at all and for being nice to his freakishly silent girls. Damn him. He is in league with the devil.

EDIT: Russell did give me a bag of white chocolate buttons as recompense. That this goes a long way to making me forgive him shows how much I am missing English chocolate. Someone send me a dark chocolate orange please.

After Graduation.. the Party

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 01:47:49 GMT

To follow the excruciating discipline we had endure all day it was of course necessary for the teachers to party all night. At least until midnight anyhow.
The first party was as usual; delicious food, people becoming increasingly able to talk in English as the night progressed, me becomingly increasingly able to talk Japanese as drinks were forced upon me, etc.etc. The teachers at Narita are a really jolly lot, I just wish they were less scared of me and I of them in the day time. Or else we taught at night when drunk. Either way would work.
Then to the Second PARTY. Karaoke. The tone was set when for the first song, random 1st year teacher #3 (I feel it is unfair to use their real names) took all his clothes off and climbed on top of the karaoke tv in order to sing. The gorilla teacher was comatose in the corner with a peaceful smile on his face and every time I sang (first of all a duet with the kochosensei) they chanted.. roz roz roz roz roz etc. By half way through I had taken to ordering beers at random intervals and more of the teachers had taken their clothes off with the help of Hitomi and me. I can't remember why it seemed such a good idea at the time but it is true, cool-guy teacher has one of the best bodies I have ever seen or, indeed, caressed. When 5 of the teachers were standing in their boxer shorts and I had avoided all of the attempts by the maintenance man (aka lecherous old man) to be made to join them I went and met the Kyotosensei's daughter and chatted idly for a while.
I cannot really remember how long this lasted, but at some point they drove me home and I woke up the next day with an appallingly bad headache and huge bruises on my hands from hitting a tambourine with excessive force. Thankfully there is now a whole month before I have to see any of them again.

Graduation

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 06:04:42 GMT

Granduation of the 3rd years was today and there was surprisingly very little crying. I was mainly at Narita for this event (although was told later the Tokuchu ceremony was ruined by the students chatting throughout; i can hardly blame them as watching each of their class mates stand on stage and bow one by one was hardly the most rivetting spectacle**). I was somewhat facinated by it, however, simply for the ridiculous uniformity and precision with which the whole ceremony occurred. Each student rose at an appointed time, so 5 were always waiting to take to the stage, neatly spaced with about 1.5m between them. The student would then ascend the right-hand flight of stairs, progress to the middle of the stage, turn to face the kochosensei, bow, wait for his or her name be read out, be presented with the graduation folder/ certificate thing, receive it first with the right, then the left arm outstretched, bow into the gap between their outstretched arms, perform a half-turn to the left, proceed to the left-hand staircase and descend as the next student was about to turn to the kochosensei. The student would then leave the stairs, bow to the head of education and return to their seat. This went on for all the students and only one broke the pattern (one out of about a hundred) by receiving the folder with the left hand and then the right.
Parents were seated behind the students each one (often BOTH the mother and father) producing a video of the event on miniature DVD recorders. Behind that were the first and second years all of whom stood up and sat down with sannensei at absolutely precise times as if they were all mentally conjoined just for the event.
This account fails to mention quite how many bows there were on the day. I think it's the first time I've seen the Japanese flag on stage and it had to be bowed to by all those going up there, in addition to necessary bows to the PTA and teachers (that's us) who all had to bow back. Pink chrysanthemums lined the whole stage which were later given away, one to each student, maybe to match the corsage each received upon arrival. There were many speeches from lots of random men I didn't recognise. Of course we sang the school song and national anthem and the 3rd years a special song all of their own.
All teachers were dressed in their absolute best including two women in traditional school teacher kimonos which seemed to hamper their movement in the extreme. Indeed I had my hair cut the night before quite by chance, but Kyo said that he had had more appointments than he possibly could fit in almost certainly as the ALTs wanted to look their best for the ceremony too.
Later we formed two huge lines leading from the school to bid them a proper farewell, the most popular ones completely laden with small presents and pictures from the other two years by the school exit, but really most of them just looked utterly bemused and frozen as the day was immensely cold. It was a very strange and quite sad event.

**I was later told there were 8 police-men at the Tokuchu event to prevent trouble

Shogakko

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 05:48:55 GMT

Back to Elementary school yet again, which was much the same mixture of frustrating teachers and pure enjoyment at hanging out with the little insane animals who are students there. I gave out so many stickers that by the end of the day everyone was decorated. My favourite teacher perpetually has 5 or 6 eight year olds hanging about his person like a christmas tree decorated with over-sized fairies. He is superb. The teacher in the tight black leather mini still freaks me out and the teacher dressed in faded beige (actually her outfit reminds me of those my grandmother used to wear when she was a head ) is certainly an alcoholic who spends her days sunken in a stupor and her nights burning her throat with harsh vodka. I imagine that sooner or later she will hit a student or maybe vomit on the kochosensei and end her life selling herself in a small isakaya in a tiny town noone ever visits.
I also (on Wednesday) managed to negociate never to attend another meeting in Tomiya Shogakko again (I think and hope) as I pointed out that the meetings (lasting 1-4 hours) were all intended to discuss Tomiya's particular English programme, one which I never teach, will never teach and have absolutely no interest in. I cannot comment on it as I don't teach it. While I believe my arguments were infallible I half expect I will be invited back next time to sit in silence and eat sugared almonds while drinking altogether too much tea. Abby of course teaches at the school so while it bores her as much as it bores me, at least she has something to say. I just don't. The meetings are naturally conducted all in Japanese.

Drag Night etc.

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 05:43:25 GMT

Hoping for many men in drag, I was disappointed at the single (delightful) transvestite. Two go-go dancer boys in feathers and small strips of leather hardly made up for it, particularly as whilst I could easily imagine them tickling each other with feathers I am sure they would dissolve into giggles in roughly 6.2 seconds. Jokes in Japanese continue to be unamusing thanks to my incompetance in the language; my students are shocked I don't have a favourite Japanese comedian yet, but I remain perpetually baffled.
Unfortunately some bloody gaijin decided to gatecrash our club-ghetto-transvestite-fueled evening and so I took my revenge by ignoring them and curing a DJ called Yama's hiccups for half the night. The gaijin meanwhile formed a kind of enclave in one section of the club and didn't deign to mix more freely. I don't really understand why. There was also an ancient instrument playing man with his small harem banging tambourines in the back ground and a lecherous school councillor whose best compliment to me was, "you look almost like a Japanese girl". I don't know how I was meant to take that.

Bar

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 05:43:38 GMT

Later on that evening, Kyo showed me one of his favourite bars. It was only big enough for 4 seats and had a golden glow about it, though given the number of identical backstreets we took I couldn’t find the way back. There we met another hairdresser and together, while drinking black beer from Korea and peering through thick cigarette smoke, we argued about Japanese politics in a mixture of Japanese and English.

Goodbye party...

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 05:00:45 GMT

There has been an odd atmosphere at school this week. Sannensei will be leaving on the 10th March and so all lessons with them have a very odd feeling. They still have to take certain entrance exams, but I don’t think we can force any more information into them so lessons are pretty much pointless. On the “doctor doctor” lesson we enjoyed discussing how all British people will die of CJD but that was more for entertainment’s than English’s sake.
Finally, after days of all of one year or another running to the hall with pompoms and excited expressions we got to view the complete spectacle of the goodbye party. It began, sedately enough, with the entire first year dancing like robots in perfect unison in a calm and yet ultimately terrifying manner. Although I have come to appreciate most of the students do have personalities (it took this long to find out, they are so quiet and shy), this performance showed off their android side to perfection and scared me.
Next were the girls of the second year doing very clever things with buckets, chairs, cloths and pompoms. This virtuosa display of choreography was alas completely thrown into shadow by the second year boys. Teaching them that morning, I had been perplexed as to why so many had shaved heads. Turns out it was just for this performance...so the tinsel wigs wouldn’t fall off... The wigs being worn in addition to tinsel skirts over skimpy shorts and enormous balloon breasts...while dancing the "Oh ricky you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind etc." routine... ok you’ll get a picture now..

Don’t they look delightful? The lipstick chosen was so garish most of them wore it the whole afternoon.

Short Story

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 06:09:21 GMT

I wrote a short story I thought I may as well post here. Somewhat based upon experiences last week. Incidently I have begun going to a creative writing class on Wednesday evenings where we discuss our solipsistic excursions into crap. Really we all write tedious drivel. At least it balances with Tuesday nights where I experience weekly Japanese-hell at the hands of everyone else in the class who finds learning lists of vocabulary at the weekend fun.

I went out for dinner this evening to an amazing restaurant, where Kyo and I shared a tiny booth surrounded by windows filled with tedious business men. It was like we were isolated from the terrible mundane world. So maybe life isn't as dreadful as sometimes I like to believe.

Monday 27th February

Lucy had left school early the day that Mr. Sato killed a student. She had to collect something at another school and walked the short distance between them in such a small length of time that she preceded her usual bus by at least 25 minutes. So, she decided to walk the rest of the way home. The wind was strong; twisting tiny snowflakes around her head and batting the long dead grass on the wasteland in between all the new houses that were being built. She had only walked this way a few days ago and yet here was another new house. Constructed from hardboard and pins, it took mere hours to build, invariably by men in voluminous trousers. Once two such men had been on the tube train with her and she had watched their trousers closely, but still couldn’t understand why they needed to bulge so extravagantly. It was as if every night the material was stretched a little further by being pumped up with helium.
The grass shuddered, the ground around its stalks so waterlogged and dense it was almost impassable. Last week she had tried to reach the centre of the wasteland, but on sinking up to her ankles had had to escape sideways, observed by electricians in grey ballooning trousers whose vans sprouted huge fronds of multicoloured wires.
Now as each recently leveled platform marched past she could see black snake-like pipes emerging and dribbling the water on the new fresh tarmac, creating whitish stains.
An old man walked past her, staring. He stared so hard she bowed her head and greeted him, receiving a confused look and grunt in return. She watched as he made his dog pause at the corner and wait an extra second before being allowed his treat.　

She usually sat opposite Mr. Sato in the staffroom and often felt his eyes on her, peering through his crusted eyelashes and smeared black-rimmed glasses. He had a small red nose and the skin beneath it was rough and red too as if he shaved with sandpaper every morning. His mouth tended towards a sneer and when he laughed he emitted a kind of snort and nasal whine combined. She didn’t enjoy looking at Mr. Sato.

The body had been found in the midst of the wastelands near the school, partly obscured by tall grasses. Lucy thought it would have been a small girl that he had killed. First year student maybe, in the new uniform of black blazer, fawn checked skirt, and clip-on red and green bow. Only the first years wore this uniform so far, but it would filter up the school as each year progressed to the next. Stabbed repeatedly in the back. Was there any blood? There must have been blood, spreading softly through the thin white shirt and mingling with the damp swamp water.

Lucy climbed the path at the back of the wasteland, past the VW van which had only just emerged from the snow, its wheels sunk deep into the marsh. The bank had been thoughtfully covered with green nets to prevent more mud slipping down it, but feet had worn it back to bare earth and she scrambled up with some difficulty. The wind had grown stronger and she could catch the voices of children, students’ maybe from over the rooftops. The Japanese houses below shone in the sun like each surface was made of glass.
From the road passing her apartment block she could see bottles lined in stiff rows, the water inside variously hued depending on their age and levels of mould inside. Probably a cat deterrent, these bottles had steadily increased in number since her arrival and now formed double ranks looping all the way around the neighboring bungalow.

An old man with a dog had found the body, wading through the marshland on the edge of the town, the wind whipping long dried stalks of grass about them. The killer had been thorough; face down, dead, no longer warm even.

It had been at school the week previously that she had heard her name come up in the usual rattle of Japanese that filled the staffroom. She wasn’t meant to be able to understand, it wasn’t meant to be anything but a meaningless blur of noises, but she knew they were talking about her. Mr. Sato was the leader, gathering hilarity at her failures, her inability to speak even the most simple of Japanese, to communicate with students, to leave the staffroom with any semblance of grace. She didn’t understand why he hated her, but she could see his small eyes looking at her, triumphant.

Now her mouth curled with pleasure as his body fell onto the waterlogged ground in front of her, a great wet sack of meat. The blood seeped through his thin white shirt, face downwards, he barely moved. No one ever ventured up onto the wasteland apart from her and occasionally an old man with a dog.

POSTSCRIPT: Lucy Watson was formally charged and sentenced for the murder of Sato Shogo later that month. The body of the Japanese child she alleged that he killed was never found.

Wine Tasting

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 05:59:24 GMT

For some reason it was deemed a "good idea" to go and do wine tasting tonight. I am not sure it was but anyhow the wine was tasty, the company pompous and my socks were turquoise with silver skulls which made the evening pretty special I think. Unfortunately about 80% of the people there were ALTs who get tiresome after a while, but once we calculated which of the wine-servers gave more than half an inch in one's glass then the evening became rounded into a warm mellowness. We were served garlic bread, cheese and cooked heart valves as in between wine snacks. Tasty indeed. Later they brought out the cartilege and pickles. I have distinct memories of an underlit circular blue pool surrounded by marble walls and also a one-person carriage meant to be pulled by a very small horse.
On the way back on the train people began to shriek and scare the Japanese, not only as we all had dark red mouths as if we'd been feasting on each others blood. I escaped as quickly as possible.

Many things ending with Ripperu

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 03:08:31 GMT

Tonight was quite a night. In fact it was an immense night. A night of collosal proportions, with the might and majesty of an Elephant in a crown it has devised itself. Or maybe something like that at any rate. We first went for sushi of the californian variety, which makes a pleasant change from the regular Japanese type although I'd hesitate to say I preferred it. I don't think I do. The company was rather eccentric and largely unfamiliar so I hid in the corner and talked about bodily excretions with other British people. Somehow the presence of Americans and other sensitive souls makes me far more disgusting than usual.
Then we went for nomihodai at which point i realised I knew noone so ran away to the pub quiz where I knew pretty much everyone. After talking to a Japanese guy in a multi-coloured patchwork hat about telemarketing and failing to care about the pubquiz enough to actually take part for more than 10 minutes, Kyo arrived and whisked me off to a random tiny Jazz bar.
Here a friend of his was playing his annual Sendai gig, to represent his birthday (which would have been the 29th February so rarely occurred). The guy is a drummer, making his leading the band even more interesting, particularly when combined with the supremo pianist, bassist and guitar player. Later, when everyone had become quite drunk he left the drums to sing some songs, obviously incredibly humorous but virtually incomprehensible to me. The bar was made of smooth things; smooth metal, dark attractive fabric and exquisitely joined wood. There were no menus, no prices, only paying at the end in a soft and subtle manner. It was far better than any of the other bars I am accustomed to attend, but thanks to Kyo's free tickets I avoided paying the 4500￥ entrance fee. The music itself was incredibly good.

The bar. Apologies for picture quality, it is yet another mobile phone shot

Later, Kyo went to bed and I met Russell, ready to leave for another club, this one in Nagamachi Minami. Except it wasn't. We knew the club was between a ministop and the subway station, knew we must turn right from the entrance and so experimented with every subway station. Unfortunately ministops proliferated and it got to the point when Russell wasn't even sure the combini should be a ministop or that human life on mars was really impossible. We asked a taxi driver who gestured wildly yet accurately and descended into club ripple. People were painting, girls were gaggling together and tittering, a couple of gaijin were spinning poi and the music was our DJ friends. The music was actually astonishingly well put together at first although it tailed off into Nirvana covers and J-pop by about 4am and went with the strange atmosphere of thick cigarette smoke and long conversations about nothing in particular (oh and about artistic integrity..of course _technically_ i don't know what they were talking about, but it reminded me so much of the graffiti squat in Deptford where that's all they'd bloody talk about with the same squinty earnest look on their faces that I am pretty convinced). The guys didn't really know what to do about me as I just wouldn't flock with the women as I was expected to, so they attempted to have conversations around me, over me, under me and occasionally with me, once they got drunk enough.
By about 3am Russell had begun a long and somewhat interminable conversation about meat with the bargirl involving lots of writing on bits of paper. Occasional Japanese girls persuaded me to dance and then walked back and forth to the music in a gently pleasing manner. Soon most people had fallen asleep at the back of the club, on the stairs to the toilets and all over the dance floor. The paintings (300 pictures of skulls, technically adept but not very interesting) were all completed and most people were leaving. So that was the end of the evening apart from getting a very drunken Russell who was full of gin and lager home.

Shogakko

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 02:41:39 GMT

This week it was decided I attend Shogakko (Primary school; 6-11 year olds) for not one, not even two, but THREE days. Three days of small sticky fingers and children who actually talk. The majority of ALTs seem to prefer Shogakko. You can play with the kids all day, no real lessons, no real anything. I do love the kids, the fact they utterly ignore I only understand half of what they say and speak to me in Japanese anyhow, the fact they give me presents at random and want me to sign every piece of paper in the world... but somehow there is something unfulfilling about it. I think it stems largely from the fact that I never see these students. I am meant to teach students when I have NO IDEA what level they are whatsoever. I just have to turn up, attempt Japanese communication with the teachers (no English, obviously) and then teach, modifying the lesson on the fly if it is too easy or too hard, and having the teachers mess it all up, get in the way, confuse me, and so on. I don't know their names, which ones will cry if they can't answer the questions, don't know the teachers, which ones I have to pussyfoot around, and I am not allowed to beat any of them with a big stick (the teachers, the kids don't need beating).
Interesting things I learnt; if one does "head, shoulders, knees and toes" more than 50 times in two days then your knees begin to hurt, that the smell of mulled wine really turns me on and that I can acquire anything I ask for.

The frog and the pirate (another dream)

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 00:01:45 GMT

I was seated in the dining room of a house that I had never been in before. I could hear a tap dripping into the stainless steel and so left to the kitchen to turn it off. In the sink was a large bright green frog. He looked into my eyes and I could see he was hungry so I carefully picked up the liquid soap bottle and put the spout between his lips and pressed the top. The frog gulped down liquid soap as if it was delicious.
I took the frog and the liquid soap outside onto the wooden pier attached to the house and sat on the weather-beaten boards feeding him more soap as the sea lapped around the piles and seaweed floated past. Just then the local pirate came out of his little hut and sat down near me on the pier. After a couple of words with him it was clear that they needed a new poet to compose them salty verses to gargle as they attacked and plaintive prose to read in the evenings as they ate their ham (apparently they ate a lot of ham). So I was employed and me and the frog and the liquid soap all went off to find some pirate poet clothes.