The Japanese Language Proficiency Test

or

Another Goddamnned Learning Experience

a Christ-mass storie to warme the Heart... Or Rile the humoures

Part I: The Set-up

This story starts on November 30. As I was planning on going to Nagoya to take a Japanese test on Sunday, December 1, my only plan on Saturday night was to leave work quickly and go to bed early, so I could catch the 6:11 train to make the test by 9:30.

But...with 10 minutes to go before quitting time on Saturday, the head teacher called me into her room for a conference. She wanted to know why I was only getting to work 5 minutes early instead of 15. I explained to her my position of preparing my lessons in advance the night before
and my inability to see the value in making any effort for the head office that would not directly benefit the students, since I've known since June that they weren't renewing my contract and since August that there was no chance to change their minds. Generally, I've been dealing with this bitch of a situation by focusing on the students and trying to forget my urges to plot revenge or just stop going to work. But good old Miho reminded me of how much the students like me, and how much my coworkers like me, and how much they all depend on me since more than half of the staff has been there for less than one month. (No, I don't know how they say "guilt trip" in Japanese, but it's clear they're familiar with the concept.)

Anyway, after 40 minutes of making sympathetic noises alternated with requests to keep working harder, helping the new people, and filling out all the paperwork for the new classes that will start two months after I leave, Miho finally let me go for the evening. I packed my bag, remembered my wallet and phone, and went home for the night. I studied for about 10 minutes before succumbing to a stress headache and going to sleep.

I woke up instantly at 5:20 the next morning with a clear head and one stark realization: I had left my test voucher, without which I WOULD NOT BE ADMITTED, in my journal, with the directions, on my desk at work.

Part II: The Problem

Quickly reviewing my options and swallowing the bitter dregs of my pride, I called my long-suffering and too-kind manager at 5:30 AM to plead for help. To her credit, she not only woke up and answered the phone, but chose to help me at that hour by calling the building security company to let me in.

After all the phone calls were made I took a quick jog downtown (time till last train: 35 min...) to meet the man in charge of security.

All 19 years and 140 pounds of him.

He quickly gathered that I was the foreigner he was supposed to meet (a keen deduction, given that I was the only person on the street) and got out of his car and let me in the building. We went upstairs to the Aeon office where we discovered that neither he nor I was the manager of Aeon. That was a problem only because the manager is the only one with a key to the office door.

So I was still unable to get that one piece of paper I had been told was essential to my taking the test, and now I only had twenty-eight minutes to get in and out of the building, to the station, buy a ticket and get on the train. It was then that I remembered that there was a window in the copy room that opened onto the roof of the next building. If that window was unlocked, it would be a simple matter to climb in and get my card. So I went to the roof, opened the door, and discovered that the rooftop I was on was only around twenty feet above the part of the roof I needed to be on. So I decided to dangle off the edge of the roof and drop down.

Part III: Breaking and Entering... Or maybe just breaking.

I suppose at this point I ought to remind you that this test was only offered once a year in Japan and once a year in the US, on the same day. If I missed this test, my next chance to take it would be in twelve months. Additionally, I was in the process of trying to apply for new jobs in Japan, and figured that some certification of my Japanese ability, no matter how low, would be better than nothing at all. And all that was going to be a moot point in another twenty-six minutes.

It's a funny thing about perception. When I stood across the street and looked over, the two roof levels didn't seem so far apart. When I was climbing the stairs from the fifth floor to the roof, it didn't seem so far. Even when I was looking over the edge and trying to find a ladder or a rope or a sturdy looking drainpipe, it didn't seem that far. But once I actually climbed over the edge and lowered myself as far as I could by dangling from my hands, all I could think about was how easy it would be to break my ankle again, the two support screws already embedded in my leg bone notwithstanding. Fortunately, just as I was preparing to drop, the ever helpful security guard came back up to the roof and looked over just in time to offer me an incredibly helpful question:

"Hora, daijoubu desu ka? Abunai?"

Exactly the question a person wants to answer when he's literally dangling by his fingertips.

Despite the guard's assistance, I did manage to drop down and tuck and roll. I'd made it down with no problems beyond a few scrapes and a lightly sprained wrist (which I wouldn't realize until later), and scrambled over to the copy room window.

Which was locked.

So now I was on the roof of the fourth floor of a building I could not get into which had a ladder that only went down to the third floor roof, and only twenty-two minutes until the train left.

I suppose I'm lucky that the part of downtown that I work in has a bunch of those buildings put up in the 1960s in a very limited amount of space. It was pretty easy to creep over a fence, down a drainpipe, along a balcony and down an awning to the street.

And it was from the street, looking up at my classroom window that I remembered something: I almost never remember to lock the window of my classroom despite repeated requests, notes and reminders to do so. Assuming I remained true to forgetful form, I should have been able to simply slide my window open, walk into my room and get the form, then run down to the train station with seven or eight minutes to spare.

All I had to do was climb up to a window that faced the street, not a rooftop.

There is a sign just under my window that functions as something of a ledge. And a maintenance ladder that runs up the outside edge of the building from the second floor to the sixth.

I suppose there are really only two details about my climb that're worth recounting.

One: I remembered to lock my window after all.
Two: The security guard was no more helpful from the street than he was from the ledge.

"Oi oi, sugoiii abunei da yo..."

All told I managed to get to within two yards of my voucher, but that wasn't quite close enough. Admittedly it was from the wrong side of a fifth floor window, so I guess that oughta count for something. But in the end I couldn't get in the room, I wasn't able get my voucher and I didn't take the test.

So I thanked the guard, apologized for his trouble, and went home. Just in time to see the sun rising. I went home, completely defeated. I couldn't get into the building. I couldn't get my test voucher. I couldn't take the test. I couldn't get my $50 test application fee back. And I sprained my wrist, which swelled up pretty good for a couple of days.

That night, when all the other people who had gone to take the test came back with their reports on how difficult it was, I got the final insult, without which the previous injury would not have been complete.

They didn't even bother checking the vouchers at the test site.

Apparently, one foreigner is as good as another, and it didn't really matter if you tried to take the test with or without proper documentation.

...

You know how when things go badly, and there's really no upside to the final results, people always tell you "well, I guess this is a learning experience, huh?" I've had people tell me that after car accidents, having to work at shitty jobs, getting dumped on Christmas eve, and tearing the hell out of my leg falling through a window.

Turns out there's a similar phrase in Japanese that literally translates as "you have become a lesson to be learned from."

I think I've heard that more than enough for one lifetime. I'm sick of learning this way. And I'm really sick of other people learning from me this way. I'd really like to learn something from a resounding success for a change.

And honestly, what the hell did I really learn from all of this?

1. There's lots of ways to not get into a building.
2. Always following the rules gets you dick.
3. If you have a halfway interesting story that you're going to have to tell more than once, make sure you tell it to a group first, otherwise that one person is going to tell everyone they meet before you do, effectively defusing your ability to vent and they'll get the details wrong to boot.

The End.

Next Time: How I went from worrying about how to chat up three girls to wondering about the extent to which each of them thinks less of me than your average thesaurus.

Merry god damn Christmas.