On Friday night last week I was able to go to a teeny-weeny club on the second floor of a mixed use building in Ogikubo, a part of Tokyo that feels like the good parts of the Nob Hill/university area in Albuquerque. For a one-drink minimum I got to hear five hours of good music in a comfortable, clean, smoke-free room. All the guests were well-behaved and generally decent dancers. And after it was all over, it was quick work to catch a clean, fairly priced cab for a ride back home.
There are, in fact, many good things about living in Japan. I just find it easier to channel rage and bile into the will to write than I do contentment and satisfaction.
24 May 2005
In summary: Elementary school lessons are bad for me
I have recently had to go through the process of introducing myself to elementary schools again. This time there was enough about it I recognized so that I could not focus on the procedure so much, but on what surrounds that procedure. Will you excuse my going into some detail here? Thank you.
The two schools in question are fairly large; each has approximately four classes of 35 students for each grade, grades one through six. One homeroom teacher per class, a head teacher, principal and vice-principal, a school secretary, 3 or 4 maintenance staff, and a few specialized teacher/counsellors. And me, who will be coming to the school every other wednesday for the next 10 1/2 months.
Last year there was a different foreigner doing the job I have now. "Skip-sensei" was much liked and quite well known in this town. And all the students, with the exception of the youngest classes, are aware of there being a change, because the first phrase most of them had to say was something like "the foreign teacher is here, but it's not Skip."
Please don't think I begrudge Skip his lasting popularity. It sounds like he worked hard and was a decent person. But it would seem that, even among the older students, there is still something lacking in their familiarity with foreign people. For one thing, there were an awful lot of students who wanted to touch my hands and arms, sometimes for a handshake, sometimes to compare relative hand sizes, and sometimes with the same tentative pressure you might give an avocado to check its ripeness. A touch meant to find information about the composition of a thing. And their cry afterwards was often something like "I did it! I recieved a handshake from the new foreigner!" or "Whoa! His arms feel like my uncle's..."
The whole thing reminded me of the guy who brought his lizards to my elementary school for an assembly, years and years ago. After grabbing our attention with his bug-eating iguana, he brought out a python which we were encouraged to touch, if we felt brave enough. The buzz around the kids who did go up felt about the same as here. Except I was on the other side this time, with the turtle and the iguana, basking in the 100 watt glare of children's curiousity and the reverberating echoes of "cool" and "whoa" and "wow" elicited by every action.
I am convinced I am not a celebrity, and I am well aware of the fickle way in which kids are motivated by novelty. That said, this whole process could easily mess with your head. Teachers who think you're some kind of entertainer may encourage the class to applaud you for merely showing up to do your job. You may be asked, with rapt attention, if you can eat rice or bread, what your favorite color is, and how many people are in your family. You might be paraded in front of the entire school, faculty, staff, parents organizations and local government, like a visiting dignitary (I've seen them do it to Chinese diplomats) or a school pet (I've seen them do it to rabbits and turtles). They may serve you separate meals in a room all by yourself, or they may hustle you from class to class with the express purpose of letting the chidren watch you and ask you questions while you try to eat.
Is this what feminist writers talk about when they use the word "objectified?" Because there is very little introduction of my self in situtations like that, and a lot more comments about the physical dimensions I occupy and whether or not I would be able to use a bed, bath, clothing store, escalator, chopsticks or doorway. The whole process must look good once the itinerary had been written up and filed away (generally under "experiental education" or "pending investication"), but it ain't so good for a person's spirit.
The two schools in question are fairly large; each has approximately four classes of 35 students for each grade, grades one through six. One homeroom teacher per class, a head teacher, principal and vice-principal, a school secretary, 3 or 4 maintenance staff, and a few specialized teacher/counsellors. And me, who will be coming to the school every other wednesday for the next 10 1/2 months.
Last year there was a different foreigner doing the job I have now. "Skip-sensei" was much liked and quite well known in this town. And all the students, with the exception of the youngest classes, are aware of there being a change, because the first phrase most of them had to say was something like "the foreign teacher is here, but it's not Skip."
Please don't think I begrudge Skip his lasting popularity. It sounds like he worked hard and was a decent person. But it would seem that, even among the older students, there is still something lacking in their familiarity with foreign people. For one thing, there were an awful lot of students who wanted to touch my hands and arms, sometimes for a handshake, sometimes to compare relative hand sizes, and sometimes with the same tentative pressure you might give an avocado to check its ripeness. A touch meant to find information about the composition of a thing. And their cry afterwards was often something like "I did it! I recieved a handshake from the new foreigner!" or "Whoa! His arms feel like my uncle's..."
The whole thing reminded me of the guy who brought his lizards to my elementary school for an assembly, years and years ago. After grabbing our attention with his bug-eating iguana, he brought out a python which we were encouraged to touch, if we felt brave enough. The buzz around the kids who did go up felt about the same as here. Except I was on the other side this time, with the turtle and the iguana, basking in the 100 watt glare of children's curiousity and the reverberating echoes of "cool" and "whoa" and "wow" elicited by every action.
I am convinced I am not a celebrity, and I am well aware of the fickle way in which kids are motivated by novelty. That said, this whole process could easily mess with your head. Teachers who think you're some kind of entertainer may encourage the class to applaud you for merely showing up to do your job. You may be asked, with rapt attention, if you can eat rice or bread, what your favorite color is, and how many people are in your family. You might be paraded in front of the entire school, faculty, staff, parents organizations and local government, like a visiting dignitary (I've seen them do it to Chinese diplomats) or a school pet (I've seen them do it to rabbits and turtles). They may serve you separate meals in a room all by yourself, or they may hustle you from class to class with the express purpose of letting the chidren watch you and ask you questions while you try to eat.
Is this what feminist writers talk about when they use the word "objectified?" Because there is very little introduction of my self in situtations like that, and a lot more comments about the physical dimensions I occupy and whether or not I would be able to use a bed, bath, clothing store, escalator, chopsticks or doorway. The whole process must look good once the itinerary had been written up and filed away (generally under "experiental education" or "pending investication"), but it ain't so good for a person's spirit.
12 May 2005
They go together like, well, like something, I'm sure.
Okay. On a completely different note, when I lived in LA, I had enough free time to waste it on some profoundly stupid things. For example, there was an episode of the Simpsons where Homer asked Apu if he had "any of that beer with candy floating in it, y'know, Skittlebrau?"
Well, one of my then-roommates and I decided to test the Skittlebrau idea one night. As it turns out, Skittles are too dense. They sink right to the bottom of whatever kind of beer you put them in, and stick together like a fructose coral reef. And their delightful candy colors are highly water and alcohol soluble. We certainly could "taste the rainbow," as it was leached right off the candies and formed a brownish-gray cloud at the top of the beer.
And the Root-Beer-Floats-with-real-beer didn't work any better. The bitter of the beer clashed with the creamy of the ice cream to make a curdled flavor fandango. It was like a party in my mouth where everyone was pouring wallpaper paste and vinegar on the floor.
As culinary booze-hound experiements go, it was strictly 5th grade science fair stuff.
But this guy has set a shockingly high standard with the "pork martini" tests. Well done, Mr. Karpf. Well done.
Well, one of my then-roommates and I decided to test the Skittlebrau idea one night. As it turns out, Skittles are too dense. They sink right to the bottom of whatever kind of beer you put them in, and stick together like a fructose coral reef. And their delightful candy colors are highly water and alcohol soluble. We certainly could "taste the rainbow," as it was leached right off the candies and formed a brownish-gray cloud at the top of the beer.
And the Root-Beer-Floats-with-real-beer didn't work any better. The bitter of the beer clashed with the creamy of the ice cream to make a curdled flavor fandango. It was like a party in my mouth where everyone was pouring wallpaper paste and vinegar on the floor.
As culinary booze-hound experiements go, it was strictly 5th grade science fair stuff.
But this guy has set a shockingly high standard with the "pork martini" tests. Well done, Mr. Karpf. Well done.
Catch 21? Catch 23? C'mon, work with me here...
I'm going to a Japanese class tonight for the first time in almost two years. There were a number of reasons I hadn't been studying much lately, but in trying to get into this class I was reminded of one of the most frustrating ones. Japan is a monolingual nation. Regardless of efforts to nurture foreign language skills, there's really just one acceptable way to communicate here, regardless of how satisfying the obscenities in sign language may be.
"Duh," you might say, "they only speak French in France, German in Germany, uh, , Hollandaise in the Netherlands and Australian in Australia." Well, sure. But in almost all of those countries there is a relatively large concern about immigrants. Japan, on the other hand, has no such issues.
Business is done here in Japanese. Laws are written and (occasionally) made available for public examination primarily in Japanese. Emergency instructions in case of disaster are broadcast in Japanese. Police instructions in case of crisis, civil emergency, or situations of martial law are only made in Japanese. Instructions for preparing prepackaged food are only in Japanese. And most frustrating of all, the procedures to be followed to undertake the study of the Japanese language are in Japanese.
Seriously. I called the city department of foreign affairs, which handles stuff to do with foreigners, to ask about classes in Japanese. They gave out a flier announcing Japanese language classes with a headline in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean and Russian with phone numbers, class times and locations. But no one answering the phones could speak English or Spanish.
To give them the benefit of the doubt, it is probable that they have someone there competent in Chinese or Korean. And I didn't even try to speak Russian, Arabic or Portuguese.
Before I could try and get into a class to learn Japanese, I had to try and speak Japanese. Frustrating. And not just because my vocabulary is mostly limited to words concerning food, insults, alcohol and robots. Also because most phone conversations are conducted in the extra-polite Japanese that most textbooks don't cover until right towards the end. Would you ask somone with the language skills of a 7 year old if they "would kindly forgive the imposition of relating their complete apellation in addition to the location of their domicile?" Yeah, well, that's what they asked me.
And at no point did they try to transfer me to someone who could speak English. Or Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean or Russian. There was never even a question of it. Which reminds me of the textbook I bought to prepare for the Japanese Language test I took. For the lowest level you supposed to have mastered the syllabaries, around 150 words, the present and past tenses, and basic sentences of location; about the equivalent of one semester's worth of study at college level. Why do you suppose the book for the lowest level test-takers had it's explanations all in Japanese?
As if that wasn't enough, NHK's educational line-up for Japanese study has gotten rid of the old program with the bilingually fluent and easily understandable Katsuya Kobayashi and introduced a new show with a Q&A format to explain Japanese grammar and usage in (wait for it...) Japanese. After an hour's searching on the web, this was about the best I could do to find information about the show in English: an electronic translation of the NHK educational program schedule. You'll notice that the program for learning Japanese is at the bottom of the page, and airs at the delightful times of 11:10 PM on Friday nights with a repeat at 12:10 AM on the following Thursday.
I'm aware of the arguments in favor of immersion for language learning. I'm aware of the value of practice in improving skills. And I understand what a teeny-tiny minority of the population here needs language instruction. But all this reminds me why it's so easy to fall back on the image of Japanese culture as being closed to outsiders. Maybe there is a genuine interest in sharing Japan with the rest of the world, but there's precious few avenues available to learn how to understand the culture on your own.
"Duh," you might say, "they only speak French in France, German in Germany, uh, , Hollandaise in the Netherlands and Australian in Australia." Well, sure. But in almost all of those countries there is a relatively large concern about immigrants. Japan, on the other hand, has no such issues.
Business is done here in Japanese. Laws are written and (occasionally) made available for public examination primarily in Japanese. Emergency instructions in case of disaster are broadcast in Japanese. Police instructions in case of crisis, civil emergency, or situations of martial law are only made in Japanese. Instructions for preparing prepackaged food are only in Japanese. And most frustrating of all, the procedures to be followed to undertake the study of the Japanese language are in Japanese.
Seriously. I called the city department of foreign affairs, which handles stuff to do with foreigners, to ask about classes in Japanese. They gave out a flier announcing Japanese language classes with a headline in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean and Russian with phone numbers, class times and locations. But no one answering the phones could speak English or Spanish.
To give them the benefit of the doubt, it is probable that they have someone there competent in Chinese or Korean. And I didn't even try to speak Russian, Arabic or Portuguese.
Before I could try and get into a class to learn Japanese, I had to try and speak Japanese. Frustrating. And not just because my vocabulary is mostly limited to words concerning food, insults, alcohol and robots. Also because most phone conversations are conducted in the extra-polite Japanese that most textbooks don't cover until right towards the end. Would you ask somone with the language skills of a 7 year old if they "would kindly forgive the imposition of relating their complete apellation in addition to the location of their domicile?" Yeah, well, that's what they asked me.
And at no point did they try to transfer me to someone who could speak English. Or Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic, Korean or Russian. There was never even a question of it. Which reminds me of the textbook I bought to prepare for the Japanese Language test I took. For the lowest level you supposed to have mastered the syllabaries, around 150 words, the present and past tenses, and basic sentences of location; about the equivalent of one semester's worth of study at college level. Why do you suppose the book for the lowest level test-takers had it's explanations all in Japanese?
As if that wasn't enough, NHK's educational line-up for Japanese study has gotten rid of the old program with the bilingually fluent and easily understandable Katsuya Kobayashi and introduced a new show with a Q&A format to explain Japanese grammar and usage in (wait for it...) Japanese. After an hour's searching on the web, this was about the best I could do to find information about the show in English: an electronic translation of the NHK educational program schedule. You'll notice that the program for learning Japanese is at the bottom of the page, and airs at the delightful times of 11:10 PM on Friday nights with a repeat at 12:10 AM on the following Thursday.
I'm aware of the arguments in favor of immersion for language learning. I'm aware of the value of practice in improving skills. And I understand what a teeny-tiny minority of the population here needs language instruction. But all this reminds me why it's so easy to fall back on the image of Japanese culture as being closed to outsiders. Maybe there is a genuine interest in sharing Japan with the rest of the world, but there's precious few avenues available to learn how to understand the culture on your own.
10 May 2005
The Quick Update. In a word: "Odd."
Man, updating this thing regularly is a pain in the keester. Let's see here. After I finished my last contract teaching elementary school in Chiyoda, it would have been around the end of March. I was expecting to have all of April off and to start a part-time gig three or four days a week around the beginning of May. As it turned out, my improvident lackwit manager elected to sign me up for a full time position that started April 8th instead.
So rather than shuffling between a half-dozen different schools, I'm based in a single Jr. High school and teach elementary lessons one day a week. It's odd. I mean, having a single workplace again. I actually have a reason to try and learn my coworkers' names. I actually have coworkers again, which is also odd. The last year has largely been an exercise in enforced social solitude. Which is the only way I can think of to describe being in a room for nine hours a day with other people but being prevented from interacting with anyone. Now I'm having to dust off some social skills which were never that sharp to begin with.
So it goes, so it goes.
Anyway, I'm working again, in Junior High again. But I've taken a leave of absence from my night job, so I'm no longer working 60 hours a week. I can actually get home before sunset, if I rush. Things like grocery shopping and laundry and sleeping more than 5 hours a night are suddenly possible any day of the week. Again, the feeling is odd.
Will this mark the beginning of a shift towards normalcy, healthy behavior and fewer sociopathic tendencies1?
1 "No. It's a nice sentiment, though."
So rather than shuffling between a half-dozen different schools, I'm based in a single Jr. High school and teach elementary lessons one day a week. It's odd. I mean, having a single workplace again. I actually have a reason to try and learn my coworkers' names. I actually have coworkers again, which is also odd. The last year has largely been an exercise in enforced social solitude. Which is the only way I can think of to describe being in a room for nine hours a day with other people but being prevented from interacting with anyone. Now I'm having to dust off some social skills which were never that sharp to begin with.
So it goes, so it goes.
Anyway, I'm working again, in Junior High again. But I've taken a leave of absence from my night job, so I'm no longer working 60 hours a week. I can actually get home before sunset, if I rush. Things like grocery shopping and laundry and sleeping more than 5 hours a night are suddenly possible any day of the week. Again, the feeling is odd.
Will this mark the beginning of a shift towards normalcy, healthy behavior and fewer sociopathic tendencies1?
1 "No. It's a nice sentiment, though."
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