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A Thoroughly Bad Idea

Published

on June 10, 2008

. 9 Comments

I can't remember quite what I said to my Vice-Principal when he asked me if I was a fast runner, but whatever it was, it can't have been sufficient to persuade him of my complete sporting ineptitude, because when Sports Day rolled around again, my name was in the roster for the teachers and PTA team in the 100m relay.

I enjoyed our Sports Day for once this year. The sun was out, the kids were well behved and the parents were friendly and in good voice. In short, it was a little like something from the Stepford Wives. I did make a massive mistake with my photos though. My camera has a thing on the viewfinder where you can adjust the focus for people with bad eyesight. The problem is, that if you have good eyesight (which I now do with my new specs on), it throws the focusing off completely. I realised at lunchtime, that the tiny dial for this was not quite centred and at f2.2 and above, it meant that about 100 shots were slightly out of focus. Really, really annoying. Oh well, you live and learn and all that.

There was a new (to me) event this year, which, like with so many of the events at a Japanese school sports day, would never, ever be allowed to be done in England for reasons of health and safety, mores the pity. This event, the name of which I forget, involved two teams, each of which had a giant ear-cleaning-bud thing to protect, which they surrounded, so that one end poked out of the centre of a circle of about 20 students. The other team then had to jump onto/through/above these kids and try to grab the ear-cleaning-bud thing and pull it to the ground, (thus also crushing the students around it). It was brilliant. The kids just leapt at eachother, knees into faces and arses on heads. Hilarious. It really should be a part of every school's violence repertoire.

By the time the teachers vs students race came around, it was about 3 in the afternoon and I was knackered after having been responsible for all photo teams and video teams all day. This did mean that my usual lack of speed would be excused somewhat by exhaustion, which was good, although I had a rather nasty feeling that some of the other teachers were actually entertaining the patently insane idea that we might beat the students team, comprising of the fastest kids aged between 12 and 15. It was never, ever going to happen. I ran after the Principal and Vice-Principal, which was basically perfect, as it meant that by the time I got the baton, we were already far too far behind the kids to have any chance of victory. My run was ok-ish, although I had the very peculiar feeling of my feet not quite connecting with the ground, like I was running a few centimeters above it. I have always rather suspected my ability to walk on air and this was a little like confirmation. I also think that my baton exchange with the teacher after me was really rather fine.

It's also interesting that since sports day, my students have all suddenly exhibited a new-found proficiency with English adverbial sentence construction and have seemed desperate to practice it with me:

Student: Hey Olly, nice racing.

Me: Why thank you, young Master Watanabe.

Student: Olly?

Me: Yes?

Student: You run very slowly.

Click for more pictures or click the link for the whole lot.

Continue reading 'A Thoroughly Bad Idea'

Paper Chase

Published

Electric Pig

on May 21, 2008

in School

. 3 Comments

A serious problem has come to my attention today. The government of Japan, ~~a poor third world country~~, has obviously mismanaged its education budget, as my school has run dangerously low on one simple, but essential resource. Toilet Paper.

I try to avoid using the toilets at school as much as possible. There is little to recommend them, even at the most flush of times; windows always open to the elements, they are bollock retractingly cold in the winter and paper-rottingly humid in the summer. Sometimes though, especially after a weekend (or an "interesting" school lunch), my internal poo clock conspires to trick me and will force me to make a journey to the dark side. Today, after the grim realisation that there was no way I would be able to last the next ten minutes, let alone the 7 hours before I got home, I decided that I had to gamble at these doors of doom. Luckily, the one sit-down toilet was free (I still am amazed that any rational person would choose the squat-bog over the sit-down "western" one, but it does seem to be more popular - especially among the more patriotic literature teachers). Just as I was about to sit down, I noticed, to my horror, that there was nothing but two cardboard rolls left in the cubicle. I quickly pulled up my trousers and went to the dreaded squat bog, to find nothing at all in there. There were also no rolls on the shelf in the cupboard, or by the door in the staff room, where the excess rolls are usually stored, prior to deployment.

This left me with a bit of a dilemma. it was the middle of a class, a free period for me and apparently only the vice-principal, all the other teachers seemed to be in lessons. I could have hobbled over and ask him where the loo-rolls were, but in my current state, the panic that my voice would inevitably betray would be akin to just going up to him and saying, "Hi, I really need to defecate in your school, quickly", and I didn't feel quite up to that. This left me with three options. Firstly, I could venture into the third year boys' toilets and steal one of their loo rolls, but the filth I would have to encounter to accomplish this was such that it would be cleaner just to shit in my pants and be done with it. I could also go into the moderately cleaner third year girls' toilets, but I wasn't ready to be seen doing that and having to try to defend myself in my poor and desperate-for-the-toilet-rushed Japanese. So, option three - run up a flight of stairs for the 2nd year boys' toilet.

Nothing there. In any of the 3 free cubicles. In the fourth was a tearful bullied boy I felt it unwise to disturb. Sprint back down the stairs, a little less quickly now and bite the bullet. I ask the principal, and am told that there were no toilet rolls left for teachers til June, and he asked me to bring in a roll of my own. In the meantime, he gave me his personal roll to use, and looked rather sad when I brought it back to him, half depletedm, with a sated expression.

It turns out that the school's whole supply has been used making streamers and decorations for sports day practice. Nice to know where the priorities lie.

Lower Case “t”

Published

Electric Pig

on April 25, 2008

in School

. 5 Comments

It's been a bit of a non-entity blog week this week. Eri's been working down in Yokohama every day recently, and if she commutes from her house, it takes about 2 hours each way, so she's been staying at mine where it's only about an hour. The problem is though that she has been working from 9am until 9.30pm so by the time she gets home it's 11 ish and she hasn't eaten, so we don't get to bed until about 12.30, so when I wake up at 6, I've been a little shattered. Basically, it's contributed to me (and, not to be entirely self obsessed, her too) being really tired all the time.

At work at the moment, I have only been teaching the new first year kids. 7 classes and about 35 kids in every class. It's actually quite fun to teach them, as they still have the enthusiasm and innocence of elementary school kids - the system hasn't completely destroyed them yet and, although that process is always a joy to behold, it means that classes can be enjoyable for me, knowing that the kids will try hard and will enjoy all the stoopid games and activities (and indeed plastic vegetables) I can throw at them. It also means that for the 50 minutes when you are teaching them, you can almost forget the exhaustion and total lack of energy that nearly cripples me the rest of the time.

Sadly, this isn't always the case. One of the two first year English teachers has been a second and third year teacher for six years in a row and has been complaining about not being able to teach the first years - generally thought of as the easiest and most rewarding year to teach. The school have given in to her (actually quite reasonable) demands and have given her three of the seven classes. The problem is that she is not an especially good teacher and is determined to teach the students exactly as is prescribed by our (actually-quite-impressively-awful) text book. It's now time for her to teach the alphabet, and amazingly, the textbook seems to have arbitrarily chosen a method to write the alphabet, and has dictated that any other method is wrong. Wrong and EVIL! Here are some examples of things which are officially not allowed in the English-Language-According-To-Mitsumura-Tosho, when writing English (by hand):

The horizontal bar of an upper case A cannot be half way between the top of the letter and the bottom of the letter. It must be nearer the bottom than the top
The middle bar of the upper case E must be less wide than the upper and lower bar.
The lower bar of the upper case F must be less wide than the upper bar.
The only straight line in an upper case G must be the horizontal line in the middle.
The upper case J cannot have a horizontal line at the top.
The two diagonal lines of the upper case K cannot meet in the centre (To do so would be marked incorrect in a test - anywhere in the world). The lower diagonal must start about a third of the way along the upper diagonal.
The upper case M must have vertical lines at the edges. Slightly diagonal lines will be marked as incorrect.
The diagonal line of the upper case R must start at the bottom right edge of the loop. It cannot start at the point where the loop meets the vertical line.
The lower curve of an s (upper or lower case) must be wider than the higher curve.
Lastly, and most amazingly for me: The lower case t is the same height as the lower case.

Having to listen to this nonsense when fully compus menti is bad enough, but having to listen to it for 45 minutes when exhausted and to see confusion of the students (who have all learned the alphabet before at elementary school), without finding the nearest weapon and going postal is almost impossible. Instead one has to tread carefully, not allow anyone to lose face in public (confucianism, confucianism, confucianism), and to find a way to politely tell your colleague that she is an idiot and that she is poisoning the language of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Rowling in the minds of these young whippersnappers.

It's enough to make you give up and just tell the kids that she is right and that there is not enough logic left in the universe to explain why.

The pictures below illustrate examples of things that were marked as wrong (x) in students' tests. Unbelievable but true. No wonder the kids are confused. Click on the picture to see a "perfect" example:

Presumption

Published

Electric Pig

on April 8, 2008

in Annoying and School

. 1 Comment

It's blowing a gale today. Rain, loud enough to wake me up at about 3 has let up a little, but is still whipping across the playground outside. The win is enough to break an umbrella...with ease. There's no school lunch yet this term, as the first years are yet to start school (that joyous occasion will come tomorrow), so the teachers were going to order in a bento (lunchbox) lunch. I was working on my computer at the time, making stickers for another teacher and listened to the conversation in my section of the staffroom as the horribly sanctimonious head of year took all the teacher's orders. There was a break and I was yet to be asked for mine. Then I heard the head of year ask one of the Japanese English teachers:

"Does Olly want a Bento today?"

To which the teacher replied:

"No, he always goes to the 7-11 to get sandwiches".

Now, as annoying it is for this teacher to decide for me, it is way more annoying for this prick of a year-head to ask someone else what I want to do for lunch. I sit 3 chairs away from him for Christ sake, and he managed to ask teachers a lot further away than that. It's not even as if it is especially difficult Japanese to answer that "I would like a chicken nugget set" or "No thank you, I will go to 7-11". I know, I should have piped up and said:

"Whoah, hold the fuck up you sanctimonious nonse - despite being foreign and therefore not really human an'all, I still don't particularly want to trek 10 minutes in this end-of-the-world-storm and get soaked to the skin to go to 7-11 and get some of their rancid sandwiches. Hows about asking me whether I want a bento, and not asking someone else who has no idea what I might or might not want to eat. And, while I'm at it Mr English Teacher, even though I am a non-Yamato dirty foreigner, don't presume to make my culinary decisions for me, you cheeky gobshite."

But I didn't.

Instead, I trekked 10 minutes in this end-of-the-world-storm and got soaked to the skin to go to 7-11 and get some of their rancid sandwiches, and then sat at my desk dripping ostentatiously and eating my sandwiches with slightly too much tutting and shooting vicious looks at all the other teachers eating their piping hot bentos and paying no attention to me whatsoever.

A devastating response I feel.

Why are you here?

Published

Electric Pig

on February 12, 2008

in School

. 5 Comments

The city in which I do my daily penance, Ichikawa, is twinned with the city of Rosenheim in Bavaria, Germany (birthplace of Hermann Goering according to Wikipedia...hmm). Every year, the Junior High Schools of Ichikawa and Rosenheim take part in a school exchange project, a cultural exchange where a few Japanese students are introduced to the world outside their city and a few German students are thrust into the world inside Japan. It still confuses me a little as to whether there is an academic purpose of the trip, at least any deeper than allowing students to have a look at schools/societies on the other side of the world (which even alone is, of course, a valuable opportunity). The Japanese schools at least, seem to treat the trip as an English learning opportunity for the Japanese students, which is a little strange, seeing as the German students, while aeons ahead of their Japanese counterparts, are still not native English speakers.

The Japanese students all went over to Rosenheim in the summer. There seems to be no real theory at work in choosing which students will go over to Germany. I don't know who went from this school, but at my old school, the girl who went certainly wasn't the best at English, and she didn't even really want to go. I honestly think that the decision is probably made in a room, deep within the bowels of city hall, where the luminaries of the Ichikawa Board of Education sit around a fire, chanting arcane incantations and pulling bones out of a cauldron; bones on which the heat of the fire has scorched the names of the students that shall go.

Most of the Japanese students end up coming back from Germany with a new look in their eyes. They begin to scorn the behavior of their (male) peers that now seems so pathetically immature, and generally apply themselves to their studies with much greater dedication, especially so in English. I imagine that they all then go to decent high schools and universities and then to high paid jobs overseas, forever grateful to whatever fates it was that plucked them from academic obscurity.

The German students have a different experience awaiting them when they get to Japan. By the time they are probably preparing to come to Japan, it usually happens that one or more of the Japanese families that are supposed to be welcoming them into their homes will, now facing the imminent arrival of a foreigner (can you imagine?) into their very homes (where their children sleep, no less!!), have pulled out of the exchange and run away to he hills, screaming in terror and fearrrrrr. This means that the teachers of the school here will have to try to find another host family for the student, which is no easy task. They often ask among the teachers for a suitable candidate, and eventually can be heard suggesting (seriously) that the best idea for the Japanese/German cultural exchange would be that the ALTs (all of whom are English/American/Australian/Canadian etc.), should take the German students in. Bloody ridiculous. Eventually though, a kind family can be unearthed and the student arrives at the school.

The poor girls who arrived in the city schools today, were immediately thrust into classes to run the gamet of Japanese school subjects - Maths, Japanese, English, Revised-History (where, to their surprise, they find out that they had been the good-guys in WW2), and so on. All the classes are conducted in Japanese and they have no idea what the hell is going on. Sooner or later, they are introduced to the ALTs (me! - the lucky, lucky girl), and they can finally speak to someone who can understand English. The girl at my school (a very sweet 14 year old who towers above the 14 year olds here and speaks excellent English), had a lot of questions. As there had been no official welcome from anyone at the school, she hadn't been told what she was meant to be doing all day, nor if anything was expected of her and was very confused. She was also confused as to why none of the English teachers could speak English! This particularly amused me, as it's what I've been saying for years. The Japanese kids were all desperate to speak to her and in their excitement had forgotton the miniscule amount of English they had once almost known. Their questions to her were coming thick and fast now that I was around to translate: "What like food are you?!" WHAT LIKE FOOD ARE YOU?!!" "HOW STUDENTS DO HAVE??!" "What boy? WHAT BBOOYY?" and she was just about managing to roll with the punches.

It was then that she turned to me, and, in a devastatingly calm voice through the sea of screaming students engulfing her, asked me question was pertinent on so many levels: "Why are you here?"

Realising that I didn't know, I was suddenly lost for words. I could have cried.

Kinkan

Published

Electric Pig

on January 28, 2008

in Food & Drink and School

. 2 Comments

Somewhere in the deepest wilds of rural Japan is a mountain surrounded by barbed wire. Along the wire are pillboxes containing angry, pencil-moustachioed Japanese "Self-Defense Force" recruits carrying large machine guns (to protect them from Koreans). They will shoot anyone who comes within 50 feet of the mountain. Carved painstakingly, by human hand, into the very bedrock of the mountain is a vast underground cave system. Here, Japanese scientists, dressed in lab-jackets, bifocal glasses, white hair (to make them look like martial arts masters) and, most importantly, name tags, research new ways to combine food. Mad scientists, in the infinite-monkeys-writing-Shakespeare school of employment theory, wander the corridors of the institute, babbling ever stranger untried-combinations; "parsnips and radiators", "cake and shame", "gravy and woman", in the hope that sooner or later one will chance upon a combination that will provide one of the Japanese industrial giants with another windfall. It is here that great successes like Passion Fruit Kit-Kats were first developed. It is also here that great failures like Ramen Carbonara and natto were first dragged into existance.

I believe it is here that Kinkans were first made.

One of my kids came up to my desk again today with a look on her face that reminded me of Virgil's famous refrain: "Beware of Japanese Junior High School girls bearing gifts". She was carrying a bag filled with what, at first sight, seemed like satsumas or perhaps clementines (what ever the difference between these may be). In fact, however, my English teacher informed me, they were Kinkans. I had never heard of this mysterious fruit before, although that wasn't especially surprising. There are a number of foodstuffs which are native only to Japan, and which no doubt originated in the above mentioned laboratory, and which only the Japanese are mental enough to voluntarily allow entry into their mouths. There are also a number of foodstuffs which Japan has cunningly renamed to allow them to claim that they are unique to Japan when actually they are common throughout the world: "This is a mikan. It's a Japanese orange". "No, it's just an orange". "No, it's a JAPANESE orange". "Whatever".

My student handed me one and told me "I grew them myself" - Always a deeply worrying sign. "Try it". It was only then that I found out that the kinkan though is not just a clementine or a satsuma or even a Japanese clementine or a JAPANESE satsuma, (or even, for that matter, Japanese, as I found out later). The Kinkan is just a small, sour orange-y lemon-y thing, that is filled to the brim with seeds. There is almost no fruit. It is just a seed carrying device. What fruit that there is, is so, so sour that upon putting one tiny shrivelled segment into my mouth, my face involuntarily collapsed into a prune shaped ball of flesh and nose and fear. "YES!", my student screamed as she saw me convulsing. "It's horrible isn't it".

Fine, thank you…and you?

Published

Electric Pig

on January 16, 2008

in School

. 0 Comments

Japanese kids are frequently taught English as if it were a call and response exercise. For example, they are taught that when someone asks "How are you?", they should answer "Fine thank you, and you?". This is the most notorious example of this, although it extends into various facets of English, and indeed all, education. It gets to the point that when there is one of the frequent influenza outbreaks at school, you ask the students how they are during the greetings at the beginning of the lesson and a whole synchronized chorus of coughing, hoarse, spluttering students will all croak back, "Fine thank you, and you?".

This isn't because the students don't know any other answers. If you grill them and stress that you want their true feelings, they will answer with a myriad of original (odd and occasionally perplexing) reponses: "I am beauty", or "I'm glad to be here tonight", or "Yes, I am", or even "I am happiness". I meet all with expressions of praise: "Well done", "Good, beauty itself withers in your presence, Taro", and "I'm glad you're here too", and so on. However, the next class when we do greetings, "I'm fine thank you, and you?". Pointless.

I was talking to one of my students yesterday. She had gone to America over the Christmas holidays with her family and was telling me about it. She got ill at some point during the trip, and they took her to the local hospital. As she was the only English speaker, her family made her talk to the doctor. She said she wasn't worried about it, as she wasn't that ill and we had recently done getting ill role-plays in class. Apparently, she was all ready to tell the doctor that "her belly ached". When the doctor came into the room though, she greeted the student's family and then turned to the girl and said, "So, how are you?". She, of course, replied, "I'm fine thank you, and you?". The doctor said, "If you are fine, why are you in the hospital?", (which I have to admit sounds little bit harsh). The girl got confused and nervously, started spouting Japanese until the hospital got an interpreter. I asked the girl to explain this to the class, as an example of why the students should always think about their responses to these simple questions. The kids were mesmerized by her story, with lots of "oooo"s and "ahhh, naruhoudo"s. I was happy that they could finally understand what we had been telling them for so long.

I went into the class today and started the lesson. "Good morning class, how are you?". The class, depleted by the current school infection and lead by the girl I had talked to, replied as one: "Fine thank you, and you?".