For some reason, there's something about seeing me whizzing by on my bike after school that drives Japanese elementary students wild. They're standing by the street with their friends, they turn, see me coming, and suddenly they're hopping up and down, waving their hands over their heads, and shouting, "Meghan Sensei! Meghan Sensei! Haro! Haro!" I won't pretend it's not a nice confidence booster for me. I wave back enthusiastically, shoot them a smile, and return their salutation, adding "Goodbye!" as I speed past.
But the other afternoon, as occasionally happens, a group of about six kids were standing in the middle of the sidewalk and I was obliged to slow down for them. Seizing the opportunity, they immediately began to drill me with questions in rapid-fire Japanese:
"Are you going home now?"
"Yes."
"To America?"
"No, I live in Japan."
"Really?! Where in Japan?"
"In Moka."
"Eh?!...no way."
"Yes, I live in Moka."
"Where in Moka?"
"In Namiki-cho. Do you know where that is?"
"...No. Do you understand Japanese? (asked, as have been all preceding questions, in Japanese)"
"Yes."
"Can you read hiragana [phonetic Japanese writing system used mostly to write the grammatical parts of sentences]?"
"Yes."
"Can you read kanji [Chinese characters]?"
"A little."
"Amazing. Are you married?"
"No."
"How old are you?"
"What do you think?"
"Fifty."
"Fifty?!" They all burst into hysterics.
"Do you like Japanese food?"
"Yes."
"Do you drive?"
"Not in Japan."
"Do you $#!*?"
"Um...what?"
"Do you $#!*?" The child who used the word I didn't know began to elaborately act out his meaning. My mind made the linguistic connection and it quickly became clear what he was trying to ask me:
"Do you poop?"
I was a bit taken aback; I had to answer him in English, "You're crazy."
He stared back in confusion. "Eh?"
"Crazy," I repeated. "Bye-bye."
So concludes another successful lesson on American culture.
20100316
20100315
Guilt
It's 3:15 on a Friday afternoon—still one-and-a-half hours until it's time for me to leave school—and I have nothing to do. My plan was to watch the kids do sports practice after school, but today is PTA observation day, and the schedule is all funky. So I'm sitting at my desk, studying Japanese.
Suddenly my principal is standing over me and saying, "Go home now." I'm taken aback and cannot help but reply, "Really?" He said the same thing yesterday, because there was a teachers' meeting (they usually dismiss me early when there's a teachers' meeting after school, on account of the obvious fact that I won't be able to understand or participate in most of what's being said). And he let me go early on Wednesday, too, because it was about to start raining. I'm paid on salary, so it's no money out of my pocket; I can't help but feel as though three days in a row is getting to be a bit scandalous.
As I pack up my things and clear my desk for the day, I am plagued by an overbearing sensation of guilt. "I should have tried harder to pretend to be busy," I scold myself, "How embarrassing to be sent home early while all the Japanese teachers have to stay for another three hours or more!"
I'm in the locker room putting on my snow pants (I ride my bike and it's still really cold out) when it suddenly occurs to me: "Wait a minute...I'm an American! I don't have to feel guilty about leaving work early when my boss tells me it's okay. There are things in this world that are more important to me than my job. Lots of things. It's a beautiful day outside, and I've been given the chance to get out and enjoy a little bit of it. Why on earth should I beat myself up over it?"
I am not Japanese.
Sometimes I forget.
Suddenly my principal is standing over me and saying, "Go home now." I'm taken aback and cannot help but reply, "Really?" He said the same thing yesterday, because there was a teachers' meeting (they usually dismiss me early when there's a teachers' meeting after school, on account of the obvious fact that I won't be able to understand or participate in most of what's being said). And he let me go early on Wednesday, too, because it was about to start raining. I'm paid on salary, so it's no money out of my pocket; I can't help but feel as though three days in a row is getting to be a bit scandalous.
As I pack up my things and clear my desk for the day, I am plagued by an overbearing sensation of guilt. "I should have tried harder to pretend to be busy," I scold myself, "How embarrassing to be sent home early while all the Japanese teachers have to stay for another three hours or more!"
I'm in the locker room putting on my snow pants (I ride my bike and it's still really cold out) when it suddenly occurs to me: "Wait a minute...I'm an American! I don't have to feel guilty about leaving work early when my boss tells me it's okay. There are things in this world that are more important to me than my job. Lots of things. It's a beautiful day outside, and I've been given the chance to get out and enjoy a little bit of it. Why on earth should I beat myself up over it?"
I am not Japanese.
Sometimes I forget.
20100310
Graduation Day
But graduation from what? This is what I wondered to myself as I watched the third-year students of Yamazaki Junior High School march into the gym this morning to take their positions for sotsugyoshiki, the commencement ceremony.
The very fact that we use the word "commencement" in English to describe graduation from an educational institution indicates a sharp contrast in our attitude toward the event and the meaning that the ceremony signifies. In America, graduation ceremonies stand to celebrate academic achievement, as well as to point optimistically toward the future that our alma mater has (hopefully) prepared us for.
In a Japanese graduation ceremony, one has a hard time finding signs of any such things as "celebration" and "optimism." What you do find, however, are tears. Buckets of them. To be fair, I don't think there were nearly as many sobs wrenching from the throats of students, parents, and teachers this year as there were last year. But the reputation still stands: graduation day is a day to cry. Everything about the ceremony seems to be specifically engineered toward the purpose of making everyone feel really, really sad. Whether it's the solemn funeral-like atmosphere, the sappy funeral-like music, or speech after speech emphasizing that EVERYTHING YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH TOGETHER IS NOW OVER. YOU CAN NEVER COME BACK. THIS IS SAD. FEEL SAD.
For me, however, there are some positive points to this day. For starters, it's the one day out of the year that I really get to dress up. Despite the fact that it was a bitterly cold day, with snow on the ground and the temperature never rising more than a couple degrees above freezing, I enjoyed wearing pearls and makeup and a formal black dress. I have a few fans among the first-year girls at my school and, as I walked down the hall this morning, my getup elicited exclamations of, "Beautiful!" "Sooooo cute!" "Cameron Diaz!"
Hey, I'll take it.
After the ceremony, the graduates have a short while to talk to friends and teachers before heading home with their families. I went around shaking hands and giving hugs, telling kids "Omedeto!" (Congratulations!) and "Gambatte!" (Good luck!). One boy--Ryohei--flagged me down. I went up to him and shook his hand.
Ryohei is a small kid and not a very good English student. But he's always very enthusiastic about speaking up and volunteering to answer questions in English class. It's a characteristic that quickly made him one of my secret favorites. I greeted him cheerfully. He said, "Ms. Meghan..." then faltered. I congratulated him on graduating and wished him good luck. He seemed momentarily taken aback by my use of non-English, but then composed himself, looked deep into my eyes, and said, "Ms. Meghan...I love you."
"Oh. Thank you."
Awkward moment.
I will really miss this year's graduates. It's quite a different feeling from last year, when I had only been in the country for six months and didn't feel like I'd made a strong connection with many members of the graduating class. This year's third graders were a fun group and I really enjoyed teaching them. It's a weird feeling: it's not as though I can ever have a seriously deep connection with my students, at least not on the same level as their Japanese teachers do. But I did have some good inside jokes with several of them. And there were the few who always seemed a bit aloof, but who lit up every time I greeted them by name. In some ways, they're the ones I'll miss the most.
Two more weeks until closing ceremony and spring break. As I mount my bicycle and ride through the frigid air to a job where I spend a whole lot of time doing nothing (I'll be spending even more time sitting at my desk doing just that now that a third of the students are out of school), I tick the days off one by one and whisper to myself, "Gambatte."
The very fact that we use the word "commencement" in English to describe graduation from an educational institution indicates a sharp contrast in our attitude toward the event and the meaning that the ceremony signifies. In America, graduation ceremonies stand to celebrate academic achievement, as well as to point optimistically toward the future that our alma mater has (hopefully) prepared us for.
In a Japanese graduation ceremony, one has a hard time finding signs of any such things as "celebration" and "optimism." What you do find, however, are tears. Buckets of them. To be fair, I don't think there were nearly as many sobs wrenching from the throats of students, parents, and teachers this year as there were last year. But the reputation still stands: graduation day is a day to cry. Everything about the ceremony seems to be specifically engineered toward the purpose of making everyone feel really, really sad. Whether it's the solemn funeral-like atmosphere, the sappy funeral-like music, or speech after speech emphasizing that EVERYTHING YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH TOGETHER IS NOW OVER. YOU CAN NEVER COME BACK. THIS IS SAD. FEEL SAD.
For me, however, there are some positive points to this day. For starters, it's the one day out of the year that I really get to dress up. Despite the fact that it was a bitterly cold day, with snow on the ground and the temperature never rising more than a couple degrees above freezing, I enjoyed wearing pearls and makeup and a formal black dress. I have a few fans among the first-year girls at my school and, as I walked down the hall this morning, my getup elicited exclamations of, "Beautiful!" "Sooooo cute!" "Cameron Diaz!"
Hey, I'll take it.
After the ceremony, the graduates have a short while to talk to friends and teachers before heading home with their families. I went around shaking hands and giving hugs, telling kids "Omedeto!" (Congratulations!) and "Gambatte!" (Good luck!). One boy--Ryohei--flagged me down. I went up to him and shook his hand.
Ryohei is a small kid and not a very good English student. But he's always very enthusiastic about speaking up and volunteering to answer questions in English class. It's a characteristic that quickly made him one of my secret favorites. I greeted him cheerfully. He said, "Ms. Meghan..." then faltered. I congratulated him on graduating and wished him good luck. He seemed momentarily taken aback by my use of non-English, but then composed himself, looked deep into my eyes, and said, "Ms. Meghan...I love you."
"Oh. Thank you."
Awkward moment.
I will really miss this year's graduates. It's quite a different feeling from last year, when I had only been in the country for six months and didn't feel like I'd made a strong connection with many members of the graduating class. This year's third graders were a fun group and I really enjoyed teaching them. It's a weird feeling: it's not as though I can ever have a seriously deep connection with my students, at least not on the same level as their Japanese teachers do. But I did have some good inside jokes with several of them. And there were the few who always seemed a bit aloof, but who lit up every time I greeted them by name. In some ways, they're the ones I'll miss the most.
Two more weeks until closing ceremony and spring break. As I mount my bicycle and ride through the frigid air to a job where I spend a whole lot of time doing nothing (I'll be spending even more time sitting at my desk doing just that now that a third of the students are out of school), I tick the days off one by one and whisper to myself, "Gambatte."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
