Buggirl's Increasingly Strange Tokyo Tales...

It really is cultural. I really am a drinking-coffee-in-motion rep!

Yesterday Takai Sensei asked me how to use an insulated tumbler. You know, those insulated coffee containers with the sippy hole... At the end of the year Japanese stores fill with huge "grab bags" of mystery products for a set price low. These can be anywhere from 10$ to 300$ bags, depending on the store. Takai sensei bought a Starbucks mystery bag and got a mug, an insulated tumbler, a small lap blanket and some other stuff. He knows that I have a similar tumbler because it comes to school with me every morning.

He pointed at it and asked me what I kept in it...if the coffee came from home or from Tullys...was it hot or cold....We honestly had a discussion about it keeping hot hot, cool cool, and protecting your hands from the liquid inside. I discussed drinking coffee while walking, or the fact he could fill it with what he liked, coffee or diet soda, and drink and drive his way to school. Then he explained why he was askign all these questions. He is now convinced that he got a very good mystery bag.

Stunning.

I didn't talk to him about priming the tumbler on cold mornings with some boiling water, he's not ready for that yet. Baby steps.

I underestimated how captivated Miyazaki Sensei was with the idea of "bowling American style" with a beer.

When we arrived at Young Bowl I noted that there was no beer for sale at a bar or in the vending machines. I thought that was the end of that! Silly me with my American ideas of liquor laws!

Miyazaki Sensei arrived and asked "Beer?"

He went to the vending machines and announced "No Beer!"

He then disappeared.

He returned from a quick trip to a convini with a bag of beers and stuff.

"Beer, Beer, Gin tonic, Beer, Beer, Ume Shu, Beer! American style!" And gave drinks to whoever could drink and was not driving (zero tolerance for drinking and driving here) insisting "American Style!"

Now, there was no way I was going to ask my American questions about how is it you can openly bring in and imbibe alcohol in a place that doesn't have a liquor license because that would open up those moments where I sound like a martian and teachers want to know if I am kidding. "And then at a certain time, and it varies from state to state, you cannot buy alcohol. We have no alcohol vending machines that work on the 'honor system'. We can't walk around in public with an open can/bottle, much less public transport, and we sure as hell cannot bring alcohol into a location which cannot legally sell it and strat openly drinking..." This is viewed as crazy talk.


Miyazaki Sensei

I would later go on to explain that flipping off pins and yelling "Fall, you mother fucker, FAAAAAAALLL" is not so much a sign that I am upset, but is part of how I play most games...and may also count as American Style bowling.

One more reason to love Miyazaki Sensei: When he gets really drunk he talks about his two sons and how much he loves them.

As I was walking from my On Paper school to my primary school my own shadow caught my eye: Medium handbag, the silhouette of a vintage jacket work with jeans, and the hand holding a steaming cup of coffee.

I come with cup-gripping action.

My first year or so in Japan I traveled down to Kamakura to see a documentary on Noam Chomsky. It was of interviews and speeches he gave shortly after 9/11. I remember sitting in the theater and seeing footage of people streaming into one of his lectures, people all bundled up and each clutching a cup of coffee. I thought, "Those are MY people." It was the first time I really thought of clutching a cup of coffee as something that marked me as American to some eyes.

I still can't believe that my first school here, the high school, allowed me my habit of drinking coffee during class. I mean, yes, I had taken a chance by explaining it as part of my culture....describing in detail the high school and college professors who would pause, sip, look deep into their own mugs as if there were answers to be held in them, tea leaves to be read, and then look back at us and continue...but that the actually let me do it was
amazing.

I shared an office in the high school with 3 Japanese teachers of English and one foreigner. Yoshida Sensei was in that office for two years and we would spend a large portion of our time together drinking coffee and out-doing each other's Coffee Sighs of Delight (some of the other time was spent watching Friends or the latest Pixar film in the name of language study and singing aloud to bad 80's rock).

The elementary school is not a coffee drinking haven. They drink instant coffee here and have rules about brewing the fresh stuff when kids are in the building.

Nonetheless, ever since Tully's opened here two years ago I can be seen in the morning with my tumbler of coffee walking to school. Students ask where it is if I greet them in the morning without it. They ask "where? where?" and grip air cups. This Monday I walked part-way home with the twins in the afternoon. My Twin asked me where my tumbler was. They don't see the coffee as a morning thing (which it mostly is now) but as a "What Kathryn Sensei looks like outside of school" thing.

Today is the last day of classes. We had closing ceremonies this morning. After school comes the "forget the year party" with co-workers. At the high school these were lavish affairs. Everyone dressed up in fine clothing and drank to excess and then went to an after party of more drinks and perhaps cigars. They even rented the Disney bus with mouse-shaped wind ws to take us to the banquet room in the Disney resort the last year I was there. At the elementary school the staff is smaller and the parties more casual. This year I've learned not to overdress.

This year they've added something new. We won't be going straight to the restaurant at 6:30. We have a before-party party this year. We're going bowling first at Young Bowl.

Miyazaki Sensei asked me if Americans bowl. I told him yes. I told him that I had been in the bowling club in middle school, but was and am a horrible bowler. And then I told him that American style bowling is a little different than Japanese style.

Are the rules different?

No. But we drink beer when we bowl, what else to do with our cup-gripping action after dark? Bowling lanes serve beer.

A few years back my friend Jimmy and I spent an evening drinking and watching Hong Kong action films at his place, at some point we decided to take our intoxicated but attractive asses to the Tokiwadaira bowling lanes. We were shocked to find that there was no bar or beer vending in the lanes. Were we expected to bowl sober? Did the lanes stay open 24 hours....for SOBER bowling? Japan has no laws that prohibit the vending of beer and alcohol after a certain hour...so we'd assumed that 24 hour bowling would come with a 24 hr bar.

Miyazaki sensei has been flitting around the room sharing his knowledge. He suggests to the teachers that perhaps we should try American Style Bowling...and then explains the drink in one hand bit. "Americans, they don't bowl SOBER!"

If any of my co-workers ever come to Wisconsin, they are prepared.

More teaching action! Hawt!

For some reason, one of my emailed posts never arrived. Maybe it will show up tomorrow. If so, forgive the double post and I'll kill it when I awaken.

My job, one hour ago. This is how, on the average, conversations with me about paper-work play out.

(Of course, in Japanese)

Vice-Principal: Kathryn, do you have…(points to his electronic dictionary to the word that translates to "Teaching certificate")
Me: Maybe.
VP: huh?
Me: Probably. No. I don't know if I ever got something on paper. Maaaybe I did.

(You see, in order to be a yearly lecturer this certificate is required. To get one you need to go through the Japanese certification process that requires you to be...Japanese. I can't get one, legally. Legally, I need one. The board of education did something to ensure that I technically have one, but I don't know if I have a paper proving it or if it's something they did at the office.)

VP: Do you have it?
Me: I don't know! Why?
VP: So ,you can work this half of the school year (Oct-march 31)
Me: Ha! I got that from my on-paper school Wednesday! Wait!

(I pull out the form that says I'm legally working those dates)

VP: I also I need this...from the other school you say?
Me: It's technically "my school"
VP: But, what about your teaching certificate?
Me: Can you show me an example of what it looks like?
Vp: I don't have one...
Me: I need to know what it looks like. Then I can see if I have it. I get a lot of important papers. I put them in various important paper folders...but I don't know what they all ARE.

Vp: hmmmmm

(I go back to my desk and pull out my school related "Important papers" folder.

Me: This?
Vp: no
Me: This?
VP: YES!
VP: (In English) May I...rent this?
Me: (assuming we're talking about borrowing) Yes.

This was the shaming "Who drank my beverage?" poster I put on the work fridge in the teachers' office.



For about two hours I would greet anyone near the fridge with the question, "Do you like Red Bull?" Without exception, everyone questioned blamed Takai Sensei, who has a history of devouring other people's food. I kept defending him "But, he drinks diet drinks. He's a diabetic who has also undergone heart surgery in the last year...he CAN'T still be drinking and eating things at random from the fridge!!"

But...he is. He followed my instructions as to where to buy Red Bull and replaced my  drink with two new ones.

For the record he thought he was stealing a can of coffee. While the flavor of Red Bull was unexpected, he liked it.

A week ago Ms.Go told me about her cancer. She confided in me that she'd recently finished chemo, had had a small mass removed from her left breast, and was on a series of hormones that made her temp rush up and down. She then told me not to be surprised. She showed me she was wearing a wig. I wasn't surprised, by the wig. I'd noticed the mismatched grey hairs at her ears and neck and that her hair was always styled in a certain Rip Taylor way. Over the years I've become better at spotting wigs here. But I hadn't guessed cancer, I just guessed that she was eccentric.

She's got the most eclectic clothing of any teacher at my On Paper school, myself included. Her clothing has multiple fabrics and fabric treatments per garment, detailed straps, folds, and poofs that confuse even me. Today her pants are faced with pleather, puffy pleather. One day she an outfit which I am still unsure, was it a dress? A cape? A jacket? Something from Star Wars that I should have known? When I started working here I assumed that she must be an art teacher or music teacher (think back to your elementary school art teachers...many of you will understand) but she's a general homeroom teacher, 4th grade. She's new to this school (despite years of teaching) and we had the same welcome ceremony.

I've worked here for two months.

When she told me about her cancer I thought about America. In America I wouldn't be that surprised if a stranger at Home Depot or a coffee shop turned and told me, unprompted, about surviving cancer...much less a co-worker. But, I am in Japan. This is not something that the Japanese routinely do, divulge health information to co-workers. The fact of the telling outweighed the shock of the actual information.

She is eccentric and that I am foreign. I realize that a small role I play here is to be The Other. Perhaps she needed to tell someone and I served the bill better than most because I am so different. Maybe she tells everyone.

Now I have this information. And this is all I can really think of doing
with it right now.

The way back machine presents Warning-San and Buggirl, intoxicated in 2000/2001? Back in the day we may have used the same off-the-shelf black haircolor, who knows?



God, short hair was cute and easy. I also miss being able to see in contacts.

I recently wrote about some of my memories from working at the caustic video store. One of those memories will be coming to Japan soon! I like visits from people I haven't slept with! Warning-San is coming to Japan on his way to being an intern in some law firm in Thailand. He should land around 3:30 today (Weds). He’ll only be here for three days and is crashing with me, I’ve taken a day off tomorrow.