Buggirl's Increasingly Strange Tokyo Tales...

I forgot that I do have news!

On Saturday I went to my old neighborhood to see my former co-worker/neighbor/travel buddy and wife, Gilles and Marion. Gilles, and then Marion, worked at the same high school as I did, as French ALTs. Gilles moved here during my second year and he fast became the ALT coworker who I didn't want to kill (Texas Anne, wanted to kill. Humorless Jamacian, Wanted to kill. Little Brother Jimmy, not yet a co-worker). We drank wine, coffee and occasionally did crepe nights. We traveled to Cambodia. We made fun of eachother's countries and then bashed our own for a bit. After Gilles and Marion had a Pax ceremony (similar to being a legal domestic partner) I flew to Paris and hung out with them.

When I ended my time at the high school, Marion moved to Japan and started teaching Spanish and French to children, and after a year took over Gilles position and he worked on writing and freelance work (including video game localization).

They are major geeks, but friends. They made me play a Steve Jackson Game (midget chuthulu?) and I don't usually roll that way...but they did give me wine and cheese first and some Balkan music. I gave them some dvds and yummy salad. Gilles had covered one wall in various post-in notes diagraming timelines and events and cultural info for a history book he wants to write,.

That's not the big news, I'm getting to it. Gilles set out to write about Japanese culture, but found that everything he wrote was just too preachy/teacherly. Gilles assimilated in ways I never dreamed off. He had a very high level tea ceremony master who was determined to prove to her peers that she could properly train a very largergaijin in the art. He was polite. He tried participating in Japanese RPGs. He was better at not shouting "Bullshit" when a teacher told us bullcrap about Japanese culture (did you know? Japan doesn't need foot doctors because they take their shoes off indoors....BULLLLLSHIIIIIIIT)

Gilles and Marion are working on transitioning back to a France-based life....so Gilles has been applying for schools/programs(apprentiships) at publishing houses and book sellers. I am a little unclear on how this all works.  I just know that he got accepted at a publishing house. A porn one. And this helped him make a huge breakthrough.

He would write pornography that helps us all learn a little bit about Japanese culture.

He researched, and asked a lot of folks for very personal stories, and wrote what I am told is a VERY pornographic story about two French guys who come to Japan: one who is afraid of Japanese women and prefers prostitutes and imported friends from back home and one who wants to fuck a different woman every night...and through it they learn about Japanese culture. He says that it's so pornographic that only 3 publishing houses in France will even touch it....and he reminded me that we're talking about France...not Puritanical America. But soon my Brother Gilles is gonna be a published pornographer. He'll also be making a promotional clip for it this summer, and when it hits You Tube I'll link it.



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I really hope it does well enough to be translated into English. There's a market!

I've got the day off today, national holiday.

I've already gone into Kashiwa and had my hair color retouched and done some minor shopping. I picked up a frog closure for a pinstripe turkish vest I made for my cabaret-cabaret costume for when I'm lounging about at the end of the year show. I also picked up a new pair of jeans because one of my regular pairs is about to self destruct after 3-4 years of very steady wear.

Buying new jeans means that I'll be taking part of my day off to hem them. Gap jeans fit me almost perfectly (Express jeans fit me better, and come in short lengths, but there isn't an Express in Japan) but always require hemming. This always makes me wonder at how well Gap items sell here despite the fact they are made for people taller than the average Japanese female.

It also makes me wonder this:
To those of you who don't have rudimentary sewing skills, how the hell do you find ready-made items that fit well?  I find that tiny little tucks, extra snaps, and adjustments make a world of difference.

I also ran into Chris, a fellow "Chiba-Wisconsin Sister city program" member at the station. The sister city program landed me my first 3 years as an ALT here in Japan. Chris came a year later and would later work at the international high school I used to work at (but  he started that after I had left). Chris is cute and very chummy  but has only one topic: Chris. Chris is always in love (the first one in Japan was a department store worker who had another boyfriend but nonetheless drained Chris of the extra thousand dollars a month his family back home sent him...yeah....).

Chris always talks about Chris. Chris asked us for advice on how to keep high school girls from falling in love with him, before he ever taught. Other popular Chris  topics include "Don't I look like a high school student?"  and "She's the one." Chris once made me have to listen about how he would eventually propose to a woman, it involved white clothing, a beach, and a trained dolphin to present the ring. Chris will get incredible self-conscious for days on end whenever I admit "'Yeah, I sort of assumed you were gay when I met you." which was the only way I entertained myself at yearly Chiba-Wisc weekend-long seminars.  Chris fills the bill of "little brother that I didn't want" in how we interact with each other.

"How on Aaaaarth did you recognize me?"
"Because you look exactly the same Chris? I'm the one who is unrecognizable."

Chris is Korean-Japanese by birth and was adopted and raised in northern Wisconsin by Polish-American parents.  When I encountered him today I was alarmed at how his fake British-Aussie-NZ accent (the accent has global roaming) has increased in intensity but not authenticity over the last 2-3 years. We caught up for a while...and I tried to be on my best behavior, but I eventually had to start asking.

"Dude, Chris, the FUCK is up with your accent? You're from Northern Wisconsin! I KNOW what you should sound like. You should sound like me but more so!"

"I know, it's gotten waaaaaaaaaaaarse haaasn't it?"

"Uh, yeah, It makes it very hard for me to listen to you."

We exchanged cards, I gave him my "you just shit on the table" look (I know some of you know the look) when he made that horrible gesture some people make when they think they are mimicing the sexy dance of the belly, and I scurried off.

Today wasn’t so great. An English teacher at my school died last night. He wasn’t yet 40 and was recently married. The only explanation I have right now (aside from the school being cursed, a theory popular with some teachers due to our rather high death toll in recent years…a topic for another post) is he had some odd sort of high-blood-pressure attack and keeled over. We weren’t close, but I’d taught with him and before I quit smoking I spent more time with him smoking constantly in the teacher's smoking area my first year of school. It wasn’t the sort of news I was ready to hear over my cell-phone at a Starbucks at 1pm.

And then I went to meet a friend of mine, which leads me to this vague, whiney, melodramatic post you can feel free to skip over. It’s the sort of details but no details posts that can be so tedious on live journals…but these posts happen because everyone has moments which can’t be melted into amusing tales but from which they need some cathartic release. It reminds me of the scene in Magnolia, when the male nurse is on the phone explaining how the moment is “like the moment in a film where….” And then follows up that he thinks those moments are in films because those moments are in real life…

( These things happen )

While the skits in my last 3rd year advanced class were not  memorable thing...the goodbyes were unforgetable. They got one tear out of me and that's pretty amazing. And one mad teacher crush was unveiled by a boy named Yuta. Poor sweet Yuta was somewhat cruelly mocked by his friends in the most memorable goodbye, that of Sho and Akihisa, two of my most talented bastards. Akihisa longs to be a Chinese translator and studies Chinese everyday and Sho wants to escape Japan and swears everyday. Sho was the main creator of the joyous robbery skit

( Two bastards say goodbye )

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    Yesterday could have gone smoother. If I explain it all it will just sound petty. Sufice to say that things all conspired to make little grievances seem monumental and then I snapped at someone. Not a “Buggirl loses her temper and acts crazy” moment but the more deadly “Buggirl is angry and will calmly explain to you in painfully precise detail how you have royally screwed the pooch and deserve to feel like dirt for a few days…”

 

    But here are high points of yesterday as well:

In one of my classes we set the following assignment: Students must present a short dialogue illustrating a daily life activity (clothing shopping, ordering a pizza, going to a wedding) and then teach the class at least 3 new phrases from the script.

 

    While students were making presentations a large group of middle school teachers who were touring the school came and observed the following dramatic scene:

 

Where: A convenience store

Male robber: Freeze! Don’t move! Freeze! (making the international finger-gun)

Male clerk: Ok ok ok! What do you want?

Robber: I want you, DON’T MOVE! I’ll take you to my house! I’m gay, make dinner for me! I want a house husband!

Clerk: What!?! What are you talking about? You can’t have me!

Robber: I want you!

Clerk: How much money do you want? Here, take the till!

Robber: I don’t want money! I want fooooood!

Clerk: Ok, take anything you like but you can’t have me!!

Robber: Ok ok ok.

(skit is over and the two start teaching)

“Our first phrase is Freeze…who can tell me what means in Japanese?”

 

And then, after a long day and a bad mood I returned home to find this e-mail response to my old web page:

 

Hey, I'm sure you get HUNDREDS of these but, I think you are hot and your personality (by your site) is awesome. Someday, I will meet a wonderful woman like you and marry her! Oh wow...eerr ehem. Now, now I'm not  hitting on you. It would be just wierd for a 17 year old dude like me and...oh  nevermind. I do like older women though. -_^ WHAT BROUGHT THIS UP? Oh well, sorry ma'am. Please accept my note of adoration to a really hot gal like yourself.

 

I could lie and say I am above feeling some strange sort of joy when a random 17 year old calls me hot AND ma'm in the same email. I could say that the only way to make me smile is to engage my intellect..but that's a bloody lie. We all have days were we just need some goddamned random adoration that doesn't come from a leathery toothless old man sucking down Chu-hi on a latenight train. And so, with a smile on my face, I packed up my backpack, knitted on the train, and did my usual Tuesday night 2 hours of belly dance lessons.

I only have 2 more weeks of teaching class at my international high school here, but that doesn’t make all co-worker stories irrelevant. Some of these are too strange for me not to type up. And that brings me to The Naga.

The Naga is a new English teacher (although that’s only part of her name) and it’s her first semester ever teaching. It is also her first semester teaching an English Conversation class with no text book and TWO foreign devils as assistants: yours truly and the Humorless (but very professional) Jamaican. This is a situation that would make many teachers pee themselves and drink cans of sake on the train home. I can empathize; two native speakers and no textbooks can be a bit scary.

Naga is 27 years old, two years younger than me. When we got our new shipment of English teachers I was told we had a young single gal. Jimmy, the other American, was told not to fall in love. I honestly didn’t figure out that The Naga was the young one for a few weeks. Jimmy immediately figured out that there was NO risk of him falling in love.

The Naga isn’t old in a way you can clearly identify, but you wouldn’t be surprised to find that she is single. She’s not ugly. Her skin is clear, her teeth are normal, her body is petite and thin. But there is something too sharp about her features to be called pretty or cute, yet not distinctive enough to be dramatic or memorable. She favors pastels, but somehow the combinations always suggest older Japanese mama-sans and not young pink OL’s. If I were to describe her I would say she looks efficient and tidy.

Who wants to look tidy?

At first I thought she didn’t speak much English. Planning classes with her tired us. The pauses in conversation stretched out across my lunch hours and blocked my way home. But I was wrong to think the silence was a lack of language comprehension.

I came to realize her language level was much higher than I had initially estimated; I had to change my theories. I thought the awkward jags were because she is shy, which is in part true. She and I had long talks about how she would have to take initiative and speak in class. How I would not MAKE her talk, but that if she remained silent our class would slaughter and disrespect her in the other classes she had with them. She learned and improved.

But the silence masked another, more monolithic, flaw. She does not have most of what I consider to be very basic social skills. Her inability to judge how to joke and make small talk quickly irritated some of our co-workers. Jimmy, who shares and office with her, no long speaks to her. She’s made one too many comments about his huge forehead and he has retaliated against rude comments in a very unproductive passive aggressive way. And a few days she made odd comments which lead Jimmy to think she was hitting on him. And for a while I defended her. I said her problem was some flaw in social skills and that he and others should perhaps lightly comment on what they find to be rude WHEN she says it…train her as it were. And I taunted Jimmy with the phrase “Don’t fall in loooove.”

I had to defend her because I have to teach with her. If I start feeling disrespect or frustration about her the students will be able to smell it on me. They’re perceptive. And if an ALT undermines the respect of a teacher it can be very hard to regain control of a classroom. Besides, I could afford to be kind, I’m leaving soon!

But the small talk wasn’t the worst of it. I began to feel like she was seeking me out to ask probing questions about my social life, views, and so on. She seemed to latch onto me after the Humorless Jamaican showed himself very skilled in diverting her questions. This in and of itself wasn’t that strange. I’m the other unmarried teacher her age. She may feel we have something in common or she may wish to adapt some of my traits…Who knows? I often felt like her questions were an attempt to live somewhat vicariously through me. We started to have very bizarre talks ranging from questions about mormons to iron intake to her habit of drinking hot water all day long. I learned all about her favorite TV series (Fuyu no Sonata) and the necklace she wears and how it is connected to this TV drama. I also began to learn that she’s got a semi secret love of Anime and Manga and I didn’t hide my own knowledge.

Around this time more teachers were admitting to finding her a bit above and beyond the usual level of creepy and odd. I mean, we’re English teachers in a Japanese high school. I don’t think high school teachers ANYWHERE are considered model citizens of normalcy. If you remember your high school teachers it is due to the eccentricities that either engaged you or turned you off to the subject. Teachers are freaks. Truth. And the primary complaints were thus: She asks very direct questions that are often too personal for our working environment, she maintains intense eye contact for a painfully prolonged time, she does not respect people’s personal boundaries.

Let's review those last two complaints with some cultural context. She maintains intense eye contact for a painfully prolonged time and she does not respect people’s personal boundaries…IN JAPAN…Japan is not a touchy feely place. Sober people in Japan do not touch each other often and have very clear boundaries of personal space and eye contact. ALT’s can tell you that the amount of casual physical touching of others decreases dramatically in the transition from elementary school to Jr. High to high school. And it is intuitively understood by all that if you are packed ass to crotch on the train that everyone compensates for the breaking of personal space by fastidiously creating mental space by not making eye contact with the other people on the train.

The Naga had been sitting and standing so close to some of the male teachers that they felt the need to leap from their desks and fling open the office doors so that nothing would be misunderstood…okay…Japan land of the institutional harassment and men are going out of their way to say HEY! Nothing is going on!

And while I defended her, it was becoming less helpful. I would just tell guys not to worry, because she did the same thing to me as well. When we’d have our strange talks she’d pull the chairs so close and lean towards me. At moments our faces were probably about a foot and a half apart.

The weirdness started a few weeks ago. One day, after talking about lesson plans, she turned away from the Jamaican and latched into me. She’d brought a manga and began asking me if I liked to read comics. I explained that, yes, I do, but I still need Japanese comics that use furigana ( small writing next to kanji to show pronunciation) because it is frustrating to have to stop and look up new kanji each time I come across one. With furigana I can learn the new pronunciation and meaning and then move quickly. She showed me the comic, explaining the story. I joined in, reading enough that she could glean my general level of Japanese. She offered to make copies and add all the furigana herself and I told her that she didn’t have to go through all that trouble, really. It was all very odd, but I figured she was just trying to make friends and help me out…something felt strange but I ignored it.

Next day she comes to my office again. She’s got a different comic. It’s a collection of stories that all take place at a girl’s school and a movie had been made of it I don’t remember the name of it. I’ve blocked it out. We continue to talk and she continues to sit almost in my lap. And she tells me there is a part she wants me to read. I humor her. I figured it was time to watch the gaijin read. The act of being watched when I read out-loud, and these tests of my skill and proficiency always reminds me of the dancing bear, as in “It’s not how well the bear dances that amazes people, but the fact that the bear dances at all!"

So, I start reading this scene. It is two girls. One is sad because she is tall and undesired by guys…the other girl begins to ask if it must be a guy who loves her…I start to falter. Yes, The Naga has brought me a comic and flipped it open and asked me to read a scene in which two girls begin to declare their love for each other. There is no context for why me, why her, why this scene. And when I end she just sort of smiles and the conversations continues in the rambling illogical way it always does when I speak to her…

While I was reading it I realized that had a male teacher asked me to read any sort of love scene I would have questioned him directly…if a hardcore gal was hitting on me in a way I understood, I also could have dealt with it…but this was so random and without any recognizable landmarks I just remained confused as to what had happened and what, if anything, it meant.

My boyfriend thinks it is hilarious and wants more answers. I continue to report her oddities to him…last week she called me and asked me to come to her office so she could ask some grammar questions. She pulled her chair so close to mine that our knees were touching and when I had finished and asked “will that be all?” she began to rapidly re-examine the text as if she wanted to ask more in order to prolong my time there.

I want to finish our classroom time together before I even think about asking “so, what the fuck?” I just had a class with her ( the Jamaican is on holiday) and after the class ended she was standing, in silence, with her tidy head tilted and her knees knocked inward in the Japanese little girl pose of helplessness and transfixed admiration and I felt like running, not asking.