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 |  The beauty and horror of what I have seen and felt in 11 years of teaching ESL in Japan. |
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After 11 years of teaching English conversation in Japan for the biggest money-grubbing school, which went bankrupt through very corrupt business practices, I feel the time has come to either share what the beauty and horror of this experience, or sink further into the desperate frustration of the misunderstood. What will follow are descriptions of the students I have taught, my observations and thoughts of them, and tidbits of their conversations with me. Names will of course be changed to protect identities. It is my hope that through reading these descriptions, people interested in learning about Japan and its culture will find new, unexpected insights into its people. So, without further ado, I need to start. But who to start with? The good or the bad? |
| She’d been a marathon runner, married to an office worker, spending every weekend in training, running up and down the long, windy roads around the city, joining races about once a month, and, in general, keeping herself in excellent health. Thirtyish, married, with one child, she seemed quite happy, and took lessons about twice a week, when she could manage the schedule. Like so many women her age in Japan, she’d quit her job once she’d gotten married to have a child. She hadn’t been particularly happy about this. She now had more free time than she felt comfortable with, in part taken up by an increased interest in, and training for, marathons. But she also a bit bored, mentally, with the humdrum, daily monotony of housework. In this, she was like 95% of the other housewives at our school. What set her apart was cunning, and prolific, use of questions. Her short, bobbed hair and buck-toothed grin (always warm, and quick to show itself), in collusion with her self-effacing manner, lulled the unwary into thinking she was rather harmless. She was nice and kind. So are rabbits, until they are threatened or their territory invaded, and then they fight, and those strong hind legs turn out to give quite a blow, and those cute front teeth good for something other than chewing grass. She was sharp-minded to distraction. This is a decided disadvantage in a culture which emphasizes peaceful, quiet contemplation, and not conducive to a happy life. By and large, she kept her opinion to herself, but when one of the male students said something stereotypical about women, she would ask him probing questions…and keep asking them, until the man, heretofore certain in his knowledge of the female of the species, walked away, apparently thinking: “I really don’t know what I’m talking about, do I?” I think she studied English because it provided her a release valve. In Japan, in Japanese, she couldn’t ask the type and quantity of questions she could in English. It would be rude. It could put the person questioned at a disadvantage, or place them in an uncomfortable position. She’d been raised to believe saying as little was possible was essential to preserving wa, social harmony. What a surprise she’d gotten when, after a few months of English lessons, she been advised by instructors to ask more questions. “Questions are an essential part of English conversation.” She asked questions, never to be rude, but to try out new ideas and, above all, to learn about other cultures. She was, in a conversation, an active participant, and initiated well. She’d advanced through the levels quickly, going from 7B (second lowest level) to level 4(essentially, the second highest level in our branch) in about a year and a half. About a year after my arrival, she slowed down stopped taking lessons, only attending Voice room once a week. Her child was growing up and demanding more of her time. By the time MOVA went bankrupt, she’d stopped coming in altogether. A wise move on her part, even if by accident, as she then lost no money as so many thousands of others students had. I was, not to put too fine a point on it, proud of her. |
| Dramatis Persona Egg Chicken Mall cop Small child picking nose Setting A four-walled room with one giant window opening onto a shopping center, and one door. The walls do not reach the ceiling. A never-pausing whisper of people talking, children screaming, and pop music pervades the air. {Egg enters; Chicken, follows, sits, and opens his book which was already resting on the table. Egg sits and rummages through her bag for a book, notebook and pen. Meanwhile, Chicken watches people passing outside the window behind Egg, counting the number of people who look in.} Chicken: Good morning. Egg: Good morning. Only one? {Chicken looks around the room, looks under the table, gestures to the empty seats} Chicken: Yes, I think you are the only student today. {Egg laughs nervously, covering her mouth with her hand} Oh my God! Chicken: How are you today? Egg: I’m fine. And you? Chicken: I’m okay. Are you busy today? Egg: As usual. {Chicken waits for her to continue} Chicken: So, what are you doing today? Egg: Again? Chicken: What do you mean “Again”? Egg: You asked me that last week. Chicken : Yeah, well, I’m asking you again this week. What did you do today? Egg: This morning I did laundry. Today I will go food shopping. It is the same. Chicken: Yes, but it is considered polite conversation to expand your answers a little, to give the other person something to work with, to show you are interested in having a conversation with that person. {Egg covers her mouth, turns away, and laughs nervously. While waiting for her to return to the conversation, Chicken watches a mother and daughter walk past the window, pointing to something he can’t see} Chicken: OK. Are you done? Good. Let’s open our books to lesson 7. Today, we’re talking about sports. {Egg laughs again. Chicken stops to watch her.} Egg: I don’t know sports. Chicken: You mean, you don’t watch sports, or you don’t like sports, or what? Egg: I don’t watch sports. Chicken: But you know of sports, yes? Egg: A little. Chicken: So, today, we’ll practice talking about sports, even sports we don’t know that well. Okay? Egg: OK. Chicken: Look at these pictures of different sports. Which one do you think would be the most difficult to play? {Egg picks up the book and holds it so Chicken can’t see her face. Chicken passes the time watching out the window. There is no one there.} Chicken: Do you need more time? Egg: For what? Chicken: To decide. Egg: To decide what? I don’t know anything about sports. {Chicken closes his book} Chicken: Okay, then, let’s talk about something else. What would you like to talk about? Egg: Eh? Chicken: Well, if you don’t want to talk about sports, we don’t have to. We can talk about anything. Egg: But I want a lesson. Chicken: Sure. No problem. I want to teach. But I’d really prefer to teach you English about something you are interested in than something from this list of lessons you’ve already taken dozens of times before. The best way to do that is for you to tell me what you would like to talk about. So: What would you like to talk about? Egg: I don’t have any topics. Chicken: Be that as it may, surely, there is something in which you have an interest. {Egg covers her mouth and laughs nervously} Egg: Nothing. Chicken: Nothing? Egg: Yes. Chicken: Every week, you come in here, and every week you have nothing to talk about, nothing you are interested in. Why is that? Do you not feel it is an incredible waste of your time and mine to come to study English conversation but to have nothing your want to talk about? I feel that way. Egg: But it is not fair. You are teacher. Chicken: I am sorry to interrupt you, but it is “the teacher” or “a teacher”. Egg: What’s the difference? Chicken: “The teacher” denotes a singularly significant teacher, as in a famous teacher, or a single teacher. Egg: Well, you are married. So, you can’t be “the teacher”. Chicken: No, no, no! You misunderstood “single”. It means “only one”. Egg: When? Chicken: Now. Egg: How about later? Chicken: Then, too. Egg: What about “a teacher”? What does that mean? Chicken: One teacher of many. “Any” teacher. Egg: Are you one of them, too? Chicken: Not in this room. Egg: Well, then, I am the woman, right? Chicken: Here and now, yes. Egg: I don’t feel special. In fact, that’s why I come here. I want to be “the woman,” but I never felt that way. Do we have wine? Chicken: No, of course we don’t, though I, too, wish we did. And when you say “I never felt that way,” I am not sure when exactly you are talking about. Are you talking about the past only, and now you feel special, or are you talking about the past up to and including now? Egg: Now? Chicken: Yes, now. Egg: Or do you mean before, when I said it? Chicken: Don’t play games. You know what I meant. Egg: I am boring. Why can’t you be nice and just give me what I want? Chicken: Because you are not “boring.” You are “bored.” To say you are boring means that other people find you uninteresting. To say you are bored means you find me uninteresting. Egg: Definitely. Chicken: What? What do you mean? {Egg stands and goes to the window. She watches the shoppers outside while speaking.} Egg: Why don’t you listen? I am student. I am supposed to listen and learn. He is teacher. He is supposed to teach. Chicken: Why do I get the feeling I am not here? Anyway, your hope is impossible. I may be a teacher, and you may be a student, but this is conversation practice, not a Japanese high school. You have to participate in conversation, adapt to different, unexpected situations, form responses appropriate to context, and that means taking into account the setting, the relationship between speaker and listener, and a myriad of other background factors. You cannot simply repeat sentences from a book and hope they will suffice. Well, actually, you can. You’ve been doing this for years. Anyway: what are you looking at out there? Egg: All I want is to die quietly, and before then have safety life. You are same. Chicken: I know you can’t be talking to me. It is “safe,” by the way, not “safety.” “Safety” is a noun. You can’t be a “safety driver.” That means you are driving safety—please don’t misunderstand that! What I mean is that you would be driving something called safety. You need to use an adjective to modify the noun “life”. “Safe” works well, though any adjective could do the job: red, fast, easy, etc. How many times do I have to tell everyone this? Jesus. Some fools at the government write a catchy commercial jingle years and years ago, and everyone repeats it as if it were gospel. King James couldn’t have done it better. Egg: Me, too, want to buy things to feel safety. Chicken: Again? I might as well not be here. Egg: And I did, for many years. Now I am old, and buying things doesn’t help so much. So I study English to international. Chicken: “International” is an adjective. Why don’t you place it in front of “life”? Or, better yet, stop using it as a verb? Egg: English makes us interesting. Chicken: The grammar is spot on. Write me a proof, in symbolic logic, countering my statement that the sentiment you’ve just expressed is provably false. Egg: He’s teaching English conversation too long. He snaps at any infringement of the rules, and then tells us there aren’t any rules. Chicken : What are you looking at out there? {A mall cop, passing, notes Egg standing at window, and approaches. His lips move, but whatever he might have said, or will say, unheard.} Egg: What is he saying? Chicken: How should I know? You are closer, and you speak Japanese. Read his lips—What is he saying? Egg: Why does he get so frustrated? Is it because he’s been here so long? Is it because I don’t have any topics? Why doesn’t he understand that? Chicken: Because, in order for us to have a conversation, you have to give me something to work with. I can’t sustain a conversation all by myself. If we only talk about things I am interested in, then we are not really talking. Look, why don’t you just tell me a little bit more about what you did this morning? The details will give me something else to work with so that we can have a comfortable conversation together, or at least something that would break the meaningless tedium of our lessons together. Egg: Fine. I will. I woke up, looked at my weakling of a husband snoring next to me, and drank two glasses of wine before preparing breakfast, again. Again. Again. Chicken: Now that’s interesting! See? Now we have something to talk about. For example, I can ask you why you drank the wine, or what kind of wine it was, or even why you feel your husband is a weakling, or does he snore every day, or what did you make for breakfast. There is so much more there for me to work with. Egg: But I pay you. I pay you to work hard. You are making me work. That is not what I pay you for. Chicken: You pay me to teach you conversation. Egg: No. I pay you to entertain me. Everyone just says it’s teaching because no one wants to admit it’s just a way for housewives like me—bored, desiccated, disaffected, angry, bitter, full of crushed dreams, abandoned without being left alone, powerless, greedy, grasping, selfless, , overly generous with gifts, overly overbearing with wants, guileless, guilty, conniving, plotting, and above all desperately loving and in need of love—to have a captive audience for what we want to say, to have a man we can talk to, to have a man smile at us, to listen to us, to make us feel important. {Egg stands and goes to the window, addressing the shoppers outside, who can’t hear her, who are, instead, focusing on shoes, thermal underwear, fashions for teens, and on reaching the toilet in time} This morning, as with every morning for the past twenty years, I drank wine, though I do sometimes drink whiskey, and while drinking, I tried to think of a life outside of this life, a life that might reveal something different than what emerged from its shell yesterday. I do this every morning. And every morning, as sure as the sun rises, nothing changes. I get older. I get more wrinkles. My husband doesn’t want me, and I don’t want him, but we don’t dare leave each other. Who out there claims a better, more interesting life? Come forward and announce yourself. {No shopper changes course. Those few who notice her look away, as if embarrassed, as if they’d looked in a window onto a private moment} Egg: Madame, you are a bore—and by that, I mean you are a boring person. Not that you are bored—though I perceive quite easily you have passed beyond the land of bored people into that blissful palace of self-satisfied despair, wherein dwell those who’ve surrendered any hope that the future could bring a surcease to this persistent ennui; a palace so beautiful, so dazzlingly beautiful in its decorations, so lavish in its architecture, the inhabitants find no need to think of the world outside its walls, and have perhaps forgotten out of long disuse their lives before passing that over the unmovable drawbridge. This palace is, in other words, a prison from which none escape, from which none try to escape, as all within are willing prisoners supporting each other with vacuous banter. Chicken: Look at this poster. It says you will give a special lesson on grammar. It has such pretty colors. Did you design it? Egg: That one? Yes, I did. Chicken: How did you learn to do such detailed lines? And this poster here, with the kitten hanging from a branch, it says, “Hang in there!” I don’t understand. What does it mean? {A chime sounds} Egg: OK, that’s the end of today’s lesson. See you next time. Wait a minute. This door is locked. Chicken: You are joking. Egg: I assure you, I am not. Try it. Chicken: It is locked. Why? Egg: I don’t know. I’ll try harder. No. It’s no good. Chicken: Look, there’s such a cute child in the window, watching us. What is he doing? Egg: What? Where? Oh. That kid. Well, if you look more closely, you’ll see what he’s eating. Chicken: He is eating…nose s***. Egg: Yes, as you say in Japanese. But you mustn’t translate. You must think in English. That disgusting child—a boy, I hope—stops to stand in this window every day, always munching on his favorite snack: snot. Do you know the word “snot”? Please listen and repeat: Snot. Chicken: Snot. Egg: Snot, snot. Chicken: Snot, snot. Egg: Snot’s not snot. Chicken: Snot’s not snot. Egg: Very good! Snot’s not snot’s not snot’s snookie. Chicken: Snot’s not snot’s not snot’s snookie. Egg: Snot’s not snot’s not snot’s snookie wookie dookity doo. Chicken: Snot’s not snot’s not snot’s snookie wookie dookity doo. Egg: Wookity doo. Chicken: Wookity doo. Egg: Is the door still locked? Chicken: Yes, it is. What did any of what we just said mean? Egg: I have no idea. Chicken: Wait a minute. I’ve forgotten. Who came here first, you or me? Egg: Look, I really need to get out of here. If no one comes along in the next few minutes, do you mind if I start screaming? Chicken: To be honest, I’d really rather you didn’t, and I don’t see what difference it will make. Egg: Yes. I can see how you might feel that way. |
| Since puberty, and maybe before, I have been clueless—nay, blind—to the attraction of others to me. As a result, I have committed some social faux pas that neither bear repeating nor allow themselves to be dislodged from the darkest recesses of my obsessively reflective mind. I am a nice guy, an ikemen, but have hurt the feelings of far too many lovely people, and missed out on too far too many opportunities for love or affection. How do I become aware of this inability to see the way others see me? A third-party always brings attention to the destruction left in my wake. “You know Jessica, who sat behind you all year in Math class? She really liked you, and you ignored her. Didn’t you know? Too bad she moved, huh?” “Remember Cassy? The girl you got drunk with at the party at Ken’s? You held her hair while she was puking in the toilet? Why didn’t you ever go after her? She told me she thought you were hot.” “…yeah, the guy you modeled naked for for a couple weeks. He’s gay. Damn, dude, you freakin’ broke his heart walking away like that.” I guess it’s partly a result of having grown up subjected to some serious, long-term bullying, and some other psychological s*** I won’t go into, that’s instilled in me a belief that I am not actually attractive . Still, all lost opportunities aside, such blindness can, in certain contexts, save us from ourselves—or at least from the devils on our shoulder. Sometimes blindness is a good thing. When a brilliant sun burns into your dead orbs, warming those aqueous humors, it is better to see nothing than to see nothing than to forever see what, in fact, has long been hid by the Earth’s slow, inexorable rotation. I refer to Candy. At sixteen, delicious, luscious eye candy, the kind of girl who blossomed early and learned fast every eye in the room was on her, and so learned the presence of lust and jealousy. But she wore this knowledge well—and that school girl uniform fit her pretty well, too. Now this is the point where any right-thinking female of the human species will hear a little voice in their head screaming, "Pervert! Pervert!" To quote a former co-worker: "Is it really so bad to be enthralled by the reproductive drive of humans?" And in my defense, I would like to remind you that all of these observations about Candy are in hindsight. At the time, I did not notice Candy as anything other than yet another high school student taking these classes to pass their university entrance exam, cuter than usual perhaps, but off limits and without anything interesting to say. It wasn’t until she’d stopped attending classes and one of my fellow teachers started ribbing me about the hottie high schooler who’d always asking after me that I started piecing this puzzle together: how she always perked up when I entered the room, how she smiled and leaned towards me during lessons, and, of course, how she listened instead of taking notes. How the hell had I missed it? It had been so obvious. Argh... Then again, this could all have been some self-empowering fantasy piecing together disparate events, through hindsight enabling an aging, boring, lame educator a brief, shiver-inducing thrill of youth. It could also simply be the ravings of a horny man succumbing, after long years of distant disdain, to the Lolita-fetishist culture of Japan, wherein a peak up a schoolgirl’s skirt is to glimpse Olympian erotic heights, blinding…. Jesus. Enough with the boring B.S.! You really are full of yourself, aren’t ya? Ah... Miss me? A little. I was wondering when you might pop up again. It was the schoolgirl thing, wasn’t it? Oh, yes. Definitely. And the fact your sitting on the screen feeling all sorry for yourself, transforming the attraction of an immature girl into something it wasn’t: a chance for you to talk about yourself. She found you interesting, exotic perhaps, and that has a great power to get people’s juices flowing. But don’t go trying to convince people they should feel sorry for you. You are an idiot who doesn’t notice other people’s feelings. Learn from it. Couldn’t part of it be that I have always been amazed when a beautiful woman finds me attractive? I thought we were talking about a sixteen year-old girl. Hardly a woman. But, beautiful. On that we can agree. Perhaps a little blindness is a good thing? We’ll need to decide that soon. |
| I met her only once. Before her arrival at our branch, of course, the staff had gotten paperwork on her. She was a student at another school. Several, actually. She was coming here to study for Eiken, the Japanese national test of spoken English. I was an Eiken teacher. That much made sense. Then the staff told me that the previous teachers had difficulty helping her, so they were sending her to me. That's the part I couldn't understand at first. I was an Eiken teacher, but I had never, ever, gotten a reputation for being a particularly effective teacher with difficult students. So I called up the branch she was transferring from. My supervisor's supervisor ran that branch. She got on the phone with me and said, "Listen, she's a bit difficult. We've done what we can for her here, and, frankly, we've run out of ideas. We thought you could help her." "What's the problem?" "She's shy. And a little weird at times. Don't worry, though. She really does want to study." I didn't believe her. No branch sends a student to another branch for lessons--especially not one 120 km away--because they are shy. Nevertheless, I looked through her file and developed an initial lesson plan. I needn't have bothered. It was raining the morning she arrived. She hurriedinto the school wearing a white rain jacket, which she neglected to take off as she entered the room, and sat down. Her medium-length hair dripped rainwater onto her shirt. She looked to be about 18 years old, wore glasses and simple, plain clothes. I noticed there were some red spots on the shoulder of her shirt, looking like blood. I introduced myself. She said her name. I tried a little warm-up conversation. She kept her head down and didn't respond. I asked her why she wanted to take the Eiken test. She said nothing. I asked her to take out her book, notebook and pencil. She didn't move, but she did say she didn't have any. I explained that according to her file, she had a book at the previous school. She said nothing. In exasperation, I placed a photocopy of a few Eiken style questions in front of her. The other school said she'd asked to work on those questions specifically in a previous session, but hadn't had time. "Shall we work on these questions?" I asked. "No." "Well, you don't have a book, and you don't want to work on these questions. What do you want to do?" No response. I went out on a limb: "You do know that you are scheduled to take an Eiken lesson today, yes?" She shrugged. Losing patience, I asked: "What do you want to do today?" She kept her head down and whispered something I couldn't catch. "I'm sorry, really. I didn't hear what you said. Could you say that again?" Her head and voice rose slightly: "He hits me." I looked at the red stains on her shoulder. She wasn't looking at me. What could you say? I gave her a minute of silence. Having said that, she gathered herself together and said she wanted to study. Awkwardly, I pushed the photocopy across the table to her. She never said another word, just nodded. It is impossible to practice for a conversation test if you don't speak, but that's what she did. When the bell finally--finally--rang, she hurried out, ignored the staff, and ran out the door. I told the staff what she had told me. They promised to tell the staff at her home school what had transpired. To make sure, I called her home branch and let the teacher there know what had happened. She apologized and said, "I warned you she was a little weird." "Weird? She's being abused." "I don't know. Are you sure?" "No." "Anyway, there's nothing we can do. She hasn't asked for help." "Does she know how to?" Three days later, she called me back. "Just thought you'd like to know she took a lesson yesterday. Everything went well...well, went as before. She didn't say anything like that to our teachers. Must've just been you." Must've just been me. But why?? |
| We'd talk in Voice room, about right-wing politics in Japan, his disapproval of the Education Ministry glossing over the realities of Japan's aggressions during WWII, steel engineering (his job) and the parts his company was making for the construction of the fusion reactor experiment in Europe. As you can gather from that, his English was excellent. He'd lived abroad for many years, and traveled frequently on business to visit companies or inspect installations. He was one of those working-class guys who has very little time for purely intellectual pursuits, focusing instead on the practical applications of knowledge, which he did extremely well, from what I could gather. One of the few students who could hold a conversation on quantum physics, and then stump me by launching into mathematical formulas. This would get us talking about the theoretical applications of mathematics, and the unreasonable effectiveness of math (a human construct) to predict or mimic natural phenomena. His wife (from a previous post), a woman who wore revealing tops, whose lesson attendance dropped dramatically once her husband had returned from working abroad, loved him, and he loved her, but stood distant by about twenty years of age difference. He was a devout Christian, a rarity in Japan, but kept that private. After MOVA went bankrupt, he immediately signed up for my school, and provided me with one of the steadiest, most reliable, income streams, something I never could thank him for enough. He was transferred up north a few years ago. I haven't had a decent conversation on politics and science with a student in that time, though his old classmate, a student I will talk about later, takes up some of the slack. |
| I first met J-Punk eight years ago, in 2003. His attempts to affect a demeanor hard-core and distant succeeded only in convincing all teachers he was nothing more than an unpleasant little sh*t. He'd just finished high school and was working at a garage, repairing and detailing those ornamental minivans you see driving the streets of Japan, their sides ornately painted with scenes from comic books or bearing the airbrushed likeness of the most recent pop star. J-Punk showed up for lessons twice a month. He never studied between lessons, never reviewed the material, never brought a notebook or pencil. He sat with one arm draped over the back of his chair, slumped in his seat, with sunglasses on, like he was James Dean or something. Jimmy Dean, more like. "Hello. How are you today?" "Fine." "What did you do today?" "Huh? Huh?" he blurted, sneering each syllable. He started at 7B, the second lowest level. He finished two years later at 7B, having made no noticeable improvement--he didn't care. The moment the lesson bell rang, he snapped his book shut, rushed out the door and into his car, parked out front, under the no-parking sign. The little engine would rap-rap-rap-roar into life. From out of the open windows would explode the most obnoxious, inanely cute, saccharine-laced J-girl-pop, like fingers down a chalkboard, and he'd sit there for a minute or two, abusing the populous, the fingers of one hand drumming the steering wheel, the other arm laying on the open window like a dead bird, his head bobbing back and forth to the music, putting me in mind not of a punk as he'd wish us to see, but of an old school punk, a prison bitch, working the staff to stave off a beating. I saw him a couple weeks ago, driving downtown. Not sure he recognized me, but I knew him immediately: some car, same posture, same sunglasses, and the same music, though updated to a sexier, younger version: AKB48. Here's salt in the wound: judging from his car and his clothes, I'm sure he makes more money than me. ... (Author's note to self: being, introspective, not conducive to mental stability. Stop it, or heap more justification for future release by going postal.) |
| She'd transferred to our little school in the countryside from some big school up in Tokyo. For her, though, it was simply returning home. She'd moved to Tokyo for a few years to take care of some business there, and now it was time to return and take care of the company. Everything about her was LOUD: she spoke loud, she used huge gestures when speaking, and she brayed like a donkey when laughing. Laughed often, too, and cracked jokes all the time. Bad jokes that didn't have the good grace of being simply lewd or or told without feeling; they were bad jokes in that they were entirely inappropriate. On finding out that her teacher had gotten a divorce recently, she enthused: "Wow! You must've had fun cheating on her!" Big smiles, big laugh, donkey laugh, all on one side--the teacher sat stunned, still as a stone, like a monkey who'd just been walloped on the head with a mallet. According to Punko, she'd been taught that sarcasm was an important part of English conversation, so she'd hurried to master it. After one teacher admitted to her he was having trouble with his religious faith (Catholicism), she joked: "Oh, well, the Pope is just the Devil in disguise." Again, big donkey laugh. The teacher later erupted in anger in the privacy of our teacher's room. She'd published a dozen novels. She ran a liquor distributors, her father's, though it was owned, on paper, by her husband. You could have called her rich, though upper middle class might have been more accurate. Her house burned to the ground one spring. They moved into an apartment: no fuss, no crying, no loss, seemingly. She joked about it, actually. Excellent vocabulary, grammar, and listening comprehension. "All aboriginals are alcoholics, aren't they?" she asked a Kiwi of Maori decent. A wine connoisseur, traveling the world to tour wineries. "Is it because they love hamburgers so much that Americans are so fat?" she asked an overweight woman from England. Rapacious intellect. "Japanese people are being made into slaves. All those pachinko parlors are owned by North Koreans who send that money to their homeland to build weapons to attack us." Every student in the room lapsed into uncomfortable silence. Was she a s***-stirrer, or simply someone who didn:t care what people thought of her? Was she, as I suspect, someone who felt untouchable, rising above the fray, no one's equal, and no one's competitor? Punko, punko. |
| I met her Emi before I met her mother Jujiko. They’d lived in Germany for four years. Emi’s father, Jujiko’s husband, had gotten a position at a Japanese school there, and the family had followed. The two daughters had picked up languages rather quickly, by all accounts, and when I’d met Emi, the youngest, who’d joined MOVA to keep her English fresh, was surprised to learn she also spoke some German and French, as well as fairly natural English and Japanese. Emi and I had some interesting conversations together, about the difficulties of attending Japanese high school after not having attended the previous years, in particular preparing for university entrance exams without having taken the preparatory courses, and of adjusting to Japanese culture. She admitting to having the most trouble with the later, finding her classmates rather boring conversationalists, and considered moving abroad after university. A few months later, Emi’s mother, Jujiko, joined MOVA. I wouldn’t say the difference between mother and daughter was night and day, because of the obvious similarities in appearance and in curiosity: both asked numerous questions regarding other cultures and customs, about which they seemed to have a bottomless interest. Yet, Jujiko, despite having lived and taken care of a family in a foreign country for five years, was extremely hesitant to speak English, and her manner, at first, was off-putting enough to send most teachers away thinking they’d offended her somehow. She stared and never smiled. If a teacher interrupted her, or even changed the topic, she shut down and wouldn’t say another word the rest of the lesson. Easy enough to think she’d been offended, but what I discovered after a few months of concerted effort getting know her was this: she assumed she’d been talking about something boring, or had made a mistake, and that was why people interrupted her. She stared because she wanted to show attention to the speaker. She had no confidence in her English because she’d spend five years fruitlessly studying German, only to give up in desperation, and so switched to studying English, because it was an international language. Yes, despite her misgivings, she went from a low level student to one of our highest levels in just under a year and a half. That was seven years ago, I think. I continue to teach Jujiko, though I haven’t spoken to Emi in many years. She works for a big foreign company up in Tokyo, and is doing fairly well at that, despite the difficulties adjusting to a corporate culture that rewards achievements rather than dedication. Jujiko’s husband died last year, leaving the family a bit shocked as he wasn’t that old. Luckily, they had planned well, financially, and so Jujiko doesn’t have to worry about money. She does have trouble filling up the days. She is remarkable in her the extent of her interest in so many things, but maintains the belief that she is, somehow, not intelligent, and tries not to speak too much in order to offend others with her “mistakes”. When it is just the two of us, I give her as much rein as I can, letting the topics range over whatever she might bring up. She smiles then, and seems to forget how lonely her daily life has become. Her and her husband had never been that close, but with him gone, and with the children grown up and out of the house, she has almost no one to speak to besides me and the small circle of students at my school. With MOVA bankrupt, and the resurrected company lurching along like a zombie, she has no desire to spend money there, when she can be among people she’s known for years. Jujiko is, in other words, a friend, and one of my few successes teaching English. |
| There were two young men who stuck in my mind as a pair. I’m not sure why: they didn’t attend lessons together; didn’t know each other, and came from very different social circles. One was a soft-spoken heir to a small well-drilling company, the other an unashamedly, flamboyantly gay man. I like them both. Henji, the well-drilling heir, dressed in simple, earth-toned wools and cottons. Souji, a salesman by trade, dressed in loose silk or polyester shirts, unbuttoned to the middle of his shave-smooth. Both were of darker complexion, one tanned by sun, one by tanning beds. Both smiled frequently, filled with warmth, young men in their early twenties speaking of plans to travel extensively abroad when their work and savings allowed. Both had above-average conversation skills despite being mid-level students. Souji engaged others in conversation, asking questions, extending his responses, adding additional details whenever appropriate. Henji kept his answers brief, though friendly, always diverting the topic of conversation to others whenever possible. Girls seemed to pick up instantly on Souji’s orientation, but seemed lost when it came to Henji. When someone would ask him what he did for a living, and he divulged he was working at his father’s well-drilling company, which he would inherit soon, many girls did, I swear, brighten up and become friendlier towards him. Not all, luckily—I would hate for things to get too stereotypical. |
| Her file often reads: Good understanding of English. Poor communication skills. --------------------------------------------------------- What did you do today? I went shopping. Before I worked. How was work? It was okay. And what are you going to do after today’s lesson? I will go home. I will make pasta and soup. Sounds nice. Now, please ask me two questions. What did you do today? I cleaned my apartment, so I am pretty tired right now. Ha ha ha. What food do you like? I love lasagna. Ha ha ha. Okay…. Open your book to lesson 35. Today we are going to practice talking about interesting activities. I don’t like sports. That’s okay. Those are just the pictures. They are just examples. We’ll adapt the lesson and talk about things you are interested in. Okay. Can you tell me five activities you are interested in or you like doing? … For example: I like reading, and I like playing bass guitar. I play video games sometimes, and I write every day. I’m into chess in a big way. How about you? I like watching TV. That’s good. And? I’m really into Jazzercize—but I’m not very good at it! That’s no problem. How did you learn Jazzercize? What? The first time you did Jazzercize, did you take a lesson? Yes, of course. Where? Why? Just a question. Just trying to keep the conversation going. At the gym. Okay. So, let’s practice a few questions and answers. Ready? Please repeat: Can you swim? Can you swim? Yes, I can. My father taught me. Yes, I can. My father taught me. Are you any good at computers? No. No. Please repeat: Are you any good at computers? Are you any good at computers? Okay. Now, I’m going to ask you a question. Please answer about yourself. Can you drive? Me? Yes. Yes, I can. How did you learn? What? How did you learn to drive? You see, here in the book, native speakers usually give a little extra information in their answers to support the conversation. So, one more time: How did you learn to drive? I went to driving school. Ha ha ha. Oh? And was it difficult? Yes, it was. I took the test two times. My husband laughed at me, but I kept trying. It was difficult. Very good! Sorry about the husband, though. Okay, so now you try. Ask me one of these questions in the book, and then try to ask two follow-up questions. Okay? Yes. Go ahead. Can you ski? Not really, no. I’ve tried cross country skiing, though, and that was fun. … Okay, now, please, ask me two follow-up questions. Did you like cross country skiing? It was difficult, and we got caught in a blizzard, but the second day was good. Ha ha ha. I can do cross country skiing. … … Can you ask one more question? And I don’t know why you are laughing. I went cross country skiing in Canada five years ago. That’s nice. Canada is a cold country. I really liked Toronto. There were many good department stores. I got a nice coat there, and my husband was able to eat a big steak at a restaurant. Okay. Alright. Let’s try again. Ask me one question and two follow up questions, from the book, those right here. Are you good at drive? Yes. I am a great driver. I’ve been driving since I was fifteen, and in twenty-five years I’ve never had an accident or even gotten a ticket. Ha ha ha. I am a good driver, too. My husband bought me a BMW, and I drive it to our office every day. I ran over an old lady and buried her in a field behind the high school. It was fun. Ha ha ha. My high school was fun, too. Can you ask me two follow-up questions? Can you drive in Japan? Yes. Frequently, I drive on the wrong side of the road just to wake people up. Ha ha ha. I like driving. I like to go for a drive on the weekends to Hagi and enjoy the scenery. Yamaguchi has beautiful scenery, don’t you think? I try not to. I really try not to. |
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