Japandamonium!!!

It’s Thursday now, Mokuyoubi, and I’m At Kuwa Elementary School or Shogakko, the fourth of five schools I’ll be teaching at. It’s just before noon, so I’m mostly done with teaching for the day. Listen to my schedule, verbatim from the sheet I was handed this morning.

8:20 – 9:05 Free; Ready of Lesson
9:15 – 10:00 1st grade, Ichinensei
10:15 – 11:00 3rd grade, Sannensei
11:10 – 11:55 Free; Ready of Lesson
11:55 – 12:40 Eat a school lunch together with 6 graders.
12:40 – 13:05 and
13:05 – 13:20 Free (have a good time with children.)
13:30 – 14:15 5th grade, Gōnensei
15:45 – 16:00 Free; Ready of Lesson

I really like the directive, “have a good time with children.” Encouraging and straightforward, but liberatingly vague.

***

It’s 2:40 now, and I’ve just finished with the sannensei class; they were fun, but the other two win my heart for the day. The gonensei were enthusiastic and awesome; before class began they made a huge putsch for the front of the room so they could shake my hand or hi-five me; the casual physicality that we implant into social contact is something that is done either differently or not at all over here, so the kids just jump (quite literally) for it. In the chugakko this Monday, the middle school I teach at, a bunch of kids were really shy about their handshakes and really unpracticed at it – I got a lot of jarring ones and a lot of dead fish. I feel like it’s an important cross-cultural skill though, the handshake; people really suck at them over here because they don’t do it a lot, just like lots of us suck at bowing and knowing when to change our shoes, and just like the chaos and chagrin we bring to people by doing things like unwittingly showering in the bath, the Japanese will certainly incur some jarred confusion or vague mistrust for their discomfiting vulpine held-too-long handshakes. I had an argument with Shalini about this last night, who says that people don’t really make character judgements based on things like how you shake their hand, but I just don’t think that’s really a complete picture of how first impressions work, especially cross-cultural ones. A hearty handshake is important, and as these kids grow up and learn English and travel with it they don’t want to freak out any foreigners they could otherwise be befriending or hitting on or making global policy negotiations with.

So I made a big deal out of praising good handshakes and giving pointers on them as I went around the classroom introducing myself, which the kids all got a real kick out of. By the end of the day they were pumping my hand like politicians. I really like it there at the chuugakko, the Junior High; I think partially because my JTEs (like the senior counselor to my CIT) speak good English and a lot of the kids are really pumped about learning it and have a good grounding already, but it’s more than that: the kids are really interesting and fun and Genki and exciting; they want me to hang out with them and play in their clubs, and I am only to happy to be a part of things. Last Friday (my first day of teaching!) I changed to leave at 4:30 but didn’t get on my bike till 7 – I had wandered outside to wave goodbye to the kids and before I knew it I was practicing with the Takyu (Ping-Pong) team and then the basketball team asked me to play with them – and I was great! It’s like I’m getting a second renaissance for all the things I was too shy or too uncoordinated to do the first time around through childhood and adolescence: lemme tell ya right now, I may have been last pick for years, but as of now I kick ass at middle-school basketball. And before I left I jived with the school’s brass band, who gave a mini-concert just for me. It was 7:30 before I made it home, and I was happy as a clam. Today I’m going by the Junior High again. One of the volleyball players sprained her wrist this weekend so I’m bringing her a get-well card and an I LOVE NY pencil. I wish I’d brought more NY chatchkies; when I go home I guess.

Going to pack it up and go home soon. Today has been a long one, even with the generous amount of free time. I had to be here at 8 to introduce myself to the school at an assembly in the gym, which really meant 7:50 so I could say good morning to the teachers and then change clothes, which means I had to leave my house at 7:25 this morning to get here on time by bike. It’s nothing to complain about I guess, but it still means I was up damn early and I haven’t figured out how to go to sleep early yet like the real person I’m slowly admitting I’m becoming, so I’m grossly underslept over the last week or two or three, and it’s catching up on me now that I’m teaching. The teaching itself is tiring as heck, and there are all kinds of hidden body-costs, like “cleaning time” which happens slightly differently at each school – yesterday at school #3 I kind of just walked around the hallways high-fiving kids, but today I was outside in the sandy gravel field raking the sand and gravel around in the broiling midday sun for a half-hour until I couldn’t see from the glare of sun off the sand and was close to just passing out on the dirt. I felt like I was in Bridge over the River Kwai. I think we were raking the sandy gravelly tundra so the marks from the kids’ half-hour recess wouldn’t mar their then upcoming sports-day practice, currently in session with the marching band. But now it’s the end of my day, time to change and go home, so I’m free to sleep till tomorrow.