Crash and Burn, it's a Festival

The word "festival" isn't often heard within the safe borders of New Zealand. Or, if it is, it would sound something like: "The Jazz music festival, see a concert every weekend". In general, New Zealanders are very unfestive. We are too laid back to give a..... care....There are really no events which can be called a proper festival. Sure, every year, when the Canterbury Crusaders (For the lucky people who don't know, this is a rugby team) win, all people from Christchurch celebrate being asses. Also, we have the Santa Parade when the streets are closed for a couple of hours to let a few cars with big advertising signs to drive through. Santa also makes a quick appearance.

I was in a Santa Parade once. It was not long after my under 14 basketball team became the South Island Champions. We were sponsored by a milk company, so we all wore our milk-boy track pants and jacket and dribbled a basketball behind the milk van through the streets. If you are wondering how this is relevant to a Santa Parade, I'm not really sure... I guess this milk company could supply you for the milk you leave out for Santa on Christmas eve...

So, in conclusion, New Zealand is not very festive. In this sense, Japan is New Zealand's evil twin. Or, good twin... I don't know, I haven't thought this through. It was just a bad way to say that there are many festivals in Japan.

There are many festivals in Japan. This sounds pretty good, and it usually is. Last time in Japan I went to many, and already this time I have been to many. There was a very famous one in my prefecture a few months back. "famous" in this case, means: "so crowded, it just isn't fun anymore". There was a crazy inpenetrable mass of people climbing up the mountain. It was a gauntlet of stall selling one of three different types of food. Mobs of very old, but deceptively strong, tiny, women wearing hats, were shoving and prodding me and anything else in their way, for the whole 4 hours I was there. I imagine it to be a similar experience to being in a locust plague. The only calm moment I got was in an already-full port-o-loo.

So that was fun. On the other end of the scale was a festival outside a convenience store. It wasn't a famous festival, and had exactly one stall, which sold the same three types of food.

And then we have the phenomenom of School festivals. I teach at two different elementary schools, and they both wanted me to attend their festival (both on the same day). It was on a weekend, but sure, a festival sounds like fun right? It was really quite lame. It might have been better if I wasn't so blatantly snobbed for the whole day. It was another of those moments when I realised how much of a freak I am. Its funny for a few moments, but very tiring for a whole day. It was definitely a festival, as the same 3 types of food were on sale. There was also a performance by every year group. The very young children put on a play. There was a lot of elbow nudging, which made it fun enough to watch. The middle students did tricks like bouncing basketballs, hula hooping, gymnasticsing, and unicycling, which gave many (fulfilled) opportunities for the kids to fall over. This was a crowd favourite; Japanese people love to see others publically embarrassed. The older kids put on a play, which went off without any mishaps. It is therefore, not worth continuing to talk about it.

This weekend is my main school's festival. These last two weeks have been very hectic. the schedule has been shuffled around so much, usually at the expense of my English classes. The pile of paper on my desk is growing at an unusually fast rate, and I'm finding myself completely alone in the staffroom more frequently. Everyone does seem to be very busy though. Everyone except for me. I think they are taking this festival very seriously, something which this New Zealander can't be trusted to do. (because its all so stupid!!! but funny). I have on my desk, a full written transcript for the festival's opening ceremony. It is all there, right down to the spontaneous banter. The festival is also notable for a few other reasons.

• I have to go to school on the weekend. I even have to teach some classes Saturday morning. Good luck trying to keep their attention...
• I am performing. They have a slot for me on stage to sing and play a song with my guitar.

This is a serious concern. For many reasons.

1. I am rubbish at guitar. I know a total of just three chords,and I dislike punk music. This is a bad combination.
2. I sound okay when I am playing on my own, or when the other people listening are drunk. The families of the students may be drinking, but I really need the majority of people to be drunk. Any ideas on how to get 177 kids drunk, please let me know!
3. I am not a performer. The largest group I have played to is one of my classes at school, and at least half of them were sleeping.

Most likely, it will be a complete disaster which will destroy the good image I have on the basis of being a foreigner. I have decided to a song by the Exponents, because they are a New Zealand band, but mainly because this song has three chords. I just might be able to pull it off. I do, however, have a secret weapon: the ability to produce "R" and "L" sounds. To a Japanese person, this is like Mongolian throat singing. I might be okay... I hope. At the very least, that will be 5 minutes where they cannot snob me. If, in the likely event I do crash to earth like a comet, I know I will at least be a crowd favourite. A publically humiliated foreign Mongolian throat singer. What a show that would be!

Anyhow, tune in next time to find out if I have any shred of dignity left after my performance.

Where did everyone go?

You know those moments when, all of a sudden, you realise you are completely alone? No, I'm not being symbolic and talking about being homesick. I'm talking about when I'm at school at my desk, performing very important tasks such as sharpening pencils and consuming lunch, and I look up to see an empty staffroom.

Last week, I finished my school lunch. I remember it clearly. It was Chinese style food. Don't get me wrong, I like Japanese food, I really do. Even though most of it sortof tastes the same. After a few days of Japanese food, Chinese food is a revelation. After licking the inside of the bowl clean, I stood up to put away my dishes. I heard the creak of my chair as I stood up. The staffroom was empty. It turns out that most of the students and teachers went to a modern dance recital. So, I had the whole afternoon on my own.

A few days earlier, just after cleaning time, the same thing happened again (unfortunately, without the chinese food). I was just curious where everyone had gone. Then I heard some clapping coming from the direction of the courtyard. All the teachers and students were there, lined up, wearing white gloves. A thought crossed my mind that they were going to be an angry mob, tracking down the minorities... that would be me. But I deciphered the hieroglyphs on the staffroom blackboard, and it was apparently an angrry mob collecting sweet potatoes. From the staffroom window I watched the them all go to what I know know as the school vegetable garden.

This is happening all too frequently. I have mentioned that I seem to be treated like a pet (only no-one ever throws a ball for me). This is quite common for the token foreigner at a school. There is the perception that:
A) We won't understand. (never mind that we may have studied Japanese before)
B) We don't need to know.
C) We just want to do the work, and go home right when school finishes.

I guess all arguments have some element of truth, but they are also very stupid. Some people say the reason the token foreigner is never told anything is because Japanese teachers are very busy. I don't buy this argument. Because I know they see me as a pet. Feed me daily, take me out for a walk every now and then (I'm good with children), and make sure there is water available. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm not being very serious. I don't mean to make fun of my colleages. I know they work very h...oh look, school has finished. I'm going home.

Give me a Sign

There are many unexplainable phenomenom in this world. Why, for example, do more people use Visa than any other credit card? Well, that isn't even unexplainable. Unexplainable has to be this last week, culminating on Thursday. I really don't have the answers for this one.

First of all, about a week ago, my Japanese English teacher nervously came up to me and showed me a piece of paper. She started saying something about recontracting. I had been forewarned about this by other people on the JET programme. For some reason, Japanese schools like to have a tenative schedule for about... the next 10 years. If a JET wants to stay on for a 2nd year, they have the option to resign... by the beginning of February. This particular piece of paper had a different deadline: the 20th of October. I have been in Japan for two months, teaching here for even less, and they are asking me to commit to a second year? So when she showed me this paper, I broke the awkwardness by laughing, "I know what this is about"... "Oh good" she said "So you're staying for a 2nd year!"... They just don't get it sometimes. Just to clear all this up, being the indecisive person I am, I will probably wait until the beginning of February to decide... by a coin toss.

Earlier this week, I had a memo left somewhere in the middle of the daily stack of papers. This one was an invite to an "Enkai", which if you looked it up in a dictionary, would be "banquet". Banquet is much too a classy word for what an Enkai is. A banquet scene makes me think of a marble floored hall, with tables covered in silk tablecloths and polished silverware. There are waiters with clean white towels draped over their forearm, all the ladies are wearing gloves and hats, and there is a string quartet playing quietly in the corner. An Enkai is basically a combination of a traditional Japanese dinner, and a NZ style piss-up. The mysterious part was that the invite was from the Board of Education, it was at a skifield resort, and it was for a thursday night- an overnight enkai. Surely they knew we had classes to pretend to teach at on Friday morning...

The monthly meeting for the 3 local ALT's at the Board of Education, was mysteriously moved ahead to October 19th- the same day as the Enkai.

The monthly meeting was different to other months. This time, we went to the BOE chief's office. This is a very busy man. He apparently never takes the time to meet with people unless there are local news crews around. (This is how I got on TV the first week of being here) The whole scenario seemed very unsubtle. The meeting was one of the strangest experiences in my life. The guy spent about half an hour explaining the weather patterns in this area of the world, in Japanese. He filled a classroom-sized whiteboard with diagrams. It was a very detailed explanation as to why the west coast of Japan is very snowy, while the east is very dry. It was very interesting, but I was just waiting for him to say, "ok, now sign here, here...and here". It never came.

We then had less than 2 hours to go home and get ready for this enkai. A mini bus taxi to the skifield (costing over $100US), and the banquet was commenced. I had a seat next to the Chief himself. He added a few extra details about the weather patterns, but I don't remember ever signing anything. I couldn't have, I was too busy eating. My word. There was so much quality food, but no-one was eating.

In all, it was a very good quality night. After the banquet finished, we descended the mountain, and a few guys from the BOE took us to some bars to drink some more. I just love the fact that employees at the Board of Education, ensured that we teachers got very drunk, on a Thursday night.

After a morning of teaching, I have recovered from my hangover, and yet, none of this is making any sense. All I know is that today is the 20th, and I haven't signed anything...

Two Months is all it took.

It was like whitening toothpaste WITH tartar control. You knew it would happen. It was like North Korea making nukes. Like Micheal Jackson reoffending. It was just the logical conclusion. Inevitable. I got bored of Tonami city.

Tonami city is the city I live in. I mean, it is silly for me, who comes from Nelson, to complain that Tonami is too small. Unlike Nelson, we have a mall here. In fact, we have two! We have mega stores, clothing chains, retaurants, a brilliant 2nd hand shop, convenience stores, giant electronic stores, supermarkets, a bowling alley, a train station...

A train station!!! Nelson has a train which is goes to the other end of the historic park. And yet, Tonami is more boring.

The only noticable omission infostructurally, is a lack of decent bars and nightclubs. There are 2 bars that I frequent ("frequent" should be taken very literally), but sometimes you just want something different. That is why we local Jets were very excited when we heard of a danceclub in our town. So we went along. It turned out to be just another tiny bar where they removed the majority of the chairs. There were DJs, who took up 1/3 of the dancefloor. Luckily, the DJs were so bad we didn't have much use for the dancefloor. We spent most of the time outside in the makeshift tent. The first few DJs weren't exactly terrible, they might have even been considered to be good had they been playing in a hotel lobby. But for a danceparty, it was about as exciting as watching the Queen Mother talk to Al Gore.

I was looking forward to the Reggae DJ who came at the end of the night. This guy was actually terrible. He wasn't just bad, he was maliciously ruining the genre of Reggae. Every 10 or 15 seconds, he wold turn down the volume, and scream as loud as he could into the microphone. He wouldn't have needed a microphone, considering the size of the room, to piss us all off. So we all went back outside. The moral of this story is, do not get ones hopes up when one hears of an event in Tonami.

So... Last weekend I was sitting around with another Jet trying to think of something to do. It was so boring it was almost painful. Eventually it wass decided we would just drive. Drive to the next town. This place was even worse than Tonami. It was so bad, that during our walk through the town, we found ourselves whispering to each other. It was mid afternoon. The shop doors were open, but no-one was inside. No-one was outside. The only people we saw was two sets of boys kicking a soccerball in the middle of the street. It seemed like the calm before an air raid.

So maybe Tonami isn't so bad after all. But from now on, it is important that we make our own fun here, preferably without getting arrested.

Accustomisation to Japan?

There comes a time when you start becoming accustomed to your new life. Its a process of forgetting that you are new and different, and of being trusted in your new position. The other day I was in the lunchroom with all the senior students and teachers at my school. It was a great meal. It was a Chinese Viking. "Viking" is a Japanese word that I find quite unbelieveable. It denotes a buffet, because-get this- you take what you want... just like a viking... Then when you put the word "Viking" after "Chinese", it takes on a sinister ironic meaning. I can think of a more recent and relevant example of a race trying to take what they want... But I don't think it is my place to teach about Japanese war crimes.

Anyhow... So I was eating away, like a Viking. It was really a great meal. You know when you eat delicious food when you have a huge appetite, and you really forget yourself? Well, I was in that zone. For some reason, I stopped eating and looked up, presumably to come up for air. I ended up looking at a mirror at the other end of the dining hall, right back at myself. It was at that moment I realised: "man, I'm a freak!".

Yes, I know, I am offensively foreign. But maybe, after the months go by, I will have these experiences less and less, and I will truly start feeling like I belong. God, I hope not.

The other teachers at my school (presuming that I am also a teacher), are also warming to me. Part of that may have to do with going out with 7 of them to a very expensive restaurant. I was driving, so couldn't drink. That was a shame, and to be honest, quite a rare occurrence. Anyhow, the meal was very good though. However, there was just an overkill of plates, bowls, dishes, cups, coasters, napkin rings, sculptures etc. I counted infront of me, at least 15 items that would need to be washed later on. And that was only the first course (of many). At times it seemed more like a pottery exhibition than dinner. This does explain the very low unemployment rate in Japan. They always need dish-hands.

The following day came the moment when I finally became accepted. See, my actual job title is as ALT. "Assistant Language Teacher". The emphasis is always on the A. Often I feel more like a pet than a teacher. The English teachers might take me for a walk or two every day, but I could never play in the yard without a leash. I may sound complainy right now, but considering my teaching resume, this is probably the right call.Well, anyways, that following day, one of my teachers took me aside and said "Ruben, I have some bad news... we are going to have to put you down...". No, I'm kidding. He said he had a meeting when we were supposed to have a class. "Can you please take the class on your own?".

You know what they say, you take a dog off its leash, and it will run wild. Here I was, the new, unqualified, inexperienced, 21 year old foriegner, thrown into the deep end. It was fantastic. To be honest, it didn't really make much difference. It was almost the same lesson as the one before: half an hour of a word game, and then I sang and played two songs on the guitar. For one song, I even played a long intro. That really has no relevance to learning English, but it was fun. I wasn't an Assistant this time. I wasn't teaching language, and to be honest, I wasn't even teaching. I was the "anti ALT". But for that moment, that special moment, I was trusted in my job and I forgot I was new and different.

Today, because of time restraints, I can only tell one of two stories. So you'll have to choose which one you want to hear. I can write about my trip into Tokyo to see my old host family and friends from last time when I was in Japan, and how it was the best trip ever. Or i can talk about when my car broke down in the middle of the road...

I'll give you some time to make your choice...

So you want to hear about my misfortunes? You sicken me. But it was the right choice... It went something like...

Stuck in the Middle

You may remember me saying that it was ironic that the biggest purchase of my life was a free car. The only piece of advice I can give is, "when you pay over $2000NZ for a free car, make sure it wont crap out after 10 days."

It was already late when I left school. I never stay much past 5pm, but on this day, it was 6:30 before I left. Anyways, I was driving home, and the radio cut out. I don't watch many horror movies, but I should've taken this as a sign of bad things to come. I didn't think much of it, so I put my foot down... the radio went back on... hmmm...
Any normal guy would've immediately recognised that there was something wrong. But not naiive little Ruben. I actually played with the accellerator so that the radio would stay on... And then I came up to a set of traffic lights, 2 blocks from my apartment. The car stopped. It was a catastrophic power failure at a reasonably busy set of traffic lights...

Well. I soon realised the shortcomings of an automatic car. I couldn't get it into neutral. There and then it dawned on me how funny the situation was. I wasn't too worried. Surely someone would stop and help, probably some jumperleads would do the trick. I remember back in New Zealand when my friend first started driving. He had managed to roll the car into a ditch. Now, this was no busy intersection. This is the countryside. On the other side of that ditch was a paddock for cows. However, the very first car that came up this road stopped, took out a cable that was apparently waiting for a moment such as this, and towed the car out. All I needed was someone with jumperleads to stop for a few minutes. I put the bonnet up in the international signal for "help, my car is broken". So I wasn't too worried.

After almost 10 minutes of waiting at the lights with the bonnet, noone had so much as wound down their window. So I called a few Jet people in the town, who were extremely helpful. So anyways, there I was, with a lifeless car at the intersection. I was pretty hungry by now, and luckily I had half a packet of peanut and perssimon seed mix. It's a very nice combination. If you aren't sure what a perssimon is, don't worry, It took me nearly a whole year of living in Japan before I had ever seen a real live one. But the seeds are so damn tasty. I can just sit there eating them for hours, oblivious to time...

Unfortunately, they ran out, and all I had to entertain me was watching car after car drive past me and my lifeless car. The drivers would stare, but not stop. "Japan is supposed to be a country full of nice people" I thought. Noone would even acknowledge me. "Maybe they are too busy". "Maybe they are scared of the foreigner". And then the most obvious answer came to me: "Maybe they have even less knowledge about cars than I do. I mean, this is the country where most people take their cars to a mechanic to change their tyres". A few people did acknowledge me but honking their horn. "Thanks..."

After more than 40 minutes, one of the local Jets arrived with our mechanic(also where I bought my car from). He had gone to the auto shop, which at 7:30 was well closed. I'm told that as soon as he heard my car had stopped, the mechanic, who until then was relaxing after a hard day's work, picked up the keys to his van and said a japanese automotive equivalent to "to the batmobile!".

He really did save the day. He managed to get it started and drive it back to the garage, leaving me to drive the batmobile. And I thought my car was a piece of crap... This van had the maneouverability of a passenger train. And it was filled with automotive equipment, tools, spare parts and a large jet engine. If I had of crashed, it would be like standing in a toolshed in the path of a tornado...

But it was such an entertaining night. It sounds stupid, but I had so much fun. And my faith in the Japanese people being nice was restored when the mechanic told me he'd fix my car for free, and lend me another. And everyone lived happily ever after.