Last Impressions Last


Every morning before I left my apartment, I read this following paragraph:

“I am not a teacher. I have never wanted to be one, nay, I have always not wanted to be one. I’m a student. I’m a writer. I’m 21.”


I wrote it over a year and a half ago, so of course, it is a little bit dated. That was the point though. It’s true that when I was a child, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. Of course, I toyed with the idea of being a professional basketball player and buying my parents a house shaped like a basketball. Didn’t we all? I also had a small phase where I thought I would like to be a photographer, until I realised that most of the time, professional photographers are taking photos of people’s pets and children. Or, you have to go to a malaria-rich country and sit in a tree for weeks on end waiting for a particular type of bird to have sex or to lay eggs for a National Geographic special. Both sound awful to me.


Whenever someone would ask me what I wanted to be, I would look him or her or it in the eye and say “Not a teacher”.


Then I became a teacher. This is an important lesson in testing fate. To be fair, I wasn’t a real teacher in Japan, but it was important to not forget what I really wanted to do.


This is what I said in my farewell speech at my school. I think it rubbed some teachers the wrong way, as it implies that I never took my job seriously. I felt that I was never really going to help the students improve their English with the way the education system is. I wasn’t supposed to come to English classes close to exams because “The students are studying for the test”. Also, I puke in my own shoes at the idea of “internationalising”, in fact, that is the bulk of the book that I’ve been writing. So maybe I did not take my job seriously.


This is not the same as ‘not caring’. After 2 years of seeing the same kids every week, it’d be impossible not to. I just wanted the kids to have some variety in their lives. You see the specialisation occurring early. Kids having to choose only one club for their entire junior high school lives, until the last 6 months when they have to quit in order to allow time to do practice exams for entry into high school. So I didn’t teach. Teaching is making sure that all the kids do the work. This is hard.


I only wanted the kids to have some fun, and if they learnt something, that’s great. I tried to be interesting beyond my appearance and my stupid party tricks and badly played instruments. Maybe they don’t get it yet, but maybe one day they’ll have a fleeting thought about their old ALT. Does he still live in Holland? Does he still do stupid party tricks and play music? Does he still study Japanese? Wait, wasn’t that the girl ALT, or was that the other ALT?


Naturally, I’m trying to justify two years of my life, of keeping my real dreams on hold for the shallow goal of simply “being in Japan”. But as of last week, I am no longer a teacher. This is exciting.
Also, as of next week, I will be homeless. Also exciting.

As a farewell than-you to my students, I made a special present. See, every single morning and lunchtime at my main school, the PA announcements were begun by the Madonna Song "Holiday". Personally, I hate Madonna. I hate her music, and her person. However, this song brings up many good memories from the last 2 years. Most of those good memories involve eating lunch, which is awesome. Also, every student at three different schools wrote me a letter which were presented to me at the closing ceremonies. Many of them drew a picture of me too. So, I combined the two things, gave it my own personal touch (not a very good one), and here it is:



Sorry that it is poorly made, but that's my personal touch that I mentioned before. No-one does it badly as well as I do.

Anyhow, if that was all a little bit too serious, here is a classic anecdote from Wednesday night.

Trees.


I believe that trees are good for two things: hugging and climbing.


Last night I was coming home from the main bar in our small town. I had been drinking for seven hours. It is the Japanese way. The last month has seen drinking parties on most days, and the other days are training.


The point is, I may have been slightly under the influence. Well, the main street has several large trees. My friend Tim, casually walks up to one, and kicks the stump with the sole of his shoe. Suddenly, the tree erupts with hundreds disturbed sparrows flying away in all directions, in a Pandora’s Box effect. It was pretty awesome. I was so impressed that I too wanted to try.


I spot the next tree up ahead, larger than the one before. I take off my right sandal and launch it straight at the centre of the tree. The sandal disappeared into the foliage. It was like an explosion of sparrows. It was like hell opening up and harpies coming out to plague the earth. Sweet!


However, my sandal never came out of the tree. It was still somewhere up there. Luckily, of the two things that trees are good for, climbing is one of them. After some “accidental organic pruning”, I managed to get up into the tree. However, I couldn’t see the sandal. I systematically start to shake the branches, going from limb to limb. Then I notice that Tim is talking to someone in Japanese. I can’t see them because of the dense leaves. I listen in. It is the usual boring banal banter that Japanese people do to foreigners:


“What are you?”

Tim also is sick of this line of questioning and was answering with cheeky answers. The Japanese guy is audibly getting tired of not knowing what he is talking to, so he cuts to the chase with a common, more direct way of asking a white person what species of person they are:

“American?”


“Shitsurei Yo!” I shout from within the tree. (this means literally "You are being rude". So, in effect, the tree was telling him off.)It annoys me deeply when people just presume you as a nationality. I give up on trying to find my sandal- it was very cheap anyway, and come down.
The Japanese guy is pretty young, serious, small and unusually calm. He looks at my Orange soccer shirt.


“Oh, you’re from Poland?”


He starts going on about how I was causing a great disturbance. He assures me that Japanese people are morally superior and wouldn’t climb trees. He says he has no choice but to call the police. We didn’t want to call his bluff, so we just went home, as we were doing before my sandal was eaten up by the evil sparrow tree.


This story brings up many interesting points. Is it illegal to climb trees in Japan? By now, I have climbed most of the trees (and some of the buildings) in the main street of our town. Maybe it is. I seem to be ignorant of many laws. I went to the supermarket last week, and a staff approaches me with his fingers in an X sign. Either he is a big fan of the rapper X’ibit, or I am doing something wrong.


“I’m sorry, but you aren’t allowed in shops if you don’t have a shirt on.”


Really? That is a law? I did not know this. But surely, this supermarket, right alongside the beach would make exceptions? Right? I guess not. There is much I need to learn about laws. But for now, I will at least stick to just hugging trees. I don’t want to make any more disturbances.

Making the most

At this stage, everything I see and do is tainted with the thought of “This is the last time”. It is pathetic really. For example, I was at the supermarket the other day thinking, “This is the last time that I buy ketchup in Toyama”, and I was saddened. Pathetic.

I am trying to make the most of my last weeks in Toyama. The way I am doing this is by:

A) Staying up very late. This goes by my philosophy that an hour sleeping is an hour wasted. AND
B) Drinking alcohol.

Of course, combining staying up late and drinking alcohol leads to problems. Observe…

One Sunday night, I was sitting at home with a cup of tea. The night before had been a sober one, but I had stayed up very late. So I was just sitting on the tatami floor, not wearing a shirt or pants, in front of the fan. Everything was normal.

At 11pm I get a message, the gist being “want to go for a drink?” I mean, I am trying to make the most of my last weeks in Toyama, so I had to.

At 1:30, only 3 drinks later, I get home.

At 3:30 I wake up on my couch. In my sleepy stupor, I had failed to make it to my bed. I moped to my bed, set my alarms and crashed.

At 8:40 I wake up again. I check the time and say aloud:“This can’t be good”. I was supposed to be at school 10 minutes ago.

At 8:49 I leave my apartment, and drive the 15 minutes to the elementary school. I wasn’t too worried, since it was my elementary school day, and my first class begins at 9:30, which I had everything planned for. It would be pretty ridiculous if there were repercussions for being late.

At 9:00 the assistant principal of the elementary makes a phone-call to my main school to enquire about my whereabouts.

At 9:03 I arrive in front of the school and relax a little. At least I made it pretty much on the hour. I gather my teaching materials. I have a basket, a pair of shoes, a ukulele and my regular bag. It takes a few minutes to get my things together.

At 9:06 the English teacher at my main school, on request of the Vice-principal calls my cell phone. In my haste, I had left my cell phone at home. It rings harmlessly, and she leaves a message for me to listen at the end of the day.

At 9:06 I change shoes and walk to the staffroom. I stop to say hi to some teachers. They seem surprised to see me. I was determined to not make a big deal of being late, and I confidently walk into the staffroom and say good morning.

At 9:07 at my main school, the English teacher tells my Vice-principal that no-one answered my cell phone. Expecting the worst, but hoping for the best, he picks up his phone and calls my supervisor at the Board of Education.

I was completely oblivious to all of this until I saw the message on my phone, and until I talked to the copy-room lady at school. No-one else talked to me about it. It was the elephant in the room for the next few days, but I felt it was easiest to play dumb. I don’t have to try that hard.

But I shall continue to make the most out of every single day, and the ketchup I bought. After all, I only have 2 more weeks in Toyama.

Pon de Voyage!

It is time to get Ruben in Japanland back up and running, to be on time for the final farewell. The drop-off in posts has been due to a very good reason. I have been torturing myself in writing a book. Actually, I lie; writing the book was incredibly good fun. I would spend hours sitting at Mister Donuts tallying up the points on my pointcard, leaving not when I run out of ideas, but when I felt I had overstayed my welcome (usually at about 3 hours or the 8^th cup of free-refill coffee. I almost have enough points to claim a Pon de Lion Teddy bear, which will be a great souvenir of my last half year in Japan.

It was unfortunate that something had to give, and that it was Ruben in Japanland. However, now is the beginning of the end. My Japanese lessons have finished, my English lessons have finished, my basketball team is finished without me, and I am starting to say my first farewells.

I am not sad. Thursday was a great example of this. I was teaching a full day of older elementary school students (10-11 years old), and I decided to play a fun game with them, instead of playing bingo, as usual. Unfortunately it required the students to use initiative. This is apparently a gene that was weened out the Japanese DNA during the 400 years of national isolation (along with Christianity). I simply required that the students choose 8 letters of the alphabet at random and write them down. It didn't matter what they chose, and I explained this to them with English, Japanese, and gestures. Hell, I even wrote the entire alphabet on the blackboard in case they forgot the shape. How could this possibly go wrong?

"Ruben sensei! What colour do I write it?"

"Ruben sensei! Is this right? Look at mine!"

"Ruben sensei! He is out of his seat!"

"Ruben sensei! I don't understand!"

An exercise that I planned for 25 minutes took the entire class. Class after class, the same questions, the home room teacher attending to the one kid who is valiantly attempting to not do anything despite the teacher's best efforts. One kid was even running away from the teacher. And the teacher was chasing him! Then, he would come back to his desk and be safe. Seriously, once he got back to his desk, he was immune from punishment. At the end of the day, my knee ligaments strained for standing pointlessly at the front of class all day, I looked around at the chaos and the uninterested kids, and I looked outside. I knew which I'd prefer.

Luckily, I have a few more weeks of classes, which admittedly are better than usual, and then 1 1/2 months of unemployment in Japan.

Anyhow, just because Ruben in Japanland is back up, don't hold your breath for my book release. I will realistically pursue it and in the off chance anything comes of it, it could take a while. Otherwise, it will be my most precious memoir of this time in Japan. Well, my 2nd most precious memoir:

Pon de Lion.

"Ruben sensei! I don't understand!"

Graduation Season.

Yes, it was that time of year again. When the flowers come out, and the students you finally care about are replaced with new ones. Last year I forgot to take proper notes of this truly fascinating event, and I wasn't about to make the same mistake again.

The kids had been practicing for a whole week, perhaps longer. All I really know is, I was sitting at my desk reading the Internet. I'm now waiting for the sequel.

The graduating students have been with me my entire time at this school. This was also like my own graduation from this school, although I would have to hang around for another 4 months of dead weight. I was understandably sad.

I prepared for the ceremony by buying a 100 yen white tie. The formal attire for men is a black suit with a white shirt and a white tie. I don't have a white suit, but I thought I had better appear to try to look the part. For 100 yen, everyone is a winner; me, the students and other teachers, and the Chinese labourer who sewed my tie. Some call me a humanitarian, but it was just how I was raised.

I did question the reasoning behind a white tie and white shirt. I guess, as long as the tie is an off-white colour to my shirt, not to mention my face. In the end, I did pull it off well.

A few of the female teachers dressed in several layers of kimono and makeup. They are tied with an "obi", an intricate waist belt tied in such a way to give the subtle impression of a large back-growth, or that they are wearing wedgied, full adult diapers. Sexy.

The other women, including all the parents were wearing black. That, plus the male teachers in their black suits and the tears… it felt like a funeral at times.

Speaking of which, where are the male parents? Or is my town inhabited by the far-east Amazonian tribe?

The gymnasium was decorated in the formal style of a circus tent. Red and white stripes all along the sides. Also, the wooden floor was completely covered with green plastic sheets, taped together, to prevent the wooden floor from getting dirty. Huh? What is that? Why? What is a "mop"? Is it some magical wand that can clean floors? Don't be ridiculous!

A bunch of old people walk in. I think they are supposed to be important because they principal leads them towards the empty seats at the front. But they could just as easily be retirement home war veterans who get the priority seats.

Standing up feels like a divisive policy. It just takes me much longer to stand all the way up, and I always miss the cue. I always look like a fool.

The graduating students walk in, their uniforms 3 years too small for them, and with a corsage on their blazer. They look so… awkward.

A girl and a boy stand up and walk neatly to the front. The bow to the front, turn right towards the war veterans and bow again. It looks like the girl is sniffing the boy's ass. Then they turn the other way towards the principal, and the boy has a go. Am I the only one who finds this funny? I look around. Apparently so. Not even one of the 13 years finds this at all amusing.

All the graduands mechanically walk and bow from their seats to the stage, get their certificate, and walk and bow their way back. The tape deck blasts out a sappy music that sounds like an instrumental version or Coolios's "see you when you get there". I lip synch to pass the boredom.

The principal makes a speech. He is wearing a penguin suit, and really looks the part. I wanted to throw him an umbrella, and he would just fly away. Although I wasn't there, I know for a fact that during the practices, the entire ceremony was acted out with all the students and teachers. Right down to giving the actual certificates, and the principal giving his speech. Hell, the entire speech was on the practice schedule, handed out to all the teachers (and probably the students).

I get bored. My mind wanders into magical realms of other places. I think I need to pee. I shouldn't have had that second cup of coffee in the morning. Oh shit, is he finishing his speech now? Don't make us stand up now, I think I have an erection. Yes, it definitely is. Luckily I was holding my program.

There is nothing like spending the most important day of your 15 year old life so far, listening to old people you don't know from the city government departments talk about how proud they are. They all require we stand up.

The other kids sing some songs. The lyrics are on the program. I think 95 percent of Japanese song lyrics are about mountains, rivers and flowers and symbolic things in nature. The other 5 percent is senseless English. Oh man, I think one of the teachers next to me farted. I wonder if it was the one in the kimono.

The students walk out to the instrumental tune of Auld lang syne, which actually has Japanese lyrics too. Although, they are about fireflies. The veterans are led out. Many glare at me, including the one who appears to have a wooden leg.

It was over. Almost. After half an hour, we all gathered outside so we could wave goodbye to the graduating students as the walk out of the school. Many shook hands with teachers and took photos of me. Only a few of those actually asked for my photo. I felt like the subject of a nature documentary.

This is graduation. I had to repeat it twice more at elementary schools. That 100 yen tie really got some mileage. But really, why was I so sad again?





Oh, that's why...