Work was
pretty positive this week. Most of my classes felt really good (and it’s so
wonderful to watch students leave class smiling!). I did the math, and realized
that in just over two months I will have taught every Round-up grammar class at
least once. That will mean so much less preparation than before. And I’m
two weeks away from Golden Week, a nine-day holiday for me.
In
class, I’m back to doing games for a warm-up. In training, we were taught a few
games (not unlike theatre games) intended for getting students thinking and
talking in English. In Matsue, the usual warm-up is just to pair students up and
get them talking about a given subject, or ask, “What’s new?” to everybody in
the class and elicit conversation. But I think a good game helps boost the
energy, and that’s vital when people show up at 7 or 8pm, tired after a long day
at work or school. So I’ve used a “hot potato” word association game, and a
memory game where people have to remember what everyone else in the room said,
and non-stop speaking, where students speak about a topic in full sentences
without stopping until the timer goes off (students find this one difficult, but
engaging). If the theatre folk reading this can send me any short, simple
theatre games involving words or speaking, or very short singing games, I’d
appreciate it. Also some short tongue-twisters would be
great!
Mayumi-sensei,
the head teacher here, uses a lot of glossy pictures cut from magazines to
introduce class topics to students. Johnny Depp is a hot topic, as he is one of
the only cool Western celebrities recognized by almost all Japanese (Brad Pitt
is familiar, too, but after that you’re treading unfamiliar territory). She also
has a weakness for pictures of food, or “Food Porn”, as I like to call it, and
has a folder full of pictures of saucy, spicy brown chicken thighs, warm, gooey
Brie slathered in dripping pear sauce, quivering pannacotta topped with
glistening, juicy strawberries, and round, ripe berries spilling over pillowy,
warm, sticky waffles. …where, was I? Oh yes, I’m talking about food…
(Margaret at the bookstore always knew when I was hungry because I’d wander down
to browse the “Cuisine” section.) Mayumi-sensei is very popular with the
students; when I ask students how their lesson with her was, they usually say,
“exciting” or “funny”. She is kind of quiet and very kind and encouraging, with
a cute little giggle, and has been teaching for a long time. I think she’s very
good at giving a context for what her students are learning and making it
personal to them, so they can see what use it is in daily life and conversation.
I think I still sometimes just mechanically go through parts of the lesson
without personalizing it, but I’m getting better at asking lots of questions and
getting students involved.
On
Wednesday, Ryoko-san, the branch manager, took me with her to Shimane
University, or Shimadai for short, to hand out pamphlets. As I mentioned last
week, a new semester started this month, so as we walked across the busy campus
at 11:30 in the morning, the university clubs were outside drumming up new
members. It was very busy and noisy. We ran into Kohei and Shinnosuke, two of
our students. They are good friends and charming young men. Kohei is tall and
skinny and good-looking, with rumpled hair and a big smile. Shinnosuke is
shorter and kind of heavy-eyed and sleepy-looking, with spiky hair and a wisp of
a moustache. They sometimes work part-time for AEON handing out flyers or
putting up posters. I liked teaching them, although they were often tired from
studying/partying hard. Listening to their stories makes me tired! They laughed
and talked with Ryoko-san before wandering off again.
We set
up in front of the campus bookstore and café to hand out flyers. You know how I
feel about this onerous task, but I was in a good mood today. We handed out 200
flyers, and I smiled until my jaw was sore, and said, “Hello! How are you? Have
a nice day!” over and over again. I was a little distracted when I caught a
glimpse of a demonstration by the university aikido club out in the courtyard,
but I couldn’t see it clearly and they were gone by the time we finished. Dang!
I’ve been having a hard time making it to my aikido class on Saturday night. I’m
always late and exhausted, so it’s not ideal. I’m trying to find other places
and times more convenient for practice.
Taeko
unintentionally caused a fuss twice on Wednesday, first by going to the wrong
school, so Ryoko-san had to go back to Ekimae and pick her up, then by
forgetting something she needed for class, so Ryoko-san had to make a second
trip. At the end of the day, when we returned to Ekimae, I learned after Taeko
left that Ryoko-san has a big problem with her. The biggest problem of all,
Ryoko said, is that Taeko’s Japanese is not polite. She’s too casual when
talking with the students. Taeko’s casualness is one of the reasons I like her,
but this is Japan. You really have to obey the forms of language or risk
alienating people and, in this case, losing students. Ryoko asked me to help
make sure Taeko understands what is expected of her. So essentially I’m the
foreigner translating for two Japanese, which I find very weird. But I want to
help; I really like having Taeko around, and at the same time don’t want Ryoko
to get too stressed out. Ryoko drove me home, but invited me to eat supper at an
Italian restaurant first. So we went to a nice place and ordered pasta and pizza
to share. This was the first time I’ve done anything with Ryoko outside of work,
although she’s dropped some hints about doing things before. I think she wants
to be my friend, but we are kept at arm’s length by her position as my boss and
also her imperfect English and my poor Japanese. I think she feels kind of
lonely sometimes; all she really does is work, especially at this time of year.
On the way home, she showed me where her mother’s hair salon was, so I could
come for my haircut in the morning.
I showed
up at the salon next morning at 10am with some magazines to give me inspiration.
I liked a picture of Reese Witherspoon with bangs so much that, in a fit of
whimsy, I got bangs again for the first time since high school. Ryoko’s mother
was a tall, poised woman with a husky voice and a salty laugh. Ryoko sat nearby
(it was her day off) and translated while her mother washed and cut my hair,
then gave me a powerful scalp and neck massage. When she was done and I looked
at myself in the mirror, I had momentary qualms. First, I looked nothing like
Reese Witherspoon. Second, I had a horrific flashback to my high school days
when I perfected the shaggy dog look. But, after a second, the feeling passed
and I decided that I liked the cut. It’s nice. It kind of suits me. Today, I
really like it.
On
Friday, it never once occurred to me that it was Friday the 13th. I
had a lazy morning and experimented with my hair. I taught a couple of private
lessons, two group lessons, and did some prep work. Next week, Mayumi-sensei
will observe two of my lessons, so I want them to be good. Tim, who trained me
in Okayama back in December, was supposed to come observe me as I teach, but
he’s busy and won’t make it until May. Once he or Mimi has seen my lesson, they
will decide if they will offer me a contract extension. I’m doing well, so I’m
pretty confident they will extend, but I want a big bonus on my salary as well.
After class, I went to Nihonglish and saw some friends. One of my students,
Hiro, was there with some of his medical school classmates (he’s studying to
become a surgeon). His wife had also come; she’s a doctor, and wanted to
practice English because they both want to move to the States to work. I talked
with them for a while, and to a couple of other people I knew, before I got
stuck at the table with TWO OF THE MOST BORING PEOPLE I HAVE EVER MET for an
excruciatingly long time. I’m being unkind; they were two women who didn’t speak
a lot of English and were kind of quiet and shy. But they were also boring. The
Japanese couple who were talking with them when I sat down took my arrival as an
opportunity to flee. I couldn’t leave; it would have been mean. So I was trapped
making desultory conversation with them and hoping they would decide to leave.
Which they finally did. Ahh! I also got hit on by a skinny young Columbian with
bedroom eyes who is studying at Shimadai, which was flattering and kind of made
up for getting sucked into the black hole of tedium.
Saturday
was beautiful and I didn’t get rained on during my bike ride between schools. I
had two small classes at Shimadai Mae, then rode back to
Ekimae. It was kind
of crazy there. All the teachers but me were busy with back-to-back classes, and
Mayumi-Sensei had to do one of two interviews as well. Ryoko and Nozu-san, the
managers, looked drained and ready for sleep. I felt kind of guilty; my schedule
these days is light, compared to what it was before April. We have a lot of new
low-level students, and I don’t teach them; I just get the higher-level students
who don’t need a bilingual teacher to explain things, just someone who talks
slowly. (I still have to learn the skill of talking slowly and simply, without
clutter…)
We have
a new class at AEON that Mayumi-sensei teaches, called Phonics. It is for
improving pronunciation. All the students taking it record themselves at the
beginning of the course, reading one-syllable words and a short dialogue out
loud. I, as the resident native English speaker, listen without looking at the
words and write down exactly what I hear (Mayumi-sensei specifically asked me
not to be tolerant). I also taped my own voice for comparison. Playing it back,
I think I noticed a change in my voice.. It sounds – well, a little different.
It sounds stronger I guess talking in a classroom situation is having a positive
effect on my voice. Interesting.
I got
out of work late and tired on Saturday, and I didn’t make it to aikido - again.
I went home, where I was delighted to find two packages waiting for me. One was
from Sally and Chris and included pictures of Joey on a disc and a
Saltscapes magazine. The other was from Sam and included the lovely
blue-gray sweater I am presently wearing, plus a “Beowulf” colouring book and
coloured pencils. Thank you all!
I had
supper and fell asleep until 10pm. Then I fussed over my outfit for way longer
than I should have before putting on a pair of retro jeans and a button-up shirt
with a hair band, going for a tomboyish 50’s style to go dancing at Hydro
Reaction. I got there shortly after 11 and danced until about 2:30. Seiji was
the first DJ, then Reiko, then Aki and finally Cleve. Reiko looked ethereal as
she DJ’d, with short elflocks of hair spilling around the headphones and framing
her intent face. Seiji is the least experienced as a DJ, but his choices were
the most fun. Unlike the last Disco back in January, I drank moderately and
danced a lot more. It was a lot of fun, but very
smoky.
I woke
up at 10 this morning, when Kathy Phillips called. She’s a close friend of my
mum. Kathy and her friend Diana are travelling in Japan for a month, and it
sounds like they’re having a fabulous time! They were in Kyoto, and Diana was
engaged in conversation with some small children while Kathy talked with me.
They’re doing a lot and people are being very friendly to them. I’m envious
about Kyoto, but I think I may go in August. After I got off the phone, I went back
to sleep. I got out of bed after 12, and made plans with Seiji to go to the
budokan. I had heard of a Sunday afternoon aikido class, and Seiji was going to
be my translator. However, the training hall was empty when we went up, although
the muffled shouts of the children playing ping-pong downstairs could be heard.
This alternate aikido club just rents the space and apparently they don’t always
come. So we waited a while and I explained some of the ideas behind aikido and
why I like it (one of my favourite pastimes) to Seiji. We finally gave up
waiting and walked back towards the biggest canal, where we had passed what
looked like a street festival on the way. It was a sunny day, and nice, although
a cool breeze was blowing. We could hear music, and as we came to the widest
street, we saw food stands, stalls selling used clothes and jewellery, and a
musicians’ tent set up with two young men playing guitars. They were pretty good
and we listened for a while. We wandered back to an open space protected from
the sun by an enormous red umbrella, where we got some food from two of the
stalls to try. I got a stick of octopus tempura (I kid you not), and Seiji got
some takoyaki (also octopus, in a ball of fried dough, with a sweet and spicy
sauce). They were interesting, but I don’t think I could really get over the
tentacle thing. Then we wandered down to the sweet shop where I had made wagashi
for the WINK! Photo shoot, and I bought sakura-mochi, my new favourite snack,
and talked to the dear old man (He says the secret of the sakura-mochi’s
delicious aroma is cinnamon). We were wandering again along the cobbled streets
when a vaguely familiar woman in front of one of the shops called my name. She
knew me from Nihonglish, and she asked us to wait for a moment “Chotto matte,
kudasai” before gesturing to us to come into the shop. Curious, we walked into
the shop, through a little passageway into the back shop, through another door
into a very old-fashioned tearoom/café with low tables and benches and light
brown plaster walls. The woman pressed us to sit down beside a woman and a man.
The woman was poised and strikingly pretty, probably in her late thirties, with
rectangular blue glasses and her hair pulled back into a sweeping ponytail. The
man was in his fifties, also with rectangular glasses, a patterned blue vest and
beret. If ever a pair of people looked like artists, this was the pair. I never
figured out the man’s occupation, but she was a singer and owned a nearby bar
where she sang every night. Apparently she had been in musicals in Tokyo. This
is why we had been introduced; the woman from Nihonglish remembered I had
mentioned acting before. They didn’t speak much English, but I practiced my
Japanese, and if I really didn’t understand what was being said, I looked to
Seiji to translate. It was really enjoyable, although communication was
challenging. The man bought some boxes of sweets from a travelling vendor and
gave them to us before moving to another table to talk to some other men. We had
green tea and chatted for a while. A young man who worked at the store or was
maybe the son of the owner sat down with us. He told us a nearby group was
practicing taiko drumming and we should go see it.
We
excused ourselves and went out into the street. Seiji hesitated, not sure where
to go to see the drumming, but soon we had our answer as the rumble of the drums
reached us. We followed the sound down a side street to a small parking lot,
where a small group of people were clustered around a pair of taiko drums on a
wheeled platform, pounding on it rhythmically. The drums came up past my waist,
and were four or five feet across. Four women were playing, and a tiny girl was
playing for the first time; she was almost sitting on the drum to play it. Three
men and a woman were playing small, shrill pipes like recorders to accompany the
drummers, and a few other people were sitting around drinking water or beer (a
cooler sat nearby) and listening. An older man arrived and took a pair of small
cymbals on a red tasselled cord around his neck, and exchanging light banter
with some of the others, began to clash the cymbals together in
time.
There is
a drum festival, called Do Gyoretsu, in October, and ten or eleven of the
neighbourhoods in Matsue take part. Each neighbourhood has its own style of
drumming, and they try to outdo each other. This was Tohonshu neighbourhood, and
they were practicing for a performance next Sunday at SATY. We watched for a
while, and were just about to walk away when one of the young women who were
drumming gestured us over and offered us each a pair of drumsticks. They were
large, thick, surprisingly light mallets. I touched the surface of the drum, and
could feel how it shivered and vibrated at the slightest touch, almost like it
was alive. We stood awkwardly for a moment, unsure what to do, then the young
woman showed us how to drum and more people came to play. Wow! It was amazing,
playing with them. I wasn’t very good at first, but slowly got the hang of it.
Boom! Boom-boom! The recorders and the cymbals played around us. I watched the
girl who had invited us; she was small and delicate, but had a free, almost
ecstatic look on her face as she swung the drumsticks. We probably played for
about twenty minutes – long enough for my wrists to get tired, but I didn’t want
to stop. If I can find the time, I could play in the festival with one of the
neighbourhoods. That would be exciting!
We said
goodbye and bowed to our hosts, then wandered back to the budokan and Seiji’s
car, still kind of amazed at how the afternoon had turned out. Seiji said things
like that – getting dragged into the café, and getting invited to drum – never
happened when he was by himself. He said it was me. There are some advantages to
being a foreigner here. People were so incredibly open and friendly today.
We went
for a snack at a Chinese café, and drank lots of Chinese tea while overlooking a
square garden framed with young bamboo trees. Then I had to get home, and Seiji
had to open Kaya. Seiji kind of spoiled the mood by repeating his feelings for
me, making us both feel very awkward. He was my first friend in Japan, but I
just can’t return his feelings.
So here
I sit, typing away, with a lot of mixed feelings about the day/week/Japan in
general. Mostly I’m feeling pretty good. In June, when I get a contract offer
for next year, I plan to accept it (hey, I’m paying off a lot of debt!), but I
don’t know if I will stay in Matsue. The lack of theatre is a big thing, so I
want to go to a bigger city. Whatever I do, though, I’m planning to be home for
Christmas. I want to see you all. And have a party!
Thinking
of you all…
Sarah
P.S.
About Facebook…
I
discovered Facebook last week, as all of you on Facebook know by now. I decided
to look at it because I had heard it mentioned about three times in as many
days. I discovered this extremely addictive and rapidly expanding website
community. Within three days of signing on, I had over 50 ‘Friends’. You can
‘poke’ people, just so they know you thought of them. Childhood friends I
haven’t seen in decades contacted me. Weird. Obsessive. For good or ill, this is
where most of my free time went this
week…