Friday

Friday

Today I ran into a student who I drank tequila with at Ellaine’s birthday. He's fairly handsome and I would have taken home in October had he not been too drunk to not take me up on the offer. This is the same student who I licked in a bar in Ginza. (Seriously. I was so drunk that when he leaned over to say something to me, I licked him, licked his neck. You just don't forget someone after a drunken licking, you know?)

Tonight he showed up for a lesson and I talked with him for a bit then said to him, "Takeshi, have you met the new teacher?" He said no, so I turned to the New Guy, “New Guy! Have you met Takeshi?”

The student held out his hand. “My name is Masashi,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

Friday

After the teacher’s meeting, for some reason we got on the subject of handshakes. Students don’t like to shake hands, but sometimes I make them practice. A Japanese teacher said that he never shook hands in class with women, but he would do it with men. I asked why. He said that it was like he was overstepping his bounds if she tried to shake a woman’s hand. He said, “Would you hug a student in greeting during a lesson?” “Nan’da?” I said, incredulously. “No. But we don’t hug people we’ve just met either in greeting or when we part, so I wouldn’t teach it to students. We’re here to teach culture, too. Shaking hands is cultural.” The head teacher came in and the Japanese teacher asked her if she shook hands in class. “Of course,” she said.

I made Ken practice shaking hands.

Friday

Friday is Aki’s day off. The day before, she managed The Kaisha on her own while the manager and head teacher went to a meeting at The Kaisha’s head office. For a while, when I wasn’t busy, I sat up at the counter and helped her with flyers and gossiped about students. Something made me mention the rich but creepy architect who I thought was just a total waste of space. About a month ago, the guy took a leave of absence from the school, and I haven’t seen him since, thank god.

“I saw him on TV,” Aki said.

“What was he doing on TV?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. The phone rang and she answered it. I stuffed a few flyers into a few plastic envelopes and thought about what she said. Here’s something:t Aki is not dumb. If someoone--one of our students, for example--is on TV, she knows why they’re on TV. The other thing is that, yes, she is Japanese and has a Japanese habit of never saying anything directly. And, yes, she is also not supposed to divulge any personal information about students--regardless of whether than same personal information is on the news or not.

When she got off the phone, I asked, “Was he on the news?” She said, “I don’t know.” I told her something that she already knows about me, “I don’t watch the news.” She said, “You can look at the news on the internet.”

Ahhh...

I turned to the computer, knowing that it’s against The Kaisha rules to use the computer to access the internet, but also knowing that she wouldn’t stop me, and I typed the creepy architect’s name into Google. The Japan Times had an article. Aki pointed at the screen. “Oh, there’s his business name,” she said and went back to the flyers. I clicked on the article and quickly scanned it.

Turns out the rich creepy architect, my former student, is now being questioned by the quote unquote authorities about his role in building sub-par buildings. That is, his company knowingly designed buildings that will not withstand a major earthquake. In Japan--and especially in Tokyo, where a major quake is twenty years overdue--this is not just a faux pas, it’s actually against the law.

So, yeah, the rich architect is not just creepy, he’s also a criminal--excuse me--alleged criminal.

Friday

The New Guy is having a bit of trouble adjusting. (Just ignore this bit of news, Jim. (And, yes, I know it’s not Jim The Trainer who’s reading the blog, but just for the sake of continuity, I’ll go on referring to the real trainer who is reading the blog as Jim The Trainer).)

The New Guy sits next to me on the train from Asakusa and he looks angry and dejected and I say, “It looks to me like you’re going to run.”

He says, “I just wish they hadn’t lied to me.”

I know what he’s talking about, so let me explain:

In the States, The Kaisha recruiters sometimes sell the job as it exists on paper. For example, on paper, the job requires 29.5 hours a week.. This bit of fiction is legally what The Kaisha schedules us for so as to keep from having to provide a certain kind of insurance to its foreign employees. (The insurance costs them a lot of money, so this bit of fiction saves them several billions of yen per year.) So, yes, it is convenient for The Kaisha to have this be our legal workweek. The week looks like 29.5 hours, but there are all kinds of tricks to get around this. For example, I am scheduled in at 1:00 p.m. However, my first class starts at 1:00 p.m., so if I want to be prepared for class, I have to be there early. I also have a three-hour break in the middle of my day. That’s right. A three-hour break. In smaller cities in Japan, teachers might actually go home for that break because they live within walking distance of work. Since our commute is about forty minutes by train, this is not an option for me and New Guy, so we end up staying in the office--and usually working. We are also scheduled until 9:00. However, the last class ends at 9:00 and there are usually things to do after that hour, so we end up leaving closer to 10:00. So, the six hour workday turns into a 10-hour workday--and that doesn’t include the commuting time. If you include the commuting time from Higashimukojima to Ginza, it’s more like a 12-hour day.

New Guy doesn’t like this.

There are other things he doesn’t like. The 29.5 hour paper week doesn’t include prep time for lessons--and that time, when you first start the job, is considerable. It doesn’t include things that we are requested to do like help run sales campaigns. It doesn’t include the time we spend correcting students work or counseling students outside of class. These are unpaid hours.

It’s a job. It’s a job in Japan. New Guy has yet to learn this--or to learn how to deal with this. He resents having been lied to and in his mind, the imaginary picture of all the fun things he was going to do in his free time is being slowly erased by the reality of a 45 or 50 hour workweek.

I suspect that there are other factors, too. For example, New Guy got here just before Christmas. Christmas is not a big deal in Japan--and I’d been here long enough when Christmas rolled around not to care overmuch that it was Christmas--but it is a big deal to those Westerners who do care and who are faced with celebrating Christmas on their own in a place that doesn’t really do Christmas. Since I had planned to meet up with friends, I invited New Guy who said he “might” meet up with his training group--though later he said he hadn’t. A few days after Christmas was New Guy’s birthday. He celebrated that alone as well. (I did invite him to do something on that days, but he declined.) So yes, he arrived at a difficult time of year. And, too, Higashimukojima is a charming neighborhood. It’s charming but it’s on the extreme east end of Tokyo and getting to anywhere exciting (Shinjuku, Harajuku) takes an hour or more even after you learn how to get there (before you learn the system, it can take several hours to get anywhere because you’re always lost and freaked out). And Tokyo is unexpectedly expensive. Since you have to float the first month until your first full paycheck, it can be a bit harrowing to watch your savings get swallowed up even while you're working really hard at your 29.5-hour-a-week job. Yes, everyone knows that Tokyo is an expensive city, but it’s difficult to anticipate just how and where it’ll be expensive. By that I mean that it’s Japanese--not American--expensive, which is difficult to explain but easy to resent.

There are other reasons why New Guy is having difficulty. One is is because he has resisted making new friends. (I understand this habit because I did the same thing when I first got here.) Now, since I do socialize on a fairly regular basis, I habitually extend to New Guy the invitation to go out with students or to other places. He has taken me up on a single invitation but has declined all the others. Also, New Guy used to work for a gym and is used to a lot of physical activity. (Yes, you do walk in Tokyo, but that’s not the same as lifting weights or being able to zone out on the elliptical trainer.) When I invited New Guy to join my gym and get in a few good workouts he seemed interested, but then declined. After making a few more offers--all of which he resisted--I dropped the subject. Another reason New Guy is having difficulty is that he has resisted exploring Tokyo on his own. For example, when I asked him last night what he does on the weekends, he said he could explore Tokyo, but instead he sits in his apartment and drinks beer.

Okay, I’ll give the New Guy this much: Tokyo isn’t the easiest place in the world to live. Neither he nor I speak the language. (I have the advantage here from having studied some Japanese so I can understand a lot and speak very basic phrases.) We are both, for all practical purposes, functionally illiterate. It can be difficult to get around and people in Tokyo are less helpful than people in smaller cities (this is a big city, Tokyo, sort of like New York--and Tokyoites are like New Yorkers in that they are on the move). Even though they aren't as friendly in Tokyo, they still retain the same curiousity about and wariness of foreigners that occurs in smaller cities in Japan. So, I know that Tokyo can be difficult. There is also the reality that we work for and with a group of what appear to be twelve-year-olds. (Honestly, I think part of it is that the people we communicate most with at work speak English and the more fluent they are, the likelier it is that they learned their English when they were in their early teens, so they sound like teenagers when they speak English.) But even the appearance of working for wishy-washy Japanese twelve-year-olds is hard to deal with when you’re used to a kind of no-nonsense American vibe. Also, New Guy is about the same age I am, 33. It’s hard (but necessary) to make changes--huge changes, enormous changes--in one’s life at this age. Sadly, one’s attitudes and opinions have often started to atrophy at this age and it’s difficult to make the decision to be a newby about life, to willingly become dependent on others for many basic things. I made this change willingly, and I struggle everyday with the challenge of remaining conscious and conscientious about understanding the changes that I’m continuously undergoing here. I don’t know that New Guy is seeking that kind of awareness at this age.

Anyway, so what did I say to New Guy on the train? Well, I told him that if he were really unhappy, he should ask for something to be done about it. I suggested that he see if he could transfer to another school, in a smaller town where he could walk to and from work, where he wouldn’t be confronted by the wild enormity of Tokyo every time he opened his front door. We talked about it a bit, but he seemed unconvinced.

I will note here that New Guy doesn't quite know that he's got it a bit easier than I did when I first came. Though Ben was exceedingly helpful, I still had an American DIY attitude and tried to lean on Ben as little as possible. However, now that I'm the Ben in the picture, I've tried to help New Guy as much as possible--and I've watched as his own American DIY attitude has kicked in to resist taking advantage of this help. On the other hand, I've seen the women at the school bend over backward to facilitate the ease with which the New Guy does his job. I remarked on it one day to Jun one day (shortly after New Guy arrived and shortly before Jun left). One of the women jumped up to get New Guy something and I said to Jun, "No one ever did that for me when I first got here." And do you know what Jun said? He said, "It's because you're not a man."

Anyway, if I were to put my money down today, I’d bet against New Guy. I think this place is going to beat him. This time, I’d put my money down on The Kaisha.

Friday

During the teacher’s meeting, Ken handed us a notice from The Kaisha President.

I have spoken to the Big P on the phone--in English no less. Honto. I’ll explain:

There are two phones at the school. One is in the front and is used to conduct business with students. The other is in the back and is used for internal business--that is, business that takes place from school to school or from the head office to school. The back phone is answered in Japanese by a Japanese staff member who sometimes has to run from the front even though a foreign teacher is sitting next to the phone. However, one day during my training with Ellaine, the back phone rang and she reached over and picked it up. When she hung up, I asked, “Is it okay if I answer the phone?” She shrugged and said, “I always do.” So this being me, I always think it’s very funny to answer the phone and surprise the person on the other end with some English. We are an English conversation school after all.

One day the phone rang and there was no one around, so I answered it. The person at the other end hesitated. I could hear the wheels grinding as Japanese was translated into English in his head and then he spoke, asking for the head teacher. I asked him politely (honto!) to wait a moment and I went and got the head teacher. She came back, surprised that I had answered the phone and, thinking that the person at the other end was one of the foreign employees, picked up the phone with a greeting in English. Less than a second later, she was speaking hyper-polite Japanese. When she hung up the phone, she turned to me and wailed, “That was the president!” and I was, like, so what?

Later, the story got passed around the office. Everyone thought it was funny that I wasn’t impressed by having spoken to the president of The Kaisha--and, of course, everyone wanted to know what I thought of his English skills.

Here’s the thing. I have a bit of a reputation for being very, very honest, very very upfront about things, so I think people asked expecting a real answer. I, on the other hand, thought it was a great joke, so this is how I answered their question: When we interview prospective students, we do it in English and then give the manager a recommendation about the student’s level which we shorthand by naming the textbook that we think the student should study. One of the mid-level textbooks is called Viewpoint. I said to the people who were curious about the president’s English skills, “Yeah, I would Viewpoint the president.”

Anyway, at Friday’s teachers’ meeting, we were handed the president’s notice and we read it, and then I noted with some amusement that The Kaisha president’s first name can be shortened to Toshi. I said, “Look! The president’s name is Toshi!” Everyone looked. I said to the manager, “If the president calls again, i’m going to say, ‘Hi, Toshi!’” Everyone laughed, but the the manager freaked out. He got a wide-eyed, panick-stricken look on his face and he made this gesture that the Japanese make when they want you to calm down. He held out his hands palms down and made like he was tamping down something. I laughed. “Please don’t say this,” he said.

I laughed again. In addition to my reputation for being sometimes too honest, I also have a reputation for doing unexpected things--like drinking tequila and licking students. Some of that is just my joking, some of that is just my personality--but whatever it is the manager couldn’t be sure that I wasn’t actually going to make good on my promise to greet the president familiarly, like an old friend, an act that, in Japan, would be as likely to end one’s career as not.

Later, as I told David the story, he suggested the best practical joke: A call made from my cell phone to The Kaisha back phone, and me, answering my own call in front of the manager, with a hearty, “Hi, Toshi!”

I’m going to do it, too.