Leaving It All Behind

Below this post is another post with some fantastic links to places I've been recently.

But here's more of me...

Leaving

Tomorrow, the school starts announcing that I’m leaving.

On Friday, I stood on the balcony having a smoke with the Five Year Old. I’ve been in a bad mood lately and she asked me if I was okay, and rather than clue her in to her own incompetence and the alternating waves of PMS and worry, I just said that it’s difficult to think about leaving.

I had spent part of my workday organizing my things so that New New Guy could take over with a minimum of fuss. While I was sorting through a bunch of old papers, I found an attendance list upon which I had writtten something that Seth said to the Five Year Old just before he left.

Seth was The Kaisha’s answer to Woody Allen. Seth’d throw up his hands at things that he didn’t care about and he had gotten into the habit (as I have) of making bitter or sarcastic little comments really fast so that students (and even some of the Japanese teachers) couldn’t understand them. The Five Year Old found him fun to be with but difficult to work with because he was opinionated (and she’s inept, which doesn’t make for a great supervisor/employee relationship), but I thought he was great.

Seth had slouched in as he always did, wearing his headphones and carrying a bag from the S’bux in Matsudo. Seth favored baggy dress pants, a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a tie. He had long ago given up on wearing a jacket or sports coat--just as I gave up wearing my name tag and skirted business suits, and Ben had given up wearing his Kaisha lapel pin. We all find ways to break the little rules just to make working for The Kaisha a bit more bearable.

Seth plopped down in a chair, his knees as far away from each other as he could make them, that way that boys sit. You know. He took off his headphones, took his coffee out of the bag. (Since no one eats or drinks in the street, S’bux and all coffeeshops put their to-go coffees in little handled bags so that you carry them to your destination.) Despite Seth’s scofflaw way with a sports jacket, even he wouldn’t eat or drink in the street, so he routinely carried his S’bux latte on the train all the way from Matsudo (about a forty minute commute) to Ginza.)

The Five Year Old heard Seth come in and she came into the office to say hello.

The Japanese have this thing about making sure that they say hello to you the first time they see you that day. If they don’t, they’ll apologize and then say hello. (For example, if I walk into the office and Boy Wonder is talking business with the Five Year Old, I’ll walk out of the room before they can interrupt their talk to greet me. But the next time I walk into the room they’ll apologize for not having greeted me and they’ll say good morning.)

The Five Year Old said good morning to Seth and then she looked at him and looked away. She stood there looking away and pointing at his crotch in a panicky, secretive little gesture. “Seth...uh...uh...” She used the Japanese gesture by which she pointed with her whole hand, kind of like Vanna White pointing at prizes on Wheel of Fortune.

“What?” Seth asked loudly. “Why are you pointing at my crotch?”

“Your...uh...thingy...uh...” she said, nervously.

“My thingy?” Seth said loudly. He looked down. “Do you mean my fly is down?” He enunciated every word, the way he would do with a low-level student.

She said, “Yeah. Yeah. Did you say, ‘Your fly is down?’”

“Why are you so upset by my fly being down?” Seth said in his fast, Chicago way. He put his coffee on the table and reached to zip up, saying, “You’ve got eyes. You can avert them.”

The Five Year Old looked confused. She clearly did not understand the word “avert.” I cracked up, wrote down, You have eyes. You can avert them. while Seth continued to harangue the Five Year Old for being perturbed by his open fly.

That was eight months ago. Yesterday, I turned over my old attendance lists and found the comment and my heart took a hit.

Something Gives

Seth left last October. His leaving set off a wave of leavings that The Heart had no choice but to stand and take. Rin followed Seth, leaving to persue a job related to her CPA degree. Soon after, Yoko left, forced out by the Five Year Old and Boy Wonder, whose superpower has turned out to be the ability to force out the competent, professional teachers who once roamed the halls of The Kaisha. Chie, the darling assistant manager from Hiroshima, who plays shamisen and who holds my hand sweetly everytime she sees me, was transferrred to Shibuya soon after. My grandma Josie died in November. Ben and Jun left in December. Grankle died in December. My brother died in January. Kazuko left last month.

Leaving

Whenever we talk about my leaving, New Guy says, “Nooo,” in a kind of mournful voice.

It’s not that we’re close, but I am one of the few people he sees on a regular basis that he can be assured of being able to relate to. In other words, if there are going to be misunderstandings, they are going to be familiar misunderstandings. He’s not having to cross some language and cultural barrier to figure out what’s going on. You never realize how important it is that your misunderstandings be on the same side of the great cultural divide. And me? I’m pretty clear about things. I’m not too adept at doing the Japanese disagree by agreeing. The Japanese “Maybe I’m disagreeing with you but you’d never know it because I’m actually agreeing with you.” Me? I just disagree.

And it costs me. We were having a meeting and I kept opening My Big Mouth to disagree with the manager about my going-away party. Of course it’s doing no good to disagree but My Big Mouth keeps opening and opening and opening. Finally, I turn to New Guy and The Brain said, “Feel free to kick me under the table anytime, mate.”

Mate?

I’ve retained Ben’s Aussie greeting style (“Howa-ya, mate?”) and use “mate” to refer to New Guy because to an American, it’s an indefinable term for an indefinable relationship. And that’s exactly the kind of relationship we have. New Guy and I don’t hang out often, but we’re mates. We’re not really friends (because you can’t base a friendship on such a strong necessity), but we’re mates. What’s a “mate”? To an American, the term is a bit embarrassing, I think, because it carries with it the suggestion of mating. (Am I the only one who thinks this?)

We’re mates, New Guy and I. The other night, we were joshing around in the hall just before classes and I tagged him (“Tag, you’re it!”) and ran away. He tried to catch me, but I dodged and took a few fast steps down the hallway. That kind of playful behavior is so rare here that one of the students screamed when she saw him lunge for me.

Leavings

On Friday afternoon, just as I’m about to start the first of my evening classes, The Head Trainer (remember that old joke about the Head Nurse? Yeah?) called and asked to speak to me. I got on the phone and had a short conversation in which he offered me the chance to stay at The Kaisha.

Why?

My replacement is coming from another Kaisha. His replacement is coming from the States. Excuse me--I mean, his replacement was coming from the States. On Friday, the replacement backed out.

Welcome the The Kaisha.

Last week, one of the other teachers at the Ginza Kaisha broke her contract. She’s got the work visa and she’s staying in Japan, but she’s no longer working for The Kaisha. No one knows why. I didn’t renew. New Guy isn’t going to renew. My replacement isn’t coming.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” The Head Trainer said.

“What exactly do you mean?” I asked. Turned out that he meant that he would offer me the exact same contract he offers every other emergency teacher.

That’s not really worth my while.

To be honest, I considered staying, so I told The Head Trainer I’d call him Monday. He asked me to tell no one about the fact that my replacement wasn’t coming, and I won’t. I won’t tell anyone at all.

I got off the phone, taught my classes, went for drinks with a few students. I came home and called Judi and Leah, both of whom steeled my resolve to come home.

I haven’t told him yet.