Story Time

I'm tired of back-blogging, so I'm just going to skip over stuff and come back to it later.

Upon emailing my brother, I realized this story was too good not to share with the public.

Important background information you'll need later: often times restaurants in Japan will have "nomi-houdai" which means all you can drink, and/or "tabe-houdai," all you can eat. So essentially "-houdai" means "all you can."

Without further adieu, I give you the kancho story... (If you don't know what kancho is, look it up on wikipedia right now.)

It's our first day of orientation in Chicago and I'm sitting around a table over a formal meal with two former JETs and 6 new ones. We're talking about the difficulties of teaching children and how in this program it's generally best to leave the discipline up to the Japanese teachers of English instead of us.

So the former JET dude who's about 30, starts telling a story:
"Yeah, I learned that lesson fast one day. I got a little cocky about how well I spoke Japanese and I figured I could do the disciplining myself. So there was this one kid who always acted up and never quit talking, so one day he's talking during class while I'm walking by his desk and so I just turned and yell, "URUSE!" ("shut up") Trying to be cool, I rolled the R and said it like I've heard it on tv...but as it turns out, that's how the mobsters say it. I scared him so bad he didn't come to school for a week and after that he couldn't even look at me again. He thought I was a member of the yakuza and that I was going to kill him. I still feel terrible about it."

Meanwhile, remember what "-houdai" means?

Then he continued, "So yeah, it's actually pretty surprising the difference in what's ok and what's not ok in a Japanese school. For example, kancho. People actually do it to each other. Do you know what that is? Kids will actually do it to YOU even though you're a teacher. Not so much in high school, and not so much if you're a woman, but elementary schoolers just have no problem running after you. And it's weird, but usually it's all in good fun, but once one kid starts doing it, they'll stalk you all day because the kids get it in their heads. You can get kancho-ed up to six times in a day! And you'd be surprised how often they're SPOT ON."

Then the woman former JET goes, "Yeah, actually. Speaking of things you can get away with, you can't yell at a kid in front of the other kids, for example - that's not ok. But on the other hand, I have this friend, and he's a nice guy, but one day he'd been kancho-ed too many times and they just wouldn't stop. Finally, this one kid does it, and it's the straw that broke the camel's back. In a fury he grabs the kids legs, holds him upside down and shouts to the others, "KANCHO-HOUDAI."

You remember what "-houdai" means, right?

Getting Into It

After a short day at school, I finally got to see my apartment (thank god she told me in advance that is old, because when I say old I mean old). It has an aroma moldier than anything I've smelled in college apartments, though it's not as bad as the sweat garbage scent the permeates college dorms. Anyway, I digress.

We went out for an upscale bentou lunch and it was nice to have another American tell me when I could get away with not sitting on my knees and how to eat the foods I wasn't familiar with. We had a delicious crab croquette and what I guess is the equivalent of a super-gourmet fishstick, along with other various breaded, sauced, and grilled things. For dinner there was ramen (though we didn't pay via vending machine) and since I wasn't very hungry, I asked for the kid size. The woman thought it would be cute to go ahead and refer to me from then on as "okosama" (the honorific for children) and she brought me the Calpis, gyouza, and custard that kids get with their meals. Hey, if I get gyouza out of it and discover a new delicious custard, I'm damn glad I did it. I'd also like to take this moment to say that henceforth when I mention ramen, it's nothing like the 20 cent instant ramen I'm sure you've eaten at some point.

The next day we did boring stuff like figuring out my banking, internet, and cell phone. I felt bad because my predecessor was absolutely fried from trying to mitigate the conditions of my various contracts. I don't even like doing that stuff in English and her Japanese isn't so much better than mine. We had a great day of bonding though, and I discovered that if you walk through the train station, there is a whole other world waiting. I often wonder whether I would have figured it out had I been alone. Probably not. Though the sole purpose of the 2 story station is to provide a means of crossing the tracks that isolate that ocean shore from the city, it's not really intuitive for me. They even have elevators in case you need your bike on the other side of town.

The downtown, the huge mall, and various other metropolitan things are on that side of the station. If I hadn't liked my city before when it was just a school, an apartment, a post office, and an ocean, I REALLY liked it now. Mister Donut (Miz Do, as it's called) is also very popular hangout for pretty much everyone. You will always know someone there, even if you know as few people as I do. I met a women my pred tutored in English and she invited me to volunteer for the jazz festival in town later this month because they need English speakers to help the American bands. Also that night, I discovered soup curry (think vegatables, rice, and other delectables in thin soup-like curry), though the real purpose of the meal was to meet the other foreigners from my pred's friend group in the area. Such folks included Americans and Canadians married to Japanese spouses, private school language teachers, and other ex-patriots.

What the heck, this was just my first weekend.