Being a gaijin

Dedicated to Stevko -

The Big Buddha

I have had my first episode of culture shock.  It's nothing major.  I just have not seen so many drunk adults in my life.  Let me rephrase that.  I have not seen so many drunk adults throwing up in public in my life.  If I was going out on the weekend in America, I may see an occasional 20-something throwing up.   But even that was rare.  Here - If I ride a train after 9pm, I am almost guaranteed to see some 40 year old puking.  The other evening I was coming home on a train.  I look over my shoulder and see this woman holding on to the rail with the tips of her fingers.  She is about 40 and swaying back and forth.  She's clearly drunk.  Her 5 year old daughter is standing beside her.  About a minute later I hear this blood curdling scream from the same direction.  I look over and the lady has vomited all over herself and her daughter is freaking out.  It's running down her business suit and into her shoes.  She doesn't move.  Her daughter keeps screaming and crying.  She just keeps letting it come out and run down her.  Then they board the train.  It makes me so angry.  But the culture is different here and I surely don't understand it after just 2 months.

There is another instance too...
Let me preface this by saying, I am in no way comparing this to the civil rights era.  Growing up, where I did, I don't feel like I was ever really around racism or severe prejudices.  I'm sure it happened.  I just don't have any memory of it.  Maybe it's because it's less likely to happen to a white person.  I don't know.  I do remember experiencing it in college for the first time.  I had befriended a person at my Christian school only to find out that black people were not allowed at her house.  I thought she was joking.  A terrible joke, but I thought it was a joke.  Turned out to be true.  We were never friends again.  And that was a crazy paradigm shift in my life.  I honestly didn't think people like that existed anymore.  Little did I know about the south.  Well, anyway, I am getting a little dose of it over here.  Not from everyone. Most people are very nice and pleasant to me.  But then there are those times when I can clear a train car because I am a gaijin, a foreigner.  In a packed train, where there is breathing room only, I have had an invisible barrier built around me.  Everyone else is crammed and being shoved, but no one will come near me.  Some might see this as a luxury.  And sometimes I think the jokes on them.  But most of time it hurts.  It hurts knowing I repulse someone by my mere existence.  Anyway, those days are few and far between.  I only explain them because I notice.

Now on to school.  Wow, is it different here.  To my knowledge, none of the teachers have their own classroom.  Our desks are in one big room set up almost like an office with cubicles.  It's a bit more socially friendly though.  I sit in a row of foreign teachers.  The principal and administration are two rows in front of me.  If a student needs help or has a question, they come to the teacher room and find us in our rows.  The teachers travel from class to class and the students are stationary.  The style of teaching is different too.  In America, it is all about differentiation and teaching a student to meet their individual needs.  In Japan, it's a one-size-fits-all approach.  You teach to the middle.  The responsibility for learning is more on the students than on the teacher.  My classes all have wooden desks with a teacher's desk front and center and a chalkboard behind.  We do have new TV's in each room and I think that is because Japan just required all their people to switch to digital TVs.  I teach 15 classes a week.  My busiest days are Wednesday and Friday when I teach 4 classes.  Even on those days, that leaves me with 2 preps and a lunch.  It's pretty amazing.  I actually have time to unit plan and plan ahead.  Every morning at 8 am the bell rings, someone stands up in front of the teacher's room and leads a hymn and then shares a verse from the bible.  At 8:30 we have chapel that lasts for about 20 minutes.  The students stand in straight lines through the whole message.  Though I teach at a "Christian" school, most of our teachers and staff are not Christians.  In Japan, it's all about the routine, tradition, and presentation.  Funny that I moved to a country with such strong characteristics.  If you know me at all, I despise routine, question most things that are done out of tradition, and strive to never present myself in a way that is anything other than myself.

Well it's late... that's all for now...