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The other day I was informed by the town hall that my lessons for Primary Schools during the month of November would be centered around the exciting theme of "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." Now, for those of you not in the know, Head Shoulders, Knees and Toes is a pretty cool song that virtually all kids, (well British ones at least), learn when they are between the ages of 3 and 5. It involves one standing up, and singing the following:- Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes And, if these stunning lyrics were not enough, one must also point to the various parts of ones anatomy whilst saying the words. Yes, it\'s that cool and thus I anticipated doing these lessons with relish. Of course the whole point to the lesson however is to teach my little darlings the parts of the body and thus it is no use just singing the song and pointing to body parts, they just wouldn\'t get it. Therefore I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to draw a big picture of a body (clothed I must add), and then point the bits out to my kiddiwinks first, before progressing to more musical activities. Now, whilst this idea sounded good in practice, I soon hit upon a massive stumbling block, that being the fact that I cannot draw; or in other words, I am to Art what Josef Stalin was to Humanitarianism. I attempted a few bodies, but to say that they didn\'t quite turn out as anticipated is something of an understatement. What I am very good at however, is gaining inspiration from the creations of others, (i.e. nicking other people\'s ideas), and with this in mind, I decided instead to copy a popular cartoon character and then use this instead of my own pitiful creation. But great as this idea sounds, it too only created more problems, since I then discovered that not one popular Japanese cartoon character has all the necessary \'bits\':- Pikachoo has no knees. I was at a loss, what to do? As one should always do in a crisis, I made a cup of tea and put a CD on. And then it came to me! (Strictly speaking, not entirely true, then a mate rang up about something else entirely and I asked them what to do). There was the answer, MANGA! No, I know not if you are aware of this but the Japanese are the worlds biggest consumers of comics. They sell them in the thousands and all ages read them. These comics are called Manga. So, there it was. All I had to do was buy a comic and copy one of the characters out of it. Thrilled, I rushed out of my little aparto, down to the nearest shop, grabbed the first comic that I saw, handed over my yens and rushed back. Unfortunately, I hadn\'t checked first which comic to buy. Big mistake, for I opened the pages and lo! What did I see? Well, I cannot tell you, but from the title "Exciting comic for men" you can take a pretty good guess. Yep, it was hard-core Manga Porn. Now whilst this was undoubtedly interesting from an artistic point of view, it was of course no good for my little munchkins, who would undoubtedly learn about more parts of the body than was on the curriculum if I copied one picture exactly. Unperturbed though, I browsed through the book until I found a figure which was passable with a few minor alterations, (e.g. slightly smaller breasts and clothes). And so I set to work, and when this figure was finished, I clothed her, in Osawano JHS uniform. I then realised that she was actually holding something and the picture looked incomplete without a large cylindrical object for Miho (as I had christened her) to hold. Due to a lack of other ideas, I then added a huge flagpole complete with Japanese flag which I am sure you will agree is a perfectly natural object for any schoolgirl to hold. Thus she was complete and I felt very proud with myself. The next day, the lesson commenced. Miho was put up on the board, and my little posums were most impressed. I selected one from the class as a volunteer and asked her, "Where is Miho\'s head?" Little Yuki thought for a while and then pointed, correctly at Miho\'s bonce. "Ping-pong!" said I (that means well done, don\'t ask me how they got it), and so I then asked her to point out the shoulders. Again and again Yuki guessed correctly, until I said "And where are Miho\'s ears?" Blank look from Yuki. I turned to her classmates. "Can you help?" I enquired. More blank stares. Then Japanese teacher says to me, "Ears?" "Yes, ears" I replied. "Excuse me but," she paused for a moment, "Miho have no ears." I looked at the picture, and yes, she was right, I\'d forgotten her bloody ears. Noooooo! It started pretty awfully when I awoke at ten to nine. Now of course, compared with the previous few years, this is still an exceptionally early time to wake. But here it is not early enough, for my first lesson started at quarter to nine, and I had no excuse whatsoever for being late. Therefore, I had to pretend that I was ill, and indeed that perhaps the school was lucky that I had managed to drag myself in at all, since most ALTs would hardly be able to move in my sickened state. To be fair, I wasn\'t on top of the world anyway, (and before you ask, no, I had not been drinking the previous night), but I wasn\'t THAT ill. So without a shower I rushed to put my clothes on, that I had washed the previous day in preparation. Except that I then noticed they weren\'t clean. Japan is the most technologically advanced nation on earth, I can state that without a doubt, just look at the especially cool mobile phones, disc players and other assorted electrical appliances. This being the case, why the hell have they not managed to invent a washing machine that can actually clean clothes? The reason why they don\'t clean them is simple, they don\'t use hot water. Now in my mind, even an idiot can work out that maybe heating the water up helps in the cleaning process, but no, Messers Fuji, Suzuki, Toyota, Yamamoto, Tanaka et al who can invent a mobile phone the size of a rice crispie, cannot work out that maybe hot water is a good idea for washing machine. Thus, the clothes had to go back in the washer and I had to wear the minging clothes from last week. Upon arrival at school I then found that it was my only busy day of the year at Osawano Junior High, so I had no time to sort myself out properly. I hadn\'t managed to have a cup of tea at home, so feeling decidedly in need of caffeine, I rushed back from lesson number one for a nice mug of tea. Except that they ran out of tea. And milk. So, instead I had to lower myself to drinking coffee which may be perfectly fine for people from the south of England and mainland Europe, but does not suffice for those from higher civilisations. But there was no alternative, so I drank coffee, with powdered milk. Yum!! The day progressed slowly, until dinnertime, (lunch to those of you from down south), an event which I, (like most fat people), always look forward to with considerable relish. I sat down with my delightful third year students in the dining hall and surveyed the fayre on offer; rice, and vegetables, some sort of soup, and a chunk of meat. Well, at least it wasn\'t vegetarian. By the rice was a small packet of what I call "sprinkly stuff". Every so often they give us packets of bits of dried fish, meat or veg to sprinkle on our rice, thus making this staple food moderately interesting. \'Good\' thought I, and I proceeded to open the packet and sprinkle it upon my rice. "Aah!" I heard a shriek and looked up. There were several of my third years shrieking and pointing. The rest were giggling. "Matto-sensei, this no rice, no!" I was puzzled. What were they on about, and come on, couldn\'t they speak any English that made sense. Just about to chastise them I then remembered who was responsible for their bad English and decided to keep quiet. The student opposite was still pointing at my dinner. "Matto-sensei, this no rice, milk!" he exclaimed. I looked down at the packet which I was sprinkling on my rice and noticed a huge grinning cow on the front. It was not not sprinkly stuff for rice at all, but chocolate powder for the milk. Thus, I had to endure chocolatey rice and the fact that all my thrid years reckon I am pretty stupid. And there was still no tea to wash it down with. And some student nicked my bike. The formula is simple, take a member of Smap (a popular band), dress him in women\'s clothes, call him Shingo Mama and then get him to perform a catchy song about his addiction to mayonnaise, and give the catchy tune an equally catchy dance. You see, it is the dance, or at least parts of it, that people remember. Basically, you sing "O-haaaa!" a lot, making two \'ok\' signs with your hands for the \'o\' bit and then pushing both hands out in front of you, fingers stretched out, (imagine you are pushing open a heavy door with both hands), for the \'haaaa!\' bit. "O-ha!" incidentally means \'good morning!\' and yes, before you ask, of course I purchased this CD, (if only for the dance moves inside the sleeve). But, alas! This is not what I intend to discuss with you this week. Instead, I shall tell you a little of myself. For several years now, I have taken to sitting in cafes and sipping sedately on cups of tea, or if that is not available, coffee. All great, famous artists and writers do this, in the cultured cities around the globe - Paris, Milan, Rome, Barcelona, Wolverhampton - whilst they muse upon their latest writings or etchings. Now of course, I am sure that many will be quick to point out here that I am neither a famous author, or indeed remotely good at etchings, paintings, or indeed anything that requires a grand deal of effort, but hey, I like caffeine and it makes me feel more intelligent than I actually am. Now of course, many will also be quick to point out that Osawano is generally not regarded amongst the great centres of world culture, but unperturbed I persevere and continue with my vocation. Indeed within Osawano I have found a venue where I am quite at home; it is named \'Gusto\'. Now, I have to admit, that \'Gusto\' is not quite a French pavement cafe with Art Nouveau Architecture and warm croissants. To form an image of \'Gusto\' in your mind, think more MacDonalds with rice and a toilet with a heated seat, (I jest not). In fact, I do have several friends who tend to look down upon the humble \'Gusto\' as "not being authentically Japanese enough". But, a Japanese-owned restaurant, in Japan, serving Japanese food and full of Japanese people is Japanese enough for me. So what if they serve burgers as well, in my opinion these people are either (A) On a higher cultural plane to myself, or (B) Stuck up their own cultural backsides. I am unsure which.... But, oh, let me get on with my tale. Well, sat I was in \'Gusto\' the other evening, nursing my cup of tea (with milk), and musing upon the workings of the world, when the waiter came over to me and started with surprise "Matto-san! You have come from England! Yes, you teach in Osawano Junior High, and then a longer spiel recounting numerous exciting exploits of my life." Now of course, this gentleman\'s intimate knowledge of me did surprise me somewhat, so I asked him from whence he had garnered it. You see, this little story I just told to illustrate a new dimension of my life, that of my new role as a celebrity. The thing is I actually teach every child in Osawano from 3-15 and due to being employed by the Town Council, I have a regular newspaper column. Thus, I am fast becoming extremely well-known in the town. I cannot help but walk down the street before someone will come and "Matto-sensei, herrow!!" Now, of course this was rather pleasant at first. Achieving celebrity status is of course something that we all dream of, and even better, to achieve it by doing absolutely nothing. But to be honest, I am finding that it begins to grate after a while. The other day, myself and a friend were in one of the finest restaurants in the locality, (ok, small lie, it was \'Gusto\'), when a group of children came in, immediately spotted me and shouted "Matto-sensei, O-haaaaa!" "O-haaa!" I did reply, complete with actions. But alas, this merely spurred the little tinkers on. Oh yes, we were on the receiving end of "O-haaas!" for the best part of half an hour. I walk along the street, and lo, out of the corner of my eye I spy a member of the Osawano youth. I hurry up, bury my head in a book, but to no avail, I am discovered and out they holler "Matto-sensei, O-haaaaa!" Of course, the good side is that if I go out of Osawano, I am once again just a normal gaijin, who does not warrant "O-haaaas", merely stares, but I do have to live here. They are "O-haaaing" me in the bank, the supermarket, the street and last Sunday, even in the onsen. I admit now that Shingo Mama is cool, he has immense musical talent, his song is great and his choreographer even better, but right now, I wish he would just disappear fast. And take his bloody "O-haaaas!" with him.
Except that it only last about quarter of an hour. And the lesson lasts longer than that. About half an hour longer. So we are left with the dilemma of how to fill the rest of the time. Of course, we could try and get the kids to write their own introduction, or maybe answer questions on mine, but that is (my teachers inform me), way, way above their level, so instead, we get them to ask me questions about myself. In Japanese of course since that is great for getting them to learn English. Apparently. Now, I must admit, that when I did a little bit of teaching in Bulgaria, I used the same plan, and it soon became apparent that all the kids asked the same questions. The questions that ALL the Bulgarian kids asked were as follows:- Do you like Rock music? Now, this is of course, what I expected here. Ok, the Bulgarians were a bit older and actually spoke some English, but the general direction direction of questioning, (i,e. music, football, women), the things on most teenage boys minds at least. But no! These are the questions that they ask. Maybe they\'re not all funny, but I think its interesting to see the differences:- What is your birthday? So, the results are out on my in depth psychological survey between the youth of Osawano and Stara Zagora. One lot likes music, women and football, whilst the other is fascinated by sickly pop songs, cutesy animals, tacky merchandise, cheesy cartoons and what type your blood is. Hmmm.... I leave you to draw your own conclusions. I imagine that you probably haven\'t got the faintest idea what I\'m going on about, and to be honest I\'m not surprised. You see the thing that I\'m talking about is the thing that has taken over my life completely for the last four or five days; the latest book that I\'m reading. The book is called "War and Peace" and its bloody brilliant. To be fair, most people have heard of this text, but how many have actually read it? Not many I would imagine for the simple reason that it is ridicuously big. It is not big in the usual "hmm this is a big book" sense, but piss-takingly huge. I am reading it in a serious way, I have been doing such for four or five days, and I aren\'t near the half way mark yet. It is THAT big, way too large and long and thick. Too big really. Mr Tolstoy, I imagine must have had a lot of time on his hands, and indeed the theme of this weeks mail is just that, people with rather too much time on their hands, in other words, ALTs or JETs, (whichever abbreviation rolls off your tongue most easily). Having conversed with many of my colleagues on the matter I have come to the conclusion that all ALTs spend large portions of their working day doing absolutely sod all. In fact all those that I spoke to have this problem, bar one and thus I conclude that she is either lying or should demand a transfer to somewhere easier immediately. To be fair, we are only being like the Japanese themselves, who must spend on average about ten hours every weekday at the office, doing the same amount of work which Europeans do in seven. But it is ok for them, they can sit and chat to their mates or indeed they can drop off to sleep at the drop of a hat. That is quite interesting really but it seems to me that most Japanese are trained from birth to be able to sleep anywhere and then wake up only five minutes later. As soon as they get on a train, and they all doze off, but did you ever see one sleep through his or her stop. Not bloody likely, nope, they wake up just in time and walk off looking as fresh as if they\'d just stepped out of the shower. Its the same at work, they doze off at their desk, yet always wake up ready for the next lesson. Some, I suspect fall asleep at the wheel, yet still drive the same, at a steady 50km per hour, just slow enough to annoy you and prevent you from getting anywhere on time. But gaijin can\'t do that, or at least Matto-sensei can\'t. He dozes off, and stays asleep, and misses important things. Alternatively he doesn\'t doze off and gets bored. Thus he, like most of his gaijin comrades must find other diversions. Perhaps the most popular of these is learning Japanese. This is educational and indeed incredibly useful. Unfortunately, it is also rather difficult and if, (like I), thou art a wee bit lazy, \'tis not a good road to travel upon. It takes a lot off effort and let\'s be honest, if I\'d wanted to do things that require a lot of effort, I\'d have set up my own business or gone to work for a bank or something. No, too much like hard work for me is that one. Other solutions include, writing pointless Japanese Musings, surfing the net, writing letters, etc, etc. There are however some more unorthodox ways of filling in time. For starters, there\'s the humble cup of tea, (or coffee for those from less advanced civilisations. Interesting tea and coffee games can be thought of. Why not compare the different powdered milk brands in your tea. I find Marim to be the least creamy, whilst Creap (Creamy Powder), the creamiest. This is ok in coffee, but for tea, too much. I plumped, (after much deliberation), for Nestle Brite, the happy medium. How about inventing your own kanji? Kanji are the \'picture\' characters for words or concepts, (which fail to look remotely like what they represent despite what some people try and tell you). Why not invent kanji for concepts such as "bad hair day" or "Dutch courage"? Another good option is of course e-mail. E-mail can waste a lot of valuable time as we all know, but what happens when we run out of people to correspond to? That is when people like my friend Lee come in. Lee is my e-mail friend. I have never met him and don\'t know a lot about him, except that he lives in Osaka and is probably the only other Stoke fan east of Istanbul. However, this doesn\'t stop him sending me several e-mails per day with the magic prefix "Fwd" in their title. Waste good time by reading those sexist jokes and witty anti-French digs; laugh at the interactive jokes and then forward them on to your friends. Lee is not my only e-mail friend however. I have another one called Lucy_Pike. Now Lucy_Pike is one of the JETs here, or at least that is what I thought. Therefore, I was happily sending all my forwards and musings to Lucy_Pike, and indeed I even got a short reply once, saying, "Thanks for the forward. Very funny." However, one day whilst out in Toyama, I spoke to Lucy Pike, an ALT in that fair city and also a friend of mine, who proceeded to chastise me for not sending her my musings or forwards. "But I do" one protested. "Well, I\'m not receiving any" retroted she. It then transpired that we were both telling the gospel truth and that whilst Lucy_Pike had been enjoying my witticisms, Pike_Lucy (whom dwells in Toyama), was not. Oh well.... My number one time waster however is a good book. Unfortunately, we have so much spare time that you begin to read faster, and faster, and faster, until, wow, you start finishing a book in two days, on a regular basis. Reading becomes more expensive than drinking due to the books that you get through and the lack of public libraries. And thus, here Mr Tolstoy comes to help. I have a theory that perhaps in nineteenth century Russia there was a glut of RETs (Russian English Teachers), who had sod all to do all day. Old Tolstoy-san identified this "gap in the market", wrote books of a stupid length and thus he made his fortune. Aah, a clever man indeed. Anyway, I must depart for Prince Andrew Bolkonski has a ball to attend at the Rostov household, and young Natasha Rostova will of course be there. Will he promise her his hand? We shall see.... I shall tell of one day at Koba school. |
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