Cue the Montage: Part 2

We are not, so to speak, the types who would traditionally do this sort of thing. But we both agreed on the ride over, that we were perhaps, the types who would like to have done this sort of thing. The poster proclaims boldly "Hell Ramen", and presents the would be challenger with a hand-drawn representation—a tower of noodles poking out from thick tonkotsu broth, the kind made from marrow, ringed by pork slices. Green crayon curls of spring onion, and a plump cherub, crossed eyes and bursting belly, complete the picture. And yes, all this could be yours for a paltry 2000 yen. In fact, if you can manage to eat it all in 25 minutes, we'll give it to you for free.

I would like to say, that the noble gaijin sallied forth, spoons and chopsticks in hand, and vanquished the lofty foe. But here's what really happened. "It's a holiday, and we're really busy, but if you want to wait an hour..." Well...a whole hour? I guess, there are always other trips. Afterward it was agreed that we would have died, and painfully, had we attempted the feat. I still think, someday, we will.

The day continued with a drive along the coast, through kilometers of one lane mountain roads, laced with blind-corners, and cleverly concealed rain ditches lurking in the undergrowth. The sea flashes out between gaps in the trees as we fly along. Our destination is irrelevant. We're just driving to see what's out there. But then...

Some of you may be familiar with the perhaps unfortunate Bond film which took place in Japan? In English: "You Only Live Twice" but in Japanese the much catchier moniker of "James Bond Dies Twice". Oh yes, dear readers, it was filmed in Kagoshima. The scene where James Bond flies out to find the evil island hideaway in his gyrocopter? Cross it off the list. Been there, seen the plaque, photographed the evil island hideaway.




We returned to home base, secure in the knowledge that we had entered an elite group of gaijin.

I really did intend to get caught up tonight, but whoever coded flickr has some sort of horrible vendetta against humanity, and the 30 minutes I just spent jerking that god forsaken program around, begging it to let me sign in, has sapped me of precious sleep time. Tomorrow is Dai-ni middle school. My 2nd to last first day. Gotta keep the energy up.

So tomorrow you'll get to read about:
truly epic, booze drenched, tugs of war;
my life as court-jester in a middle school, laying down the entertainment, and saying the hard truths because I'm the only one who can without getting beheaded;
and the evolving oddity that is Kikai island. It continues to delight and surprise.

Cue the montage: Part 1

Our hero steps out the door of a classroom full of commercial high school kids, the ones who aren't going to college, even if they want to. He spoke to a crowd of silent faces, and played every card in his hand to win a few laughs. But it was worth it, when at the end of class half of them come up to the front, and look through the photos he has brought of his life. They speak in broken half-sentences. And smile.

Later that day he helps them clean, sweeping leaves with a split-bamboo rake while the brave ones invite him "welcome to toilet! It is my clean!" and the shy ones catch his eye through the windows, turning away giggling. He is no longer embarrassed by the attention, but still goes through the motions. Eyes down, focus on raking, and pretend like you're trying to stifle that goofy smirk.

The next day our hero stands in his little one room airport, and realizes he calls it "his" airport. He walks through security, out the door towards the little prop plane to the mainland and the security guard asks "you're coming back, right?"

An old friend, getting older, greets him at the gate: "my god you're blond" or something to that effect. "How the hell you been!?" or something to that effect. Eli. Were they 6 or 7? Our hero just picks one, whenever it comes up. It comes up a lot, and every time our hero is glad that somehow, they are on this adventure together.

They eat noodles in a shop on the third floor of the airport, and our hero enjoys the simple pleasure of being just another gaijin, instead of the gaijin. They told him he would be a rock star, a celebrity. They neglected to mention that on an island of 8000, this meant he had responsibilities. When he walks into a restaurant on Kikai, it makes the town gossip.

Our hero is seated at a table in an izakaya, Eli next to him, and Shinji, his sister is friends with Eli from Tokyo, across from him. They get very, very drunk on the local shochu. He even likes the taste, after he's had a few already. The waitress comes over while Eli and Shinji are off in the bathroom, and smiles at him while complimenting his Japanese. He does not remember speaking to her. She is really, very pretty.

Fight through headaches to stop by the sports day of a middle school which is closing later that school year. There are maybe 30 students. The banner on the wall reads "never forget our last scene" in English. For some reason, it makes him want to cry. A girl attempts to beat her own high jump record. But chokes. Everyone our hero meets gives him little green oranges. The fact that he does not find this strange is strange to him.

An Indian restaurant in Kagoshima city, as the Japanese exhaustion threshold is reached, and awkward pauses fail to fill the air. They drive around with Shinji for a little while, and find an overlook of the city, with the grumpy silhouette of Sakurajima puffing in the background, across the bay.

Night time and our hero is seated in the corner-booth of a Joyfull. Family restaurants are what Japan did to Denny's. A foreign standard of quality injected into an American hallmark. He likes the Japanese version better, except for the atmosphere. Like 50s diners in America, where the waiters have to grease their hair. The nostalgia for a world which never existed is stifling. Everyone at the table is a native speaker of English. It is the first group he has been with in 2 months, which did not require him to think.



More to come tomorrow. Ramen eating contests, drives along the coast, James Bond, tug-of-war festivals with man-sized ropes, the middle-school years, and further adventures in Kikai.

Our hero needs to write more, to keep such backlogs from accumulating.

A day in the life

I have been invited squid fishing by a bus driver, and am inexplicably now scheduled to teach art as well as English at one of my middle schools. I was also asked what was in my pockets by a 3rd year during question time. I am being given a much longer leash than I anticipated. I may just be able to do some good after all.

I can outrun the soccer team, and for reasons I cannot explain, also out play them. Have I been practicing in my sleep? Because the year I spent pretending that someone else was closer to the ball in Jr. high really doesn't account for my current level of ability.

I then spent the evening translating a diving certification test into English, on an island where I am the only English speaker. The irony...was not immediately apparent.

What a strange Thursday.

Groundhog day

I have now been to every elementary school on the island. This means that whenever I see a child between the ages of 6 and 12, I can rest assured that I met them, probably even shook their clammy hand while they chanted:

"Hello. My name is Adam. I like soccer. Nice to meet you."

Example sentences. When you don't know the meaning of "my" "name" or "is" it is a logical conclusion to assume that what comes next is naturally "Adam". When you can't read, you shuffle things into your short-term memory to survive the day. You have to trick them into accidentally remembering.

My job on day one is not so much to teach, as it is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I am a world-destroying bad-ass, who can and has done everything. My self-introduction, a carefully constructed portrait--a best of reel. And I make them tell me I'm lying first. That's the best part really. It's a game I play with them to keep the self-intro interesting, where sensei says something and you get to say whether you believe him or not. Teach "true" and "false". It's fantastic. You make them choose a side, and then either prove they were right, affirming how awesome you are, or prove they were wrong, affirming how awesome you are. Yes, I did climb Mt. Fuji. Yes, I did go to college all the way up in Minnesota. I love dancing.

You speak slower and slower, the longer you do this. You learn which bits you need to translate to begin with, to keep your team-teacher from translating all of it. You ask for questions, with a list of answers prepared. Green. Camel. Tacos. 22. Single.

I teach every lesson at least 9 times. You have ample opportunities to find out what works and what doesn't.

After 2 weeks of the same self-intro, the challenge is to keep smiling, keep jumping around, keep singing your questions in Japanese. To keep showing them that you are a loon, to show them that you're not the type of person who is going to judge them for making a mistake, as long as they make an attempt. There isn't really room for an off day. It's taxing. But it's worth it.

And boy, if you thought you were famous before. Hello, Bai-bai, Oh! Adamu! I don't stop talking from the time I leave the office to the time I get home. And I am going very fast on a bike for all of it.

And oh katakana. Let me count the ways.

I suspect, that on a long enough time line, Japanese and English will slowly converge so that one is actually a dialect of the other. To speak Japanese, just take the English word you know and love, and insert a vowel between every consonant block. Convert certain troublesome sounds into easier ones. And write in katakana. Sometimes apply non-standard usage, "at home" becomes an adjective, implying a comfortable sort of feeling. "Viking" remains a noun, but denotes buffet-style eating, rather than a pillaging horde. Because vikings are hungry.

If I ever find myself in a position where my words carry any kind of influence on this island, I'm using my powers to get phonics inserted firmly into the English curriculum. Call it a pet project.

"Not. Tall."

If you've never experienced rain on only half a building, it's a pretty surreal sort of experience. You swear that some joker must have turned a fire-hose on the one side. But that is the reality of island weather. If the weather report calls for rain, it does so in 30 second intervals. And there is every possibility that you will watch a line of pavement trace itself dark inches from your feet, while you remain bone dry.

I walked into Shitooke Elementary school, knowing little more than they has asked me to take the bus, instead of sending a car like the other elementary schools. I chatted with the bus driver for half the ride, mostly about my life on Kikai, though with an occasional incredibly odd aside about a) why everyone was crying at Michael Jackson's funeral, then b) doping in competitive track and field. I really don't think I can comfortably answer those in English, so me answering them in Japanese amounted to "He was many populars, and has much influence to American music" and "I think humans can go fast. Maybe they are not drugs?" ...can someone old get on the bus now so I have an excuse to give up my seat and move to the back? Before you ask me to explain human anatomy?

The first class I had in Shitooke was this odd mix of 12 ghosts, and 4 hurricanes. I walk into the classroom and 4 highly excitable 10-11 year old boys start screaming "SE GA TAKAI!" (He's tall). Feeling fresh and teacherly I explain in English "No! Not tall! Short." while I mime tall and short. But, as with all things in Japan, wily spirits cause the children to hear the following:

No. Natto. Short.

Natto is a Japanese breakfast food made by taking soybeans and forgetting about them. Then remembering them years later and deciding the layers of slime and the odd half-feet half-bodily secretion smell are charming, delicious even, especially when mixed with a raw egg, and some mayo. It is my culinary arch-nemesis. For the rest of the day at this particular school, I had these four violations of conservation of momentum screaming out "Nat-tooooooo!" "NAT-TOOOOOO!" just about every time they saw me. I tried to explain several times, even in Japanese:

No NO "Not. Tall. Not. Tall." They would say it once then return to the version which was clearly more correct, and more fun to say.

As the day progressed you'd hear it being shouted down halls while I was in different classes. Nat-tooooo! By the end of the day the whole school was doing it.

It just got funnier and funnier.

My job is awesome.

Nat-tooooo!

Dreams of starfish

There is a poet, major leagues only by the meager standards of the Twin Cities underground. Janitor/teacher by day rapper/poet by night. He goes by the name El Guante, and I happened to hear him speak once, at a Black History Month poetry slam a good friend had taken me to.

He read a poem called "Starfish", and I knew then that it would one day be important to me, even though at the time I knew it was not.

It is a poem about his time teaching poetry in the public school system.

"And my job these days, is to turn all the lights on. And pretend to be brave." Today was my first day at the high school. 6 more to go. One's island celebrity is based on a number of factors. For the elementary kids, things like your height, shoe size, the mere fact that your hair somehow exists, and does not cause the fabric of space and time to rip with its oddity, are all fascinating. You're still famous at high school. It's just a different kind of famous. You can't dazzle them with games where you roll around on the floor until you introduce yourself, and win a game of rock-paper-scissors.

I honestly don't know how all you out there who don't speak Japanese do it. It took every morsel of Japanese at my disposal to keep that class from descending into a narcoleptic coma. You see they tell us time and time again that it's not our place to criticize, and that we're not here to change the system. But what do you say to a class of kids who have studied English formally for 6 years, and still can't or won't pull out "my name is, I like"? I walk out of 2 classes and have a new understanding of what dentists go through. Pulling teeth. "and my job these days, is to melt the winter with a flashlight."

I sit in the office after class, helping to grade the 1st year students tests. The high score is an 84. The next three are in the 70s. The rest rarely clear 25. "and my job these days, is to identify bodies."

My job these days is to be the Disney-World-full-body-suit Sisyphus.
My job these days is to dream of starfish.
Tens of thousands, gasping for breath on the beach
being pulled apart alive by the Seagulls.
I tossed a few back into the ocean and people tell me that I'm making a difference.
but there is no honor in triage,
only necessity.

Go watch the poem (link embedded in the word "poem", just click it) now. You need to hear the whole thing, to understand where things go next. Why the first thing I did when I sat down in my shiny new office a month and a half ago was to change my desktop wallpaper:







My job these days, is not to make a difference.
It is to fight for a world in which I don't have to.



Given the state of language education, kids don't run up to you after class and thank you for being an inspiration. By high school, they're probably years behind where the textbook keeps telling them they should be. But you see even if we're not here to change things, we are here to show them that they could. I am, anyway. And no, there is no Brian in my story. No "Thank you", but there is the joy of getting to write an 84 on a test, and an unwillingness to believe that a 12 couldn't some day do the same. Even if all I can do for the high school kids is keep English from sucking for 7 hours a year, I intend to do what I can, and hope that over time, year after year, ALT after ALT, it adds up. Until Japan doesn't need to hire thousands of English speakers every year anymore. As much as we'll miss the opportunity.

A while ago, before I came to Japan, I was surrounded by courageous, idealistic young Macalester students swearing that they were going to save the world, but taking few concrete steps towards it unless they were courageously idealistically throwing their livers under the bus to protect the planet. I remember thinking that there is something about the human psyche, or at the very least the American one, which desperately craves the big win. The idea that change happens because of singular events--that you can elect a new president and wake up tomorrow morning to your bright shining new America. We don't like to wrap our heads around the idea that most of the time, ultimately, change comes from hundreds, of thousands, of millions of people, all stepping up and doing something. Even if it is only one or two at a time.

So here's to teaching starfish to fly. Even if it's only one or two. So that maybe, if I'm lucky, they can teach their friends,
and their kids,
and their grandkids,
and future mes can be out of a job.

Went out walking and found myself an eel

New photos up on The Flickr. Follow the link embedded in the photo and fish around in the Walks in the Tide set. Just went for a walk down on beach and watched the typhoon waves explode on the tide pools for a while. Some really cool stuff.

Also while I'm at it, for those of you interested in a JET experience that doesn't revolve around being marooned on an island, and eating strange animals that have just been yanked from the sea, my friend Maggie recently gave me a shout-out over on her blog and she more than deserves the same. She lives in Kanazawa, which is a city, instead of a rice paddy (though she has those too). Brilliantly quirky way of writing, and I dare say she manages to get into even more shenanigans than I do. Also, she's much better at emotions that are not dry sarcasm, but then she was an English major so that's cheating.

In which our hero finds himself suddenly, very, very busy

I am still, perhaps, a little happier than I should be when I hear that a typhoon is coming. It's not my fault really. I grew up in a place where hurricanes were abstract beasts inflicted upon Floridians and Southerners to punish them for their soothing tones of voice, and perpetual summer. That'll show them, we all secretly think in between exclamations of concern and caring. But it is just so cool to hear the wind come flying through your living room, and watch the clouds race across the sky, suddenly bolting towards some unseen destination with all the tenacity of white rabbits in wonderland.

It's not actually going to hit Kikai. So don't anybody start worrying about me being crushed by my collapsing house.

I have in very short order, accumulated two new and wonderful ways of whiling away my hours. My first shamisen lesson was this Friday, and my first dive the day after.

For those of you who don't know (and haven't already googled it) the shamisen is a 3-stringed Japanese instrument not entirely dissimilar from a banjo in terms of its twangy, percussive sound. Mainland shamisen are played with a wooden paint-scrapper, laughingly referred to as a plectrum. They are also made of cat or dog leather. No really. Google it. The island shamisen on the other hand is played with a bamboo stick, about 5 inches long, and are made of snakeskin. Ergo, they are better. Open to neither debate nor discussion.

The place where I take lessons is the house of a venerable ancient god of island shamisen, his wife who is the brains of the operation, and their grandson Hiroshi who is in my adult conversation class, and I actually like a lot because he's really vocal, and outgoing in the way that only someone who is assured of his position in society can be. I've heard him play. He's really amazing.

I sat down in a little room, with Hiroshi and he walked me through the basics of shamisen operation while the army of my grade schooler classmates practiced in unison in the next room with the grandfather. I can't tell whether I actually picked it up fast, or if Hiroshi was just jozu-ing me. The strange habit of people to burst into spontaneous exclamations of "JOZU!!!! (SO SKILLED!!!!)" whenever I do anything. Like, you know, speak, or eat. Either way, it was a lot of fun, and then I went and sat around with the grandfather for a little while and played along with him. I'm borrowing a shamisen for now from a friend of Yoda-san. I suspect that this "friend" is perhaps also in grade school, and perhaps found the shamisen not quite to his liking. Stay tuned.

Now there are people out there who will tell you that the day before a typhoon may be making landfall is not a great day to go diving for your first time. But a large collection of reportedly responsible people suggested that it would be no different from going any other time, except for the waves. And I with my rallying cry of "sure, why not?" set out at 3 in the afternoon for Araki harbor, my entire orientation to diving consisting of "Remember to equalize the pressure in your ears, if they start to hurt."

The diving party was a ragtag Gilligan's Island-esque collection of hardened dive-rats. There was the skipper Yonemuri, and his first mate who I swear was named Paolo. There was the 54 year old doctor Takahashi, with multiple ear piercings and tattoos, and his amazingly beautiful 24 year old girlfriend/daughter/friend Chie (I can't tell, and really almost have no desire to ask). There was Yoda-san, who dove in wearing jeans and a t-shirt. There was the Catholic Deacon. There was the blond-haired, green-eyed foreigner. And then there were 3 other girls, who I didn't really get to know, but were all hospital employees of some kind (like...half this island seems to somehow work for hospitals. Maybe because the other half is old people?).

Fast-forward 30 minutes of donning comically sized dive gear, either being uniformly too large or too small, and a short boat ride around the point. The experienced divers roll off the side of the boat first, and sink under the waves. Yonemuri and Paolo rock-paper-scissors each other or something and Yonemuri ends up with me, while Paolo ends up with the deacon who is also on his first dive. Sit down on the side of the boat, pop a comical salute to Yoda-san, grab my face mask and fall backwards into the ocean.

Initial thoughts: funny, I figured I'd sink. I mean, I'm wearing 30-40 pounds of gear...and it was my impression that scuba diving was largely an underwater sport. Then Yonemuri came up beside me and grabbed hold of the up-down controls. I'd never actually thought about it before, but in order to achieve a neutrally buoyant state, you have to abuse the crap out of Archimedes principle (google it) with an inflatable vest. So you actually have an up-down control button on your dive gear. Also, because I and my deacon friend were singularly uninformed about any of the operations of dive gear, Yonemuri and Paolo were actually shadowing us the whole way along, making sure we were breathing alright, taking us up and down as needed. I understood the necessity, but found it somewhat frustrating for some reason.

So we swam around for about a half hour, saw some cool looking fish, even a clown fish playing around in an anemone. Then we went back up to the boat and waited around in the increasingly strong tropical swell while the others went deeper for another half-hour or so. Chatted with the deacon a little bit, saw a double rainbow, and relaxed.

Spent the evening sitting around, eating and drinking over at the dive school with the whole group. Takahashi brought over his Jack Daniels, and proceeded to pour me a drunks worth of shots, while we chatted about his time in Indonesia, and about diving. He's a cool guy, invited me to come to a barbecue with him sometime this week.

All in all, one hell of a weekend. Now it's back to hanging out with grade schoolers.

Island Legend status: obtained

Another day, another festival, another impromptu "SING US A SONG IN ENGLISH!" moment. I mean hell, I already did it once, why not a repeat performance. Also more dancing, but this time it was a lot more awkward because no one seemed to know exactly what was going on, so my ability to watch and follow was severely hamstringed. Eh. Guess I better get used to the fame, because I only foresee the Acts of Bravery increasing with time. I will be fighting sharks with my bare hands, and eating live eels before the month is out. Maybe teach some English along the way.

Shamisen lesson tomorrow. Diving on Saturday. Unless the typhoon coming in makes it impossible. Hooray!

UPDATE: OBON FESTIVAL

So there I was, minding my own business, hanging out with Yoda-san and my new teacher friend Kishimoto-sensei, drinking my solitary beer of the evening, when the principal from Kamikatetsu saunters up and we proceed to have a conversation which goes something like this:

Principal: "Tell me a song from Ohio!"
Me: "We don't have songs from Ohio."
Principal: "Then tell me a song from America!"
Me: "I mean, I can sing you The Beatles or something. I don't know many songs off the top of my head."
Principal: "OK LETS DO THAT! YOU'RE UP NEXT ON STAGE!"
Adam's Brain: "...what?"
Adam's Mouth: "Sure, why not!"
Adam's Brain: "WHAT!?"

So I sang my lovely rendition of Smokey Robinson's Tracks of My Tears (Thank you Trads) in front of maybe 100-200 people, including most of the kids from Kamikatetsu Elementary. I then proceeded to give a short speech about my impressions about Kikai, and about my life on the island.

None of the above (song excepted) even entered the territorial waters of English.

Then, although my reputation as a loon had been quite established, I went on to join in the big circle of people dancing. Dancing in Japan is vaguely like line dancing, in that everyone is doing the same thing. It's easy enough to pick up, as long as you can use your eyes, and then get your body to follow along. 2 months of Japanese festival dance practice to the rescue!

I think back, to a younger me, to times when I had a choice between taking a chance and perhaps making a fool of myself, and playing it safe and ducking out, and wonder what ever could have compelled me to take the second choice even once in my as of yet fairly short time on this planet.

Day one. Dagnosis: awesome.

Thus begins the life of Adam-sensei. Whether he come to be famous, or infamous or merely serve his tenure and retire into obscurity remains a mystery. But by god, it is going to be fun.

Thanks to the 3rd and 4th years from Kamikatetsu Elementary for the snazzy backpack upgrade. And for bringing me 6 names closer to knowing every student on the island.


I'm going to their Obon festival (google it) later tonight with the 3,4 year teacher.

Salient points from today:

1) Elementary school children, are fast.

2) My stomach has returned to it's Japanese standard size, which means I can eat about half of a school lunch, at least in as much as they insist on giving me more than everyone else so I can maintain my gaijin prowess. But I do so prefer the 6-10 small meals scattered throughout the day approach...no really, it's awesome. You're never hungry and you're never full.

3) Having successfully taught a day of classes with nearly zero idea of exactly what the hell a day of classes would look like, I have few doubts that I will, at least, survive this year. The fact that the day got easier and easier supports this theory. Also, that the same 3 games could be fairly easily adapted to not only multiple subjects, but also levels of competence. Times 9 grade schools, annnnd chuckle.

4) There's always one. I don't know if you actually want to go google "kancho" but it's basically a concerted effort by small Japanese children to stab you in the asshole with their fingers. For the most part, the school seems fairly kancho-averse, or at least kancho-neutral. But there's that one damn kid who has made it his mission in life. Fortunately, he is 7, and not particularly stealthy. Also I am ten times his size. But it does require an extra degree of diligence on my part.

I'm going to go eat spaghetti.