I Hope they serve Sushi in Hell
So much happened this week, it’s hard to remember what days correspond to what insanity, but I’m going to give it a go. On Monday I had the three kids I played twister with last week. This week I decided to buy them guns. So before class I popped over to the 100 yen store (dollar store, 105 yen with tax) and bought 4 toy guns for 420 yen.
I proceeded to draw an almost anatomically correct human being on the board, and identify the various parts a gun could blow off in combat. I then set them into teams, to take turns shooting each other ruthlessly with machine guns, and making them scream, “Ouch! You shot my arm,” or “Ouch! You shot my stomach,” etc…They almost played by the rules for about a third of a heartbeat , and then it degraded into a full-scale little kid shit-fit of saliva, guttural sounds, flailing limbs, and most importantly Japanese gibberish, I lost control of a mob consisting of three 10 year old kids. I made them put the guns away and then thought of some other asinine project for them to do.
Apparently GH cancelled my class, claiming there was some kind of “conference” after my subtle yet ingenious reproach with the backpack last class. CEO’s of nationwide banks never go to “conferences” so I think I may have shattered his self-esteem. Steve .7 – Japan 3.4
After that I met up with my Japanese Sake brewer who promised to bring a nice bottle of Sake to our next lesson. SHAZAM! Easy job, free booze, what’s better than this?
On Tuesday I have a class at a chemical company, it consists of one extraordinarily cute 19 year old, who for some reason works in the research and development department of a Petrochemical Wax Company, and 9 assorted less attractive cohorts. It’s funny because the “grunts” and the “big boys” attend the same class, and when one of the bosses makes fun of someone, they’ll sulk and not say a word back, but they’ll pester me all class. Somehow I arrived at the bottom of the totem poll to TEACH them. Anyway, I had told them about this Cherry Blossom Liquor I'd seen at OPA, and none of them (some avid drinkers, one of the bosses comes in every week with liquored up stories) had ever heard of it. They said I was lying to them, ME, the gaijin was mocking them. Despite the fact that there was still a half bottle of it left at OPA, I would have to drink it before next week and bring it in.
Flash forward to 11 AM Wednesday – Hangover.
The night before, El Charro and I went to OPA because we didn’t have to work until 4 PM the next day, in what will probably be our last week of freedom before early classes (10:15!) start. Suffice to say we drained the bottle, it tasted good, we were happy. I believe I sang “Hotel California”, “Layla” (Unplugged and Plugged) and “Help!” with the owner and his accompanying keyboardist. I imagine it was not good. We also have not been back since, because of the incident during the ceremonial paying of the bar tab. The young bartender, who I like because he thinks I’m super cool, (which according to my mom, is absolutely correct) happened to tell us the shots were much cheaper than they actually were. When we got our tab we were shocked to appalled at the number, but then a cultural butting of heads ensued, we said it wasn’t the bartenders fault (though it was) and for the first time in a month I saw the owner of OPA get heated, he said the kid was an awful bartender, we disagreed, it was in fact the first time I’d seen him show anything towards his patrons other than a gratuitous smile, or utter indifference, and assuming we thought if we underpaid there would be a good chance the bartender would lose his job, we did the most utterly un-American I’ve seen anyone do here, we paid the inflated tab. This good deed by my math should wash 16 or 17 much worse deeds from my permanent record.
Friday morning was something new. I drove down to a town called Hikari, with La Esqueleta Corriente to teach English to thirty 3 year olds in a kindergarten. I haven’t seen this many Japanese running around since the air raid drills in Nagasaki. There were easily two hundred kids running around this building, the teachers looked like they could drop dead on the floor any minute of the hour we were in there. I haven't felt this sorry for another human being since I watched people waiting in line for the opening night of a Carrot Top performance in Las Vegas. Suffice to say my pity eroded seconds before the kids starting pouring into the class room like a screaming midget tsunami. La Esqueleta Corriente was teaching the class, as she had observed it once before, and I was there to help out, since I’d be taking over the class afterward. These kids were utterly and completely in awe of us the second we walked in, we strolled into their lives like anime characters bursting out of a tv screen into their living room. A white girl with blue eyes and blonde hair and curves, and a white guy with facial hair, body hair, and blue eyes are not something the children of Tokuyama Japan see every day. They would almost break into fights trying to get our attention or hold our hands, or make any conceivable contact they could. They would hug our legs until we pried them off and put them into a seat. It’s remarkably endearing for about 15 and a half seconds, and then you see a blur in the corner of your eye, and when you hit the ground you realize one of the little tyrants just punched you square in the nuts.
The cleverly orchestrated attack was on, I was Custer, and this was my Little Big Horn, the kids quickly started pulling out arm hairs, and rubbing the stubble on my face, two aspects of my genetics I would have no problem surrendering, because they themselves have older brothers and fathers who probably don’t have a single hair on their face or arms. Then the hair-pulling began, and my scalp’s taken to throwing them off by itself recently so pulling out more is not what I needed, and I think I finally recovered my faculties when someone tried to poke me in the eye. At which point I brushed the kids off me and pointed at the chairs until they sat down. This class was on, 3 year olds 15 – Me
-6 and a half.
So we began the lesson with the hokey pokey, the class split up into two circles, one with La Esqueleta Corriente and one with our hero. Apparently they’ve never seen a full grown gaijin man give 110% to the hokey pokey, because my circle quickly devolved into a puddle of children while La Esqueleta Corriente’s circle maintained its relative circlativity. Afterwards the lesson came down to flashcards for a while, and then we played the color game. The game is simple, you hold up a flash card for a color, let’s say green, and then tell the children to run and touch something green. La Esqueleta Corriente is wearing tight black from head to toe. When she yelled touch black, one 3 year old boy runs behind her, grabs her legs, and plants his face straight into the crack of her ass, Freud would have a field day I’m sure, I almost fell down I was laughing so hard, because after the initial rush, about 12 more little kids grabbed her legs until she was wading through a sea of tiny limbs, watching a stunning 30 year old woman staggering around a classroom with 15 Japanese kindergarteners holding on to her for dear life, while urine stain in a classroom funny, was not the highlight of my Friday.
Towards the end of the class I just started picking them up and tossing them into couches as they laughed gregariously. It probably all amounted to riling every single kid up right before we left and essentially making the Japanese teachers deal with a bunch of crack babies.
I proceeded to draw an almost anatomically correct human being on the board, and identify the various parts a gun could blow off in combat. I then set them into teams, to take turns shooting each other ruthlessly with machine guns, and making them scream, “Ouch! You shot my arm,” or “Ouch! You shot my stomach,” etc…They almost played by the rules for about a third of a heartbeat , and then it degraded into a full-scale little kid shit-fit of saliva, guttural sounds, flailing limbs, and most importantly Japanese gibberish, I lost control of a mob consisting of three 10 year old kids. I made them put the guns away and then thought of some other asinine project for them to do.
Apparently GH cancelled my class, claiming there was some kind of “conference” after my subtle yet ingenious reproach with the backpack last class. CEO’s of nationwide banks never go to “conferences” so I think I may have shattered his self-esteem. Steve .7 – Japan 3.4
After that I met up with my Japanese Sake brewer who promised to bring a nice bottle of Sake to our next lesson. SHAZAM! Easy job, free booze, what’s better than this?
On Tuesday I have a class at a chemical company, it consists of one extraordinarily cute 19 year old, who for some reason works in the research and development department of a Petrochemical Wax Company, and 9 assorted less attractive cohorts. It’s funny because the “grunts” and the “big boys” attend the same class, and when one of the bosses makes fun of someone, they’ll sulk and not say a word back, but they’ll pester me all class. Somehow I arrived at the bottom of the totem poll to TEACH them. Anyway, I had told them about this Cherry Blossom Liquor I'd seen at OPA, and none of them (some avid drinkers, one of the bosses comes in every week with liquored up stories) had ever heard of it. They said I was lying to them, ME, the gaijin was mocking them. Despite the fact that there was still a half bottle of it left at OPA, I would have to drink it before next week and bring it in.
Flash forward to 11 AM Wednesday – Hangover.
The night before, El Charro and I went to OPA because we didn’t have to work until 4 PM the next day, in what will probably be our last week of freedom before early classes (10:15!) start. Suffice to say we drained the bottle, it tasted good, we were happy. I believe I sang “Hotel California”, “Layla” (Unplugged and Plugged) and “Help!” with the owner and his accompanying keyboardist. I imagine it was not good. We also have not been back since, because of the incident during the ceremonial paying of the bar tab. The young bartender, who I like because he thinks I’m super cool, (which according to my mom, is absolutely correct) happened to tell us the shots were much cheaper than they actually were. When we got our tab we were shocked to appalled at the number, but then a cultural butting of heads ensued, we said it wasn’t the bartenders fault (though it was) and for the first time in a month I saw the owner of OPA get heated, he said the kid was an awful bartender, we disagreed, it was in fact the first time I’d seen him show anything towards his patrons other than a gratuitous smile, or utter indifference, and assuming we thought if we underpaid there would be a good chance the bartender would lose his job, we did the most utterly un-American I’ve seen anyone do here, we paid the inflated tab. This good deed by my math should wash 16 or 17 much worse deeds from my permanent record.
Friday morning was something new. I drove down to a town called Hikari, with La Esqueleta Corriente to teach English to thirty 3 year olds in a kindergarten. I haven’t seen this many Japanese running around since the air raid drills in Nagasaki. There were easily two hundred kids running around this building, the teachers looked like they could drop dead on the floor any minute of the hour we were in there. I haven't felt this sorry for another human being since I watched people waiting in line for the opening night of a Carrot Top performance in Las Vegas. Suffice to say my pity eroded seconds before the kids starting pouring into the class room like a screaming midget tsunami. La Esqueleta Corriente was teaching the class, as she had observed it once before, and I was there to help out, since I’d be taking over the class afterward. These kids were utterly and completely in awe of us the second we walked in, we strolled into their lives like anime characters bursting out of a tv screen into their living room. A white girl with blue eyes and blonde hair and curves, and a white guy with facial hair, body hair, and blue eyes are not something the children of Tokuyama Japan see every day. They would almost break into fights trying to get our attention or hold our hands, or make any conceivable contact they could. They would hug our legs until we pried them off and put them into a seat. It’s remarkably endearing for about 15 and a half seconds, and then you see a blur in the corner of your eye, and when you hit the ground you realize one of the little tyrants just punched you square in the nuts.
The cleverly orchestrated attack was on, I was Custer, and this was my Little Big Horn, the kids quickly started pulling out arm hairs, and rubbing the stubble on my face, two aspects of my genetics I would have no problem surrendering, because they themselves have older brothers and fathers who probably don’t have a single hair on their face or arms. Then the hair-pulling began, and my scalp’s taken to throwing them off by itself recently so pulling out more is not what I needed, and I think I finally recovered my faculties when someone tried to poke me in the eye. At which point I brushed the kids off me and pointed at the chairs until they sat down. This class was on, 3 year olds 15 – Me
-6 and a half.
So we began the lesson with the hokey pokey, the class split up into two circles, one with La Esqueleta Corriente and one with our hero. Apparently they’ve never seen a full grown gaijin man give 110% to the hokey pokey, because my circle quickly devolved into a puddle of children while La Esqueleta Corriente’s circle maintained its relative circlativity. Afterwards the lesson came down to flashcards for a while, and then we played the color game. The game is simple, you hold up a flash card for a color, let’s say green, and then tell the children to run and touch something green. La Esqueleta Corriente is wearing tight black from head to toe. When she yelled touch black, one 3 year old boy runs behind her, grabs her legs, and plants his face straight into the crack of her ass, Freud would have a field day I’m sure, I almost fell down I was laughing so hard, because after the initial rush, about 12 more little kids grabbed her legs until she was wading through a sea of tiny limbs, watching a stunning 30 year old woman staggering around a classroom with 15 Japanese kindergarteners holding on to her for dear life, while urine stain in a classroom funny, was not the highlight of my Friday.
Towards the end of the class I just started picking them up and tossing them into couches as they laughed gregariously. It probably all amounted to riling every single kid up right before we left and essentially making the Japanese teachers deal with a bunch of crack babies.
posted by Just1Wheat at
10:09 AM
