Meanwhile, in Japan

“No!”
The Russian wasn’t happy. The day’s events were beginning to take their toll as my shoulders and forearms filled with lactic acid and my back tightened up like a boa constrictor in a freezer around a hot water bottle. And he was coming in for another attack.
“You have to letting the sword move its own! Its own!” His Japanese was difficult to follow at times. Despite having lived in Japan since he was my age, the man never really learned to read and write the language well, and his grammar often left something to be desired. Not to mention a very stark Russian accent that made “arigato” sound more like “YAR-chi-GAH-thoo.”

But he’s a good man, kind, and he does know things—particularly things that I’ve wanted to know since freshman year of high school. “I don’t like talking,” he would later tell me, “I like training… and drinking.”

There are days.

Despite occasional comments to the contrary, I honestly love what I’m doing here. The martial arts are a significant part of my life, so having the opportunity to spend every day training is rare and I do my best to capitalize on it. The job is excellent, chiefly because of the kids. Almost all of my coworkers are lovely people and sweetly innocent from lack of world experience. It’s a good arrangement for which I’m thankful.

Somehow, though, it can all become a bit much. Yesterday I volunteered for an ‘international day’ at a middle school rather far from my apartment. It was supposed to be an hour-and-a-half drive, but ended up closer to two after losing my way a number of times. The kids there were a lot of fun. The town, Shimobe, is somehow even more rural than where I live, which was a nice change of pace. I found it reminiscent of Noda City, Chiba Prefecture, but with more mountains and less garbage. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

At such events I tend to be ‘on’ in an effort to elicit participation from the youngsters. It’s a skill that I picked up when working as a camp counselor. This is a tremendous drain on the old Energon reserves, however, and the drive home reminded me that it’s been a while since last visiting the chiropractor. My friend Kim, to whom I owe my sanity, was along for the horrible traffic that we encountered.

Upon returning home, I promptly fell onto my futon and didn’t move for an indeterminate amount of time. I was eventually roused by a call from my Shinkage-ryu teacher, who wanted to know if I’d be up for training. My thoughts immediately turned to October 11th, 2008. My judo teacher called me early on a Saturday morning, looking for a training partner. I couldn’t walk. The previous night I’d sparred at the boxing gym and now my right leg was refusing to accept weight. Not wanting to worry him (or seem like a wuss) I said that it was my birthday and intended to spend time with friends, if he didn’t mind. Missing a day of training is hardly a big deal, but he never called me again after that, which gives the impression that he may have read my disinterest that day as disinterest in general.

“Sure thing. I’ll be up there as soon as I can.”

And so the Russian and I spent about three hours swinging fake swords at one another on the grounds of a shrine dedicated to a warlord of the Takeda Clan. My back was already in pain, which spread to my shoulders and forearms in quick order. At some point I realized that I was dehydrated. I was struggling to keep proper form all the while, shifting the hips, squeezing the abdomen, left foot, right foot, level the shoulders—my head was swimming by 9:30 when we finished. I had a headache from trying to remember how to read the patterns. Then he decided to drop a load of dojo history on me, which I scrambled to grasp and remember as we walked it from Russian, through Japanese, into English.

I eventually ended up at an all-night sushi restaurant, where the waitresses exhibited a degree of discomfort at the mound of plates and bowls that stacked up around me. Getting out of bed was not the easiest of things this morning, and boxing tonight looks to be thoroughly educational.

And it’s all thanks to Dave Lowry and Lafayette Jefferson High School.

I wouldn’t want to be a Chinese archaeologist with David Anderson around. This gentleman is, as my friend Tom would say, a pimp:

Howdy, readers! Long time no blog. If you check back in the archives you might notice that around this time last year I had a post about my lack of activity. This is more or less a resurrection of that sentiment. You see, it’s not that things don’t happen in Japan in the winter. Quite the contrary, as illustrated by the Sapporo ice festivals and any number of celebrations in the warmer and colder regions, but where I live, quite literally the middle of the big island, not much goes down in the way of festivities. Comparatively, that is.

As for travel, I spent Christmas and New Year’s in Indiana, which, as much as I love my home state, isn’t in danger of any excitement. Trips in January are rare as the weather isn’t conducive to being outside. The past four weeks have been pretty routine. Sorry if you were hoping for winter hijinks of some variety.

On the plus side, with the warmer weather (today is the beginning of Japanese spring) comes more activity, so you can expect a lot more wacky sojourns and amusing stories of my follies and foibles. Chuck Norris says that we must remain goal-oriented, so to that end I’ve established a list of things to accomplish his year.

While this isn’t the complete list, you should be able to get a feel for the sort of outings that I have in store:

• see (and obtain a photo with?) a geisha
• learn how to grow bonsai trees
• visit the atomic bomb museum in Hiroshima
• enter Ninja Warrior
• learn Japanese calligraphy
• start a chess club at the school
• walk the old footpath from Nara to Yagyu Village
• ride a bullet train
• meet (and obtain a photo with?) a sumo wrestler
• study some kind of traditional dance
• in lieu of a chess club, convince the Powers that Be to let me have an international club

As Ben Grimm would say, “It’s culturin’ time!”

A few of you (thus comprising roughly 50% of my total readership) have asked recently what I do in the course of a typical work day. You’re in luck! Let’s go on a trip to the exciting realm of English education.

My job title is “Assistant Language Teacher” or ALT. The Japanese people with whom I tag team are called “Japanese Teachers of English” or JTE’s. I work with four such educators, all of whom have a surprisingly good command of English. Normally middle school teachers in this country are of suspect quality, so I’m lucky to work with the folks that I do. They’re all pretty solid teachers.

My main school is on the small side of mid-sized with two hundred seventy-nine students across three grades (seventh, eighth, and ninth). In this area the kids have a reputation for being a bit immature, innocent, and very studious, none of which is particularly true. I’m one of three staff members who live in the town, which is better known than the prefecture itself because of the local wine industry.

One day each week I go to a small village in the mountains east of here. There’s a total of twenty-two middle schoolers, but at one time it was a more populous area, so the facilities are large enough for a much greater student body. It’s a bit unsettling to walk into a full sized classroom with only six desks. That school has high test scores (not that the ridiculous teacher-to-student ratio has anything to do with it), so the local government is hesitant to close it and send the kids elsewhere. Due to the size of both the school and community, the children are very comfortable with one another and not fearful of speaking English, which is the case at my main school.

Every morning I wake up at about 6:30 and go through the usual routine: shower, eat, check CNN.com, etc. Upon realizing that I only have ten minutes to get to work, I grab my bag and whatever props I’m using that day, then hightail it to the office. I don’t technically have to be at work until 8:30, but the morning meeting takes place at 8:15, so I try to be there at about that time. The first period starts at 8:45 and I almost always have a seventh grade class first thing.

On any given day there will be five or six periods, with the first four in the morning. Given that their last class is almost always study hall or “moral philosophy,” anyone who’s teaching that day will do so in the morning. Lunch happens around 12:40, I eat with the kids, they have their last period or two of the day, and then comes cleaning time. Every day we spend about fifteen minutes halfheartedly sweeping out the building. Following that, each homeroom meets for their 帰りの会 (kaeri no kai, or “going home meeting”). Japanese people love meetings and that love is passed on to their children the only way they know how: by cramming it down their throats. Once the unnecessary meeting is over with, the kids go to their totally optional clubs (in which everyone must take part).

Because of my location, there are only two non-athletic clubs. The band is reasonably sized considering how many kids we have, but I’ve yet to determined if there are any art club members at all. If I’m not busy, I usually hang out with the basketball club because a lot of the nerdy kids who don’t want to play instruments joined together in an act of solidarity.

Normally my work is over at 4:15 when my contract with the Board of Education says to go home, but sometimes basketball or recitation contest practice will keep me for a bit. There are very rare occasions on which I stay until 6:00 or later to either prepare for a big lesson or because of an event at the school (like the yearly sports and culture festival). In contrast, the Japanese staff will usually stay until somewhere between 5:30 and 9:00 depending on how old they are. In this culture the younger someone is, the longer he’s expected to stay at work, despite not having anything to do. Everyone is required to advise/coach a sport or activity, which means they’re at the school most Saturdays and Sundays as well.

Within the classroom each ALT has a different arrangement with the individual JTE’s. Some folks (the unfortunately vocal minority) spend all of their time on the Interweb because they don’t have any classes to get ready or attend. This isn’t my experience. In fact, the longer I’ve been here, the more responsibilities they’ve given me. As far as my first year goes, though, I would usually plan a short activity (usually a review game) and help the kids with pronunciation. Depending on the JTE there may be more or less room to have fun. The important thing to keep in mind is that, no matter how much work and autonomy an ALT is given, we are not proper teachers. The JTE’s (tend to) understand how to teach within their own society, so it’s generally best to defer to their training unless something is clearly wrong.

There are also stretches of time when I don’t have much to do. In the middle of winter and the early spring a lot of time is devoted to testing, so a few of us in the “less academic” areas (arts, music, and Jared, basically) have a good deal of down time. I don’t know what the Japanese folks do, but I fill my time with studying, reading, writing, and occasionally Urban Dead. I’m very lucky to be in the position that I am. This is probably the closest that I’ll ever come to being a professional writer, so I’m enjoying the chance to crank out material while I can.

In the end, the job of an ALT is open ended. Our purpose here, as expressed by both our contracts and the outline of the JET Program, is to assist with foreign language instruction, educate the local community about foreign cultures, and to act as bridges between Japan and our home countries in (more or less) whatever ways we see fit. Some of us interact with the older members of the population or a particular interest group. I’ve decided to concentrate on the kids because they have the greatest potential to affect the world around them. As such, I come along when they run marathons, play basketball, carry torches up the mountain, and many other activities.

I’m not very good at the classroom portion of the job. “Team teaching” has never made much sense to me, but I do my best. I’ll gauge success in a few years when the students have a chance to go abroad. My goal is to convince one kid to spend a year at an American high school. If I can do that, then I’ll word my resume accordingly.