Saturday, February 19, 2005
Fuck the Romans!
You have to read the whole thing to know why...
I really wanted to post yesterday because I knew I would have so much to say after my enkai last night and I wanted to get all the stuff from last week down first. So, I’ll skip it and just talk about the drunken festivities of last night. Getting drunk with your co-workers, supervisors, neighbors, friends and crushes—all at the same time—is the best therapy. You can just get everything out in the open. And we did.
I also quite like enkais because they serve so much food, but I only like about 1% of what’s available. I’m still not so hot on the sashimi and seafood although, I am proud to say, at every enkai I do try something that looks disgusting because I never know when I might be surprised. It’s also the only place I can stand to drink beer and I don’t need to drink very much to get drunk on an empty stomach. With everyone coming by to fill up my glass it happens pretty quickly.
The dinner was really nice. It was in honor of two staff members, Mori-sensei, a commercial teacher, and Miyamoto-san, a caretaker at the school. They’ve both been working there for 30 years. They were very happy to be appreciated and there were many stories about Nakagoto through the years—huge typhoons and more that I couldn’t understand.
I sat next to Yoshida-sensei who took me scuba diving last November and he asked if I wanted to get my license this spring. His wife is an English teacher at the other high school on the island, Kamiko, and he said she can translate “scuba diving theory” to me. He said I was a good diver and he wants to teach me again. Maybe he’s just complimenting me, as many Japanese people do to be polite, but I would love to get my license so I agreed enthusiastically. He is such a great man, I would love to get to know his wife too.
After Koichiro and I were both drunk enough to stop pretending we are just friends, we started talking and pouring drinks for each other. He was more drunk than I was this time (that was planned!) and so I was coherent enough to really enjoy his presence. The whole night, okay, everywhere for that matter, I catch him watching me and it always ends up in him quickly looking away or pretending he wasn’t actually looking at me. Fair enough, I do the same thing, but I don’t think I try quite so hard to appear like I’m not staring. I just give him a nice, knowing smile and usually he returns them.
Actually, last night I even confronted him about why I catch him looking at me and, of course, he just mumbled something about it being strictly coincidental. But I honestly don’t believe him. I know the difference between a guy who is interested in me and a guy who is not. It seems so obvious to me, but I guess I’ll just have to CONTINUE having patience in this area. He may be leaving the island in a month (at the end of the school year) and this could all be over with very shortly. My supervisor, Hatakeyama-sensei, was also sitting next to us, witnessing the drink pouring and chopstick feeding and the friendly touching, and he decided to teach me a few Japanese cuss words and phrases. It was an interesting choice of sexual phrases he whispered into my ear and then told me to tell Koichiro. Seriously, everyone is pushing for us to be together, and yet it does not happen.
At the end of the enkai we all put our arms around each others’ shoulders and made a giant, swaying circle, sang a drinking song and yelled bonzai unreservedly. The jimucho-sensei also did this step dance with Japanese fans that I was very impressed by. I decided to go to karaoke with Satomi, Rie, Yoshida-sensei and Takeda-sensei (the taiko drummer that doesn’t like me). I was very impressed with the mens’ singing. Takeda-sensei in particular did this old Japanese folk song which I’ve somehow heard before and it was so good!! He altered his voice to sound like a crackling old man and it was so authentic!
Takeda-sensei and I have an interesting relationship. It’s definitely love-hate and tension filled. His favorite thing to say to me is “When in Rome, do as the Romans. When in Japan, speak Japanese.” Now, I try very hard to speak as much Japanese as I can. Usually it’s repeating the same phrases like “oishii desu” and “tanoshikatta desu” (it’s delicious, it was fun) but really you have to start somewhere. I study very hard and have seen lots of improvement in the last 6 months, but I’m nowhere near fluent. Possibly could be considered conversational if the conversation is limited to where I’m from and what I did last weekend. But Takeda-sensei constantly gives me crap about how I’m not studying hard enough!
I feel I should mention he’s the only Japanese person who does this and I feel like I’m unique in receiving this harassment as well. I’m not too bothered by it because I understand the importance of studying Japanese and I like that he has the spunk to stand up to me. Criticizing is a good quality so long as it’s not vicious and I don’t think he is. But when he started to say “When it Rome…” in the karaoke room and I had a microphone in my hand I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Fuck the Romans!” into the microphone and letting it echo throughout the room. I got laughs from everyone, which surprised me because I wasn’t expecting them to really understand me. I hadn’t thought out the consequences of them understanding, but I’m lucky the comment was well-received. Even Takeda-sensei cracked a smile and so I know this is mostly a game between us now. He has to tell me I'm not studying hard enough and I have to tell him to fuck off. (This is the end of the vulgarity because I know I have smaller audiences occasionally.)
Actually, last Wednesday, Takeda-sensei and I had another confrontation, but this time a positive one. His desk is directly across from Satomi’s and so I’m often sitting there to lesson plan with her. Nonaka-sensei (a PE teacher) said something surprising to us in Japanese and I could understand so I acted surprised. Then they were additionally surprised because I could understand what was being said (I wish I could remember now what it was) and then Takeda-sensei said my Japanese is getting good!!!! I was shocked because earlier this week he also asked if I was okay when my car broke down—all these sincere displays of concern for me! He’s getting soft!
Okay, back to Friday night…
After karaoke we went to Miyamoto-san’s house and I unexpectedly met one of my students!! I had no idea, but one of the best sophomore English students is also the son of the school caretaker. His name is Seiya and the more time I spend with him the more I KNOW he is gay. I’m sure he’s not coming out, this is a small island in Japan, but no one could deny the truth. He is flamboyantly gay. I really like him, especially because he has the confidence to speak in class without worrying about making mistakes and he has a nice, clear voice. He’s the class leader and I just love when I come into the classroom, he rounds the students together like a mother hen and shouts out “kiritsu, kyotsuke, rie” (stand, order, bow (I may have the spelling and translations wrong on these.)). It’s so goody-two-shoes, but I feel like the most respected teacher in the world when he does it. As it turns out, much of the night Seiya translated for me; I wish I could say because it was good practice for him, but I also need it a bunch too. It was very fun to spend one-on-one time with my student. I could see Miyamoto-san was very proud of his son communicating so easily with me so I was happy to reap the benefits.
There was a ton more food at their house, mostly raw squid, but I of course tried it—because Koichiro was feeding it to me from his chopsticks and I couldn’t say no to him!! But eww! So chewy! I also ate the poisonous-if-not-prepared-properly blowfish that Japan is famous for and I LOVE it!! I was hesitant to try it, but it has so much meat and no bones! My major issues with seafood are the bones and how it’s usually so difficult to eat with so little flesh. But this blowfish, it’s almost like soft beef jerky! Lots of meat and NO bones!! Very delicious. They also prepared up some cooked squid from me and I liked it much better than raw. Just cook the suckers! Yoshida-sensei ended up falling asleep on the floor next to me so I got to rub his belly and tell him how cute it is. It was fun.
The major excitement for the evening was the conversation though. Takeda-sensei and I got into this huge, friendly argument about language, politics, America, history and the world. It was really great because he was shooting comments to me in Japanese and I was firing back in English. Satomi was really great about translating for me. I definitely could not hold my own in this situation in Japanese. I can’t even say “shut the window” nevermind, “I too dislike Bush, but he IS the president of the United States and so long as I’m voting and doing my part to internationalize, such as coming to Japan and expand my knowledge of the world, I feel like I’m doing what I can.”
We talked about the movie Pearl Harbor and how inaccurately it represented what Japan did. Japan didn’t attack civilian areas. (He is a history teacher.) I said the movie was 1.) a love story made in Hollywood, not a documentary and 2.) people don’t necessarily think that because it happened in a movie that it actually happened in history (look at the outrage over Disney's Pocahantas because it was historically inaccurate) and 3.) history is never what actually happened, it the way humans chose to write it down in the textbooks, and usually it’s the people who won that got to do the writing. And the conversation continued with Iraq and North Korea and Bush and…you get the idea.
In the end we concluded by saying we both had a lot of respect for each other and what we’re doing. He’s actually interested in discussing these issues with me rather than being agreeable just because it’s more polite. He said he respects me because I’m actually leaving America and trying not to be the American who expects everyone to learn English. I know I do teach English, but I feel like that is a very small part of why I’m in Japan. For me, being in Japan is more about grass-roots internationalization than it is about English. I really like Takeda-sensei even if he can get repetitive about the “When in Rome” bit. I feel deep down it’s good natured harassing and I can dish as well as I take.
He also commented on Koichiro and I and our “relationship” and that got us on that topic for a while. All I heard was Koichiro and “boyfriend” but I took the opportunity to comment on the situation. I had Satomi translating and several witnesses to all I was saying, which was basically this: “Everyone (at school and karate) pushes for us to be in a relationship but all I have ever asked of Koichiro is a friendship and coming from a country where it’s completely reasonable to be friends with members of the opposite sex, I have a hard time seeing anything wrong with hanging out with him. My only regret is that he is too busy to actually have a life outside of work, but it’s not really within my limits of control so I’ll happily take what time I can get with him.” It’s hard to say this because it’s not exactly how I’m feeling, but I feel it’s better to keep it a secret for Koichiro’s sake at least. And I'm a chicken. But what can you expect me to say with everyone just sitting around in a circle watching our next move and I don’t even know where we stand?
Koichiro jumped in then and said he does want to hang out with me more and he doesn’t see anything wrong with it either. I was so happy. He invited me to go swimming with him again. I wanted to say we could even do something ELSE together, but really what else is there to do on the island except work out? We should be careful about spending time in each others’ apartments because what would it look like for the students?!?! I’m kidding, but they aren’t when they say it to me.
After more hours of drinking and talking and eating Satomi took Koichiro and I back home. We both sat in the back seat and I got to play with Koichiro’s hair. I know it sounds funny, but we slowly are beginning to touch each other more. As I mentioned, I was with Peter on Takashima who “tolerated” my touching for an entire weekend and what good therapy it was. I said the hardest part about being in Japan was the lack of human contact and so Koichiro indulged me for the drive home. The fact that he indulged me in public is especially shocking! This is amazing progress!
Okay, today is Saturday and all I’ve done is clean, sit on my couch, watch TV and movies, write emails and blogs and eat. That’s a lot, actually!! I left my apartment once to give my neighbors baked goods too. I was planning on going to Ojika, but it’s been a while since I’ve spent a weekend at home. When I woke up this morning I saw my apartment in a new light. Daylight. I’m never home during the day anymore because I leave before light and I always go work out after school and get home after dark. It was really dusty in here! But tomorrow I’ll get out and go to the gym.
Update on Kuro kuma-kun. He's just got some issues with warming up when it's cold and I'll be taking him to the garage on Monday. Leaving work Friday I had some trouble again and luckily Hatakeyama-sensei was just behind me so he pulled over to help. He drove the car and now understands the problem (apparently it goes whomp, whomp and I was inaccurately decribing it as a put, put, put) and now he can properly explain it to the dealership. I don't know what we'll do, but I could end up getting a new car. Sometimes I feel like this is musical cars. Both Koichiro and Tsuchiyama-sensei asked to trade or buy Kuro kuma-kun off me, Hatakeyama gave me one car and now is offering his other car to me and Yamanaka-san wants to trade with someone too. Kerry's just given her car to Peter as well. It's crazy! I'll keep you updated, of course!
Lots of love,
Sierra
P.S. Harald and I got to video chat Friday morning! Boy, you need to cut that hair! I think Harald was at his peak of attractiveness when we were together and that's no coincidence!!
I really wanted to post yesterday because I knew I would have so much to say after my enkai last night and I wanted to get all the stuff from last week down first. So, I’ll skip it and just talk about the drunken festivities of last night. Getting drunk with your co-workers, supervisors, neighbors, friends and crushes—all at the same time—is the best therapy. You can just get everything out in the open. And we did.
I also quite like enkais because they serve so much food, but I only like about 1% of what’s available. I’m still not so hot on the sashimi and seafood although, I am proud to say, at every enkai I do try something that looks disgusting because I never know when I might be surprised. It’s also the only place I can stand to drink beer and I don’t need to drink very much to get drunk on an empty stomach. With everyone coming by to fill up my glass it happens pretty quickly.
The dinner was really nice. It was in honor of two staff members, Mori-sensei, a commercial teacher, and Miyamoto-san, a caretaker at the school. They’ve both been working there for 30 years. They were very happy to be appreciated and there were many stories about Nakagoto through the years—huge typhoons and more that I couldn’t understand.
I sat next to Yoshida-sensei who took me scuba diving last November and he asked if I wanted to get my license this spring. His wife is an English teacher at the other high school on the island, Kamiko, and he said she can translate “scuba diving theory” to me. He said I was a good diver and he wants to teach me again. Maybe he’s just complimenting me, as many Japanese people do to be polite, but I would love to get my license so I agreed enthusiastically. He is such a great man, I would love to get to know his wife too.
After Koichiro and I were both drunk enough to stop pretending we are just friends, we started talking and pouring drinks for each other. He was more drunk than I was this time (that was planned!) and so I was coherent enough to really enjoy his presence. The whole night, okay, everywhere for that matter, I catch him watching me and it always ends up in him quickly looking away or pretending he wasn’t actually looking at me. Fair enough, I do the same thing, but I don’t think I try quite so hard to appear like I’m not staring. I just give him a nice, knowing smile and usually he returns them.
Actually, last night I even confronted him about why I catch him looking at me and, of course, he just mumbled something about it being strictly coincidental. But I honestly don’t believe him. I know the difference between a guy who is interested in me and a guy who is not. It seems so obvious to me, but I guess I’ll just have to CONTINUE having patience in this area. He may be leaving the island in a month (at the end of the school year) and this could all be over with very shortly. My supervisor, Hatakeyama-sensei, was also sitting next to us, witnessing the drink pouring and chopstick feeding and the friendly touching, and he decided to teach me a few Japanese cuss words and phrases. It was an interesting choice of sexual phrases he whispered into my ear and then told me to tell Koichiro. Seriously, everyone is pushing for us to be together, and yet it does not happen.
At the end of the enkai we all put our arms around each others’ shoulders and made a giant, swaying circle, sang a drinking song and yelled bonzai unreservedly. The jimucho-sensei also did this step dance with Japanese fans that I was very impressed by. I decided to go to karaoke with Satomi, Rie, Yoshida-sensei and Takeda-sensei (the taiko drummer that doesn’t like me). I was very impressed with the mens’ singing. Takeda-sensei in particular did this old Japanese folk song which I’ve somehow heard before and it was so good!! He altered his voice to sound like a crackling old man and it was so authentic!
Takeda-sensei and I have an interesting relationship. It’s definitely love-hate and tension filled. His favorite thing to say to me is “When in Rome, do as the Romans. When in Japan, speak Japanese.” Now, I try very hard to speak as much Japanese as I can. Usually it’s repeating the same phrases like “oishii desu” and “tanoshikatta desu” (it’s delicious, it was fun) but really you have to start somewhere. I study very hard and have seen lots of improvement in the last 6 months, but I’m nowhere near fluent. Possibly could be considered conversational if the conversation is limited to where I’m from and what I did last weekend. But Takeda-sensei constantly gives me crap about how I’m not studying hard enough!
I feel I should mention he’s the only Japanese person who does this and I feel like I’m unique in receiving this harassment as well. I’m not too bothered by it because I understand the importance of studying Japanese and I like that he has the spunk to stand up to me. Criticizing is a good quality so long as it’s not vicious and I don’t think he is. But when he started to say “When it Rome…” in the karaoke room and I had a microphone in my hand I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Fuck the Romans!” into the microphone and letting it echo throughout the room. I got laughs from everyone, which surprised me because I wasn’t expecting them to really understand me. I hadn’t thought out the consequences of them understanding, but I’m lucky the comment was well-received. Even Takeda-sensei cracked a smile and so I know this is mostly a game between us now. He has to tell me I'm not studying hard enough and I have to tell him to fuck off. (This is the end of the vulgarity because I know I have smaller audiences occasionally.)
Actually, last Wednesday, Takeda-sensei and I had another confrontation, but this time a positive one. His desk is directly across from Satomi’s and so I’m often sitting there to lesson plan with her. Nonaka-sensei (a PE teacher) said something surprising to us in Japanese and I could understand so I acted surprised. Then they were additionally surprised because I could understand what was being said (I wish I could remember now what it was) and then Takeda-sensei said my Japanese is getting good!!!! I was shocked because earlier this week he also asked if I was okay when my car broke down—all these sincere displays of concern for me! He’s getting soft!
Okay, back to Friday night…
After karaoke we went to Miyamoto-san’s house and I unexpectedly met one of my students!! I had no idea, but one of the best sophomore English students is also the son of the school caretaker. His name is Seiya and the more time I spend with him the more I KNOW he is gay. I’m sure he’s not coming out, this is a small island in Japan, but no one could deny the truth. He is flamboyantly gay. I really like him, especially because he has the confidence to speak in class without worrying about making mistakes and he has a nice, clear voice. He’s the class leader and I just love when I come into the classroom, he rounds the students together like a mother hen and shouts out “kiritsu, kyotsuke, rie” (stand, order, bow (I may have the spelling and translations wrong on these.)). It’s so goody-two-shoes, but I feel like the most respected teacher in the world when he does it. As it turns out, much of the night Seiya translated for me; I wish I could say because it was good practice for him, but I also need it a bunch too. It was very fun to spend one-on-one time with my student. I could see Miyamoto-san was very proud of his son communicating so easily with me so I was happy to reap the benefits.
There was a ton more food at their house, mostly raw squid, but I of course tried it—because Koichiro was feeding it to me from his chopsticks and I couldn’t say no to him!! But eww! So chewy! I also ate the poisonous-if-not-prepared-properly blowfish that Japan is famous for and I LOVE it!! I was hesitant to try it, but it has so much meat and no bones! My major issues with seafood are the bones and how it’s usually so difficult to eat with so little flesh. But this blowfish, it’s almost like soft beef jerky! Lots of meat and NO bones!! Very delicious. They also prepared up some cooked squid from me and I liked it much better than raw. Just cook the suckers! Yoshida-sensei ended up falling asleep on the floor next to me so I got to rub his belly and tell him how cute it is. It was fun.
The major excitement for the evening was the conversation though. Takeda-sensei and I got into this huge, friendly argument about language, politics, America, history and the world. It was really great because he was shooting comments to me in Japanese and I was firing back in English. Satomi was really great about translating for me. I definitely could not hold my own in this situation in Japanese. I can’t even say “shut the window” nevermind, “I too dislike Bush, but he IS the president of the United States and so long as I’m voting and doing my part to internationalize, such as coming to Japan and expand my knowledge of the world, I feel like I’m doing what I can.”
We talked about the movie Pearl Harbor and how inaccurately it represented what Japan did. Japan didn’t attack civilian areas. (He is a history teacher.) I said the movie was 1.) a love story made in Hollywood, not a documentary and 2.) people don’t necessarily think that because it happened in a movie that it actually happened in history (look at the outrage over Disney's Pocahantas because it was historically inaccurate) and 3.) history is never what actually happened, it the way humans chose to write it down in the textbooks, and usually it’s the people who won that got to do the writing. And the conversation continued with Iraq and North Korea and Bush and…you get the idea.
In the end we concluded by saying we both had a lot of respect for each other and what we’re doing. He’s actually interested in discussing these issues with me rather than being agreeable just because it’s more polite. He said he respects me because I’m actually leaving America and trying not to be the American who expects everyone to learn English. I know I do teach English, but I feel like that is a very small part of why I’m in Japan. For me, being in Japan is more about grass-roots internationalization than it is about English. I really like Takeda-sensei even if he can get repetitive about the “When in Rome” bit. I feel deep down it’s good natured harassing and I can dish as well as I take.
He also commented on Koichiro and I and our “relationship” and that got us on that topic for a while. All I heard was Koichiro and “boyfriend” but I took the opportunity to comment on the situation. I had Satomi translating and several witnesses to all I was saying, which was basically this: “Everyone (at school and karate) pushes for us to be in a relationship but all I have ever asked of Koichiro is a friendship and coming from a country where it’s completely reasonable to be friends with members of the opposite sex, I have a hard time seeing anything wrong with hanging out with him. My only regret is that he is too busy to actually have a life outside of work, but it’s not really within my limits of control so I’ll happily take what time I can get with him.” It’s hard to say this because it’s not exactly how I’m feeling, but I feel it’s better to keep it a secret for Koichiro’s sake at least. And I'm a chicken. But what can you expect me to say with everyone just sitting around in a circle watching our next move and I don’t even know where we stand?
Koichiro jumped in then and said he does want to hang out with me more and he doesn’t see anything wrong with it either. I was so happy. He invited me to go swimming with him again. I wanted to say we could even do something ELSE together, but really what else is there to do on the island except work out? We should be careful about spending time in each others’ apartments because what would it look like for the students?!?! I’m kidding, but they aren’t when they say it to me.
After more hours of drinking and talking and eating Satomi took Koichiro and I back home. We both sat in the back seat and I got to play with Koichiro’s hair. I know it sounds funny, but we slowly are beginning to touch each other more. As I mentioned, I was with Peter on Takashima who “tolerated” my touching for an entire weekend and what good therapy it was. I said the hardest part about being in Japan was the lack of human contact and so Koichiro indulged me for the drive home. The fact that he indulged me in public is especially shocking! This is amazing progress!
Okay, today is Saturday and all I’ve done is clean, sit on my couch, watch TV and movies, write emails and blogs and eat. That’s a lot, actually!! I left my apartment once to give my neighbors baked goods too. I was planning on going to Ojika, but it’s been a while since I’ve spent a weekend at home. When I woke up this morning I saw my apartment in a new light. Daylight. I’m never home during the day anymore because I leave before light and I always go work out after school and get home after dark. It was really dusty in here! But tomorrow I’ll get out and go to the gym.
Update on Kuro kuma-kun. He's just got some issues with warming up when it's cold and I'll be taking him to the garage on Monday. Leaving work Friday I had some trouble again and luckily Hatakeyama-sensei was just behind me so he pulled over to help. He drove the car and now understands the problem (apparently it goes whomp, whomp and I was inaccurately decribing it as a put, put, put) and now he can properly explain it to the dealership. I don't know what we'll do, but I could end up getting a new car. Sometimes I feel like this is musical cars. Both Koichiro and Tsuchiyama-sensei asked to trade or buy Kuro kuma-kun off me, Hatakeyama gave me one car and now is offering his other car to me and Yamanaka-san wants to trade with someone too. Kerry's just given her car to Peter as well. It's crazy! I'll keep you updated, of course!
Lots of love,
Sierra
P.S. Harald and I got to video chat Friday morning! Boy, you need to cut that hair! I think Harald was at his peak of attractiveness when we were together and that's no coincidence!!
