Bits and odd bods

The news was reporting methods for solving pachinko addiction last night. I think putting the addicts to sleep would be most effective. It is the most absurd, pointless pursuit a person can have, but in summer women have left babies to die in cars because of it.

The news was slightly more interesting than the terrible Ben Affleck film I had to endure. I have watched more shite TV here than I had in my entire lifetime prior to coming to Japan (and I really had put in some hours back home). This was a terrible made-for-TVish film about a casino heist (a talentless Ashton Kutcher was a patron of said casino) flukily pulled off by some ex-cons, though there was a `clever` twist to who was the real mastermind. I won`t spoilt it for anyone who has yet to see it as I can`t be bothered to explain it.

Sachiko, the genkiest Menopause Sister, sang me a song in Japanese in class to explain the Children`s Festival. She had no sense of embarrassment what so ever, though the other two compensated for this and squirmed miserably until she finished. I also had to teach them the words `revealing`, `low-cut` (which they then used to describe my outfit) and `push-up bra` (unrelated to my outfit and very popular in China, apparently).

This week`s lessons have revolved around descriptions and guessing my hobbies, which has been amusing and awkward in equal measure. A slimy new student who always letches on the utterly beautiful receptionist guessed I went to the gym twice a week - his eyes are only for Mariko, so I like to imagine his surprise was genuine when I said `actually never` and I made my Live Wires describe my character: sporty, kind, funny and polite. As concept checks go, this should have forced me to re-teach the vocab, but I think they were just going for words they could remember and spell.

Everyone`s going Mod

I went to my second gig in Japan last night, although inadvertantly. I had just popped to the George to avoid a Saturday night at home, but 30 minutes after I arrived, a swarm of beehives and monochrome dresses descended the steps and walloped a ￥1000 door charge on anyone wanting a quiet pint. I only vaguely remember a Crampsy romp, a Shout cover and being dazzled by the male vocalist`s enunciation. He pissed on Mr Woah-Yeah`s `prease prease me`.

Aki came down later. We got drunk and she danced her urban dance to Louis Louis, which was amusing to see. I put myself in a circle of fancy-dressed Japanese boys who looked like Ocean Colour Scene on smack and eventually latched on to a small kakkoii boy who was dressed more modernly, but later DJed a set I was too drunk to hear, but would like to imagine was the best. We had a brief snog on a bench outside, but I was too drunk to bother writing my email for him. From my vague memory, he was just about tall enough to be allowed on the rides at Alton Towers, so it is no tragedy.

While waiting for Aki to pop down to celebrate her husband`s birthday, I sat with JeDos, Duncan (the Koshigaya DoS) and Mike, the new ADoS, and so received a barrel-load of Karen. On Thursday, she refused to let three screaming four-year-olds out of her classroom (she had shouted and scared them). Three mothers and a receptionist eventually managed to yank the door open and release the captives, but not before terrifying them immensely. I doubt they will grow into gaijin-friendly Anglophiles.

She has clearly had a breakdown. Something that is more common than you would imagine and not something I was warned of before coming out here. Lots of people come here to hide from their problems, but in the first six months you spend a considerable amount of time alone with only your thoughts for company. This is not a place for a loon on the run.

Friday, Takashi-san and I spent a far saner afternoon scoping out Shibuya. He gave me a little tour of designer shops whose windows we couldn`t even afford to smudge by pressing our noses against, the local park (it suddenly felt a lot more like London then - I think I am addicted to urban parks, so intend to take my Japanese texts books there on my next day off and hope someone brave and merciful will spot me and let me practice on them) and and Takashi-san`s college. We found we`d wandered into Harajuku and Shinjuku by accident (the Japanese I know seem to have no sense of direction and always, always get lost). It was nice seeing how everything connects and that it really is as close as strolling between tube stops back home. We headed to an Irish pub so Takashi-san could have some fish and chips and I, feeling summery, had a cider shandy, which confused the waitress considerably.

The afternoon was interrupted by a call from JeDoS asking me to try to tempt Karen out of one of the schools. After Thursday`s debacle, her next two days` work were cancelled, but she turned up anyway. I really have no hold on her and had been trying to coax her out all week by posting notes in her door (partly also to make sure she took them in and was therefore alive), but had no response, so she was abandoned at the school around 3am - JeDoS and Mike having tried every other method to get her out (including bringing in the police) before finally running out of ideas and giving in. She is due to go home soon, but has until Friday to deal with no work and then the Golden Week holidays to get through. I have no idea how she will cope, but am relieved that I have already booked a trip to Hiroshima and so will not be involved.

Day by day

Japan has a festival day practically every other day it seems. Yesterday, Aki rang me to wish me a good 4-20, apparently a day when you can get stoned legally, although through the backround train drones, her mobile`s crackle and her broken yank English, I am not sure if this is a national holiday or an Aki one. Children`s Day is coming up, so a student gave me a crappy Koi streamer to hang up in my room. I tried, but it`s cheap and clashes with my other cheap possessions. The same student also ran through some other `days`, but I got stuck on `Bad Teeth Day` and wouldn`t budge. I still don`t know what happens (they laughed when I said `go to the dentist`, but I suspect this is because no one here goes - teeth are wonky and covered in coffee-coloured goo), but will investigate.

Teaching has been a bit hellish this week. The new year excitement has worn off the younger students already and they are back to their usual disinterest. How long did I really expect a new textbook to keep them interested?! I`ve been having a few discipline problems. Miteki, who I previously loved because he was excellent and quite cute, has decided his new book is too easy (he has been demoted by about three years` of English study, poor lad) and is going to give me shit in class instead. He was joined by his side-kick, Ryoya, who is far worse as he lacks the imagination to create his own disruption or be won back by more complex exercises. I understand Miteki`s chagrin. He was forming fairly advanced sentences (for a boy of 9, anyway) and is now learning how to introduce himself in the company of a bunch of retards. One girl who actually did the same class and was allegedly on the same level as Miteki is seriously special. We did a run and draw game, all the kids get it and we generally play it quite a lot as it`s easy and fun. Mayuko looked at me gormlessly holding the pen, having watched her two team-mates draw their nouns. I said `bag` in English and Japanese, but it still didn`t help. She just drooled down herself and another girl had to hold her hand and guide the pen. I quite get Miteki`s outrage. However, his and Ryoya`s little moment of rebellion came while I was being observed by the parent of a potential new student and I don`t think she was impressed that I couldn`t even get them to catch a ball and count to 10.

This was Wednesday, perhaps the hardest day of my week. I may also have made a bit of a clanger as I took a class with one of Natalie`s ex-students. She had warned me the woman is insane. Without a shred of shame, she explained she wanted to learn English to go to Disneyland. She has already been (although not to Disneyland Paris, I put my foot in it asking about that!) to Florida and wherever the other one is a couple of times, but has been to Tokyo Disney 400. Apparently the appeal is because she loves Mickey. He is kind and a gentleman. She is 30. Foolishly, I tried to apply all the language to Disney. It was weird concept checking around Donald and Mickey. It was a real struggle trying to remember how to spell Goofy (is that right?!). Anyway, I am seriously worried she enjoyed it too much and will now want me forever. I cannot bear the thought.

This country is full of loons.

ugh

Of course, I feel massively hung over today. Last night we had nomihodii (all you can drink) with our yakiniku, and, although it was about GBP7, being greedy gaijin, we tried to drink the place dry and had to be asked to leave as the staff needed to get home to sleep! Once I got home, I saw I had emails from Karen and George asking where I was, so, thinking something might be amiss, headed back out and found myself in the George - a solitary customer begging for free gin (the cash points shut obscenely early here, Japan having not realised the purpose of an ATM) before going to another bar down the road with George for wine and seedy entertainment.

Yesterday was generally a good day. I got my Take Off 1s to practice asking `do you like` questions. One boy who was trying to freak me out was massively disappointed that I liked moths, but did get me by asking my opinion of toilets. I got a nice plant cutting from Sachiko, one of the Menopause Sisters, and some anco cakes (I don`t know the official name, but they are very sweet and very oishii!) from Hidako. Next week, Takako is away, so I might take them a token gift to up the gift-giving stakes. Maybe they`ll get me my Mac!

Golden Week is coming up (not a patch on Taiwan`s Tomb Sweeping Day!) and I`m going to meet Rachel in Hiroshima, which will be good. On the way, I stop off in Nagoya to meet Kaiah for some camper entertainment. This afternoon, Atsuko took me to buy my shinkansen ticket, which was a hideous ordeal with a hangover and something I clearly couldn`t have handled alone (I have said it before, but the Japanese make such a meal out of everything!!). I had to go to the ATM to get the cash, which was handy as I nearly threw up from the unnatural heat in the shop!

Edited highlights

You might notice that some of my blog entries have been trimmed. Apparently this site is quite easy to find on Google, so to stop any sensitive information falling into the wrong hands (or people finding out how awfully I gossip about them!), I`ve had to do some pruning. I hadn`t ever imagined that people would bother reading this (even those I asked!), but fortunately finding that lunatic`s website before I left the UK hammered home an important lesson in self-censorship so the damage is minimal!

The weekend has been fun. Yesterday, I chatted to Kaiah, the friend I picked up at my AEON interview and have only actually met once, for hours about Japan`s timewarp. It is perpetually 1972 here. The TV is dreadful, technology is backward (speak to anyone who has lived here about the washing machines - oh my days) and all forms of discrimination are rife. After that, I settled down to some over-priced cheese and crackers and took in some more of this terrible TV: A `kawaii` woman cooking a lobster badly, while a battleaxe excels. Of course, the pretty woman came through in the end, making her the perfect non-threatening trophy wife. The `plot` never changes from one week to the next. It amazes me that the `pretty` (like a Greek leathery, over-preened and brassy star) one hasn`t accidentally learned to cook, but each week she simpers in the kitchen and spills things to heighten the drama of her ever-predictable win (I did notice, however, that her white sauce was suspiciously lump-free). Perhaps she`s not as inept as she makes out.

Yesterday I bumped into Darrell (I just can`t bring myself to call him Daz) in the internet cafe and showed him when the George is. He was hankering for a pint, but it wasn`t open, so we met up with Natalie and headed for the Charleston (it`s on the my side of the train station, so I`m hoping to set it up as a new local) for a pint and to marvel over Japanese teeth (why British teeth are notorious, yet they get away with brown, rotting gnashers here, I don`t know - Britain needs a good PR) and how the trophy girlfriends so many gaijin crave reek of oral rot and shave their faces. Kawaii, ne?

Last night, virtually every teacher in Omiya gathered for Riaz`s birthday. After shovelling subsidised food and drink into our faces (Mike, Raj and I clearly ate and drank far more than anyone else at the table, but paid the same price), we headed to Doma Doma for more drinks. I shouldn`t have gone as I was 100% sober and the cocktails I experimented with there must have been packed with caffeine as I got home and lay waiting for sleep for several hours. It did give me a chance to mingle with some of the other teachers I don`t see so often and remind me why that is. Every boy at the table took turns regaling us with increasingly unlikely tales of grossness and gore. I wouldn`t believe that the cast of Jackass could pool such experiences, let alone that lot. Fortunately, Sean managed to pull one of them up when he tried to pass off a bad joke as a genuine life experience, but he should have been equally vigilant with the others.

Today, I will have to do my best not to take my tiredness out on the 20 children I teach today, but having had 42 minutes sleep, I cannot promise anything.

Spring break

Everywhere is rammed at the moment as the schools are closed. Next week, Omiya will hopefully return to normal levels of over-crowdedness. For most teachers, it means a holiday but for Shaners it`s extra work in the form of Spring School. I did a shift at Koga this week, which was gutting as it`s a long way on the train, so I had to get up even earlier than usual - and I had to skip my Japanese lesson. When I heard I had seven kids to contend with, I was dreading it, but I knew most of them already (including big, bad Seiya, who left my class last week and I miss more than I realised) and they were good fun and fairly smart, so it was easy. We played games, drew aliens, made masks and, of course, played dodgeball.

Seiya managed to steal my heart actually. He`s always been teacher`s pet, but has been more and more boisterous of late and I had began to wonder if his Japanese whispers were attempts to undermine my very fragile authority (if they don`t want to comply, you are basically fucked) due to his dislike of the big, bossy gaijin. Simple paranoia apparently. Now I`m not his teacher, I allowed myself to experiment with some Japanese on him and asked him how his new teacher was - tanoshikunakatta, apparently - not fun. Darrell needs to kick off his shoes and play some dodgeball with the kids, Seiya will love him forever (it clearly worked for me!). As well as sucking up in a very nonchalant and fairly convincing way, he also helped me out with the little kids. He finished his bookwork easily, so went around the table explaining to the little ones what to do and was the perfect assistant. In spite of his frenzied competetiveness in all games, he took it down a notch when I asked him so some of the younger kids could win (he is double the size of the other children). It made me feel quite guilty for using him to demonstrate `scary` and `fat`.

Last night, Raju answered my complaints about having no one to pull with and invited me along to one of his student`s leaving dos. I took my new friend Yukako along and found her friend Kiyomi was in Raj`s class. The world of English conversation is a small one. We got incredibly drunk and talked absolute rubbish. Raj bashed me in the ribs as I was about to shout how awful I found Kate Moss and Yuka, the student who was leaving, lifted her skirt and revealed a bottle green tattoo of the ex-junkie on her thigh. It didn`t even look like her, but I had to then spend a few minutes berating Pete Doherty and praising Kate Moss`s face to win Yuka back. Then Raj and I jointly offended her by trying to explain the Gaijin Effect, which she is clearly a victim of. We ended up doing a bit of a double-act for a while. Unfortunately, when in the company of gaijin, the Japanese sit back and expect you to entertain them. It`s quite hard work at times and last night, as I was tired and couldn`t think of any stories to regale them with, Raj had to lead the way. I joined in, but it did feel a bit Morecombe and Wise (well, Morecombe and Morecombe, I don`t think either of us want to be Little Ern). It makes you say some utter rubbish just to fill the gaps. Raj prattled on about how he`s going to die with just his tattoos for a long time, before trying to set me up with the waiter.

I might go back to follow it up. I am not convinced he was amazing-looking, but he wasn`t awful and as Japanese women consider being paid for and going no further than holding hands, I am more than happy to let him be my meal ticket.

Sakura mania

I`ve been told the cherry blossom can turn you mad, but I suspect almost everyone out here already is. Japanese and gaijin alike. On a low level, my neighbours are horridly anti-social while I live in fear of complaints about playing my music (the Sex Offender received a complaint about a party whilst listening to music alone in his flat before 11pm). The obsessive-compulsive disorders of my neighbours manifest themselves in many ways. One switches on their washing machine during sleeping hours so I doze off and wake up to the rumble of churning dirty linen, another wails like a cat being torn limb-from-limb while having sex (strangely, the man makes no sounds during, only before and after so I know the girl is not alone) as I try to settle down for my early Saturday start and another neighbour who slips into hob-nail boots at 5.25am every morning to prepare for work. I have no idea how a Japanese person could get so much weight into their thudding steps, perhaps I will soon discover my apartment is shared with a sumo stable.

As a nation, there is a huge bout of OCD afoot. Retail therapy is rife (almost all train stations double as department stores) and Japanese claims of good manners and clean living are just an excuse to cover up the fact that, in their twisted minds, they have to wash their hands fifty times and day and can`t step on floor wearing shoes or their families will die.

Alcoholism is rife in the Salarymen too. Yesterday, the Cafe Lampers attempted a bit of a limp hanami. It was quite a traditional affair. We went to the park (after being taken to a piece of ground that was practically a car park, but contained a slide and two cherry blossoms leaning over a mesh fence and deciding that was not quite enough) and laid out of blue sheets (finally, Ian, I get what you meant!) and tucked into sub-standard okonomiyaki. Later, Graeme, the hideous Canadian JET turned up with wine he was swigging from the bottle in an effort to look cool and the party was redeemed slightly by alcohol. Fortunately, as Greame is a hideous attention-seeker and thinks he`s cool, I can freely take the piss and he thinks we`re just being chummy. I have to watch it though, as Kaori may think the same and I don`t think it is safe to cross a jealous Japanese stalker. Eventually it started to rain a little and we were moving to go when we spotted a group of tremendous drunks. One was so bad he had actually pissed himself and dragged himself up to reveal telling wet patches on his cheap jeans. We spent half an hour stood watching and laughing at him and his friends trying to stand (in the picture you might be able to see one weaving towards a tree before thumping the earth) before we got caught, then another twenty minutes marvelling at how the less drunk friends joined us in laughing and tried to guess how many times they`d fall down before they made it home. Even the drunks we were laughing at joined in. It was incredible, but the park was littered with old men passed out on benches (one of whom tried to roll over and fell off) and blue sheets. They rob me of my title of Kamikaze Drinker. The pressure of 16 hours a day in the office forces them to embrace sake with passion.