A Litte Monday Dilemma

Ok, today was an interesting day at work. Being the outsider that I am, I have slowly yet surely built a role for myself in the work place and adhere to it pretty strictly, and rarely go outside of the boundaries. Primarily, I am an Assistant Language Teacher, which means I assist a Japanese teacher in the teaching of the English Language, which in turns means that there are two of us in the room and I serve in a purely secondary, assistance role, which the name implies. As to other functions which the Japanese teachers have (and believe you me, they are many, much more than their counter-parts in the U.S.), none of them apply to me, nor are they expected of me. I may occasionally choose to voluntarily accept some but usually, like I said, I stick to the role of ALT, as well as the resident gorilla. But today, two things happened which placed me in an unfamiliar situation and, on the spot, I had to make some decisions, which, in hindsight, I am trying to figure out.

The first. I am walking out of my first period first grade class (junior high school 7th grade equivalent) and look to the right, down the hall, where some commotion is taking place outside the classroom of the other section of first grade. (They're split into 1-1 and 1-2, much like old school Soviet style, with 1B, etc.) A bunch of kids, boys and girls, are gathered around two students, one of whom is on the floor and the other towering above him, giving him slight kicks to the legs. I see another teacher, a music teacher, in the vicinity, and this gives me reassurance that whatever is happening is meant to. Keep in mind, in Japanese schools, the notion of light violence between students is quite common. Age is very important, and anyone who is older is automatically entitled to get away with a lot, and so seeing students slap or punch each other (not on the face, but still in what appear to be painful ways) is common place. I used to be shocked by it, but no longer. So, I attribute what is happening to the above and, being reassured by the presence of the teacher, think no further of it. However, as I start walking away, I hear that the kid on the floor is crying, rather loudly. I look back, the other teacher is gone, and the action has now moved inside the classroom. I go to investigate and see that the kid is now on the ground against the wall, being repeatedly kicked and slapped by the bigger one, and all the other kids are standing around, laughing, yelling stuff incomprehensible to me. At this point, I'm going on instict, ignoring whatever I may have learnt about Japanese customs and school life, I make my way over to the kid and make myself a protective cordon sanitaire, keeping everyone away from him. The bully manages to sneak by and land a few more awkward throws before I literally remove him from the scene. After this, I take the shaken, crying boy and we walk away from the scene, toward the teachers room. I try to ask him what happened but he is too shocked and shy to tell me anything. We're standing outside the teachers' room and I'm trying to figure out what to do and finally decide to go tell one of my English teachers, kind of passing on the baton, after a brief explanation of my understanding as to what happened. He took over, talked to the kid, talked to some other teachers and it passed out of my hands and the day could go on.

But immediately, I began having qualms. To start with, what kind of chain reaction, if any, had I set in motion? Would the other teachers take up an investigation, try to figure out what happened, dispense some sort of punishment upon the perpetrator? Even though it was unlikely to go this far, it was still a possibility, and then I wondered about the future consequences of this for the kid. Where as without my interference, he would have recovered from the incident and life could proceed, with my interference, was there a chance that it would ensure future troubles for this kid and further retribution for him being a teachers' boy, seeking outside assistance where none was needed? It wasn't a very simple situation, especially considering the group dynamics of school interaction. This student was obviously signaled out and excluded from the social circle (whether briefly or not is not known) and this enabled the kind of treatment that befell him in front of all the other students. It may very well be a natural occurrence between school kids of this age (12, 13). By I interfered, almost akin to a PETA member interfering with a lion's hunt, and while saving the kid, in some sense, may have upset the balance. Again, I don't think this situation escalated anywhere and the kid is unlikely to face further repercussions because of my actions, but the possibilty is there and it makes me wonder... I still stand by my intervention at the moment, but it raises an interesting question that I would like some commentary on...

Second. It was after lunch. The kids all eat lunch in their homerooms (which I guess is like the cohort system; they all have classes together with their homeroom, and usually the teachers go to the homeroom, unless other facilities (i.e. science, gym) are needed) and are supervised by the homeroom teacher. Lunch is wheeled in on a cart with the food, trays and particular plates bowls, etc, that are needed. Some students are in charge of distribution, and after they eat, everything is put back on the cart and wheeled out and the school day goes on. Ok, so after lunch, I go with my teachers (this class actually had both the other English teachers and me) and we start the class, when a left-over tray is discovered on a desk of a kid who is late coming back from recess. There is some immediate tension, as this is something that obviously shouldn't happen and in fact has never happened before, in my experience. Finally, the kid comes back and the teacher begins to question him, and he immediately denies that it is his, is believed, and the question posed to the class as to whose tray it really is. There are snickers and silence, the question is posed again, and yet no perpetrator comes forth. After some stern words, the head teacher suddenly says that the class is over for the day and storms out of there followed by the other teacher (as I found later, he said that until the perpetrator came forth, there would be no class). I stand there a bit stunned, encountering such a breach of protocol for the first time. Remember, I have never seen a misbehaving kid sent out in the hall (much less to the principal's office) and here is a full-out cancellation of class. So, I stand there for a little while longer, and finally cannot resist the temptation to actually have the whole class to myself, to teach as I see fit. So, I continue the lesson. We had just started the daily dictation, which I take over and cater it to the theme of the lunch tray, saying stuff like "It's not my tray, is it yours?" etc., trying to use the incident to teach or re-inforce some stuff. We get through that, do some true and false, I'm getting the kids to talk, they're actually listening to me, and we're actually doing some learning. As I am totally unprepared for a lesson (usually, I'm just told what to do by the teachers), I decided to play some English games and organize the class, and just as we're about to get started the not-main English teacher comes back (meanwhile a good twenty minutes has elapsed) and inquires as to what I am doing. I step out into the hall and she kindly asks that I cease and desist and return to the teachers' room. Wanting to avoid an argument, I apologize, go back to the class, explain that I must return because of the tray, pop out my one Japanese joke (which they love, but it itself it isn't all that great; the jist of it is the English word sorry is pronounced like the Japanese word for prime minister, so I basically said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Koizumi sorry." That's it, but it was effective). After this, I return to the teacher's room, where the head teacher thanks me for trying to teach, meanwhile I can read his face to really be saying that he highly disproves of what he did.

And so, again, I have to question whether what I did was right. In Japanese teaching eyes, there was a serious infraction of social code and the tray was left out of place, and the school process could not go on until it was resolved. The resolution was obviously that the owner of the tray would step forth, return the tray to its proper location, and face whatever consequences there were, and class would move on. Because this did not happen, the head teacher did what he did, imposed his authority, and left, expecting me and the other to follow. She did, I didn't. I continued to teach the class, because I personally did not feel that the tray incident was a huge deal and that the pressures on the perpetrator of remaining anonymous were too great for anything beneficial to happen. But, of course, in a way, I was defying the authority of the head teacher and his decision. I did what I thought was right when he was trying to make a different point, and such a defiance, especially right in front of the students could potentially damage his reputation with them and his ability to teach them (while potentially increasing mine). But, at the same time, was I to defy my own instict and premonition as well, simply because the Japanese teacher had done it??? Therein is the other little dilemma of the day.

Of course this may all seem trivial, and it kind of is, but like I said, I would just like to hear about other people's opinions and what they think, that's all. In the meanwhile, I did a little radio show last Saturday, where I got to talk a bit about myself in Japanese (wow, was that horrible or what), and to play some of the music that I like (you should of seen the faces of the hosts of the show...ahahahhaa). The songs chosen were 1) Cold and Ugly; 2) Mann geggen Mann (Rammstein); 3) Passive (APC); 4) The Bitter End (Placebo); 5) Gotta Get Away (Offspring); and 6) 46 and 2...some of us may remember the opening lyrics of Cold and Ugly ("Throw that Bob Marley wannabe.......). Yeah, I can't say they loved it, but it will air this week.....oh, the ways that I amuse myself. A picture of it follows this post. Then, Saturday evening I played my first game of poker and amazingly, only lost my initial buy-in. It was fun and I made some crucial mistakes from which to learn, not the least of which is, don't attempt to actually win at cards and become inebriated, excessively, at the same time. Another week is on, and hopefuly you're all doing well. Please comment on the dilemmas above. Laterz.

Making the Best of It

So, I just came back from a little get-away trip to Kobe and Osaka. It was at the tail end of Golden Week, which is a series of three back to back public holidays, which basically means the entire country up and moves to another part of itself, just because that's what's meant to happen. Before leaving, however, I got an opportunity (and a very expensive one, at that) to do something I had never done before in my life. More precisely, I played 18 holes of golf with my principal, a principal of another school, and a co-worker. Don't know how much anyone knows about golf, but I certainly increased my share of respect for it. Whereas before, I hardly considered it a sport at all, after being deeply humiliated and embarassed on the links, I now realize that it does take quite an amount of skill, not the least of which is endurance (it took us six hours for 18 holes). Of course, my borrowed clubs were much too short for me and the numbers on them tended to be confusing, but I'm not about to start making excuses for my whopping 170 on a 76 par course. Yeah, that's about 100 strokes over what it's supposed to be. Oh god, where didn't I take shots from. In the woods, in the sand, in tall grass, from the vending machine...it was all good times though. Occasionally frustrating, especially when I kept hitting the top of the ball and it would fly like twenty feet. Or, in the queue for the 10th hole, when there were three groups ahead of us and like four behind us, which means at least 12 people had the awkward yet somehow satisfying pleasure of watching me tee-off directly into a tree like 6 feet to the right of the tee. In the end, my body hurt, my wallet hurt (it was at a private club, which meant that you didn't really pay for anything on the spot, but signed your name on a sheet, so all expenses added up in the end to about $150), but at least I have now played golf. Woohoo.

Anyway, later that day, I went out with some buddies in Kanazawa, to get a little plastered in preparation for our 3 AM train to Osaka...a hell of a fascinating way to travel eh. The train absolutely stank. There was almost no room to sit, and from 3 AM to 6:30 AM, I was sandwiched between three young ladies who decided at around 5:15 AM that it was time to begin putting on make up and make incessant trips to the bathroom. Yeah, no sleep for me. We finally got to Osaka, had to take the zombie express up to Kobe, and then figure out what to do at 8 in the morning on no sleep. A day and a six hour nap later, we went out, drank a bit, and had, no joke, THE BEST PIECE OF MEAT ON THE PLANET. Hold on, hold on, I don't think you got that, let me just make sure. IT WAS THE MOST FABULOUS, AMAZING, SUCCULENT, JUICY, MOUTH-WATERING, DELICIOUS steak I have ever had. I've heard that these Kobe cows are fed beer or something, but regardless, if you have an extra $2000 lying around, buy a ticket to Japan, come to Kobe and spend $100 on a meal. You will not regret it. After that heavenly experience, we went out and the next day, made our way to Osaka, or more precisely to the Osaka Dome, where we witnessed a spectacle that I didn't ever expect to see myself at. It was PRIDE, a special Japanese version of Ultimate Fighting, or K1. The stadium was filled to capacity, all eagerly present to watch human beings unleash an atrocious sort of violence on each other. Of course, we can all sit here and make arguments about the degeneracy of actually paying a substantial sum of money to see this, but let's not do that. Let's just accept the fact that watching two grown men descend into the most barbaric form of human interaction was somehow enticing and could not be ignored. There were nine fights all together, even featuring two Russians, Roman (oh yes!!!) Zentsov and Aleksandr Emelianko (the brother of the current PRIDE champion). The former won his bout and the latter was shameless beat down by an American. Like I said, even I can argue for not going to such events or about the meaninglessness of their existence in the first place, but I won't. I had a good time and whatever that means, that is how it stands. Afterwards, I had (Halleluiah) Mexican food. Boy, how I do miss you, Chipotle... It was fantastic. And after that began the highlight of the trip.

Yeah, and that would be the booming sickness. Starting with a slight cough, slowly maturing into nasal leakage, and finally forming into the full blown fever and headache, the sickness kept me immobile in the hotel room. It is true that the next day I went to the Osaka zoo, which was rather disappointing (although watching the orangutang bang on his cage viciously and scare the little kids was entertaining) and to the IMAX for Sharks 3D (have you been to a 3D movie lately, those are rocking), the rest of the time was spent within the confines of a lovely room at the Hotel the Lutheran (the place had a friggin cathedral inside of it). It was unfortunate, but what can you do. And thus I get to the main point of this post, the entire reason behind it. Make the best of whatever it is you got. Yeah, cliche, but how often is it overlooked? Yes, my buddies partied till 6 AM both nights in a place for parties (if you're not aware, I live in a tiny village of 6,000 where the only entertainment venue is the local supermarket during a sale) and yes, I could have been with them, and yes, I could have set there gloomy like, cursing my pathetic life. But I didn't. I got some nice rest and reflection time. Thought about many things, listened to the new Tool disc a great many times. And never, ever forgot that terrific motto that all of us should constantly keep in mind (except not to the nihilistic degree), and that is - "And this too shall pass." It is so true. I've been back a few days, still sick, but recovering. Not doing much of anything at the moment. But would like to take one and congratulate my friend Paulie for finally accomplishing that to which he was committed for a long, long time and launching his website (www.pawky.com). All the props in the world to the man who had a vision and spent long hours and endless nights bringing it to life. Beautiful work, man.

Yeah, that's it. Decided to keep it short this time around. Life chugs its way forth and hope it finds you all making the best of it. Take care. Until soon.