It’s a complicated business. Everyday I eat with a different class and normally one of two things happens. Either, the teacher knows that I am going to eat with them and has already decided which group of kids I will sit with. Or, the teacher is surprised by my arrival and the kids start arguing over where I should sit and I stand awkwardly hoping they won’t ask me to decide.
At the end of lunch, and after everyone has said “gochisosamadesita” which means something like “that was yummy thanks,” the clearing away begins. The children line up and scrape their leftovers into metal boxes laid out at the front of the classroom. Each kind of food has a different box so that meat and vegetables and so on don’t mix. I have no idea why they do this. I have a horrible feeling that today’s food is partly yesterday leftovers.
The teachers, however, have to carry their trays back down to the Teacher’s Room and do the same thing there. The boxes for the leftovers in the Teacher’s Room are not laid out nicely, they are stacked on top of each other with only kanji labels to say what kind of food each is for. Being unable to read kanji I have to open all of the boxes to find out what kind of food they are for. I also always have more leftovers than anyone else because I don’t eat meat. Most teachers just stack their empty bowls and plates up and then walk away, but now they have to wait for this strange British guy who doesn’t eat most of his food as he desperately rummages through the boxes.
But anyway, eating with the kids tends to follow a pattern. First they are excited to see me and giggle amongst themselves. Then they start talking to me, if I am lucky then I can understand them and participate but invariably I have to apologise and tell them I don’t speak much Japanese. When the questions are things about insects, or “have you seen the skeleton in that room over there” my Japanese just isn’t up to scratch. I try to make conversation with them but I’m limited to asking what kinds of things they like, whether they are hungry or full or if the school lunch was delicious.
There have been some nice moments. In one class, for example, each kid around the table pretended to be a different animal with remarkable facial dexterity. Then they taught me a cool way of putting on the school cap where you spin it in the air a few times then land it on your head. A lot of classes ask me to read out their T-shirts, which usually have some random piece of English scrawled across like “Space Ranger Camp,” or “Jack’s Colorado Fishing Emporium” and one boy had the word “Unaffected” in big letters written on his T-shirt.
In my second week I was eating with a first year class and sitting next to a girl who sat with a very straight back and looking rather prim. We were eating a vegetable a little like mange tout but where you bite the side of the pod, then squeeze the pea thing inside into your mouth with your fingers. I was having a lot of trouble with one and was, it turned out, squeezing in the wrong direction. Rather than the pea moving through the hole I had bitten for it and landing nicely in my mouth, it burst through a new hole at the back, flew through the air and landed on the plate of the girl sitting next to me. We both looked surprised, and then started laughing. I told her it was a present. She gave it back.
On the Friday of my first week of school there was a big, nasty typhoon. The students were all told not to go to school but my company keeps telling us that we have to go to school in extreme weather, if we are sick, even if we have nothing to do and no classes to teach we should be there. So I got up that morning hoping that the bus service would have broken and I would have an excuse to stay home in the dry. The subway line nearest me had stopped but alas the busses were still running.
The wind was howling and the rain was falling heavily when I left for work at 7:40AM. I had my umbrella, which was holding up against the wind as I pressed my way to the bus stop. At the bus stop it became obvious that there was no way I could keep myself dry. The rain was not falling in the usual direction but was more flying in a sideways direction. There was no angle you could hold your umbrella at to keep yourself entirely dry so I got wetter and wetter.
After ten minutes of waiting with the other sorry souls the bus came and went, without any of us getting on. What with the subway breaking down the bus was completely crowded so there was no more room. I had to wait another twenty-five minutes or more for the next bus. This bus, again, was very crowded but I squeezed on. With about 60 drenched people in a small space it was unpleasant to say the least.
I was already twenty minutes late for work when I got off the bus and I still had to walk the ten minutes from the bus stop to my school. Unfortunately the wind was blowing in the opposite direction so I had to walk against it to get to school. My umbrella became like a sail pushing me backwards but the wind was so strong that I couldn’t physically get my umbrella down until I found a wall to shelter behind. As I closed my umbrella I realised it was broken, some of the arms had come lose, it was another dead umbrella in Japan (there are many, you see them everywhere).
With no protection I battled my way against the wind and into the rain. I was wet, miserable but somewhere around the small zoo I walk passed every morning I began to feel a reassuring sense of craziness. The whole thing was just ridiculous, this was my first week of a new job and I was going to be late to work, in a school with no students, because of a typhoon. I was secretly hoping that none of the other teachers would have come to school and I could just stumble back home.
No such luck. When I got into school they took one look at me and got me a towel, and a change of clothes. I hobbled into the teacher’s room and saw all the other teachers looking immaculate. “Bastards with cars,” I thought.
It was a boring day; I spent my time preparing for the next week. But, around 1pm everybody started to leave the Teacher’s Room. This happens sometimes, everybody will leave for something and I will be left alone. Then one teacher will remember that I exist and come and get me for an assembly or something. On this occasion one of the teachers said, “Sojio” to me, which means cleaning. So I thought, “Ok we are going to clean the school.” The pupils and teachers do this everyday anyway after lunch and I normally help out so I was pleased that I could join in.
I followed all the teachers into the corridor and someone was giving out gloves, so I took a pair. This was unusual, we don’t normally use gloves. Then everybody stared heading outside, this was also unusual as we only clean the inside of the school. The big group of teachers did not just walk outside but continued right to the back of the school where there is a fence and some trees. Some teachers had dustpans and I kept hearing the word “gomi” which means rubbish. When we got to back fence the other teachers started milling around and I walked around looking for rubbish. I found a crisp packet and picked it up. I walked towards one of the teachers with a bag for rubbish holding my crisp packet produly Then, I noticed that the other teachers were only picking up leaves, and spiky things from the trees. No one had any “rubbish” in my understanding of the word, so I threw my crisp packet back down.
I was desperately trying to join in and be helpful, “don’t be an outsider” I told myself. So I looked for spiky things as well, but I couldn’t find any. I placed myself in the biggest group of teachers and helped to rake up some leaves for about a minute. I decided to try and have a conversation so I explained to a small group of teachers that the spiky things contain what we in England call “conkers.” I mimed the game of Conkers, and they nodded understanding.
Later on that day the “conkers” returned to me in a different form. They were roasted and on small plates. They were not conkers at all but chestnuts. So now if you ever meet a Japanese person who thinks we have a game where we hit chestnuts against each other, then I’m sorry.
So now I know that if they say, “Cleaning,” they may mean, “Going outside to collect fallen chestnuts, which we’ll roast and eat later on.” No wonder I get confused sometimes.
I think it was in my third week of school when some kids started asking if they could interview me. The questions were all, “What are your three favourite…?” concerning animals, food or anime etc. The next week at about 4PM I had just finished printing some flashcards in the PC Room when something caught my eye. In the corridor outside the PC Room was a large A4 picture of my face.
This was odd. Around my face were lots of other pieces of paper and above them all was a large sign reading, “About Nick sensei and England.” Unbeknown to me the kids in the IT Club had taken the answers I’d given them and made a big display about me and my country. I nervously approached the display and began reading it. To my shame I realised that I had given different answers to different kids. Well I hadn’t known what they were going to do with the information; I thought they were just being friendly. There’s a moral here; when being interviewed make sure you know what people are going to do with your answers.
There was also information about fish and chips, English football teams and a place called Dove Cottage that I have never heard of.
But still, it’s not often you suddenly come across a big display about yourself. I am not sure whether either the kids, or the teacher, from the IT Club are going to tell me about the display, maybe there will be a big unveiling. Chances are though that the language barrier prevented them from telling me, or they never even thought about it. Or maybe this is how they wanted it to be, a big surprise for me to suddenly find one day.
Ah well, this job definately has it's moments. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying being Nick Sensei.
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