HILARITY: spoilt child 83

Wow. My time here is almost up. In approximately 6 weeks I'll be heading back to the United States. As you can imagine, I'm anticipating this a lot, but I know that I'll also miss things about this place, as weird as it can be. I won't miss how expensive things are, thouggh, or my complete lack of understanding about anything around me. That's right - despite being here for almost 6 months, my grasp on Japanese is tenuous at best. At least I'm not alone; while some of my friends have picked up the language well, others are as confused by the language as I.

The weather's changing. It's not as bloody cold as it has been; sometimes I can even venture outside with a t-shirt on. However, Japanese weather has kept things unpleasant by becoming horribly windy. Like, super-windy. You know those days when you're driving along and the wind's so bad you can even feel your car staggering under it? Yeah, that's the kind of wind I've been biking to work against every morning. Apparently spring is the windy season!

Ah, springtime - when a young Japanese schoolboy's thoughts turn to his ALT's genitals. You wouldn't believe the amount of gropings I've had to dodge, both front and back. There's been one "kancho" attempt from an elementary school (and if you don't know what kancho is, feel glad), but the junior high boys are the biggest offenders... and they're grabbers. They have learned a few words in that direction as well. "BIG PINISS" is one of their favorite phrases. (I don't really want to correct their pronunciation, when it's already so funny.) I won't even go into their attempts to pronounce certain parts of the female anatomy. One student told me that he liked "six." I had to stifle a laugh and agreed with him that it was a very good number.

Not all of the students are that bad, though. Most of the female students are very well-behaved, if a little too chatty. The elementary school kids have been a lot of fun to work with, mostly because I get to act like a big goof around them. Also, the special ed kid I mentioned last time is cool, even if he never leaves me alone. As some of you might have noticed from my facebook pics, I've been growing a beard for the last 2 months. It's pretty great. Said special ed student does not care for it, as shown by his fretting and rapid-fire Japanese while he mimes shaving. He doesn't speak English, nor does he want to. However, my lack of knowledge of Japanese doesn't deter him from speaking to me all the time. He comes by 3 or 4 times a day and talks to me, despite the fact that neither of us understands what the other is saying. I've decided to make a deal with him: if he can learn enough English to introduce himself to my friends when they visit the school (only about 2 1/2 weeks away!) I will shave my mountain man beard.

I heard stories before I left of people being stationed in super-rural towns where old men pee in broad daylight into the drainage ditches on the side of the road. "Haha," I laughed nervously. When I got to Kitakawabe, I didn't see any of that, despite there being plentiful drainage ditches on the sides of the road. "Whew," I sighed with relief. Guess what I saw the other day? At noon. On the busiest road in Kitakawabe. Not just one. Two. One on the way to the grocery store, one on the way back. Different people. What.

In late January, I caught a pretty bad strain of flu. It laid me low for the better part of a week, but I got better. Then, my computer decided to catch something, so about 90% of Vista isn't working. However, Firefox and iTunes still are, and honestly? That's all I'll need for the next 40 days or so.

I haven't traveled too far in Japan, but when I think about it, there doesn't seem to be anywhere else I want to go. I'm happy with what I've done and what I'm doing, and it'll definitely be something I'll remember for the rest of my life. There may be one more blog before I come back, there might not. I hope you guys have enjoyed reading these, I've definitely enjoyed writing them.

FRESH on Georgia Street

Yes, that was on some 4th grader’s hoodie. Hilarious! The Japanese like the word “Georgia,” I think – there’s also a coffee called Georgia. There’s also Boss Coffee, which is advertised by none other than Tommy Lee Jones. There are just pictures of him looking grizzled and deep in thought, accompanied by the company logo. Actually, a lot of stars seem to do ads here that they wouldn’t do in the U.S…. for example, SoftBank, one of the main cell phone companies here, has Brad Pitt and Cameron Diaz in their ads, and Meg Ryan sells another kind of coffee. That’s one thing that Lost in Translation was right about. (Hell, it’s probably right about a lot of things – I bet when I watch it when I come home I’ll be like “yes. Yes, that’s exactly what it’s like.”)

Now that my time here is well over half-over, I’ve kind of started thinking of the time remaining in smaller bits and pieces – only so long until I do this, so long until I do that, until finally I’ll head home. Right now, it’s a little less than a month until I see Arcade Fire in Tokyo (so pumped about that, you have no idea) and about sixty days until Thomas and Lauren arrive. (Even more pumped about that.) And then, in approximately 11 weeks… my time here in Japan will be over. It’s kind of hard to believe.

We had a good 2-week winter break, during which I did… well… nothing. Really. I was thinking about going to Kyoto, but that ended up being too expensive. I ended up mostly going to Tokyo and Omiya with my friends. In Tokyo, I went to Harajuku, Shibuya, Asakusa, and the old haunt Akihabara. Asakusa was probably the most interesting; it had a big temple and a bunch of shops around that sold lots of cool old-Japanese stuff. I’ll definitely have to go back there again. (Also, there was a performing monkey on stilts. Too awesome. Mario has pictures, but I don’t think he’s put them up on facebook yet.) In Omiya… well, we found a British pub called The King George that serves good beer and great fish and chips (something I did not think existed) and has a great atmosphere and a cool owner. My British friend Tom is basically in love with the place, mostly because they have his favorite beer. We spent Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve there. And yes, I know how odd going to a British pub while in Japan sounds, but there’s definitely something nice about a place that’s owned and operated by someone who speaks your language. (Yes, the Japanese is still awful. However, I think I’ll be saying “sumimasen” instead of “excuse me” for the rest of my life. At one point at a concert I actually said it to a white girl.)

No real news from the school front. Between the last entry and this one, it has mostly just been winter break. There have been a few amusing incidents, though…

-One of the students took a Stitch doll, opened up the head, pulled out the stuffing, splashed red paint all over it, and hung it up on the wall. It looked like Stitch had grown a gigantic gory tumor the size of his head. When he pointed it out to me, I was caught so off guard that I immediately started cracking up. (Face it, it’s funny.) They LOVED that.

-There’s an elementary student who is basically the poster child for ADD. He’s always screaming, yelling, and running around, and you can tell it exhausts the poor teacher to keep that kid in check, much less the rest of the class. So, as I’m teaching animals to the class, I move back towards the kid’s seat and pull out the flash card with the picture of a monkey on it. “What’s this?” I ask the class, pointing at the kid’s head and showing the picture to everyone. “It’s a MONKEY!” the rest of the class said, cracking up. The kid himself loved it (hey, more attention!!), and the teacher loved it even more.

-As you folks might have noticed from my facebook picture, I’ve grown a beard. This has had immensely amusing results with most of my classes. A normal Japanese expression of surprise is a loud “Ehhhh?!” Believe me, I’ve incited plenty of “EHHH??????”s when I walk into a classroom with a full beard. The special ed student who’s decided that I am the most interesting person in the world is really freaked out about it, and keeps telling me I need to shave. No way, buddy. If it keeps you from sticking your fingers in my ears and trying to turn my computer off while I’m working, I’ll be a mountain man until March. (I do like the kid a great deal but he can get annoying pretty quickly.)

So, well into January with just two and a half months to go. Japan is fun, but I’m looking forward to getting home and seeing all of my friends and also my baby nephew! And my car… and my Wii…