Being Lanky

In Lost in Translation, there’s a scene where Bill Murray is stood in a lift with a bunch of Japanese people and they’re all comically shorter than him. There’s no punchline, but the joke comes from Bill Murray’s deadpan expression. Well maybe that scene is a bit clumsy (There are plenty of Japanese people who object to that film on racial stereotype grounds) but that does actually happen. I am about a foot taller than most people here. This has several effects:

1.    I bang my head a lot. A lot. Seriously, this will happen about once a week. It’s often very painful. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I have actually scratched or banged my head to the extent that blood has been involved.

2.    I’m near the maximum height restriction for theme park rides. At DisneySea, they made me stand up against the maximum height sign to check that I wasn’t too tall for the Indiana Jones ride.

3.    Little kids are transfixed by me. Occasionally a kid will just get utterly overwhelmed by my massiveness. They will stare, wander away from their mother or father, mouth hanging open. Sometimes they are slightly scared, whilst also being unable to stop looking. At this point, the parent will usually notice and, instead of telling them to look away, will join in the staring until the three of us are looking directly at each other in an endless cycle.

4.    It’s an icebreaker with my students. Every once in a while, a student will walk up to me and, apropos of nothing, say “Ben Senseii….you are very tall”.

5.    It’s also a barrier between me and my students. Being tall makes me that much scarier and more intimidating.

6.    People want to know just how tall I am. The most common question I’ve been asked since coming to Japan is “How tall are you?”. I’m 190cm tall. This information never fails to elicit a satisfying “Eeee?!”.

7.    I look ridiculous when doing sport. This was also true when in the UK. But I’m even more conscious of it here. This is not helped by many Japanese people being the model of healthy, properly dressed athletes whereas I am a lanky, panting Englishman with bad skin and a growing waistline.

8.    People will approach me in bars. Sometimes a horrendously drunk group of men will come forward to me to ask how tall I am. Usually this occurs as they are leaving the bar. They always seem pleased with the response. For some reason, this usually makes me happy, as I like the idea that their memory of the evening will include “We saw this really tall American-he was, like, over 190cm tall!”.

9.    I haven’t sat comfortably on a bus for 8 months. Sad but true.

Yakushima: So Hard To Leave

I really didn’t want to leave Yakushima. Honestly, stepping onto the ferry back to Kagoshima was a wrench. The sun was blazing, the mountains looked so pretty in the distance and I had the overwhelming feeling that I’d probably never come back.

A misty Yakushima on our arrival.

A while back I asked a Japanese friend where in Japan she’d go if she could choose anywhere. She chose Yakushima “because it’s unique and it's a world heritage site”. Now admittedly, I blanched slightly at finding another example of the undue reverence given to UNESCO, but it still acted as a motivator. She was someone whose opinion I trusted and she reckoned Yakushima was amazing. I was getting urges. I resolved to persuade K Chan that we should go. Whatever it took.

K was a bit freaked out by standing so close to the barrier.

K Chan’s response was “Ben-I’ve been the one saying we should go for Yakushima for the past 8 months and every time I mention it you’ve forgotten the name of the island and I have to explain to you again where it is and what it’s like”. So er, persuading her wasn’t difficult. A brief relationship crisis was avoided by me deciding at the last minute not to go there on my own last month. In retrospect, this was a wise choice, even if I didn’t know that at the time.

My legs appear very long in this photo.

Yakushima is in the far south of Japan. It takes about 2 hours by ferry from Kagoshima. I enjoyed the ferry journey because they were showing a game-show in which a variety of dogs competed against one another in a series of increasingly difficult tasks, soundtracked by a bewildering array of hammond organ sound effects. It has a population of about 15,000 people who mainly live along the coastline. The interior of the island is mountainous and covered in dense forest. The island has an unusual weather pattern which is ultimately what makes it unique. Essentially, it’s famous for its high rainfall, the highest in Japan. This is particularly severe in the centre of the island which has an entirely different weather pattern from the shoreline. The end result of this is a beautiful, moss covered forest full of thousand year old cedar trees, waterfalls, rivers, unusual rock formations, deer and monkeys. Though rainfall is frequent, it is not so common that you can’t enjoy your time on the island. During our time there, it rained once, lightly, for about ten minutes. Most of the time it was perfect hiking weather and on the final day it was comfortably warm. The sea is the clearest I've ever seen.

We had some problems when booking accommodation on the first night. This meant that we ended up staying at a guesthouse above a fishing tackle shop, next to a pachinko parlour. The tatami was damp and worn, the water in the toilet ran all night due to some plumbing fault or other. It wasn’t an especially comfortable place. I made up for this by binge-eating peanuts and wandering around town in an aimless manner. Meanwhile, K-Chan had been knocked out by the anti seasickness tablets which she had so recklessly imbibed hours earlier in an attempt to ward off the routine that had haunted many a long ferry journey in the past. She woke to find me red-eyed, covered in crumbs and pistachio shells, looking every inch the catch that I am.

I really like this photo, but can't quite explain why.

Packed lunch sorted, car hired, wet weather gear packed, we headed out for our first hike of the holiday. This was a simple 3 hour wander in an area called Shiratani Unsuikyo. The start of the walk was spoilt slightly by being along a paved route that had been built into the forest floor. Only Japan would do that! But as you got deeper into the woodland, the concrete gave way to a more attractive footpath, properly maintained and well signposted, making it almost impossible to get lost. Every time we turned a corner we would see something beautiful. It was lilke walking through a series of postcard scenes. The walk itself was never too demanding, but long enough that it felt like a proper day’s work and quite an achievement. Every surface in the forest was covered in green moss and we encountered few other hikers, making it a romantic way to spend an afternoon.

The rental car broke down as we descended the mountain. Now, when I say “broke down”, I mean that the brakes failed as we drove at 40 km/hour down the slope. It was slightly scary stuff and I was fortunate that it happened at a relatively convenient moment. Thankfully, by a combination of helpfulness by a local shopowner and some amazingly well co-ordinated customer service, we were all set with a new car within half an hour. Go Japan!

Leave the biscuits alone.

That evening we arrived at our new accommodation. It resembled a more stylish version of Butlins. Wood cabins were dotted around the grassy site and the owner, whose English was excellent, gave us an incredibly friendly welcome. We chilled and watched Duncan Jones’ Moon which I wasn’t quite in the mood for, but was still bloody impressive. I loved all the shots of him driving across the moon’s surface and it gave me ideas for my next holiday…

You've gotta do the moody beach shot, right?

The owner of the Butlins camp was so friendly.

Yakisugi Land sounded like it would be a tacky theme park but was in fact an area of dense cedars, perhaps even more impressive than those we saw on the previous day. On our drive up the hill, we spied a troupe of monkeys, sat at the side of the road, giving each other a wash. Later, when having lunch in the middle of the forest, we spied another monkey happily getting its own lunch in the trees above us. The monkeys and deer in Yakushima are not especially shy of humans and it was great to see them close up, though you have to be careful not to tempt them with any food you might have on your person. K was a bit put out that she was unable to eat her banana in peace and had to hide it as soon as we saw the monkey above us. We have form with monkeys as one cheeky specimen stole some biscuits from us once in India and our relationship with the species never truly recovered after that.

I didn’t want to leave. The owner of the wood cabins introduced us to his family. It turned out that his wife was from Okayama, about an hour from my apartment. It also turned out that he had been building the cabins himself over a period of 5 years. I’m constantly amazed by the levels of practical skill I come across in Japan that far exceed anything you see in the UK. I’d personally struggle to change a fuse, let alone build a wood cabin.

But yes, going home was a struggle. Yakushima is the most beautiful, romantic and unusual place that I've seen in Japan so far. Just thinking about getting on the ferry back to Kagoshima makes me sad.­

Feeling Useful

The last few days have been a lot of fun. On Wednesday and Thursday, a group of international students came to our school. My 2^nd year junior high students gave presentations about Japanese culture-anime, pop, food, architecture etc. One group even gave a presentation about natural disasters. It all went smoothly and I felt useful for the first time in months. It was also fun to meet a bunch of new people from all over the world.

The most enjoyable aspect for me was to watch them being tortured by the invasive questions of my students. “Do you have boyfriend”, “Do you love me”, “Do you like x-senseii” etc. I got a mischievous thrill, watching my students torture them in the same way they used to torture me. In the end, I had to ban all boyfriend-related questions!

In fact, I feel like I’ve made some real breakthroughs with the students recently. I feel like they are finally beginning to feel comfortable around me and they are increasingly approaching me, rather than having to be harassed to speak English. Admittedly, a fair proportion of this attention is of the teenage girl “KAWAII!” type, but that’s part and parcel of being a male foreign language teacher in Japan I think. You can utilize it to a certain extent to chat to students who might otherwise be shy of you, even if those conversations do sometimes descend into giggles and an inability to speak.

I’m very excited about Yakushima, though the weather forecast is slightly worrying. Yakushima is known for its high levels of rainfall and next week looks as if it will be no exception. We’ve decided to rent a car, which means we will have a fair bit of flexibility and respite if it really does bucket down. But I drive so rarely that I’m a bit nervous behind the wheel. I do like the freedom it gives you though-driving around the hills of Shikoku and across the Seto-Island Bridge (with Hefner in the background) was a truly memorable experience.

Fear and loathing in the staff room.

I’ve spent the last few days trying to learn the names of all the teachers in the staff room. I have a big chart with photos of them and I’ve made crib cards also. It’s difficult to do this subtly and some of the teachers have cottoned on. But their reaction has generally been pretty good. I think they sometimes assume that ALTs won’t bother to learn their names so are pleasantly surprised that I’m making the effort. One of the reasons that it’s difficult is that names are always written in kanji rather than kana. So I actually had to ask another teacher to write them out for me, which was a little embarrassing.

So whilst things in Japan have been slowly getting better in the last few days, I’ve been a bit disturbed at some of the political events in London. I’m a long-time Ken Livingstone supporter, but have been disappointed at the recent scandal over his tax arrangements. I’m undecided on whether what he did was morally suspect (probably not) but it does seem incredibly stupid for someone with their sights on public office to have been so careless. Meanwhile, he is facing a horrendously biased press campaign in the London Evening Standard which used to be a decent newspaper but is still highly influential. I hate the way that it is the only daily paper in London but is so obviously unfair to one of the main candidates whom about half its readership supports. It was incredibly negative towards Ken four years ago and subsequently ran an advertising campaign where it pledged to change its ways. It’s not keeping to that pledge. I also hate the (very effective) negative campaigning that Lynton Crosby has brought to the Boris campaign. Most of all, I hate the feeling that all the forces of conservatism are joining ranks to bring down a perfectly good candidate. I suspect they will be successful in stopping him, too.

This has reminded me that I need to hurry up and arrange a proxy vote for myself. It will be strange to be outside the UK when the election takes place. But given the likely result, it may be for the best.

Once again, the above picture of Wayne Coyne has nothing to do with the content of this blog entry. He's not a candidate in the London Mayoral Election.

Here's to being bloody awkward

It’s warming up. Spring is here. On my journey to work I go across a thin pedestrian bridge over the Asahi river. A month ago, the grass on the river bank was patched with yellow and black. The yellow was caused by the months of cold and lack of rain. The black was from where the turf had been burnt away in its annual maintenance. Meanwhile, the rice fields consisted of mud with little lumps of brown at intermittent intervals.

It won’t be long before the cherry blossoms start to open and people are sitting out on the grass drinking sake. Not quite hipsters with BBQs on London Fields, but nonetheless a relatively relaxed way to enjoy pretty outdoor Japan. What I am most looking forward to is being able to interact with the parks and gardens that often feel more decorative than functional.

It looks as if we are going to head south to the island of Yakushima next week. This is a truly budget-breaking trip, but the pressure of our forthcoming departure is pushing us to stretch ourselves in terms of what we are willing to break the bank for. Travelling has become an increasingly important part of my life here as the satisfaction I get from the job has slowly decreased.

You know when you watch a TV series and it just infiltrates your head completely? Well I’ve been watching a lot of Curb Your Enthusiasm lately and the effect of this is that I increasingly find myself thinking “This is a Larry situation”. In Curb Your Enthusiasm, you sometimes get the impression that a whole episode has basically been built around one idea (e.g. Larry has to use a toilet at someone’s house, but the toilet doesn’t have a lock or Larry phones in an obituary to the newspaper but they make an embarrassing misprint). From that idea, 28 minutes of awkwardness is derived, with 25 minutes of awkward grimacing and 3 minutes of laughing out loud at the end when everything comes together.

Well anyway, our friend is staying with us at the moment and was sleeping at the foot of our bed this morning. I had to get out of bed before both K and her friend who didn’t need to wake up until much later. So I needed to get up, wash, get dressed, get my things together and leave without waking or disturbing anyone, preferably without turning the lights on. My attempts to do this increasingly felt like a Larry David routine as I conspicuously struggled to dress myself in the darkness, tripped over people and eventually had to wake the friend up in order to retrieve something from a cupboard, whilst being berated by a clearly irritated K-chan. The whole time, I was imagining that trumpet background music in the background as I awkwardly fumbled my way to the front door.

Finally, I’ve discovered that Okayama’s 24 hour Mcdonalds, across the road from the station is the equivalent of London’s Bar Italia (*hums the Pulp song*). At 6.30 in the morning it is basically full of casualties and people who have clearly stayed up all night and can’t go home yet. This made me happy as I shuffled my way through the muzak-playing mall under the station and got laughed at by my students for not having enough money on my ICOCA card.

The outside world can be a scary place.

Sunday was the anniversary of the March 11^th earthquake. I arrived in Japan a few months afterwards. When it happened, a lot of people assumed I would not be going to Japan. K and I had a serious conversation about what we would do if placed 1km outside the exclusion zone or other such unlikely situations.

A lot has been said about the Japanese government’s response to the earthquake and the speed with which the affected region has been rebuilt. But there is still a 20km exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant and who knows if or when people will be able to return there. Whilst the towns and cities can be rebuilt, I hope that people living in the Fukushima region are not stigmatized by their association with the radiation. I hope also that the mental health/PTSD issues arising from the disaster are dealt with effectively and without judgment or social ostracism.

 We had an interesting conversation with a Japanese friend recently. We were talking about visiting countries in Europe on holiday and she was very surprised when we said we might go to Greece next year. “But Greece is very dangerous” was her response. I had heard another Japanese colleague say this previously. We were confused. Obviously there has been rioting in Greece, but not to the extent where we would ever think of it as dangerous. She told us that the Japanese government had advised people that it was not safe to visit Greece because of all the recent trouble. I don’t know if this is factually accurate or not, but that was her belief.

We talked a little about how some people in the UK avoided (and continue to avoid) Japan after the Fukushima incident, even though the vast majority of Japan was physically unaffected. Of course, some people in Europe think of Japan as being pretty dangerous and resembling the landscape of Mad Max. But her view was that Japanese people are much more likely to be scared of crime, begging, rioting and unrest than they are to be scared of a natural disaster occurring. There is so little experience within Japan of these social problems that even if the chance of being affected is low, they can have a strong deterrent effect.

I’ve heard Spain, Italy and Holland all referred to as being dangerous. For the former two, it is the petty crime that is the issue. Now having spent a lot of time in Spanish cities, I can agree that the petty crime is prevalent and a pain, particularly in Barcelona. Drug use is the main issue affecting the perception of Holland. Cannabis use, even legal, is often associated with criminals and people who are not morally upright. So Holland is considered relatively dangerous to some people.

It’s really interesting to learn about people’s differing perceptions of the outside world. Maybe people in Kenya would think English people are stupid to not visit Somalia because it’s “too dangerous”. Maybe they would say “Hey-the Northern area of Somaliland is actually alright, you just need to take precautions and get taxis home at night”.

But I don’t really think that.

The photo of Allo Darlin' is entirely unrelated to the above post, but I do like their new single.

Leaving Japan

Is it weird that I’ve started scanning Ryanair and Easyjet for budget flights in October? This stems from my having less than five months left in Japan and needing something to look forward to after my return. But it still feels a bit early. Japan is an amazing place, but I’m facing up to the fact that I do have to leave soon. Coming to Japan was never likely to be a long term lifestyle change. The intention was always to stay for one year and to then return to the UK. But at the back of my mind, I knew that there was an opportunity to stay longer if that’s what I wanted.

I have a home and a long-term job to return to. But I’ve been reminded from others, just how frightening it is to not have any firm idea about what you are going to do with your life. There are a lot of JETs who really don’t know what they want to do after the programme and their position is not dissimilar to my own and that of my friends in the years immediately following university. But it’s actually worse for them than it was for us. I graduated at a time where there was generally work of some form available if you wanted it. Now, graduates are really gonna struggle to find any meaningful employment. There’s no growth in Britain, little economic stimulus and a high cost of living. It’s no wonder so many people are trying to stay in Japan for as long as possible.

But I will be returning and it’s tough to think that less than a week after I touch down at Heathrow, I will be back in my old job, continuing as if nothing has happened. There will be a day or two of “Hey Ben, how was it all” and then I won’t be able to talk about it too much, for fear of being a bore. I will be sitting at a desk in Westminster, trying to see what tangible gains I’ve made from living in Japan for a year. I know that I have benefitted greatly from my time here, but it will be tough to go back to the routine which in some ways motivated me to come to Japan in the first place.

I’m looking forward to seeing my friends. I’m excited that I will finally get to meet my godson and 2 new nephews. I also can’t wait to be reunited with my cat Daisy, even though I feel really bad for my friend who has been looking over her for the past year and will be understandably upset at having to give her up. And of course I’m looking forward to cohabiting once again. I also get weird urges to go to the book market on the South Bank.

I know I’m making the right decision. The amount of idle time on JET means that it’s not, on the whole, a satisfying job for me. I feel like I’m lazy, even though there are long periods where there is nothing I can do other than sit at my desk studying. And there are things in the UK that I want to do. But the lifestyle will be tough to leave behind. Living in a pleasant city, travelling every other weekend, friendly co-JETs, a welcoming local population and an intriguing culture. Who wouldn’t want that?

I know I’ve made the right decision and I certainly don’t want to be a JET after July. But it will be tough to leave.

This picture of Brett Anderson has nothing to do with the above article.

Acts of Kindness

Simple acts of kindness go a long way. I remember the first time I had to race for a train at Okayama Station. As I arrived on the platform, the doors closed and it began to move off. Then something amazing happened. The train stopped, the doors opened and the driver waved me on. Similarly, a few days ago I was stuck on the wrong side of a busy road, watching a tram about to move off from the tram stop on the other side. But the driver saw me and happily waited for the lights to change so that I could get on board.

Neither of these things would happen in London. Bus drivers’ overriding priority is to be on time and keep to the timetable. If someone is racing for the bus, then in about 75% of cases I don’t think the driver would bother to wait for them. Similarly, I cannot ever remember a train starting to move off from a platform and then stopping to let someone on. It’s not uncommon for the train doors to slam shut in your face, just as you start to climb on.

Every day I rely on these small acts of kindness. Each week at taiko, the group leader gives me a lift to the train station. My apartment is full of stuff that was donated by the teachers at my school. Bus drivers will make sure you get off at the correct stop, even if you don’t quite know when to press the bell. Waiters politely show you how to eat the trickier to understand dishes (this sometimes feels condescending, but in general I approve). Any time I mention somewhere that I’m thinking of visiting, my Japanese teacher will get hold of a brochure about the area. The Vice Principal at one school invited K and I to his house to learn how to make tempura. The lady at the dry cleaners asked me if there was anything she could help me with after I moved in. On my first night in Tokyo, I asked a BicCamera assistant to show me their watch section and she took me 100m down the road to show me a watch store.

I’ve complained previously here about the low expectations people have of me-but this is the other side to it. Now in some cases I know this is just part of people’s job description but even then, that still stems from their sense of responsibility towards me. Even better, this kindness is completely at odds with the negative stereotypes that some people back home have towards Japanese people. I hope that it’s not too much of a shock when I return to the UK.

The picture of Jarvis has nothing to do with the content of this article. I just wanted to post a picture of Jarvis looking hot.

Leaving before the strip club.

I’ve decided that I really like enkais.

Enkais are the Japanese equivalent of the office Christmas party. They are a formal work social event that takes place at least 3 times a year and often more. I’ve been to three so far. At each of them, the school books out a restaurant or hotel and a slap up meal is provided. They are always “nomehodai” which means…drink as much as you want.

So here’s a list of things that always happens at enkais-or at least the ones that I’ve been to:

-One teacher gets horrendously drunk and harasses the Principal. Every time. The Principal always goes easy on the alcohol, but without fail, one teacher will make a bit of a fool of himself (always HIMself) and end up with their sweaty arm round the Principal, trying to drag him to a strip club.

-The men get misogynistic. Honestly, these events can be like taking a step back to the 1950s. Usually I get taught some Japanese words and phrases that definitely aren’t in the Genki textbook. Sometimes I’m told “You should get a Japanese girlfriend”. If I tell people I’m not married, they tend to assume that I happily cheat on my girlfriend. Always, I’m told that I should get married. In general, we get to behave like wankers. I don’t approve of any of this, but I do quite enjoy going along with it for one evening every 3 months.

-The strip club. I’ve never been to a strip club. I don’t want to go to one. The key with enkais is to stick with the group for as long as possible to enjoy the increasingly drunken fun, whilst identifying the exact moment to leave so that you don’t have to be invited to the strip club. Or, indeed, act as a discouragement for everyone else who wants to go to the strip club.

-The food. It’s never very good. People tend to assume you’ve never eaten anything other than Toad in the Hole before.

-New friends. I always get speaking to someone who’s never shown any interest in me before but turns out to have great English skills. Often they are really interesting people. This is the main reason why I like enkais. My school is pretty intense and the teachers don’t have time to sit and chat. So enkais are a great opportunity to meet people. I don’t mind if it’s lubricated by alcohol, or even if they are the ones who invite me to the strip club later-I’ve really enjoyed getting to know the teachers at my schools and many of them are great company.

-Assumptions that you share in prejudiced beliefs. No, I don’t think it was a tragedy that Freddie Mercury was gay. That’s not my analysis of that particular issue.

-Difficult hierarchy/gender issues. I don’t feel comfortable with the way that the women and more junior staff come round and fill up everyone’s glasses. I also struggle with the exaggerated laughter at the principal’s jokes. In saying all that, I do accept that there’s no point just mindlessly applying North London expectations to the situation I’m in. In some respects, the system here does work, but I can’t ultimately agree with it or feel at ease when surrounded by it.

-We want to have a good time. People really do want to enjoy themselves. I like that there is a license to drink as much as you want and make a fool of yourself without there being any repercussions.  Sure, it’s organized fun, but it’s still fun.

Reading the above list, I can see that saying I like enkais might make it sound as if the negative things are part of the fun. In a way, that’s true-I’ll admit that I get a certain amount of enjoyment from going along with it all. It’s not really that different from being at school and having to spend time with the rugby types. If you’re in the right frame of mind and stay true to yourself, then you can actually have a decent evening.