Teaching with Tim

From the American Airlines in-flight tracker...

There are times when life seems to drag by slowly, and times when it seems to be rushing by so fast that you can’t keep up.  For me, the past 48 hours have been in the second category. 

It began at gate 42 in LAX, waiting for my flight to Tokyo.  A large group of Japanese middle school students, all in identical blue T-shirts, started filing in.   They had been in L.A. on some kind exchange program, and they were chatting in Japanese so fast that I could hardly believe their words were actually intelligible to one another.  A clear thought crossed my mind: It has begun. 

I ended up sitting next to one of the students on the plane, and I practiced a bit of Japanese with him.   He was incredibly polite and mature—“Jozu desu!” (You’re very good!) he said, falsely complimenting my terrible Japanese.  He listened patiently to my inane Japanese 101 conversation starters (Where are you from?  Did you like America?) and answered them in slow, clearly enunciated Japanese that I still failed to understand.  To my American middle school teacher eyes, his politeness seemed so beyond his years I dubbed him “Little Grandfather” in my head. He and his classmates wanted to grill me on English idioms, and they asked me what “Excuse you” meant.  I saw this as my first teaching test, and I tried to explain when one would say “Excuse me” versus “Excuse you.”  I ended up resorting to sloppy ballpoint pictures of stick figures farting and excusing each other.  They liked that (“Very exciting!” said Little Grandfather).  I went on to explain the definition of the English idiom “cut the cheese,” which they promised to memorize. 

After 11 hours in flight, I caught my first glimpse of Japan’s central island, Honshu, emerging bright and lush under the clouds.  “There’s a lot of green!” Little Grandfather told me.  He and his classmates erupted in applause when the plane touched down in Tokyo.  A country they’re happy to return to, I thought. That’s a good sign.  And so far I’ve found that they had good reason to be happy.  My first impression has been of an advanced, clean country full of polite and thoughtful people. I know that this simplistic assessment will change and evolve with time, but for the moment I’m in love with the place.  A few quick examples:

• My Japan Air flight to Nagoya was delayed—from 6:00 to 6:05.  The agent at the ticketing gate came out at 6:01 and apologized profusely in both English and Japanese for the fact that the plane would not be ready for another four minutes.  Then, at exactly 6:05, he and four other JAL ticketing agents came out and bowed in perfect unison before ushering us aboard.  We ended up arriving in Nagoya five minutes early.  
  
• An airport employee in Nagoya walked the entire length of the terminal to personally get me the change I needed for a 10,000 yen note in order to operate the passport picture machine. 
  
• When I dropped my suitcase in an elevator, the woman next to me rushed to pick it up, putting down all of her own bags in the process.
  
• Store workers are endlessly courteous.  At the entrance to every store I enter, whether staffed by an elderly woman or a teenager with long bleached hair, I’m greeted with Irrashaimase! (Welcome!) and all the help I could ever need.  (The only exception to this I’ve found so far is McDonald’s).  
  
• A man I asked for help finding the subway station near my house not only seemed happy to meet my request, but actually followed me there to make sure I made it. 
  
• The teachers from Meito who picked me up arrived with a typed schedule detailing what I would be doing for each hour of the day.  They had prepared an entire folder full of materials specifically for me, and they spent the whole day doing everything from helping me get my registration card to teaching me how to operate my shower.    
  

I guess some part of me held onto the naïve expectation that everything in Japan would be a little different but basically the same.  The influence of the west is clearly visible, but the unfamiliar is still outweighing the familiar for me.  A few culture shock moments:     

• I was sitting on the toilet in my hotel room.  Curious about a little button with a picture of a sprinkler on it, I press it.  Luckily, I had heard about this unique sanitation device before, so I wasn’t shocked enough to jump up screaming.  But it was still an unusual place to be squirted with a high-pressure blast of hot water.
  
• The “pillow” (stone) in my hotel “room” (closet) was just one its unusual features—the electrical system was impossible to decipher.  Switches everywhere.  Combinations of up to three different buttons required to turn on lights.  I ended up stumbling around with my REI headlamp and iPod, unable to turn on a single one of the room’s many lights.  I knew they worked, but they just wouldn’t work for me.     
  
• Here’s a conversation I had with a woman in an airport elevator.  I’ve translated it from the Japanese to the best of my ability:

Woman in Elevator: Where did you come from?

Me: Los Angeles.

Woman: Something something something.

Me: Yes?

Woman: Something?

Me: Yes.

Woman: Somethingelse?

Me: Yes!

Woman: Something!  Something. Somethingelseveryfast.

Me: Yes! Thank You!

Woman: You’re welcome.

I wish I were writing about all this in some other form besides bulleted lists, but everything is happening so fast, and I feel like I have enough material for a hundred blog posts. Not all of the culture shock has been fun—I got carsick from driving on the left side of the road, I’m still not proficient with chopsticks, and it’s so hot and humid that I feel like I’m losing a gallon of water in sweat every five minutes—but I’m still in awe of this place.  Of course I have heard about the less awe-inspiring elements of the culture.  The social distance that all that politeness actually implies.  The difficulty getting students to speak and think independently in class.  The challenge of learning the language.  The bureaucracy.  The closet nationalism.  The misogyny and xenophobia.  But I want to hold onto my excitement about this experience, however naïve it may be, because I believe that new experiences often give you what you expect of them, and if I work hard to learn about this place and these people, I’ll get more back.  Maybe I’ll end up looking back on this post as I sometimes do on my reports from Los Angeles—how bright-eyed and bushy-tailed I sounded, how silly and idealistic—but I know that the experience can go one of two ways (or anywhere in between): on the one hand, you can end up giving up on the language, spending all your time with other foreigners, and feeling like a permanent outsider.  On the other hand, you can learn the language, make Japanese friends, and get an inside view of a fascinating culture.  So my glowing assessment of what I’ve seen so far is, in a way, a defense mechanism—a way of keeping my focus on sustaining the effort it will take to make the most of this.  I know there will be times when I miss my family, my friends, readable street signs, and microwavable burritos.  I know I’ll get lonely.  But for the moment I’m feeling good about being here, and I want to hold onto that for as long as I can.    

Unlike last summer, which I spent methodically tracking the reading and writing I completed each day, this summer has felt like an unstructured blur.  In just one more week, I’ll be leaving the familiar routines of Seattle for something completely new–my teaching contract with Meito High School in Nagoya, Japan, lasts for two years.  I’m optimistic and excited, but still not sure what to expect.  At this point three years ago, when I was getting ready to leave for Los Angeles and Teach for America, I had massive packets of information on what to do and what to expect: online surveys to complete, teaching instructional seminars to listen to, papers to write, and even a novel by a former Teach for America corps member to read and reflect on.  I’ve chosen to stave off anxiety about teaching in Japan by attempting to create a similar preparatory regimen for myself— I took introductory Japanese class at UCLA and worked with a tutor I found on craigslist for about ten sessions, I’ve purchased random U.S. tourist knick-knacks to give away in Japan, and with help from friends I’ve put together a nice collection of Japanese paraphernalia (maps, guidebooks, etc.).  But I still feel woefully underprepared—a feeling that I’m now trying to fight by peppering these languorous Seattle days with my own home-brewed cultural immersion program.  It looks something like this:

• Read Shogun
• Watch corny 80s-era Japanese learning videos on youtube 
• Look up Japanese bands and podcasts on iTunes
• Check out Japanese movies at library (best one so far: Kurasawa’s Seven Samurai). 
• Eavesdrop on Japanese people in Seattle’s international district
• Practice introducing myself in the mirror (Japanese for Busy People: “A typical bow is performed with both feet together, the hands flat on the thighs (for men) or crossed in front (for women), and the torso inclined at a 15- to 45-degree angle.  The eyes remain open during the bow, and the bowing person’s line of sight moves with his or her torso rather than staying fixed on the other person”).

Not exactly systematic.  I’m determined not to be an “ugly American,” bumbling around with barbaric manners and a self-satisfied grin, but I’m also starting to accept the fact that I won’t be able to avoid bumbling entirely.   And when I’m not worrying about walking straight through a paper-thin wall or tracking mud all over someone’s Meiji-era carpet, I’m spending time with friends and family, which has been wonderful.  A few photos from my recent Northwest adventures are below.   I still suffer the usual mid-twenties-life-angst (Am I going in the right direction?  Do I want to stay in this career forever? Should I go to grad. school?  Does my hair look O.K.?) but a steady hum of excitement and preparation is mostly drowning out all that existential terror for now. 

Next blog will be my first report from Nagoya.       

View of Rainier from the top of Pinnacle Peak. My friend Craig and I had a great week of Northwest sightseeing.

BIG rattlesnake spotted in Eastern Washington on a hike with my friend John. The snake rattled in a very nasty way and I think I was about six inches from getting a calf-full of fangs.

A moment's pause before taking the plunge into this frigid alpine lake in the North Cascades.