Random Memories #75 - the last weeks in Japan - part 7

My previous posts about goodbyes with students may lead my readers to believe that every student loved me to pieces and sobbed herself into a state of apoplexy at my impending departure. In fact, the reason for my focusing on those people in my initial posts about goodbyes was more about what left the biggest impression on me than an attempt to self-aggrandize or paint myself as someone who left an indelible impression on everyone who crossed her path. No small number of people simply did not care when I left, and one of those was a student who I taught for quite some time, went away for a year or so, and circled back into my life three months before I left.

When I first starting getting private students via a referral service, they sent me one student at a time. After I collected a few who gave me very positive reviews, I started getting offered more people more often. Anyone who knows the private tutoring game in Japan knows that building a stable of private students is difficult, but more profitable than teaching in a conversation school on an hourly basis.

Because of various health problems, I wanted to get as many students as possible to help build up an income that I could generate from my apartment. Due to my limits, I accepted nearly anybody who was sent my way regardless of their level. This was not only to pad my coffers, but also because I wanted to agency to believe that I would not arbitrarily reject anyone based on idiosyncratic preferences.

After about six months, I was offered my fifth private student and the oldest person I had taught to date. This student, who I often referred to as "little old man" ("LOM") to my husband, was 74 years old and had worked at NTT for his entire life. His life was a classic example of that of a middle class Japanese man. He started at the bottom, rose through management, and remained at the same company for his entire life. He made more money over time and did less work, and very likely was nearly useless by the time the door failed to hit his ass on the way out.

When retirement came around (at around age 65 for him, I believe), NTT did something which is very common in Japanese companies. They told him that he could keep working there doing the same job, but for about half of the salary he had been receiving. LOM decided he'd rather spend his days golfing and puttering around his house than put in a day's work at NTT for less scratch. He had a son and a wife, but neither of them factored much into his retirement plans or activities. Like many men of his generation, his family was something he had to fulfill specific needs and expectations, and he conducted much of his life separately from them.

In his lessons, LOM rarely talked about his wife or son other than to mention an occasional visit to his son's out-of-town home. When I asked about his wife, he essentially said the same thing so many older men do about their wives - they were more like siblings and stayed out of each other's way for the most part or they would argue too much. Even when they traveled together, they didn't tend to stick together unless logistics dictated that it be so.

There were a lot of things that LOM preferred to talk about and I spent lessons hearing a lot about golf and the tiniest details of his daily life. In one lesson, he announced that he wanted to tell me about how he brushed his teeth and meticulously described how he'd brush each part of his dental structures and in what order. "First I brush my top teeth on the left side, then I brush the top teeth on the right side. Then, I brush the front teeth." It was scintillating stuff.

He was much more interested in talking about what he did than how he interacted with anyone and the more detailed the talk about his mundane activities, the better. The only excitement that he ever talked about with me was when he had all of his luggage, wallet, and passport stolen from a rented vehicle during a vacation to Hawaii. They were stolen, in part, because he left his car unlocked, but he did so because he subscribed to the all-too-familiar notion that Hawaii is a part of Japan and not the United States. It's an easy enough mistake to make when the tourist areas cater so lavishly to Japanese interests, including providing Japanese language services.

It was my job to be the teacher that he wanted me to be, and he asked me initially to teach him English "from the beginning" and I tried to do as he instructed by starting with a low level English book. It's important to note that his English was not high level and he had a lot of grammar and pronunciation problems. His issues were the sort of dyed deep in the wool variety that is so common among older learners who never studied long or hard nor lived abroad. Though he asked me to teach him from the beginning, he soon grew impatient with the process and that's when he started planning his own lessons and talking about things like how he cleaned his house step-by-step using a floor sweeping thing which has a big roll of weak tape on the end (these are popular in Japan for picking up small particles on floors, but are usually used as lint removers in the U.S.) and how he conducted his dental hygiene routine.

LOM needed to run the show, even when he told me he wanted me to do it. On several occasions, he'd tell me he wanted a particular type of lesson and I'd comply only to have him change course shortly thereafter. First it was starting with a textbook from basics, then it was practicing various grammatical structures, then it was talking about everyday things, and so on. He knew what he needed or wanted to learn, but he didn't know what it would entail to actually do it so he kept rearranging the lesson structure and focus. I did the dance he asked for awhile, until he asked me to do a different one.

For most of the years that I steadily taught him, there was one thing which always made him happy and that was talking about golf. Much of his desire to learn English was based in his hobby. He had done a homestay in Florida at one point and met some nice folks there, but he did it not to meet those people, but rather to gain access to the golf courses at the retirement community there. Note that he did this homestay after retirement. While the image of the typical homestay person is that of a student who goes to school, it is possible for old folks to do homestays as well (often with other older folks). He needed to keep his English level where it was if he had any hope of communicating with these people and gaining access to their compound and accompanying golf greens.

LOM's lessons were very boring for me for a variety of reasons. One was that he wanted to talk about such mundane things. Another was that his English level was so low. Yet another was that he wasn't making much headway no matter what I did. This was in part due to his age and entrenched problems, but also because he never stuck with any plan that addressed his weak points. Since he had no compelling reason to improve (such as getting a TOEIC score or needing English for work), I never counseled him about how his inconsistent and idiosyncratic approach was derailing improvement. I think he already knew it, but he chose autonomy over better skill. Based on his demeanor and whimsical approach to study, I'm pretty sure that he would have stopped taking lessons if I pointed out that he'd never improve if he kept going as he did.

The biggest reason that the lessons were tedious was that LOM was the most self-centered person that I had ever known in Japan. He rarely missed a lesson, so I had nearly 300 lessons with him and he never once even asked a perfunctory "how are you?" He never asked me a question about myself or my life and it was clear from his focus that he had no interest in talking about his family or friends. It was always about him - every little detail was about him.

However, it was not a student's responsibility to amuse me or show interest in my life and I always knew this and kept it in mind. It was my job to give them the type of lesson they wanted and to show interest in them. That is what I diligently did for LOM until his interests changed and he decided to stop studying English in favor of his new passion. After years of learning English because he loved golf, he decided that he liked social dancing more than improving his swing or score. With a loss of his need to make annual pilgrimages to Florida, he stopped studying English except for contacting me once or twice a year to help him understand and reply to the occasional letter from his former homestay family.

In January 2012, shortly before my departure in March 2012, I got an e-mail from LOM asking about studying with me again. I told him that I would soon be leaving Japan and would no longer be available to teach him. The response he gave me was... nothing. He didn't wish me well in America. He didn't say, "thank you for your reply, can you recommend another teacher?" He didn't even say, "I'm glad you're going. You suck!" I was greeted with nothing but silence.

The truth was that I was a tool for him to use and he paid me for the privilege so I have no complaints or criticisms. For some students, that is what the teachers are, and he not only didn't shed a tear at the news of my departure, but didn't bother to put in a socially appropriate word. I was something useful that he picked up when he needed and put it down when he didn't. Now, that tool was going to be out of reach so he'd have to find a different one and that was all there as to it. (to be continued)

Random Memories #74 - the last weeks in Japan - part 6

The red bag has my name embroidered on the other side. It's from a well-known maker, or so I was told. K. also gave me a picture frame and rusks. It was quite a generous pile of gifts considering she hadn't seen me for a very long time.

Compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, human babies are born essentially premature and quite helpless. A calf will be up and walking soon after it is born, but a human baby takes between nine and twelve months to accomplish a similar feat. This is one of the many things that separates us from animals, and what may appear to be a big mistake on the part of mother nature is actually a means of accommodating an enormous advantage.

Humans have big brains compared to other animals. This is so because they have a highly developed prefrontal cortex. This is the part which essentially separates humans from animals and requires that our mothers give birth to us early. If we were more developed, our enormous heads wouldn't fit through the birth canal, so we are born in a more helpless state and take longer to mature than other animals. It's also speculated that this big brain is what allows humans to possess a certain consciousness. It is theorized that that is what has us talking to ourselves, speculating about the past and the future rather than living in the moment or acting only on current needs, and what allows us to weave complex philosophies of life.

I've spent a good deal of my life knitting, crocheting, and embroidering life philosophies. I'm not claiming that I have all of the answers. In fact, I'm not claiming that I have any answers at all - at least not for anyone other than myself. In the end, that's all any of us have and I do my best to respect that other people aren't going to share in my worldview or weave the same philosophical and, yes, spiritual cloth that I am choosing to wear. To each their own. I won't push my views on you, though if you're reading this, you're sort of asking for it to some extent, and I'd appreciate it if you don't force yours on me.

That being said, I can't talk about some of my parting experiences in Japan without mentioning a particular philosophical bent that I possess. My big human brain (which is no bigger than other human brains - they're all big) compels me to look for patterns and to find meaning, even if neither actually exists. One of the patterns that it has discovered and, in one of the conversations with myself that my unconscious has revealed, is that we are all in some way connected to one another. The longer and more strongly we associate, the stronger the bonds between us.

I tend to think this  has to do with energy and the way atoms and molecules communicate with each other beyond human sensory capacity to detect. If I feel linked to someone, I think that my molecules have formed some sort of atomic-level relationship. You can frame it any way you want, or reject the concept entirely as utter poppycock or new age drivel. However, I can say that, as my days in Japan dwindled, several of the chickens that had flown the coop came home to roost. That's my colorful way of saying that students who had stopped taking private lessons with me years before suddenly started popping up again near the very end. The timing was very peculiar, and the truth is that I hadn't actually "lost" that many students anyway. Only one that I had a long-term  (more than six months) relationship with didn't come back or remain with me throughout the 6 years that I was doing private lessons in my apartment.

One of them contacted me a few weeks before we left. That one was the biggest shock. For simplicity's sake, I'll refer to her as "K." She was someone who I had taught for about a year - an accountant for a French insurance firm who studied English for her job - and I hadn't had contact with her for at least two years. To my husband, I often referred to her as "the sad sack". She rarely smiled and every week when I started the lesson by saying, "how are you?" She'd reply with "not good".

K. was in her 40's, a little older than me, and lived with her father and brother. She wasn't particularly happy with them as they tended to be lazy and her father was prone to not doing any housework. The house she lived in was old and dirty, but she wasn't sufficiently unhappy to move out into her own place. It was bad, but not that bad.

When I first started teaching her, K. worked for a Japanese insurance company in the accounting division. She was often worn out and had little time of her own. Occasionally, she'd complain about her bosses or coworkers. She was the student who first introduced me to the concept of "amae", or someone who depends on others selfishly. In her office, she had a coworker who she said often behaved in that fashion and she resented this behavior, yet still indulged it as a means of keeping harmony within the office.

The truth about my feelings regarding K. was that I felt bad for her. She seemed to work hard and to not be appreciated for her less tangible qualities and had a low estimation of her own worth. Though she had a Master's degree and accounting certifications, she was unhappy in her career and talked often about changing jobs.

I think a lot of her sense of her lack of value stemmed from her physical appearance. Her teeth were bad, worse than even the somewhat average Japanese badness because some of hers were brownish and looked like they were decaying. I never asked her about her teeth, but she did occasionally mention trips to the dentist and how she had problems and toothaches. She also talked about her dental hygiene habits and I was certain that her issues were genetic and not based on a lack of personal care.

Besides her teeth, K. was slightly thick-bodied. For a Japanese, she may have been considered overweight, but she simply was not slender or petite. If she had extra body weight, it was minimal, but she wore clothes that constantly made her look older and frumpier. When she arrived at my apartment wearing pieces which I found attractive, as she sometimes dressed up to meet former classmates or colleagues after our Sunday morning lesson, I always complimented her on her choices. It seemed she got very little in the way of affirmation of her value, so I gave her what I could when I sincerely felt it.

K.'s English lessons were often more tiring than those of other students. It wasn't that she was incapable or didn't try hard, but I think she was often taxed in her energies before she even showed up at my door. She'd progressively rush through repetitions or words and not focus. Her problems were persistent and intractable. I don't know if I was helping her at all to progress. She possessed a high level of vocabulary already, but she often pretended to understand when she didn't and her pronunciation problems seemed set in stone.

I also found her negative outlook and energy exhausting at times. Though I wasn't pouring energy into pepping her up, it was hard at times to not be drawn into the grayness of her worldview. She felt trapped and unhappy, though she did actually get a new job at a French insurance company after some time. That helped her escape her old work environment for one at a foreign company that would follow a different working culture. I was very happy for her when she changed jobs, especially since she seemed to work a lot of overtime and weekends. After awhile, K. decided that she needed to invest much more energy in preparation for certain types of accounting qualification exams than English and she said she'd study English independently. I understood, and I was slightly relieved as it often felt as if she walked in with a storm cloud over her head that colored my day as well.

K. was with me for going on two years and, once she left, I never expected to see her again. I was shocked when, quite suddenly, she sent me a message asking if she could friend me on Facebook. When I replied, I told her that I was leaving Japan very soon. Much to my surprise, K. asked if she could come and see me to say goodbye in person.

I never felt especially close to her, but the day before I left, she showed up bearing gifts. While K. looked very much like herself when she came to my apartment, the cloud she'd carried with her seemed to be gone. Her face looked brighter, and her hair, clothes and make-up were done better. I told her that she looked great and she replied that she was making an effort to "look more beautiful". Her pictures on Facebook reveal that she challenges her body with weight training and she's going to parties and socializing more. I was so happy for her that she seemed to be doing better.

During her visit, the sisters that I'd said goodbye to earlier came around for another "goodbye" because they'd forgotten to bring their gifts when we met for dinner. It was a little weird having them all there, but handy in getting pictures taken since I could pose with one person/party while the other took the shot. The strangest part was that the sisters started crying when I talked to them which caused K., who I hadn't seen in ages, to also start to cry even though she didn't have nearly as long or intimate a relationship with me.

The fact that K. made the effort to come over and say goodbye to me personally as well as arrange for personalized gifts was a real testimonial to how generous the Japanese can be. It also reflected how much they value and nurture the connections they make with others. Her kindness in the 11th hour of my time in Japan is something I will never forget.

(to be continued)

Random Memories #72 - the last weeks in Japan - part 4

H.'s goodbye gift to the husband and me - she chose this because she wanted to give us something to remind us of her house, which is two stories tall, but is not red and brown nor did it have a cat or bird.

When it came to saying goodbyes, my husband and I had to find a balance between his students/friends and mine. We couldn't possibly fit in goodbye get-togethers with everyone, much as we might have liked to have done so. The truth is that we both had to suffer a bit of guilt turning down invitations to go out with people who wanted to spend some time at a restaurant or an izakaya (Japanese pub) with us. We didn't fool ourselves into thinking we were so insanely charming and appealing that people were clamoring to spend social time with us. I think some invitations were as much about a sense that they should be proffered as anything else. Some were, of course, very sincere.

I think most of the people who invited us knew that it was impossible to see everyone and we did have a goodbye party scheduled for our mutual workplace at which many of the students my husband had taught for many years would be able to take part. Since I had worked there for less than a year, it wasn't as sentimental for me, but I was still pleased to be able to go there and feel I belonged since I worked there as well. I will talk about that job and the goodbye party at a later time, but I really did like being there and it made it that much harder to leave Japan.

The one and only invitation from one of my husband's students that we accepted was from a woman who I will call "H." H. was a music teacher who tutored people in her homes and my husband functioned more as her default counselor than a simple English instructor. She was one of those all too common Japanese mothers who formed a stronger bond with her son than with her husband. When the son got a girlfriend, she wrung her hands, gnashed her teeth, and tried to tighten the apron strings. When her son finally decided to get engaged and move into his own place with his girlfriend, he told everyone but his mother. He didn't want to deal with the hysterics so he just vanished and she was told after the deed was done.

H. was a nice lady and she wanted things to go well for her kids, but her own emotional needs, at least at times, overrode their desire for autonomy. This is certainly not uncommon among parents. This selfishness tends to be present as much among Western parents as Japanese ones. It just tends to manifest differently in the West.

My husband was generally quite sympathetic to H. and, when he told me about her, he spoke positively of her. When she invited us to an evening at her home for dinner, we were both happy to accept. She even picked us up at the local train station in her car and drove us to her place. It was rare for us not to have to wander around finding our own way or to have to figure out bus schedules and routes to get around to areas far from the station.

When we arrived, we chatted with her and her daughter for a bit over Coca-cola Zero (purchased just for us) and snacks. Eventually, her son came home by and her husband came home and they rolled out an enormous dinner for us including an extremely gorgeous roast chicken that had also been prepared especially for my husband. The meal also included something that looked like and resembled guacamole, but was made with hard-boiled eggs and mayonnaise in addition to avocado. It was one of those things which I'd never make, but is right at home on a Japanese dinner table as mayo by the bucket is not the least bit unusual.

After the meal, at which we spent most of the time talking about food and tastes, we had one of the most memorable and beautiful experiences of our time in Japan when H., her daughter, and her son (who were also musicians) performed Pachelbel's Canon in D for us. This was the song that we played at our wedding in lieu of the wedding march - my husband and I walked in together to this music rather than do a more formal or traditional ceremony. I don't know if they chose this music because he had told them that or if it was just a happy coincidence, but I remember thinking that that was the sort of experience that I would almost certainly never have had in the U.S. I was fortunate to have my digital camera with a video recording capability and have it preserved for posterity.

As I sat there listening to them play beautifully, I cried. It was the sort of moment near the end that I wanted to hold onto. It was one perfect experience that I'd link forever with Japan and I was immensely grateful to H. for providing it. Unfortunately, that memory was not to survive without becoming tainted.

To explain that statement, I have to jump ahead to the very last hours of our time in Japan and over several more events/goodbyes. We visited H. about a week before we left and the time between being at her home and going to the airport was hectic and generally pretty terrible. I'd gone through so many emotional and wrenching goodbyes and worked so hard to get everything together that the stress suppressed my immune system such that I got sick. The morning that we left, I was exhausted emotionally and also physically. It was hectic and difficult on many levels, but I will get to that in a later post.

When we finally got to the airport and unloaded our four enormous suitcases, all I wanted to do was relax for a bit and take in the last moments in Japan in a sort of peace that I'd not experienced for quite some time. I wanted to just ease into the end and be alone with my husband as we closed in on the moment when we got onto the plane and flew away.

As our last bit of "work", my husband and I struggled to use his laptop with the airport Wi-Fi and make a Skype call to his father to let him know what was going on since he was going to pick us up on the other end. Once this was done, we wanted to slowly and peacefully stroll around Narita and reflect on what we were leaving behind and what was ahead. It was a private time, a short window to say an internal as well as an external goodbye after some extremely draining weeks. The truth was that I was a shambles in every way possible. I was at the very limit of any other event happening to me which was going to tax me in any way. I needed some time for quiet reflection desperately and for all of the turmoil to just stop for awhile. I needed both emotional processing time and some physical rest.

As we just started out to make a thoughtful trek around Narita, my husband's name was called out by a woman out ahead of us. It was H., waving and shouting with an enormous smile. We did not invite her. In fact, we did not tell her when we would be there or what airline we would be flying on. She only knew the day we were departing and she had done detective work on her own to track us down.

I was stunned that she felt it was appropriate to stalk us to the airport on our departure day and furious that she would show up cheery and excited at a time when she was not in any way welcome. That last thing I wanted to do at that time was put on my happy gaijin mask and entertain this woman who clearly had no clue about what limits and boundaries meant. I could barely manage to be civil as my husband tried to talk to her pleasantly for a bit. After barely a minute of forced chat, I excused myself saying that I was not feeling well at all - which was true, but not the only reason I extricated myself. My husband talked to her a bit longer then escaped as well. He felt that she had absolutely no empathy for what we were going through. Not a thought in her head was directed at what we might have been experiencing or needing at that time.

I was so furious at H.'s behavior that I will forever associate her not with that beautiful final evening, but with that inappropriate and unwelcome insertion into my final hour or so in Japan. She had no idea what she had taken from me at a time when I was least able to give anymore than I already had. The selfishness and concern for only her needs and feelings which she had displayed with her son was now being shown toward us. She only cared about amusing herself by following a couple of gaijin to the airport on their last day. It was all just a lark to her.

My husband mumbled that, if she was going to drive all the way out to the airport, the least she could have done was offer to drive us and our suitcases there to spare us the hassle and expense. However, that would have assumed that she was thinking about our feelings and not her own. It was a bitter experience that left a dark mark on my farewell to Japan. Japanese people can be just as self-involved as Westerners - this I already knew - but this was a time when I least expected it and when it cost me the most personally. (to be continued)

Random Memories #71 - the last weeks in Japan - part 3

The beautiful laser-cut card that the two sisters gave me.

Here is part 1 and part 2 of this series.

When you have met as many people as my husband and I met during our time in Japan, there are a lot of goodbyes to offer. Our last few weeks were full of trying to balance preparation to leave with meeting people and saying goodbye to them. Some of them would see the last of us in classrooms or in my apartment for a final lesson. Others were actually going to go out to dinner or lunch with us and finally meet the "real" us. 

One of the sometimes trying aspects of life in Japan for my husband and I was that we never really felt that we could "be ourselves". There was always the gaijin mask that we had to put on in which we accommodated the passivity of the Japanese, the need to be gentle, quiet, patient, and always being responsible for the conversation and comfort of the other person. Even in social situations, we were always the ones who had to hold back as our natural assertiveness could so easily overwhelm our Japanese friends and acquaintances. We weren't exactly "pod" versions of ourselves, but we often felt like the hosts of any exchange even when we were actually the guests. 

During those final weeks and outside of situations in which we were teachers, we allowed some of that to slip away. I had two students who I truly loved teaching and treasured knowing. I taught the older sister for awhile and then her younger sister came on board. Both of them were intelligent, educated, sophisticated, well-traveled, and more Westernized in their demeanor than average. 

The older sister was actually born in Tennessee and could have chosen to be a U.S. citizen or a Japanese one. Unfortunately for her, she didn't have the option to be both since this is not allowed between her home country and mine. She was only in the U.S. as an infant, and left by age one, and chose quite reasonably to become a Japanese citizen at the age of 19. I've always felt that it was unfortunate that dual citizenship was not possible, but I'm pretty sure that this choice is made on the Japan side since American permits dual citizenship with many countries and, as far as I know, Japan allows it with none. So, my student who is not fluent in English and belongs to a family of Japanese people chose Japan.

The older sister told me that she got into trouble on more than one occasion because of her propensity for being blunt. I'm pretty sure that she didn't pick this habit up from being born in the U.S., but it is a very American personality trait. She told me that she could "scare" men in particular with her habit of speaking her mind and that she really needed to tone it down. She once made a grown man cry, though sometimes that is like shooting fish in a barrel - especially in Japan where men aren't accustomed to being challenged in general and especially not by women. The truth is that she reminded me of myself when I was younger in this way. I frightened all but the strongest of men away and I married the one who was never intimidated by me. She and I had a lot in common in terms of our "rough edges". A lot of mine had been filed away, but this made me like her all the more.

Teppanyaki - manly food for manly men who eat slabs of cow. If he touches the bean sprouts though, he's a big fake!

Since I liked these sisters so much, I was delighted when they suggested that we all go to a goodbye meal. My husband and I had been to a teppanyaki restaurant in Takadanobaba which we really enjoyed the first time around and suggested we do our goodbye meal there with the sisters. As the end came, we found we felt more and more melancholy about all of the places that we'd enjoyed going to, but knew we wouldn't be able to go to again. The place is called Daitokai Honkan and their web site says they are located in Meijiro, but we accessed them via Takadanobaba station.

We were to meet the sisters at around noon, but they were both late and my husband and I were avoiding cell phones up until the bitter end so there was no way for us to contact them. The younger one was less late than the older one, who arrived tottering a bit on high-heeled shoes about fifteen minutes past the appointed time. I did mention that they weren't typical Japanese, and this type of lateness was just one of the smaller indications of this point.

Tofu chicken burger... which felt a little unclear on the concept of vegetarian food, but I'm sure that was not what it was all about.

The main point of teppanyaki is grilling meat in front of the customer, but I am not a fan of steak or any of the other popular types of meat so I ordered a "tofu chicken burger". The concept seemed a bit strange as the point of tofu in the eyes of Western folks is to avoid the shedding of animal blood in the interest of satisfying human appetites. There was minced beet with soy sauce on top and a big side of bean sprouts. This entire meal would have been an experience in total gustatory virtue if it weren't for the fact that a big bowl of white rice came on the side, as is required by Japanese law, I'm sure. I really enjoyed it though, and would have had it again had I not been planning to leave the country pretty much forever in a few weeks.

A lot of the time was spent talking about our plans for the future. The older sister remarked during the end of our two hours there that she realized that she didn't really know the "real" me and that the "teacher" me was not truly me. I felt that this was particularly astute on her part as I'm sure few of our students realized this fact, though I guess even fewer got to spend two hours with me talking and not worrying about their impressions of me.

You can conclude that we are all wanted by the law for some reason (in Japan, it could be for not eating all of the rice they served) or that I'm trying to protect everyone's privacy.

Near the end of the meal, as we were enjoying coffee and tea in beautiful china cups, the people in the restaurant offered to take our photo. I wondered if this was like one of those things that used to happen in the 1960s and 70s when they'd take your picture and then make you pay for a copy of it, but they said that it was a free service and provided us with a card and the photo. The people at the restaurant were incredibly nice and professional. This wasn't even an especially expensive place, but the service was excellent. 

After sitting with these two lovely women and having the sort of conversation that you have when you're not a teacher and responsible for helping someone advance their language skills, I thought about how an opportunity had been missed. Since we were leaving, it was also one that would never come again. Of course, you cannot know how such goodbyes will go or what people will do until you try, and this was the best of all of the farewell social occasions that we had. Some of others were far more difficult and complex. (to be continued)

Random Memories #65 - Mr. Matsubara

One of the things that used to happen to my husband or me on occasion in Japan was that we'd run across a person who'd stop us on the street and look at us with recognition. This person would then say, "do you remember me?" Sometimes, we would remember this person, but, at least half the time, we would not.

In the long history of my work in Japan, I spoke with hundreds of people face to face. If you count the people I did telephone lessons with, then I easily spoke to thousands. The problem with being a teacher for a long time in Japan is that you see so  many people and they see so few of you. It's easy for them to remember one of a handful of English conversation teachers they've met in their lifetimes. It's rather hard for you to keep track of the enormous numbers of students.

In order to remember one particular student, one of two things has to happen. You will have had to have taught that student a lot relative to any other student or over a very long period of time. If not that, then that student would have to be incredibly memorable when seen in contrast to other students. Given how hard Japanese people try not to stand out, particularly in a  small room while taking part in an English lesson, this is not really a common occurrence. They want to be invisible in the group, not recognizable.

I have mentioned before that I spent two years at Nova conversation school when I moved to Japan in 1989. There are very few students from my time there that I remember because everything was so new and much of it was a blur. I remembered the teachers far better than the students for the most part, especially the ones that I socialized with and the crazy one. One of the few students that I remember, and can't imagine ever forgetting was Mr. Matsubara. I've mentioned him in passing before, but never fully talked about the experiences I had with him or the reflections I've had as a result of having known him.

For the overworked and underpaid teachers at Nova, Mr. Matsubara was a pain in the ass. For starters, he was there practically all day most days. Nova sold lesson tickets and the cheapest way to get them was to purchase 300 at once. Most people ended up wasting them as there was a time limit on redeeming them. This is how Nova kept afloat financially despite their low prices, at least in those days. They didn't make money off of high volume and low margins, but rather off of purchases they never fulfilled.

Mr. Matsubara wasn't someone who was going to lose his lessons. He'd book the entire day taking either a group lesson with one teacher after another, hop-scotching through the schedule leaving disappointed teachers in his wake, or parking in the "Voice" lounge for as long as possible each day.

The "Voice" area, for those unfamiliar with the way Nova worked, was a large room with comfortable chairs and sofas in which students could sit and "chat" with teachers as if it were a sociable encounter and not a lesson. There was no lesson there, just free conversation, though it was incredibly hard work for the teachers as students were often passive and stared mutely while waiting for the teacher to yammer on and entertain or to query the students endlessly to get them to actually speak. Voice was the most exhausting part of work there even though it was supposed to be more "relaxing" for teachers.

Every time one of us discovered we had Mr. Matsubara in a lesson or spied him in the Voice room, we'd audibly groan at the burden being placed upon us. For one thing, he could get angry for inexplicable reasons. If he didn't like the way the teacher was approaching the lesson, if he happened to be stuck in a class in which he'd already done the text material before (which happened a lot due to Nova's limited scheduling and small pool of course material), or if he was just having a bad day, he'd clam up and refuse to take part. An air of fury surrounded him at those times as his eyes darkned, his jaw clenched, and his brow furrowed. His countenance was not unlike that of a child ready to have a tantrum. This turn of events not only made the teacher uncomfortable, but the other students as well.

Even when he was feeling like participating in a lesson, strange things would happen with Mr. Matsubara. He would be talking in halting English with poor grammar that the most careful and consistent correction could not unhinge, and suddenly, he'd just stop. I don't mean he'd stop speaking English, I mean he would stop. He'd close his eyes and go unconscious for up to a minute. Suddenly, his eyes would pop open and we'd all be looking at him expectantly. He'd act as though nothing had happened and just sit there waiting for the teacher to carry on. Eventually, you learned to start carrying on long before he popped out of his fugue state as there was no point in waiting it out.

At the time, I knew that this was almost certainly petit mal seizures that he was having and I assumed that was the reason that he no longer had a job and spent his days making the teachers crazy and the students uncomfortable. Over time, and with increased understanding of Japanese culture, I came to understand that it was almost certainly more than that. Something really terrible had happened to Mr. Matsubara and we all knew it, but we never knew for certain what it was. And, lest I mislead you, there isn't a surprise coming in which I reveal what happened to him. There's just some speculation. We would never ask him why he didn't work anymore even though he couldn't have been older than 55 and he would never volunteer to tell us. It will always be a mystery.

One thing which was always puzzling about Mr. Matsubara - one thing besides the blanking out and going dead and the mood control issues - was that he always wore a suit and tie. Though he was spending all day in English lessons in which other men were wearing casual clothes if they could (if they weren't coming after work or during lunch), he always wore a full businessman uniform. I realize that this was likely because he was going out every day and putting on the appearance of a normal Japanese businessman for some particular reason. 

I don't know if he was lying to his family and saying he was going to work when he was not or if he was just putting on a show for the masses of strangers who rode the trains with him, but he was keeping up a front. Beyond that, he possibly was clinging to his identity as a working Japanese man as it is very likely the only identity he had in his adult life. This was 1989-1991 when Japan was still in an economic boom and a man without a job was a man without a life or a reason to live. That's still the case now, but the continuous decline of the economy makes a man who isn't going to work everyday less a failure than one of his country's politicians and business concerns.

The other point about Mr. Matsubara which was a clue to me that something more than the bouts of unconsciousness were the reason for his lack of employment was his temper problem. More than one Japanese person told me that they believed only children failed to control their emotions. What was more, in the Voice room, Mr. Matsubara argued his point of view with teachers. Most Japanese people, when confronted with a counterpoint, will clam up - that's if they're willing to offer an opinion at all. In many cases, a student will only offer an opinion after the teacher has expressed his or hers, and even then only when that opinion agrees with the teacher's.

I remember one Voice conversation in which Mr. Matsubara was having an argument with a teacher over what constituted "culture". I wasn't taking part in the conversation and was listening as another teacher - there were always two teachers stuck in the Voice room at that time - was debating with him. As the discussion grew more heated, Mr. Matsubara asked me what I thought was "culture" and especially wanted to know if language was included in it as that was part of his point. I told him that I believed "everything" - food, holidays, clothes, etc. - was included in culture, including language. 

He was smug and triumphant in what he felt was a victory of viewpoint. I had never seen a Japanese person behave in such a way before and never since. That doesn't mean there aren't people who do what he did on a regular basis. In fact, my guess is that many do it, but generally after some beer and in an izakaya (pub), not when fully sober and around other Japanese folks who are virtual strangers or around foreign folks. Being so overtly confrontational, opinionated, and loud about your opinions is generally frowned upon in Japanese society. It's a ticket to being ostracized and I heard many students tell me they had to keep their traps shut because of this.

Now that I know a lot more about life in Japan, I think that it is far less likely that Mr. Matsubara's health issue with going unconscious would have gotten him fired from a job. My experience demonstrated to me that most Japanese companies will tolerate considerable mental and physical health problems in employees. In fact, they were incredibly tolerant of their Japanese employees in this regard. My company allowed someone who was depressed to take months and months off without question or threat of dismissal. I also knew severely physically disabled people who were employed at a variety of companies.

In retrospect, I suspect that it was the inability to keep his opinions to himself and his emotions under control that likely got Mr. Matsubara expelled from working life in Japan. I suspect that the emotional control problems may have been related to the neurological issues that made him go dead for short periods of time, but that would be, again, pure speculation.

I sometimes wonder what happened to Mr. Matsubara. It's been 25 years since I first met him and he wasn't a young man at that time. Chances are that he has passed away by now or, at the very least, is well into his dotage. I was annoyed by him back then because I was a new teacher at a job that was draining physically and emotionally and he made my life that much more difficult. Now, I just feel sorry for him and hope that he went on to a better life with some sense of personal peace.

Will Miss #23 - relationship with my students (reflection)

My teaching profile sheet from my last job at an eikaiwa (conversation school). 

Hands down, this is the one thing that I can say without reservation has gotten harder to bear over time. My relationship with my students was not one of friendship or scholarship, but more of a therapeutic one in which I largely functioned as a counselor and they as clients. The biggest part of good therapy is that you listen respectfully, attentively, and with empathy and get people to talk about themselves as much as possible. The biggest part of good conversation teaching is that you listen respectfully, attentively, and with empathy. There is a bond of trust that you build over time that cannot be easily replicated in any other relationship. From my point of view, the teacher and student relationship was better than that of a client and counselor because there was no expectation that I'd solve their problems, but only that I'd improve their English. The latter is a far easier task than the former, and with far less dire consequences if one fails.

The relationship I had with my students was close, deep, and authentic. I miss talking to them and knowing that I was helping them in multiple ways, and I doubt that will ever change no matter how many years pass since my departure from Japan.

Won't Miss #432 - reassuring people about their English

Everyone knows the loaded question that women supposedly ask their husband's about a dress making them look fat. The idea is that whatever the man answers, he loses. If he says she does, she will be angry that he is saying she's fat and doesn't look good. If he says she doesn't, she'll say he's lying to make her feel better. The equivalent of that in Japan is the oft-made assertion, "my English is not good." Everyone of every level says this and it puts the native speaker in an awkward position position. If you say nothing or agree, you deny the obviously desired reassurance. If you disagree and say they speak (or at least communicate) well, there is denial that that is so.

I'm tired of feeling like I'm lying*, patronizing, or patting people on the back about their English abilities and I won't miss it. 

*I never lie to people about their English ability and level. However, I will often say that people are capable of communicating despite their limits when their level is low. This isn't a lie, because it is often true. Most Japanese people speak English enough for basic communication, and a great many more can do better than that if they believe they can.

Won't Miss #426- Japanese education system

I'm sure these three school girls with the Mickey Mouse hairdos are an exception to the non-critical-thinking rule.

All education systems are means to an end. The culture decides what that end is. I'm going to admit to being ethnocentric in this post and say that I believe the goals of education are to produce people who are literate, generally knowledgeable, and capable of critical thinking. The Japanese education system fails miserably on that last item (though it succeeds wildly on literacy) because it focuses on rote memorization and test scores. Passing the tests becomes the end, not a means to an end, and students slave away to cram facts into their heads, pass tests, and then simply forget what they learned. By and large, this system creates people with linear thinking who hate the idea of "education" or study as they associate it with exhaustive memorization sessions rather than interesting discussions with diverse answers. Teaching students for many years in Japan has shown amply that most people are so rigid that they are focused on finding one "right" answer to every question and squirm uncomfortably with an answer which includes many possible correct options because this was their experience throughout their years of schooling. What is more, the system produces an unproductive teaching environment in which teachers are pressured to pass students on tests at any cost rather than focus on what is actually being learned.*

I won't miss the education system and the way in which it fails the Japanese people.

*On multiple occasions, I've heard complaints from teachers who had to dumb down tests so that the weakest student could pass because every student had to pass. Whether or not they mastered the desired information wasn't the issue.

Won't Miss #424 - being treated like a dictionary

My husband and I have played a certain video game for well over a decade. Part of this game is facing stacks of creatures with ambiguous descriptions of their size like "lots", "several", and "pack". There's a guide online that tells you the number each one of those represents and my husband learned what they meant long ago. As for me, I just ask him every time and never learned for myself. I mention this because if you have someone who will easily answer your questions rather than do the work of looking things up yourself, you have a much lower chance of retaining information. Because of this, I get very annoyed every time I teach a student and they treat me like a translation dictionary. They ask, "how do you say (Japanese word) in English?" They do this with an electronic dictionary in front of them or with a cell phone with a built-in dictionary tucked into a pocket. It irks me when they do this because I'm not there as an answer bot, but more so because I know that they'll never remember the translation if they don't find the information for themselves. Sometimes I end up translating the same word for the same person over and over again if I give in and just tell them.

I won't miss being treated like a handy dictionary for people who are supposed to be trying to learn a language and all too often seem to believe that spoon-feeding answers is an effective way to learn a foreign language.