Lots to write about today. Kuniko and I slept in a little bit this morning, and as a result we almost missed our usual train in the morning. Luckily we made it without having to sprint to the station – I hate doing that.
At school I had the first period free. It was nice to have the time to review vocabulary and get psyched up for classes. I talked to a few of the teachers that were also free, and checked with them about upcoming classes and lesson plans.
My first class was during second period. It was a third year class, and I taught it with Takagi sensei. She has a completely different style compared to her counterpart, Harada sensei. Takagi sensei has a thick accent to her English, and she talks super fast. Her idea is that the faster you speak, the faster they will learn. She really flies through the lesson. But surprisingly (and the students know this very well) if a student brings up a humorous story or unrelated topic, she’ll go right off the rails of her lesson and joke around with the students, still at breakneck speed.
Since next week is exams, the teachers are working hard to get all the material covered in time. That means there is not a whole lot for me to do in some classes. Whenever that happens I walk around and help the students individually, and practice listening to the spoken Japanese in the classroom to make sure I can understand most of what is going on.
After class ended, as usual I waited for Takagi sensei to gather up all her paperwork, and get her stuff so we could go to the next class and teach that one together. I helped by erasing the board and pulling down the magnetized flashcards that she had used to teach vocabulary.
And that’s when I noticed that some girls in the back of the classroom were taking off their clothes.
At my school students change into their gym outfits in the classroom. Boys go to one classroom and girls to another. They close the curtains and change, and then run out to the field for physical education. The boys are pretty lax about shutting the doors and curtains, but the girls are always very careful that everything is shut tight before they change. For some reason, today some of them didn’t notice that I was still in the room.
For that matter, Takagi sensei was oblivious too. When I figured out what was going on, I made a beeline for the door, but I had to open the curtains to get out, and that might have been just as bad as being in there in the first place. In the background I could hear some of the girls telling the ones that were disrobing that Bryan was still in the room, and a couple more started calling out my name to get me to look. That was when I ducked under the curtain and got safely outside.
Takagi sensei came out a minute later, and she seemed to have not noticed anything at all. I decided not to mention it, and together we went to the next class. That’s my second “Could have been busted wrongly for being a pervert” moment this week.
Our second class went much smoother, and my third class was with Harada sensei. When I arrived there, Harada sensei was talking with another student who seemed really concerned about something.
A while back we started a lesson on Martin Luther King Jr., and during the introduction to that lesson Harada sensei had asked me in front of the students if I had experienced discrimination in Japan. I said yes, I had experienced it, anticipating that Harada sensei would have me tell the class about it. But instead, she moved on in the lesson and my story was left untold.
The student today was really depressed that something like that could happen in Japan, and she came to class early to ask Harada sensei and me about it. I was happy to be able to explain that I often see positive discrimination here in Japan. Many times I find myself being treated differently just because of the color of my skin. I listed a few examples, free sushi and yakitori, smiles and flirtation from total strangers, extra friendly service at supermarkets. Harada sensei was able to confirm this – she had spent time with a foreign boyfriend from America and noticed that he was treated like semi-royalty. But when she was hanging out with friends from China or Korea they were treated a step down from Japanese.
I was really impressed that the student cared enough to follow up and ask more questions, and I told her so. She is going to enter the speech contest soon. She wrote a really good speech about “Using the Sixth Sense to Save the World”.
During fifth period I taught with Matsunaga sensei. She is getting more and more confident teaching with me, and we’re enjoying the classes. Today’s class finished up early, so we had the students study on their own. That gave me a chance to walk around and chat with students. The first year students have an extremely limited English vocabulary so I am limited in what I can talk about. I mix in a little Japanese though, and that helps a lot.
Finally at the end of the day I helped out two other students who will be competing in the speech contest. That kept me at work late, so I missed my regular train and caught the one that came eight minutes later.
Surprisingly, the train was much more crowded that the one I usually take. A look around at the passengers and I could tell why. Most of the people on board were college students. There must be a girl’s college nearby, because the train was packed with girls coming back from a day at school. I’ll admit that I enjoyed the experience quite a bit, but not enough to make that my regular train.
I’m back home now, and I made some pasta sauce from scratch, and I’ve got some tortellini that we brought back from Italy ready to cook. I’ve also got a bottle of French red wine that we bought from Carrefour, and I’m working slowly on that until Kuniko gets home. Hopefully there’ll be some wine left for her.
Speaking of Carrefour, Kuniko heard from someone that it will be closing soon. About a year ago it was bought from the French company and a Japanese company started running it, with the same name and mostly the same merchandise. Apparently they are making the cut, so they are closing for good sometime soon. Kuniko and I went to visit recently to see if they were giving away stuff cheaply, but sadly most sale items were 10% off at the most. As we walked through the mostly empty aisles, I couldn’t help but remember coming to the store on the day it opened in 2004. I wrote about it here.
With Carrefour gone, we’ll take a big hit in the foreign food availability department. Where will it hurt? The big wall of imported beers is what I’ll miss most. I love picking up a couple of bottles of unusual beers and trying them out. Also that wonderful wine section will be gone – bummer. Good cheeses will become that much harder to find. Other than that, most of my needs are covered by other stores. None of them are as convenient as a short drive over to Carrefour, but I can at least find things. It could be worse – I could be living out in the countryside far away from everything.
