On Friday I only have two classes – it’s my light day of the week. The students in the first class are all girls but one, and two girls in that class are always trying to break up the class and get themselves attention in the process.
One of the girls stopped acting out after her mother visited the class, but the other one, Sakura, is definitely a drama queen. Last week she kept her Japanese in check to earn a snack. This week she declared right away that she would rather speak Japanese during the class than have the snack. The other students looked at her like she had lost her mind.
So, she chatted and talked to other students right in the middle of the class, and just like before it took a lot of energy to get her to stay quiet like all the other students. She declared that she was going to talk to her mom and quit English. I was thinking to myself that it would probably end up being a great thing if she did. I felt a little guilty about thinking that, until the other students chimed in.
In what seemed like some kind of seven-year-old intervention, they told her that she’s always too noisy and maybe she should shut up and try to study instead. The other girls said that they liked English a lot, and if Sakura didn’t like it to go ahead and quit. The lone boy in the class told her that she shouldn’t be talking about this in the middle of class anyway – go home and talk about it with your mom and don’t bother us with it now.
Right on, guys.
I let them work it out until everyone was satisfied, and then I was able to finish up the lesson. I was personally kind of happy to hear that most of the students were enjoying the class and felt like I did about Sakura’s distracting behavior.
My second class is with some older students, and it’s my last class of the week so I think I’m always pretty relaxed in there. I joke around with one of the students all the time, and we take a really relaxed approach to the lesson. Something fun to look forward to every Friday.
After work I headed to Akashi and met Komori sensei at Donkey. We had a good time catching up and drinking beer. He’s still at the same school in Miki, and he’s been studying Chinese because his school has a Chinese language program. That’s a little unusual for public schools – usually it is just English.
Donkey was rocking pretty hard that night, with lots of people coming and going. While we were sitting around a guy came in and sat alone, and I didn’t pay much attention until the master said that he was from Hong Kong. Komori sensei and I struck up a conversation with him. He works at a factory for Mitsubishi, operating Caterpillar heavy equipment. He spoke Chinese, a little English, and a little bit more Japanese, so our three way conversations were really interesting because Komori sensei could speak some Chinese. The dialect was a little different, though, so mainly we stuck to Japanese and English.
One thing that we all shared was that we had Japanese wives. This guy showed us a picture of his wife and son, and they were both really cute. I’m not sure why this guy was out drinking alone, but he was glad for some company. We threw some darts and he told us all about how popular mahjong is in China. He sounded like he wanted to go out and play a little, but Komori sensei and I weren’t really up for that. We said goodbye and headed over to the sushi place for some dinner.
I really like the underground sushi place in Akashi. It’s expensive and tiny and mysterious and really a lot of fun to hang out in. If I had more money I’d go there more often. Komori sensei and I sat down and chatted with the master and three other regulars at the corner of the sushi bar. They were really drunk – one old guy was so sloshed he was holding his eye open to watch us eat, and if you can think about that image a little you might understand how creepy it was.
We caught up with the master and his wife, and we discussed how tough it was to pass the driver’s test for foreigners. In a first for me, I told my story of taking the driver’s test in Japanese, complete with funny side comments and even a punchline that had everyone in the sushi bar cracking up. I have found it really hard to make people laugh in Japanese – just ask Kuniko.
Komori sensei picked up the tab for dinner, which was pretty significant. I tried to pay half, but he wouldn’t let me, and even the sushi master was making motions to put away my wallet. In a really nice gesture Komori sensei had the sushi master make up a bento box to go for Kuniko, and so I had my hands full coming back home.
Ordinarily, the story would end about here with me crashing into bed, but Kuniko had let me know that she was out drinking with her boss and Ono sensei, and that she’d get home late. As it turned out the trains were delayed big time (80 minute delays) because of an accident (probably a suicide) on the tracks. I got to Okubo at around one o’clock. That’s usually the second to last train, but tonight the last train was going to come through after two o’clock. Kuniko got off her train at Nishi Akashi and took a taxi to the station, and I paid the driver and we walked home from there. It was a real mess late at night – she said the taxi line had about 50 people in it.
We had a really late night snack of fresh sushi, and then finally went to bed. It was a long day, and tomorrow Kuniko has to get up and go to school. We’re going to meet up afterwards for a wedding party for one of her friends, so I’m looking forward to trying my hand at bingo again…
