Today it was really muggy. The humidity was so high, and the floors had condensation on them at school. It was very slippery. Today I had just two classes and a recording session, so I had plenty of time in the afternoon to study. Just around 2:30 in the afternoon, the sky became very dark, and thunder started rolling. Suddenly, it started raining – hard. It was like somebody had poured a gigantic bucket of water on our school. You couldn’t even see through the windows it was so strong. Since it was so hot and muggy all the windows were open, so we had to run from floor to floor shutting them as water poured in.
It rained like that for almost half an hour, and then slowed down to a drizzle. By the time I left school it had stopped raining completely, but the humidity was incredible. All the water around made it feel like you were walking through soup rather than air.
Last week Keiko-san had arranged to have me sit in on a Japanese lesson that is organized and sponsored by the Takasago city hall. They are free lessons, and the city hall is right near the train station I use to go home, so it seemed like it was worth checking out. Turns out I was wrong, but we’ll get to that in a second.
I met Keiko-san outside the school at five o’clock, and she lent me her husband’s bicycle. I thought it was weird to ride a bike when the city hall was just a ten minute walk away, but I soon found out that the building I was thinking about was not city hall. The actual city hall was several train stations away, and would take about a ten minute bike ride.
I’m not great at bike riding, but I threw my gear into the front basket and followed Keiko-san on a wobbly path through town just as rush hour was starting to hit. The cars did a good job of avoiding me, and we safely made it to the city hall a few minutes later. The class didn’t start until 7 p.m., but she had a rather complicated plan for the evening.
She called a friend and together we ate a family restaurant (Gusto). I had a fairly big hamburger, and we chatted in English and Japanese. Even though I was just checking out the class, I was already feeling like it was pretty far away, I don’t have a bike in Takasago, and I would have to buy a dinner every week if I went to the class. Still, I decided to keep an open mind – the classes are free, after all.
Keiko-san picked up the tab for dinner, and then took me over to city hall. I went inside and recognized talked with some of the teachers. They were retired folks that are interested in teaching and meeting people from foreign countries. I filled out a short form, and then they loaned me a textbook for the evening. I went up to the classroom, and sat down with some of the students that had already arrived.
The students that were there already were five Phillipino guys. They all spoke pretty good English, and the work on designing power plants using a specialized computer program. They work in Japan for three months, and then go home for three months. They are on some kind of weird rotation. They were really friendly guys, though, and we sat and talked for a while. They pointed over to where some other students had come in and sat down and said that it was the “advanced course”, and we weren’t good enough to participate in that class. I figured they were just playing down their Japanese so I told them that I only speak a little Japanese, and pretty soon we were all tight.
Right about then the teacher came in and told me to go sit with the advanced students. There went all my credibility with the Phillipino dudes. They watched me get up from their table and I sat in with the advanced students. They seemed like a nice enough group, and we worked out of the textbook on some stuff that I’ve covered before but never really use much. It was good review, but I could have done the review at home and got as much out of it.
It seems like with any group of students there is one person that ties their ego to how well they do in the class compared to others, and tonight was no exception. A girl at the far end of the table would answer every question out loud, regardless of whether the teacher had asked her or not. The students would try to think what the answer is, and then boom! She’s said it out loud. She did it several times with me, and each time I looked her straight in the eye afterwards and gave her what I hope was a steely glare. It didn’t stop her though, and I could tell that if I stuck with this class I’d end up putting a pencil through her neck within the month.
Class wrapped up, and everybody was asking me how it was. I said that it was interesting, which is a good way in Japanese to say that it wasn’t so hot. I’m looking for something a little more challenging, and as Keiko-san said later, maybe it would be better to learn from your wife. That sounds better to me.
Keiko-san and I rode back in the dark – a bit of an adventure for me, and even though my life was in danger there was something thrilling about riding around on wet streets in the dark in a foreign country that I enjoyed. I dropped off Keiko-san’s bike at the bike park, and then said goodbye to her.
Now I’m back home and I’m running the air conditioner. It’s hot and wet out, but my bedroom is a cool oasis right now. Tomorrow is a fairly easy day, and another Japanese lesson with Tsuji-san. Let’s hope it dries out a little bit around here.
