Memoirs of a Gaijin - An Unlucky English Teacher in Japan: 2011

Thursday, December 29, 2011

The Toxic Smell of Age

Old Lady English Teacher

She was no Marry Poppins.

They made the other gaijin (foreigner) who worked at my school go to Mr.C's school (saying we had too many foreigners). So the other foreigner teacher leaves my school and I can't go to every single class cause both Japanese English teachers have classes at the same time.Then shortly after that the school felt they didn't have enough English teachers. They were down to one gaijin (foreigner) teacher, which was me. They hire this older lady to be an assistant and to help out in the classroom. I thought she had some history of English (perhaps been an English teacher a long time ago), but when I found out she couldn't speak a word I realized this wasn't going to be fun.
I recall one day sitting in the staffroom and she was staring at the clock. I wondered if she wanted to leave as much as I did. She started furiously going through English dictionaries (that were super dated perhaps from the turn of the century?) and asked if she could use my electronic Japanese-English dictionary (she never figured it out). After about an hour she came up to me "Can you teach me an English word?", "Of course", I answered. She asked me what "Seiko" meant. I answered "Sorry, I don't know what you are talking about". She pointed to the clock which had the word Seiko written on it. I tried not to snicker. Ummmmm.... Seiko is a Japanese company that makes watches and clocks. I wasn't sure how to answer without offending her. After all even though I am a foreigner she is still a senior citizen, I do have some manners. She looked at me intensely and asked, "Its English so I'm wondering what it means". I informed her it was a Japanese company that produced clocks and watches. "Oh, isn't that interesting", she answered. Not really I thought.


Seiko is not an English word FYI.

She was also socially awkward. By socially awkward I mean she was an old lady that was much older than all the other teachers, perhaps 3 generations older than the oldest teacher. She must have been a teacher at some point, retired, realized she needed to keep working and came back as a assistant teacher (but with the mindset she was the main teacher, in a topic she couldn't speak no less).

I didn't mesh well with personality and her breath seemed like death. I remember her bringing in these weird herbs and saying that's what kept her so healthy looking, young, and smelling so fresh. I wanted to tell her, "Lady you look so old (like 90 even though you are 60) and you smell like manure, but I didn't. Yes very mean I know, but maybe I should have told her. I did try one of her herbs onetime and I felt super sick, I almost threw up.
We had a couple students that had constructed gas masks. Due to her breath being so toxic they would put them on during class. I couldn't stop laughing more than once. They weren't nice about it and asked her to move away from them cause she smelled so bad. I don't think she ever got the hint, cause when she stood within three feet of someone they would pinch their nose. I often wondered if she also was one of those people that drink their urine in the morning or wash their face with it. If the bad students had forgot their gas masks they would use a scarf and wrap it around their nose and mouth. I wondered if I could get away with doing the same.
I did my best to keep my mouth shut (literally and figuratively) about her smell and her personality. She drove me nuts due to 2 main reasons, she did not listen to the main English teacher, who asked her to not harass the worst students who would yell "YOU STINK, GET AWAY", but I would have to undo anything she taught the students one on one as it was incorrect. "Seiko" is clock in English she once said. I hope that student isn't still going around repeating it! I also heard her spell family as famiri one time. Good lord!

After her half a year at the school she was about to leave. She said she was going on a trip to Canada and since I was leaving that year, she was hoping I could drive her to Niagara falls.

After her repeated requests and invading my private space (right in my face), I finally told her, "Lady I told you already that I live in Vancouver. Do you know how big Canada is?" She thought Vancouver to Niagara falls was a twenty minute drive.

I told her Canada is the 2nd biggest country in the world. It would take days to reach that. Just to go to Alberta takes one full day! She was like "Nooo, it can't be that far. We can spend more time together and have a road trip". Trapped in a closed space with her, with no where to run, no way to escape a nose pinching smell that invades ones nostrils, I couldn't even imagine that.
I told her I didn't have a phone in Canada and left it at that.

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Other funny stories from this blog
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/

My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Students Disassemble Prank

Students Play a Trick

Hahah funny! I like saran wrap on toilet too, its always good times.

For once this trick wasn't played on me! Woohoo, I'm lucky for once.

This story is from my memory (which is not too good) about Mr.C from Texas. As you may recall from previous stories Mr. C is an average Joe.
Mr.C was at a school not far from mine. From what I understand I had the school with the worst kids, but he had a few really bad ones as well. Not like the 90% that my school had, a but really idiotic ones.
He taught with this Australian girl who was very persuasive (by that, I mean thinks they are always right and usually was) and would take no prisoners (just like me girlfriend hahah, hope she isn't reading this). I'm going to be in the doghouse tonight.

Mr.C didn't like to plan lessons, well to be honest who does, except for this Australian girl. I remember a few times she showed me the activities and games she had created and I wondered how many nights she had spent burning the midnight oil. Don't burn it too much the houses in Japan are made of paper MWAHAHA!
This is just a metaphor to get you to catch my drift, but if I made a gingerbread, she would make a gingerbread house. She would cover the gingerbread house with icing and top off parts of it with 24K gold.

So essentially she was a great English teacher and Mr.C and I look like bums compared to her. We were nothings and didn't enjoy working hard work for our students.
I enjoyed finding a game online 5 minutes before class making 30 copies and running like a madman to get to class. For the remaining time between my classes I enjoyed playing online games or playing poker (not strip though, it is a workplace after all).

Mr.C was similar to me in this way as well, except he liked to saunter to class instead of rushing. He took it easy until he had to do something.
Well a few of the students took a liking to Mr.C and called him Harry Potter, which I can vouch for he does look a lot like. No scar in the forehead but we can fix that easily.
A bit of a sidetrack but a few students called him Spiderman, which I don't get. How does glasses and curly blonde hair equal Spiderman? That's like saying the HULK is pink.

At the same time a few students did not take a liking to him and I assume the Australian girl as well.
One day they came out after school looking for their bikes. Yes, everyone rides granny bikes in Japan.

In the location they had left their bikes were two piles of bicycle parts laid out neatly.
Mr.C laughed. The Australian girl was not impressed whatsoever and demanded the bicycle be remade to the teachers.


I'd probably laugh if my bike became this.

You gotta hand it to them, those kids work fast.
It seems like it was the hood and they were trying to get hubcaps (rims) off the cars!

I never had that happen, although more than once my tire frames were bent, which is also pretty funny, although is sucks when you try to ride and you bike keeps turning to the right.

Stuck in an endless circle. Sounds like my everyday life, what else is new!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Broken glass and Accidental Hatred

Broken Glass at Saizeria, I swear an accident

OK, so I guess I should do a break down of Saizeria. It is a cheap Japanese FAMILY restaurant. Its sort of like Denny's. It has a lot of food that is relatively cheap but not aimed at mostly breakfast foods like Denny's. They have a drink bar where you pay like $1.20 / 120 yen with any food and can drink all the coffee, tea, pop you want. Because of this its popular for Family's to just hangout especially for gaijin (Foreigners).


Mmmm yummy and cheap. The two things important in life.

Ever since I started going there with either Anthony or someone else, we always somehow managed to confuse the waitress'. More than once Anthony would do his order in English and not use any Japanese, which confused them immensely. Sometimes the order was wrong and we would complain and ask for the correct food. So we totally screwed them over more than once.
I always felt like a jerk, cause in particular one girl seemed to get the brunt of the problems. I thought she hated my soul. I imagined that on my last day in Japan, I would go the restaurant give her $50 worth of yen and say, "Sorry for the 3 years, my friends are aces".

This story is about Nick and I. If you don't remember Nick I spoke about him in an earlier post of two. He is the Italian American guy that thinks he is a rap Superstar and crashed my scooter into a cement wall. Read above for that story.


Cheap wine, who doesn't like stained teeth? We drank big1.

So one night Nick and I are studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Nick convinces me to go to Saizeria and then Nick comes up with this good idea to drink wine. I'm like uhhhh... OK. Wine + Study = Great results maybe? Or not!? We order our first massive bottle I think 800ml bottle for like 790yen /$8 and started to drink. I was giggling a bit, and not from the drinking. Nick had chosen the cheap red, I guess it was so cheap his teeth had turned purple. It didn't occur to me that my mouth may look like BARNEY the dinosaur inside. "Hey kids, let's have an drink, and its not apple juice har har".


Har Har kids, don't drink and study!

So we start drinking our wine and Nick thinks it would be funny to hit on the waitress. "Hey, what's your name tag say?". He says it in English and she doesn't get it, so he repeats it in Japanese. She is like "My name is Umeda Takako". He is like oh OK, cause I thought it said umi (ocean). "No, its Umeda", she answered. He said "Ok, that's nice. Can you get me some kancho (poke in the butt)?". She has no idea what he is talking about, but he wanted kanacho (spelling?), a hard Italian style bread dessert thing. In Italian its called biscotti, in English apparently we call it double baked bread, although I've never heard it called that. She doesn't know what he is saying cause he keeps repeating poke in the butt. He is laughing. Well the thing about Nick was he has this deep kind of evil laugh, so people usually laugh based on his laugh, or they get scared because they think he is going to murder them.
I can tell the girl was scared and not sure how to react. Finally Nick says "Ok ok, one more wine."
So the next wine comes out and I'm slightly intoxicated, not to mention my teeth looked like someone rubbed a purple crayon on them. I don't know if Nick was at that point, but he asks the waitress how to read some kanji (Chinese characters) on our study sheets. Then he looks up a pervert kanji and asks her how to read it. I think it was a male body part that produces 50% of the DNA to make life. I'm sure you can guess it.
I was really embarrassed but couldn't stop laughing. It wasn't only the wine, Nick was pretty funny, if not extremely rude.
Eventually after Nick harasses her all night, we decide to go. I swear I was tipsy which explains the rest of this story. I am not an evil person at all I swear! As we are leaving the table my hand slips on the glass and it starts falling to the ground, I tried to grab it and it slipped out of my hand went straight up into the air almost hit the ceiling and then fell down and smashed all over the place. I think the waitress was sure I did it on purpose. I felt so bad.
I tried to clean it up but she said its OK (typical Japanese style). There were pieces of glass everywhere. Nick starts laughing (which makes me look like I did it on purpose cause his laugh was more evil then normal and we left. She must have hated me.
We did go back a few more times in the next coming months. I didn't see her again, I hope I didn't cause her to quit. I never gave her the $50 worth of yen either.
Whoops! Then again she may have been confused again and thought the $50 was for Nick's poke he kept requesting for anyway.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Student Attack Uses Ultimate Weapon on ME!

If you don't know I was placed at a school in the hood.

I have a few stories about getting jumped by students. Here is one of them.

One day while watching soccer, I got attacked by one of my first year students.

Now, I don’t want you to think that by getting attacked, I mean verbally attacked. That was everyday of my life for the three years I was at that school. I’m talking physical abuse.

You are probably thinking how can a little kid hurt a muscular, top physical conditioned athlete like myself. Well, I’m neither actually I just mean hypothetically. The answer was by using a weapon.

As I was watching soccer, that little bastard ran his bike into my leg at full speed. Had I been a normal person I would have grabbed by his throat Terminator Style and crunched his windpipe. Or had I not been in a Zen state I may have sidestepped the bike, close-lined him, and followed that up with a quick knee to the nuts.

Unlike the Terminator “HE won’t be back!”


Subtitled above "ROSE PINK". It might not look dangerous, being a grandma style bike but trust me it hurts.

As it happens, I am a mellow person, despite what I said in the last paragraph. As he hit me in the leg and my knee started to bend the wrong way my first thought was rage. I couldn’t believe it. This kid had hurt me. I know that even babies can hurt people. They poke eyes, pull noses, have fists of rage that hammer into momma’s face. In a nutshell they can be demons. If you have a 12 year old with a weapon, like a bike, then you are in for an awakening. Introduce speed and a soft part of the body and you have max damage.

After my rage thought, I breathed in deeply and grabbed his handlebars. For a second I wish I was the HULK and could HULK SHASH his bicycle or at least handlebars into little pieces. Let him try to ride his bike with no handlebars, see how cool you are now.


How can I get Hulk's Power? Someone tell me!

I tried to push his bicycle away as he continued to peddle at full speed pushing against me. “What are you doing?”, I asked him. “Die foreigner, die!”, he answered. Not a very thorough answer to my question but nonetheless I know what he wants at least.

As you probably know in the animal kingdom the animals on top are the ones that look their enemy in their eyes and attempt to scare them off with intimidation, if that doesn’t work they eat them. In my case, I had no option to eat him, so I decided to go inside the school so he can’t attack my with his bicycle weapon. As I walked inside I saw him carrying his bike up the stairs. WTF? I hoped he wasn’t planning to bring it into the school, apart from attacking me, he’s going to get the school dirty. He just had his bike on the field (which is made of sand), so the sand will make a massive mess. I’m not cleaning it up. I’m a teacher (or perhaps a punching bag), not a janitor.

Yes you guessed it, the little demon started coming after me with his bike again inside the school. This time, he decide to mix it up, instead of going to my knee he he hit my ankles with his tires. I contemplated murder for about 5 seconds, before a teacher yelled in Japanese at the kid, “Don’t bring your bike in here!”. The kid answered, “Die, Mr.Impotence”. At least I have to give him props for that. Mr.Impotence? Who says that? Seriously, it is kind of funny. And as a bonus at least he doesn’t want only me to die. Although I do detect a bit of a theme going on here though with wanting others to die. Maybe he needs some counseling or better yet, perhaps I can suggest he take his bicycle to the highway and see if he can hit some cars with it? Yes, that sounds good.

Insert very evil laugh here.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Supposedly knocking some girl down

I was framed by someone about something I didn't do.
There are two versions of this story, one by me the victim (or as some say the criminal) and a bystander who heard of the events as they happened.
As in an episode in real time on 24.

This seems like a nice temple. It has nothing to do with my story though. Its from the same town that's it.

Myles' Version
I haven't told this story for a while so I actually forget most of the details (semi conveniently?)
Here are the main points.
I was hanging out at a Halloween JET (English Teacher's) party in Omihachiman city. My girlfriend couldn't come cause she had to work. So I'm at this party and I'm having fun and feeling a bit drunk. Unknown to me, a girl , let's call her Danielle (Korean American girl) was there as well. Apparently she was so drunk that she had fallen down. I mean that tends to happen when you are drinking and its pretty standard, unless you break your nose, or get a black eye its usually all good. Although when I was a teenage I remember seeing a girl step into a fire pit and that seemed pretty dumb, luckily I pulled her leg out (yes I'm a part time Superhero) but luckily only parts of her shoe melted. No burnt legs (this time).

It's like Gatorade. No sweat I swear!

Anyways, for some reason or another I'm feeling so drunk (I probably had 1 drink). I decided I need a pocari sweat (sports drink) to cool down. This girl "Danielle" happens to be heading the same way, so we start walking together. Its always a good idea for drunks to go in pairs I thought. We get to 7-11 and enter. Jon's girlfriend (a prominent and somewhat famous guy) is also at the 7-11 but I didn't know her at that time. I only knew she was Jon's girlfriend and seemed nice. We are all inside and we buy drinks and stuff. So her and her friend's are piss drunk and are giggling and laughing. Danielle is pretty badly messed up and is walking all over the place, barely standing up. I knew I was messed up myself but since she was worse than me I knew she was really in trouble. She goes to the bathroom and I'm sitting on the curb in front of 7-11. She keeps passing out, and I'm like "I'm hungry I'm gonna go eat at Yoshi no ya". Yoshi no ya is a super famous restaurant that serves meat on rice and its super delish! She is like OK wait for me. So we start walking and I'm in front. I'm just about to cross the road and I turn around and Danielle is on the ground. I'm like "What are you doing?" and I go over to check if she is sleeping randomly on the cement. Seemed like a weird time to be sleeping since we were walking and all the sudden she falls asleep. I try to inspect her but the pocari sweat must have had real sweat cause it didn't seem to help me with re hydration or get ride of my drunk feeling at all, I still feel out of it. I noticed there is a massive bump on her head and she said she hit her head on the ground. I'm like oh my god there is a really big bump on your head. She is like please don't tell anyone, its so embarrassing I'm not drunk. I'm like ok ok, I won't tell. Then we start walking again and she told me she had hit her tooth and chipped them earlier in the night. I'm like that's so bad. She seems really upset, but I didn't really know her well so I was unsure if I should hug her, piggyback her or tell her everything was going to be ok.
We get into Yoshi no ya and her eyes keep rolling into her head. I look at the bump on her head and she has a huge bump! Like I'm not talking a little zit. I'm talking about a massive bump like an egg protruding from her head.
She keeps leaning over and passing out on the counter, while I enjoyed the tasty gyudon Yoshi no ya style (beef and egg on rice). When she looked up after a few times she said she had a bad headache and the bump looked twice as big. I decided I was too messed up to figure out how to go to the hospital and can't stand up myself. I figured I better call someone. I didn't have Jon's number and he was the SHIGA PA (the head guy for any issues) at the time. So I call my next best thing, Nick! Nick is this Italian American guy that thinks he is African American. He likes to rap and thinks he is gangster. Let me tell you he was not at that time and still is not a gangster. he also happened to be friends with Jon (cause he wants to copy his style I guess).
I call Nick and I'm like "Dude, dude, I'm so drunk, but dude, I think you better get Jon, this chick is messed up. She is hammered and fell".
This is where perhaps the story started. Maybe Nick thought I said I had a hammer and messed her up? Or that she fell because of me dropping a hammer? I'm not sure but I tell Nick to get Jon and come over to Yoshi no ya, cause I think she needs to go to the hospital.
Nick shows up running with Jon and I'm like "Hey guys! I'm messed! Anyways this chick is worse, look at the bump!". So Nick starts laughing and was like "Damn! That's a bad one! It looks so bad". Danielle is like "You told them? I'm not drunk I'm fine". I'm like uhhh I think you need some help. Jon says she better go to the hospital cause it looks so bad. She refuses and bursts out crying then hugs me for support. As to why she did when she was mad at me for telling them I don't know. Women are hard to understand.
So Nick and Jon are like let's go back to the party then. Ya that seems like a good idea, maybe I shouldn't have asked the 2 Stooges for help. This girl is drunk, massive bump, possible brain damage, chipped her tooth and if we go back to the party, maybe she can drink it off.
OK I thought, if they are in their right mind, it must be a good idea. So we walk back and Jon and I are helping Danielle walk and we are practically carrying her, cause she is messed! So we open the door and she starts falling over. She pukes her guts out, then she goes back in the party with us.
I'm enjoying the party and didn't see her again. Then apparently this rumour started that "A Myles guy had knocked some girl down". I don't know if Danielle was so drunk she actually believed it and she blacked out or if Nick has said to Jon out loud that I needed help and Danielle fell, but either way, the rumours started.
Someone comes up to me (I swear I had not meet that guy before) and he said "Did you hear some guy pushed some girl?". I didn't know who they were talking about and I had no idea it was me.
After more drinking and going to the 2nd bar, I passed out. It was a long night after all and I did have 1 drink.
When I woke it was 1st train and I walked back with Mattikus, Brent, and Willus. While on the train Mattikus said "Myles I heard you knocked down Danielle?". I was like WTF? Who told you that, he said everyone was talking about it. Danielle never talked to me after that night for about 6 months. We had basic conversations but nothing too deep. I wonder if she heard from someone that I had knocked her down, or if she had some memory of me asking what she was doing when she was unconscious on the ground.
Either way, I got screwed over by the rumours.

Brendon's Version
This one time Myles pushed a girl over. On purpose!

My Youtube Channel, wearing red tights and jumping around as Deadpool (but I say Dadpool to avoid copyright. Smarter than I look!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXxArlapy0

Monday, November 28, 2011

Watch the Trainwreck its Coming! Can't resist!

Or maybe the title should be

Old Dogs Can't Learn New Tricks!

Spraying students hair black. Lots of spray cans used each month.

One day one of the English teachers was messing with some spray type cans outside the school. You know the pressurized ones that can explode if you hit them too hard. Or if you hold a match up to it it becomes a flame thrower (not that I’ve ever done that, maybe). Well I saw him with a hammer and nail in his hand so I knew it was going to be good. I read the can, and on the side said deodorant hairspray.
He held down the can with his foot and hammered the nail in. I wasn’t sure what I was about to witness but I knew I was going to laugh and couldn’t miss this for the world. As he nailed it in, the deodorant spray came out and started spraying everywhere like it was a hose on full blast. It at first sprayed him in the face and I started laughing, then it continued to spray him on the shirt, pants, hair, eyes etc. His glasses were dripping with it. Awesome I thought.
So I was trying not to let him know I was laughing by biting my finger saying “Oh boy, that’s too bad I hope you are OK”. He starts swearing and saying kusai! Kusai(it stinks)!! Then he yelled in English "This is very stinky!", I was thinking dude you can say that again. I could smell him from 20 feet away. He literally hit the nail on the head! He smelled like an old lady after too much old perfume trying to cover up the smell of her oldness.

Fixing an umbrella? Usually I throw them out. Privacy for kids.

Usually you would think a person learns from their mistakes. But then there are always those that don’t. After all who am I to judge? I recall catching bees in my hands until they stung me plenty of times as a child. Yes, as a child, with time I learned. He took the second can out and hammered it and the hairspray got him right in the glasses he had just washed off. The can sprayed all over the place moving around as it sprayed everywhere.
When he entered the staffroom again, he smelt so bad. I couldn’t stop laughing. If only I had it on video! That could have been a new addition to YouTube and got a million hits.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Hellwalk and Arrival to Your TV Appearance

Hellwalk and Arrival to Your TV Appearance

Arrival in Otsu, Shiga. Time to go to go to the Ministry of Education!

Arrival at last. Oh by the way its as hot as hell. Enjoy!

After the hell walk (will be posted as a blog entry later) we arrived at the Shiga Ministry of Education Building. It was old and too far from the station. My sweat was dripping down my back as we entered the building. Air conditioning! Yes I thought, but no. To my dismay there was no air conditioning. Apparently it was being renovated. Unlucky! We started to cue for the elevator. One tiny elevator made for 3 Japanese to stand in at one time. That means barely 1 foreigner and even that 1 foreigner with 1 or 2 bags no way! It was too tight was taking forever so I elected to take the stairs. The only problem was it was the same temperature as outside and the lactic acid in my arms had eroded my muscles beyond use. I pulled my bags up as hard as I could up 5 flights of stairs. When we arrived at the top they told us everyone was late and we needed to put our suits on. “Wait!”, I said. “Can I have a shower or something, I’m covered in sweat and smell like man chowder”. They said "No, hurry up and change." Unlucky.
I ran into a room full of sweaty half naked foreigners body types aplenty. We had little tiny guys, big guys, super duper skinny guys and even a girl walked into our room by accident! We asked if they could possibly turn on the air conditioning in the room since we were dying and sweaty. They put a large fan at the entrance of the room. I started to rip my clothes off. I stood in front of the fan wafting my stinky man chowder into the air for all my fellow brethren to enjoy. Finally there seemed to be some sort of cool air coming into some vents at the back of the room. It seemed the air conditioning was working, slowly but surely. I ripped my socks off, tore my boxers off and threw them on the vent. Might as well dry those suckers while I can I thought. I wasn’t sure what to think of the other foreigners, but I heard 3 guys all from England talking in their high level English accents. “Emmm are you from New South Whales? Would you mind some tea and crumpets?”. Actually sorry I can’t remember what exactly they said to one another, but something along those lines, plus I was pretty much naked so I was more concerned with that. I finally took a gander at the Brit with blue eyes and dark hair “Hey what’s up you British bastard?”. He seemed to be taken aback. “Nice to meet you my friend”, he answered. It occurred to me he might now know I’m Canadian so maybe I better explain that. “I’m Canadian”. He said “Ok”. Maybe he didn’t know what that meant. I thought everyone knew, Canada is like India to Britain, the 2nd jewel in the crown. Or maybe not, based on his expression. I thought he’d know the history of my forefathers, how our people came from England to conquer a whole new world and became the best country on the planet. He, and no one else I met seemed to know that. How could they not?
I turned to my right where a really gangly British chap named Mayur. He was this tall guy super thin and a posh accent. He said his name a few times but I wasn’t quite able to pronounce it. I kept saying Mayor and he said no Mayuuuurl. I said "You mean Mayor?". and he’d say "No". Eventually after 5 minutes he said "OK you may call me Mayor", and that’s what I called him. Mayor copied my idea of putting his boxers and socks and shirt on the vents to dry them. My first thought was, this guy is gonna be a good friend. That turned out to be true.

I don't want to post Mayur's face so his shoe will have to do for now. Can you see its gangly?

Monday, November 7, 2011

The Mispronouciation of a Word = Funny

Anthony and his Peni$ Butter with Shobana

Some names have been altered to protect those that like peni$ butter.

There are two versions of this story. The way I remember it originally told and the more enhanced version directly from the source. Either way both have been retold numerous times and received a few laughs.

Myles' Version
Although I don't recall the details precisely, the original story was told to me by Anthony over a few drinks. I do remember bugging Mr.Shobana numerous times about it over the next 2 years. Even after Anthony had left Japan.
Anthony goes to see Shobana at the Shiyakusho (city hall). He wants to ask for a reference letter. Anthony had ordered a large number of natural peanut butter jars from one of those overseas ordering companies with Mr.C from Texas.
He was trying to sell it to me and other people because he had so many. I thought he was joking at first. It was like he was an snake oil salesmen the way he was harassing us trying to sell it. I wasn't about to give him $12 for a glass container full of some "organic" peanut butter. I thought he must be joking. I can buy peanut paste or something similar at the dollar store. I don't care if its the best PB on earth I'm not paying $12 a jar!
Good luck selling your snake oil to someone else.

Organic Peanut butter. Too much money for my blood.

So when he goes to see Mr.Shobana, and he tells Mr.Shobana that he had bought a large number of peanut butter jars and asked if Mr.Shobana wanted to buy one.
Mr. Shobana responded "Peni$ butter? What is peni$ butter?", Anthony laughs and tells him, "Peanut butter". Mr. Shobana continues, "What is this peni$ butter, tell me what it is". Anthony thinks he is playing with him so he said "You know very well that its peanut butter and not peni$ butter'. Mr.Shobana is trying to be straight faced and says "Where does peni$ butter come from? I'd like some of this peni$ butter". Anthony is pretty sure Shobana is messing with him and says "Don't say that, you know very well its peanut butter". Mr.Shobana, "I have an interest in this peni$ butter". Anthony, "Don't say that again". Shobana, "Peni$ butter". Anthony "I want a reference letter please and I'll give you some peanut butter".

Anthony's Version
I bought about 12 large jars of peanut butter, I think they were 12oz, each jar was quite large. It cost $120 so it was a major cash outlay on some peanut butter, but I had to do it because I knew that I wanted the natural stuff. You can't get good peanut butter in Japan. The only "peanut butter" Heiwado or Seiyu (grocery stores) have is a little tub of whipped and fluffy peanut spread, really sweet. There are those pre-packaged pb sandwiches at the combini's (7-11) though - those are pretty great. But I wanted to get some natural pb so I ordered it through this company that imports American groceries.

It arrived and I was thinking I'd better get rid of some of this peanut butter. I had packed it on the bottom shelf of my kitchen cabinet (I was lucky to have that cabinet - I begged for that from Shobana when I saw I had no furniture). I'm not going to give away all this expensive imported pb like a chump so I offered to sell a jar to a few ALTs (English Teachers), and I think Brendon and maybe Adam took me up on the offer. But that left me with a lot of peanut butter to eat on my own.

I was considering what to do with all this creamy brown when Shobana had to come over for some reason. It was that my air conditioner was whistling like a Portuguese fisherman and he finally came over to take a look at it.

Whistling kettle, almost like that.

He didn't actually do anything but I felt like he deserved a taste of some proper peanut butter so I gave him a jar. You know, cultural exchange and all. And he got all embarrassed and started saying "what is this?" pretending he didn't know what peanut butter was. So I told him "It's peanut butter" and he says "Ah, pennis butter" in that Japanese way of pluralizing, so I said "yeah, pennis butter". So he just takes that and runs with it, like he's thinking "this Canadian wants to correct my pronunciation? I work 12 hours a day and he calls me out to his lavish apartment to look at his f*in air conditioner. I don't even have time to go to my daughter's dance recital." But he's a good natured fellow so instead he just says "Peni$ butter?" and that's how it all started. From that day on, every time I saw Shobana he would say "Thank you for the peni$ butter".

Nothing like the creamy brown!

Friday, November 4, 2011

Camping in Floods, that sounds fun!

Camping in Tsuruga Japan
Paradise or hell?

Camping in Flooded area, That sounds fun.

I went on a camping trip with my friend Anthony (also Canadian), Chiaki (who is a girl that speaks many languages), my girlfriend, Anthony's girlfriend and Chiaki's friend (don't know her name but she was silent and allergic to the sun, yes to the SUN!). So I heard the beaches (maybe bitches too) were super hot in Tsuruga. That sounded nice since Chiaki and Anthony's girlfriend had a car. It was a relatively close drive. The idea was to go there, and then go to some awesome campsite not too far away from beach (and the bitches). Well, it sounded great in theory (especially the bitches).
The trip there was OK, I was in Anthony's girlfriend's car. As I recall nothing that great happened in the car, except that Anthony's girlfriend was loving my jokes (which are not too funny as you probably already know based on my writings on this blog). Anthony later told me his girlfriend kept saying she thought I was hot. I was like uh OK. He said she never shuts up about it, which I guess explains why she laughed at everything I said including directions. "Turn left soon". Her response "Hahaha you are so funny." I was WTF, its a direction not a joke.
Finally when we got to the beach, it was beautiful except for the wood chips and small sticks and other crap floating in the water (I didn't see any bodies but there could been, it was cloudy).


The water was covered in debris. At least it looked nice here

Apparently there had been a major flood and it dumped this crap into the ocean. The beaches were also covered with with wood-chips, sticks etc near the tide line. The beaches would have been paradise if not for the weird things on the beach. There was a large number of Brazilians there though, sleeping in tents on the beach. They seemed a little scary. When I thought about it they probably liked us more than the Japanese on the beach. My reasoning with this is that the Japanese probably thought the Brazilians were weirder than us. On the other hand, the Brazilians and us had a lot in common being foreigners. We were both outsiders, and didn't fit into the cultural norm. I believe that them sleeping on the beach was a cultural faux pas.

Sorry no bikini babes. I save those for me ;P

So after playing on the beach, burying Anthony as deep as we could like he was a sandcastle and such, we decided to go to the campsite.

When we got there, it was mass chaos. The whole campsite was wet and covered in logs and weird crap. It was like the beach only worse. I forget the exact price but I think it was like 100$ a night. I remember Anthony asking me to ask for a discount, which the guy laughed at and didn't do of course.

So we start to setup our tents. Anthony had bought a tent just for this trip, I think it was a two man tent. By two man that meant two small Japanese men, not one large foreigner and his girlfriend. Chiaki had a 5 person tent for Nancy, me, her and her friend.

At night after millions of mosquito bites we went to bed. Since I had been in the ocean and my skin was all salty I decided to shower. I guess that was the wrong choice because there was no hot water, which I didn't know until I was standing under the shower head and pulled. It felt like I was taking a shower on top of Mt.Everest. It was so cold I couldn't close my fingers or rub the soap properly. To complicate things there was no privacy really as the only area the shower covered was a 4 inch area crotch height. I have no idea how girls took a shower without exposing their bosoms. Based on how cold it was, they probably sucked it up and didn't shower. Ice showers are terrible. I kept thinking at least once I get into my cozy sleeping bag I'll warm up, its not like I want to get hypothermia.
As I got in my sleeping bag in the tent I tried to think of something warm. The only bad thing was that after about 30 minutes it started to rain. Earlier we had been saying, "Its such a nice day, why would we need a rain guard". I'll tell you, from now on I'm always putting a rain flap on.

I guess Anthony's tent wasn't made for the white devil gaijin (foreigner) cause he couldn't get comfortable. He told me later his feet were actually getting crushed by the frame of the tent. I did see his feet sticking physically outside of where the tent ended. He was bending the tent by having his legs straight. He claimed he didn't sleep a wink, but that probably wasn't because of that. More likely his girlfriend wanted some McLovin'.

So my sleeping bag sucked and was too short, so at first it was a hard sleep. Then, after some rustling, I was able to enter la la land. Then suddenly, I awoke to being drenched in water. As I slept, the rain came down and drenched me. In addition the ground was wet already and we had put our tent in a really bad spot where the water would all collect on my side. It felt like a river was washing over me. I tucked myself in the fetal position and tried to sleep. But there was no hope in that cold dark place, soaking wet. I started to hallucinate I was in a dungeon. The tent was leaking from the inside and there was a drip like Chinese water torture upon my brow. So my face was covered in freezing water and the puddle in the tent was getting bigger and it wasn't just me getting wet. I tried to sleep through it, but its like peeing on an electric fence, it won't work. Finally Chiaki says "I'm soaked, lets put rain cover on tent". I said OK, and as we fumbled in the dark for the tent zipper, but I couldn't find it. I guess Chiaki had put her head in the doorway and I didn't notice so when I yanked the zipper really hard her hair got stuck. I didn't realize I did it, but her head was sideways and she seemed to be moaning. Since she didn't say anything I kept yanking the zipper back and forth and it seemed to be stuck on something. After 2 minutes or so she told me her hair was stuck in the zipper and asked if I could stop moving the zipper up and down. It was tearing her hair out. I started laughing cause it was so ridiculous. At that point everyone else in the tent was woken up by my laughing. Then for the first time I noticed clumps of her hair in my wrinkly and wet hands. I tried to pull her hair from the zipper and the tent caved in! It was terrible! The whole roof fell down. Not only was her hair stuck in the zipper but I couldn't get it out. Finally I grabbed the roots of her hair and I said "Listen, I'm going to try to save a bit of your hair my holding it at the roots and ripping the hell out of the zipper. This may hurt a little." Thinking back I should have told her "Going to hurt a lot, like a real son of a bitch".

Finally her hair came loose, but I lost a bit more in the zipper, possible pieces of her scalp-line too. I didn't notice till the next day but there was a patch of hair missing where I had torn the roots from her skull. If you are reading this, I still feel sorry about that.

We stepped out of the tent and it was raining hard and freezing cold.

We re-erected the tent and went to bed soaked. One of the worst nights of my life.

I guess the only person's worse was Chiaki, aside from the pain, she didn't even have enough hair to keep her warm anymore. Damn!

That's what I wanted to do after the camping experience. No sleep = total suck

Thursday, November 3, 2011

School Introduction. Wecome to the hood!

Welcome to your School

Oh and by the way you may be murdered.
Wonderful I thought, I've come to the right place.

Next after meeting Onizuka sensei (read previous post to understand) was our school introduction. We all had different schools scattered throughout the city.
We were driven by Onizuka sensei to our school. It was located at the base of Shiga’s most famous mountain Mt.Fuji. Actually, it wasn’t Mt.Fuji, but it sure looked like it. It was called Mt.Ibuki. The school didn’t really look like much, a massive field for baseball, soccer and soft tennis. I noticed the field was made of sand. I was wondering where the grass was, I was thinking maybe its summer so its out of season or something. The school seemed kind of old and a typical looking school, white colour with lots of windows.

Not Mt.Fuji but looks like it. Kind of?

When we entered we used some crap jelly plastic sandals (which my foot didn’t even stick half way in) and walked into the staffroom. I guess I expected people to jump at us and be like "Hey welcome to your new home!", but there were barely any teachers in the staff room. We did some half ass-ed introductions then went to see the Principal. Based on the pictures I had received before arriving, I took it that the Principal and vice principal were very strict.Their pictures had shown two stiff faced, non smiling, suit clad men. Even though they say "Don't judge a book by its cover", I was judge, jury and executed based on the pictures.

Being sent to the Principal's Office! Uh oh!

We entered the Principal’s office and were greeted with a smile. My Japanese was rusty and I was really nervous. I knew that its important to make first impressions and I wasn’t sure where to start. The Principal made some small talk in Japanese about where we were from and about our lives. He then asked how we would teach English at the school. WOW! Hard question to start off, that I hadn’t thought about that at all. I figured it would come to me as I started.
The Principal then changed the topic to the history of the school. Although I didn’t understand every word, I did recognize one that stuck out “dowa mondai”. Being an Asian Studies Major (Its nothing to brag about. You end up teaching English in the hood!) I had studied it in University. It occurred to me it was kind of strange I was at this school, since I was sure 99% of the foreigner’s in Japan would have no idea what that meant.
Was it destiny I thought? I saw my new co worker did not understand what that meant and the Principal explained a bit about the word, that it was a people who were segregated in Japan, similar to outcasts (untouchables) in India. I wondered if this was why the school was so far from town and seemed to be the furthest except for one Elementary school. Hell it was at the base of Mt.Fuji (not Fuji, its a just a bad joke) so you know its cold.
I told the Principal that I had studied it. No comment from him. Maybe I was being cocky by telling him I already knew about it. He made what I thought was a joke. “I saw on your interview details that you do Judo”. Then he looked at my co worker, “And that you did Wrestling”. I smiled. I wasn’t sure how cocky I should be about it. I was never that great at Judo but yes I did consider it an important part of my life for a while. I answered that I had done it. He smiled, “You might need it”. I laughed.
Little did I know it wasn't a joke. Crap!
Had I known what my next 3 years were going to be like, I should have asked for a baton, or possibly a taser. I was about to be introduced to extreme level 12 (or whatever level is bad) riot control. It was like I was in the WWF (not World Wrestling Federation) but World Wildlife Fund and people wanted to take me down. Or is that the World Bank? Whatever, same thing isn’t it?
Both result in pain and riots.
After our little chat in Japanese with the Principal we headed to the staff room.

Shared desk in the middle of the room isolated.

My co worker an American, who looked like a Chinese guy and I, let’s call him “Lee”, cause that is a stereotypical name and I were shown our desks. His name isn't "Lee" but to hide his identity from stalkers I'm going call him Lee. Its also Lee, cause Lee can be a Korean name. This rant is going to get longer. He was ethnically half Japanese half Chinese American, but most of his family grew up in Korea so to further complicate things he was also culturally part Korean.
So he looked Chinese, spoke some Japanese and Korean but was American. Confusing!
OK. Now back to the story. I had heard in a Japanese culture class the closer you are to the Vice Principal the more important you are. We were dead center of the room. Each grade 6,7,8 had 2 rows of desks facing each other for each years teachers.
Because my co worker and I had no definite year we were outsiders (which we already were). I looked around us. I stood out like a sore thumb x 2! We were placed at the end of the computer row. Maybe they were trying to separate those that were different and possibly diseased. That’s a good idea. Perhaps I should suggest masks as well. Or get a cage and keep the monkeys inside it.
Haha, funny? A little, at least for me.
I’m not sure what they feed the kids in Japan now, because she was the size of an elephant only built like a tank, aka large and in charge. Her hair was kind of a orange yellow that looks like a wig after too many bad hair dye jobs. Her face had makeup (the first thing thought that occurred to me was, whoa at 14 years old!). Her muscles were bigger than mine. She walked into the staffroom yelling “Hey Teachers I’m bored, give me some money”. I was like, who is this monkey and who let her out of her cage? She started to yell something I couldn’t understand, must be some dialect words I thought. Then she saw me. She smiled and walked up to me. “Hi foreigner”. Umm hi to you too."You from America?". "No", I answered. She looked at me. "You are hairy". "Thanks." I answered. "Do you have any presents for me?." I was thinking first she insults me then she expects a present? What the deuce man? I went through my bag of stuff. I had brought lots of pennies from Canada. I thought they would be great gifts.
1) They are shinny! Everyone likes shinny.
2) They are real money and best of all, DIRT CHEAP!

She had no idea they were worth nothing mwahahah! The first question she asks me “How much is this worth in Japanese yen?”. Crap! I smiled, "Oh, ah, emm, I’m not sure how to convert it with the exchange rate and all”. I hoped she wasn’t smart enough to look it up online.

Since she never asked me about it again I can assume she was about as smart as she looked.

I should have just given her a banana. I doubt she would have even peeled it.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Arrival to Nagahama as part of Jet Programme!

Arrival to Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture Japan.
Yeah!

Nagahama dark green on the lake.

When we first arrived in our new city I was quite excited. Despite being a new environment and not knowing anyone well, I felt like it was a party. Well the party hit reality when I got to my new apartment. It was barren as the dessert and it smelled like paint. There was a tatami room(Japanese reed mats), a normal western style living room, a kitchen, and a tiny shower/bath. The shower/ bath seemed like a plastic box with a small sink beside it. The toilet was tiny in a room with a metal door with grates you could see through. Strangely it opened up to the kitchen. I thought it seemed like a weird place for a bathroom. Enjoy your food with some wonderful bathroom smells, mmm tasty!
There was also one large spare room as well with what looked like wooden floors. Lastly, there was a fridge in the kitchen with nothing inside. At least it was clean.
The smell of freshly painted walls was a little overwhelming at first. I imagine if you take a balloon of nail polish remover and stuck your head in it, that’s what it smelled like. On top of that the heat, oh the heat! If you could imagine the fires of hell that will partially explain to you what the heat of Japan is like. It penetrates your entire soul. Its so humid that when you come out of a shower and feel fresh as a daisy, you are immediately covered again in a sticky sweat. So imagine this heat and you think the only way to escape it is to hide in your apartment. The only problem is the smell of the paint mixed with the heat from hell is killing you. The heat makes the smell of the paint 10 times stronger. I was probably partially high during that first week now that I think of it.
Because I’m a social cat, I asked the other newbies from the building if they wanted to come over for a drink. I didn’t realize it at the time but none of us were drinkers. It seems funny now that I told everyone to drink. If I knew no one was a drinker I probably could have said let’s have a P and P party, pop and pizza. Although we’d have to replace pizza with something else, as Japanese pizzas usually consist of a 1mm crust covered with tomato sauce with corn on it.
We all sat down at my place in the living room inhaling paint fumes. That may have been what helped make it so much fun. Because I didn’t have any furniture most of us leaned on the walls(probably covering our clothes with paint), and a few in the center of the room. One guy let’s call him Mr.C was from Texas. His glasses were kind of coke bottle glasses. If you don’t know what they are Google it. They are basically thick glasses and look like they are made for comic effect. We found out Mr.C’s father was an optometrist. When one of the guys found that out he kept saying to me in private “If his father is an optometrist why would he make him wear those glasses? Has he ever heard of Lenscrafters?’.
After mentioning to everyone to be careful and not spill anything since this was my new apartment the worst happened. Mr.C split his drink all over my new floor. It may have been his glasses were too thick and he couldn’t see the floor, but that’s up to debate.
The floors themselves were quite odd. The looked like hard wood but when you walked on them they were not. In fact on top of whatever substance it was it seemed to be a layer of plastic film. Looking back on it now I think it kind of a linoleum that was coloured to look like hard wood. The weird thing though was the film on top of it. I’ve never seen that in any other country I’ve traveled to. When you walked on it, especially with sweaty feet, the plastic would tear itself off from the hardwood looking layer. I would often be pulling off chunks of plastic film from my feet. It was particularly hard to pull off when your feet were sweaty in summer and every step you take you feel like a plastic layer, or the skin on the bottom of your feet is about to peel off.
Mr.C’s spilling of alcohol and pop on the floor seemed to be like a corrosive acid to the plastic film and hardwood floor looking layer. I worried that the first day of this place and I’d already be dinged for damage deposit! Snap!

Our apartment "High Life". I'm not sure that was a good description.

Our apartments a collection of of 18 units was called “High Life Morii”. And yes, the side of our building actually had the words written in large letters “High Life Morii”. I can’t say there was anything high about it other than the smell of the paint in my unit. As for the Morii this referred to the older man Mr. Morii that spoke no English who owned it. Ironically for a person who owns 18 units he rented out 12 of them to foreigners. I often wondered if the city somehow tricked him into doing that. I often saw him dealing with problems that the foreigners were causing him. More on that later.
When we finally managed to dwell outside our foreigner kingdom castle (which had 2 sides covering it by rice fields) we ventured into the city to find a supermarket. We found a large supermarket and department store nearby called Heiwado which Chinese characters meant “The Peace Store”. Its symbol being 2 white doves. I wasn’t sure if I was about to walk into a place selling peace pipes or the Salvation army, but it turns out it was just an innocent name.
I had some stupid idea that when I moved to Japan I would start cooking amazing Japanese foods. Well first of all I don’t cook. Other than toast or cereal I don’t know how to cook a thing to save my life. As we entered Heiwado I looked at the fresh seafood section. For some reason my brain kept saying “Get something unique to Japan”. Well, not entirely unique to Japan but definitely cheap and something I wouldn’t ever cook at home, I saw octopus. How do you cook octopus? I had no idea, but I figured I’m in Japan I’ll have the motivation to find out. I picked up the biggest fattest tentacle I could find and threw it in my basket. Mission accomplished I thought.
I put that tentacle into my brand new fridge and left it there for over a month. I don’t know if there was an expiry date on it, but either way I didn’t care, I figured at some point I’d use it. After that month I realized there was a strong rotten fishy smell coming from the fridge. I wasn’t sure what to do so I didn’t investigate, instead I’d get in and out of the fridge as fast as possible. It was only when my girlfriend came from Canada that something changed. When she first entered the apartment she made a comment about a fishy smell. I was like “Oh hmm I don’t know what it is”. When she opened the fridge a few hours later she did a CSI investigation and realized that it was the month old tentacle. She threw it out, entirely scrubbed the fridge down and then put a special Japanese fridge deodorizer(similar to baking power) into the fridge. I would end up hearing complaints about the tentacle for another 3 years. She claims it still smelt after that time. I apologize to any future tenants of that apartment who may be using that fridge.