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.

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money. That would be even nicer!

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

  

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. 

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money. That would be even nicer!

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

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

  

English Teachers Introduction Mr.Awesome

Prior to arriving in Japan I thought I should watch something in Japanese to refresh my Japanese and learn a few things about Japan. This came in the form of G.T.O. Don’t get this confused with Grand Theft Auto (G.T.A). No, the Japanese TV show I am referring to is Great Teacher Onizuka. It is about a teacher who is a low level gang member who likes to look up girls skirts, smoke, swear and get in all sorts of trouble. Sounds like a good life that any guy would want. The first Chinese character in his name means devil or demon.

First character is demon or devil.

As we entered the room to be introduced formally to the teachers and apparently to the people of Shiga prefecture as this was being taped for TV, I was starting to laugh. Not out of fear of being watched by so many people or as I was being paraded like a money for people to throw peanuts at, but because I swore I was looking at Onizuka himself. All the Japanese teachers followed the same dress-code except one. The men wore their suits with ties all tied the same way, formal black shoes, and suit jackets. Their suite jackets all done up tightly despite the heat and the women wearing their skirts and typical black or grey dress-clothes not revealing any skin (damn!). Actually now that I think of it, it could have been a scene of THE MATRIX with Mr.Smith. There was one person though sitting in the middle of the crowd, who I thought looked like Onizuka. He was darker skinned, had sunglasses on (yes inside), wore a sleeveless shirt, gym shorts and had leather sandals beside his chair (which he wasn’t even wearing. He had bare feet!). The theme song started running in my head. I may have been humming it out loud whoops.
I was thinking it would be funny for whoever got Onizuka, after all he seemed to not want to fit in at all, he was like the opposite of the cultural norm. Japan has a saying “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down”. I was like, whoa this guy is a adamantium nail (the indestructible metal Wolverine's claws are made of out of in case you didn't know).
All of us monkeys sat down on our chairs as we faced our soon to be teachers, as well as city officials, education ministry officials and by way of filming, the people of Shiga. I had the feeling Onizuka was looking at me. I was thinking maybe I’m the best looking among the monkeys? (Unlikely I thought). A few of the monkeys looked like GQ models (damn them and their perfect faces!). Can’t they try to set the bar a bit lower for me!
We were told to introduce ourselves and then the teacher from our school would come forward, introduce themselves as well. After the introductions were over we would go to our schools. I looked beside me. The Chinese looking guy from the train sat beside me. I swear that I saw Onizuka stare at him. I whispered “Hey is he looking at us or just my imagination?”. The Chinese guy answered “No, its not your imagination. He is looking at us.” I was like oh, so I’m not hallucinating (with all that heat and man chowder smell I wasn't sure what was a mirage).
As the line moved closer to us I could feel the sweat dripping through my pits and back of my shirt. Then came our introduction. Onizaka put his sandals on and walked right up to us. “Hey guys you are really lucky, I’m the best English teacher in all of Shiga”. Everyone started laughing. He was like I’m serious, I’m cool.

The car he owned. When his hair was black again.

I thought that was good that he understood slang and wasn’t like the other Japanese English teachers who all seemed like robots, Domo Arigato Mr.Roboto!

Maybe I was lucky to have someone that fit outside the box I thought.

Little did I know the adventures were just about to begin.

Until next time!

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money. That would be even nicer!

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

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