Random images from the past two weeks

I’ve been out every single night for the last two weeks and I’ll be out every single night for the next two weeks. I haven’t been this exhausted since I had mono.

I’m supposed to be getting ready to leave Japan but I’ve been roped into teaching summer school and supervising track practice. After work, it’s been one farewell party after another.

All of this has left me without a lot of time to update my blog. So I’m going to take the easy way out and post some pictures instead.

The first picture is of my friend Tomoko. We went down to the ocean to stand in the water and look out into nothingness for a while. Tomoko is a teacher at my school. She's a lot of fun. She’s also the one person who I can count on to fill me in on the really important things at school, like which kid got busted for shoplifting hair spray from the grocery school and which kid got suspended for biting a teacher.

But Tomoko is sick of teaching and sick of Japan. So she’s decided to move to Vancouver and work in a sushi restaurant next year. We stood in the Pacific Ocean and screamed, “Hello, Vancouver!” for a while.

Anyway, here we are teaching together for the last time. This is what I do during the day and this is what a typical Japanese classroom looks like.



Nice tan lines. The sexy white stripes down my back are from swimming with the students during PE class. Just in case you were fooled into believing that I actually work for a living out here. I spend more time in the pool than I do in the classroom.


Of course, I can’t talk about school without talking about the track team. These are my favourite kids in the whole school.



The two kids in the photo below are brothers. The older brother (Punchie) is the fastest kid on the track team and competes at a national level. He plans on competing at the 2012 Olympics and I won’t be surprised if he actually makes it there. He’s a smart kid and very serious. The younger brother (Mayonnaise) is a little brat, but I mean that in the most affectionate way possible. Together, they are the sweetest, most lovable kids I’ve ever met. These kids make me want to have kids. But only if they turn out like Punchie and Mayonaise.


Last week, the track coach surprised me with a special farewell ceremony that the kids put together. One of the kids gave a speech entirely in English (I was so touched to think how long and how hard he must have worked on it). And the entire track team presented me with several giant cards with handwritten messages.



I think out of everyone I’ve met here, I will miss the kids from the track team the most. Here they are after a track meet last weekend after we convinced the bus driver to pull over for popsicles.


Of course, another person I will miss terribly is the vice-principal. I took this picture of him pretending to be stern and serious.


And then another picture of him as he really is. Slightly crazy and a lot of fun. Here he is posing with a giant bottle of sake he had sitting under his desk.


Swarmed by some random kids. These are some of the more aggressive seventh graders. They’d usually run up to me after class and ask me inappropriate (not to mention grammatically incorrect) questions such as, “Do you play sex?”


I’ll miss walking past these rice fields on my daily commute.


Some of my favourite teachers at school. This was the first of many goodbye parties.


And what would a party be in Japan without karaoke? Here is the track coach singing “We Are The World” just for me. Sigh.


The next goodbye party was with my volleyball team. I am the filling in a Monica and Sachi sandwich. Two great girls and I’ll miss them both.



And what would a party be in Japan without fireworks? I’m sure my neighbours loved me after this.


That’s all for now. More later when I have time . . .

Giant poisonous centipedes

For the past few weeks, my friends have been telling me horror stories about Japan’s giant poisonous centipedes (or “mukade” as the locals call them).

My friend Sachi was sleeping when a centipede crawled into bed with her and sunk its fangs into her arm, causing it to swell up to the size of a football. She showed me the wound and I almost passed out when I saw the two holes where the monster’s fangs had pierced her skin.

My friend Zoe slammed a book on top of a centipede only to watch in horror as it reared its head from beneath the book and struggled to escape. She blasted it with bug spray and it still kept violently twisting and rolling its body. The thing refused to die until she worked up the courage (sobbing and screaming the whole time) to crush its repulsive rearing head with a massive cookbook.

Almost everyone I’ve met here has a mukade story or two. I knew it was only a matter of time before I came face to face with one of these nasty creatures myself. I wanted to be prepared so I asked one of my coworkers, a seasoned mukade veteran, for advice on the best way to kill them.

“You must throw hot green tea on it,” he said. “That is the only way to kill them.”

“But what if I don’t have any hot green tea when I see one? What am I supposed to do then?” I asked. “Am I supposed to tell the mukade to wait for a few minutes while I put the kettle on, boil the water and then steep the tea?”

(His answer, by the way, was “Yes.”)

I was hoping that I would be able to leave Japan without having ever seen a mukade but luck was not on my side. I finally saw my first mukade last night.

I had been out at my town’s summer festival, drinking sake and listening to the locals belt out bad karaoke on a giant outdoor stage. As soon as I got home, I jumped in the shower. I was washing my hair when I felt something crawl across my foot.

I screamed and violently kicked my leg, sending the creature flying to the other end of the shower. I looked over to where it landed, expecting to see a cockroach, but was shocked and horrified to discover a giant centipede instead. It was about 15 centimetres long with a red head and countless yellow legs. It was writhing on the shower floor, making a whipping “S” motion with its body.

I ran screaming out of the shower. I wasn’t as terrified as I was when I was attacked by giant flying cockroaches because this time I was a little bit drunk (this must be what they mean by “liquid courage”).

I didn’t have any hot green tea on hand so I grabbed the vacuum cleaner and ran back into the bathroom, sucking the mukade up before it had a chance to run away. And then I stuffed a towel into the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner so it couldn’t crawl back out.

It took a while for my heart rate to come back down to normal and I don’t think I slept more than four hours last night. The bug situation in my apartment has gotten so bad that I’m constantly on edge. I’m not having a lot of fun right now . . .

Giant flying cockroaches

Did you know cockroaches can fly? Because, seriously, I had no idea until I was attacked by two airborne monsters last night.

It was like something out of a horror movie. It was late at night and I was craving a snack before bed. I walked into the kitchen, flicked on the light and was just about to open the fridge when a giant cockroach ran up the wall about two feet from my face. I screamed and jumped backwards.

The cockroach raced wildly up and down the kitchen wall and then, horror of all horrors, it flew across the room and landed on the opposite wall. And then it raced wildly up and down that wall until it spread its wings again and launched itself directly at my head.

It was so terrifying and disgusting that I almost vomited. This was no ordinary cockroach. This was a huge cockroach. It was as long as my finger and as wide as a Snickers bar. And it was FLYING!

I slammed the kitchen door shut, trapping the cockroach inside, and ran screaming to my bedroom. But I was horrified to see a second giant cockroach racing wildly up and down the wall behind my bed. And then it spread its wings and flew across the room before disappearing behind a bookshelf.

At this point, I was close to fainting. I didn’t know what to do. I was too scared to hunt down the cockroaches and kill them because what if they flew at my head and got tangled up in my hair?

I was trapped inside my cockroach-infested apartment with no one to call and nowhere to go. I briefly considered taking refuge on the balcony but nixed the idea when I realized spending the night outside meant dealing with blood-thirsty mosquitoes, giant spiders, poisonous centipedes and that most horrifying creature of all, the geji geji (I would have provided a link but the mere thought of googling “geji geji” and having an image of one of those monstrosities pop up on my computer screen made me queasy).

So I did the only thing I could do. I laid on my bed, curled up in the fetal position, popped two Gravol and waited for sleep to take me far away from this awful reality.

It took a long time to fall asleep. I kept seeing imaginary cockroaches scurrying up the walls and running across the ceiling. Every shadow took on a menacing shape.

It hit me that I’ve spent a good part of the past year like this. Curled up in the fetal position, quaking in fear. I’ve been living in a near-constant state of paranoia. My eyes are always scanning the room for bugs. I always enter my apartment by slamming the door and stomping around, hoping the noise and vibrations will send the cockroaches into hiding before I have a chance to see them.

I do a thorough inspection of the bathroom every night before I have a shower. I slam the shower door open and shut a few times. I kick the tub. I shake out the towels. I can’t have a shower until I’m convinced it’s 100 percent cockroach-free.

I automatically jump back after opening the cabinet under the sink because this is one of the cockroaches’ favourite hiding places. Same goes for the stove.

I have half a dozen traps in my apartment but there’s really nothing I can do. Cockroaches, centipedes, spiders and geji geji are a fact of life in rural Japan. Especially in southern Japan.

I had almost gotten used to dealing with the cockroaches in my apartment. I wasn’t happy about it but I accepted their presence. But that was before I found out they can fly.

Cockroaches and table tennis?

One of the Japanese teachers that I work with got all of the Grade 9 students at my school to write a goodbye message for me. Each class compiled their messages into a little booklet and presented it to me last week.

Some of the messages made me laugh. Some made me cry. And some just left me scratching my head. These are just a few of my favourites (click on the images to enlarge them).

It's so hard to say goodbye

School is winding down for the summer and I’ve been going from classroom to classroom to say goodbye. The students will be back in September but I won’t.

So I had to give a farewell speech at the end of every class. And I burst into tears every single time. I simply couldn’t talk about leaving without crying. I was completely and utterly unable to control my emotions. I’ve fallen in love with so many of these kids and I’d just look at their faces knowing I’d never get to see them again and that was all it took for me to come undone.

Eventually, someone would say something to make me laugh. And then I’d regain my composure a bit and manage to choke my way through the speech. But then I’d look up to see the Japanese teacher crying or one of the students crying and I’d lose it all over again.

Yuki is one of the kids I’m going to miss the most. Yuki is one of my Grade 9 students and is probably the funniest kid in the whole school. His English is light years ahead of the other kids so the Japanese teacher always made him come up to the front of the class and do model readings with me. Except he would act out the dialogue in the most ridiculous manner. He’d scream out the lines. Or he’d start dancing with me. That kid made me laugh more than anyone I’ve ever met.

This is Yuki:


And this is the message he gave me after our last class:


Kyoko is another kid I’m going to miss. She came to visit me in the staff room every single day, several times a day. Kyoko made me laugh almost as much as Yuki. She’s eccentric and wacky and totally independent. She likes classical music, hates sports and thinks most kids her age are stupid and vapid. Kyoko is awesome.


Of course, I will miss the entire track team. I’ve been running with these kids all year and going to their competitions to cheer them on so I really got to know them outside the classroom. Each and every one of these kids is amazing in their own way.



And this is just the start of the goodbyes. I still have another week at school. After that, I have to say goodbye to my coworkers, my volleyball team, my supervisor, my tea ceremony teacher, my friends. The rest of July is just going to be one painful goodbye after another.

More to milk than meets the eye

You’d be forgiven for thinking this is just an ordinary carton of milk. After all, there’s nothing about its plain exterior that suggests it has a deviant side.

But if you turn the carton around, you’re in for a surprise.


Each carton features a different comic strip. Some are corny. Some are cute. And some are downright dirty. Like this one. Let’s take a closer look.

In the first panel, we see an old man drinking milk in his underwear while a young boy looks on. “My clothes were chafing me.”


In the second panel, the boy is rubbing his nipple and blushing. “Milk makes me feel funny.”


In the third panel, grandpa is grabbing his crotch. “Yeah! Milk is good for your bones!”


In the last panel, a mysterious woman suddenly appears on the scene. The boys drop the homoerotic hijinks and pretend they’ve been innocently drinking milk all along.


Things in Japan are so much fun when you don’t understand what’s going on.*

*Okay. A friend of mine translated the comic strip for me. Turns out it’s not dirty at all. The old man and his grandson are simply having fun demonstrating the incorrect way to drink milk after a bath (apparently, nipple rubbing and crotch grabbing are out). The correct posture is to put one hand on your hip and tilt your head back, as demonstrated in the last panel. I like my version better.

Cucumber Pepsi anyone?

I finally got my hands on a bottle of Pepsi Ice Cucumber, which is being marketed as the cool new summer drink here in Japan.

But don’t let the label fool you. Cucumber Pepsi is actually 100 per cent cucumber-free. According to one news report, it has been “artificially flavoured to resemble the ‘refreshing taste of a fresh cucumber.’”

Apparently, it has also been artificially coloured to resemble the refreshing look of mouthwash. Or antifreeze.

Still, I was intrigued. I like Pepsi and I like cucumbers. How bad could it be? I decided to take the Cucumber Pepsi Challenge and find out. Here’s my sip-by-sip report:

First sip: Ahhh . . . cold liquid. Refreshing!

Second sip: Hey! This actually kind of tastes like cucumber. Or melon. Or something. Not bad!

Third sip: No, wait. It tastes like watered-down Pepsi.

Fourth sip: What? This doesn’t taste like Pepsi or cucumbers at all.

Fifth sip: It tastes . . . toxic.

Sixth sip: Oh my god. This is disgusting.

Seventh sip: I think I’m going to be sick.

Unfortunately, the taste test came to an abrupt end at this point because I poured the rest of the bottle down the sink. Cucumber Pepsi is the most vile thing I’ve tried since the Tim Hortons pink smoothie.

What’s next? Broccoli Coke? Spinach Sprite?

I have a feeling Cucumber Pepsi is one Japanese fad that won’t be sweeping the world any time soon.

What does it mean to be Canadian?

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be Canadian lately.

Maybe this is what happens when you’ve been living outside the country for a while. Or maybe this is what happens when you’ve been living in a homogeneous society sharing a homogeneous culture because this is definitely what being Canadian is not.

In a way, I envy the Japanese people around me. They have such a strong sense of national identity. They share a rich cultural history that binds them together as a whole. The food, the language, the music, the art, the architecture, the religion, the customs, the traditions. There are so many things that are uniquely Japanese.

I’ve been living in a country that has elevated the presentation of raw fish into an art form and the simple act of serving tea into a complicated ceremony that takes decades to master. And then I think about Canadian culture and it’s hard not to feel like we come up short. What are the pillars of our culture? Back bacon and hockey? It seems so crude and unrefined in comparison.

Of course it’s not fair to compare Canada with Japan. The two countries are fundamentally different. Japan is old. Canada is new. Japan is small. Canada is big. Japan is homogeneous. Canada is multicultural.

Both countries are wonderful in their own ways but I can’t help but feel that Canada lacks a soul of its own. It’s just this big chunk of land where people go about doing their own thing.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to a party and I was asked to bring a “Canadian” dish. My Japanese friends looked confused when I told them I didn’t know what Canadian food was exactly. I tried to explain that in Canada we eat Indian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Mexican, Italian, French and Middle Eastern food.

For me, being Canadian means not having a clear sense of nationality or place in the world. I belong everywhere and nowhere. It is both discombobulating and liberating at the same time.

Growing up in Toronto, I was constantly aware of the fact that I had no cultural or ethnic identity to call my own. I grew up in a house flanked by Polish neighbours on both sides. I went to a high school that was predominately Italian. I worked weekends at the Sheraton Hotel eating curried goat prepared by the Jamaican kitchen staff and sharing the elevator with Chinese maids.

We’re all Canadian but what is our collective experience? What is our national identity? What does it mean to be Canadian? I’m not really sure what the answer is. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe being Canadian is an individual and subjective thing. Maybe being Canadian can mean whatever you want it to mean.

Even though I don’t really know what it means to be Canadian, I do know what makes me happy to call Canada home. I value our wide-open spaces and clean air. I like that we have universal health care and same-sex marriage. I like riding the subway in Toronto and looking around to see people from all over the world sharing the same car.

I like paddling a canoe on a quiet lake and camping under the stars. I like smelling autumn leaves and hearing them crunch underfoot. I like sticky summer nights and banana popsicles.

I like the rush of excitement that comes from driving into downtown Toronto along the Gardiner Expressway and seeing the skyline lit up at night. I like the feeling of awe that comes from crossing the Lion’s Gate Bridge at dusk when the sky is pink and the mountains are purple.

There is a lot to be grateful for. Still, I don’t think any of that makes me uniquely Canadian. My values are not necessarily part of a collective consciousness. I’m not even sure if we have a collective consciousness in Canada. I can hate hockey and yet I am just as Canadian as a face-painting, flag-waving hockey fanatic. If nothing else, at least Canada is a place where we respect and celebrate our differences.

So on that note, happy Canada Day.

Now I just feel dirty

I’ve been swimming with my students every day for the past three weeks. I’m such a fixture at the school’s outdoor pool that the vice-principal unofficially promoted me to “Assistant PE Teacher.”

I love swimming with the kids. It’s just good clean wholesome fun. Or so I thought.

The bubble burst this morning after a conversation with one of the PE teachers.

“The students really enjoy swimming with you,” she said in Japanese. “You make them so happy.”

She said something else that I didn’t quite catch but I thought I understood the meaning behind her words.

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” I said, feeling all warm and fuzzy. “I feel exactly the same way about them.”

She shook her head and laughed. That wasn’t what she meant. She grabbed one of the Japanese English teachers and asked her to translate.

But when the PE teacher told her what she had said and what I had said in response, the Japanese English teacher started laughing hysterically. And then everyone else in the staff room wanted in on the joke and then they started laughing.

After the hilarity died down, the Japanese English teacher finally explained what the PE teacher had said to me.

“The boys said they really enjoy swimming with you because they like seeing you in a swimsuit.”

Let's enjoying English!

My students are an endless source of entertainment. They are always saying the most unintentionally hilarious things. Here are just a few gems from the past two weeks:

You are a little shit

I was teaching adjectives to one of the Grade 7 classes. The students were using the adjectives to make basic sentences. For example, “you are friendly” “you are pretty” “you are kind” “you are funny” “you are tall.”

The Japanese teacher asked them to write down three different adjectives to describe one of their friends using the “you are _____” pattern.

I was walking around the classroom correcting their mistakes when one boy called me over to his desk.

“What’s this in English?” he asked, pointing to his hip.

“Hip,” I said.

He looked at me, looked at my hips and said, “You are big hip!”

-------------------------

Flattery gets you everywhere

For some reason, the students at my school go crazy for stickers. They love stickers. They are obsessed with stickers. They fight each other for stickers.

There is nothing more surreal than having a group of the biggest, meanest, angriest, most intimidating teenage boys with shaved eyebrows and spiked hair walk up to you after class and ask for a bunch of teddy bear stickers.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out that cute stickers have incredible power and influence over these kids. I amassed a collection of stickers and put them in a file, which I carry around from class to class.

The stickers are supposed to be a reward for participation. But the whole thing has spun out of control. The minute class ends, I am swarmed by aggressive students demanding stickers.

They’re like a pack of vultures swooping in to pick clean my entire sticker collection. They try to rip the file out of my hands. They jump on my back, screaming, “Sticker! Sticker!”

I once made the mistake of letting a group of boys play “rock, paper, scissors” for one of my coveted Canada stickers. The competition got so heated that punches started flying.

The sticker situation escalated from harmless fun into an out-of-control crisis. I had to stage an intervention.

I stood in front of the class and asked the Japanese teacher to translate. I explained that I was no longer going to hand out stickers for no reason. The students had to earn them. If they wanted a sticker, they had to say something in English first.

Without missing a beat, one clever kid yelled out, “YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!”

-------------------------

Not far off the mark

The students in one of my classes were talking about their plans for summer vacation yesterday.

I was asking them where they were going this summer and they had to respond by using the sentence structure “I will go to ____.”

Most of the answers were pretty standard (well, except for the one kid who said, “I will go to Sarah-sensei’s apartment.”)

A few kids answered the question by saying, “I will go to USJ.”

USJ is Universal Studios Japan and every Japanese kid I’ve ever met has either gone or dreams of going there. USJ is a huge deal.

One of the kids who answered, “I will go to America” was excited about his upcoming trip. He wanted to know what USA stood for.

“The United States of America,” I told him.

The poor kid looked crestfallen. I had single-handedly ruined his summer vacation.

He had thought USA stood for Universal Studios America.

-------------------------

Aren’t you a little young for that?

In the classroom the other day . . .

Me: “What were you doing at 11 last night?”

Student A: “I was sleeping.”

Student B: “I was watching TV.”

Student C: “I was stripping!”

-------------------------

And your point is?

I was walking down the hallway between classes when two boys yelled out “SEX!” at me.

I backed up and asked them to repeat what they had just said.

“SEX!!!” they cried, even louder this time.

“Would you care to elaborate?” I asked.

They looked at each other, obviously not understanding a single word I said, and ran away.

-------------------------

I’ve created a monster

I was hanging out with the track team after school when one of the kids decided to initiate a conversation with me.

“Sarah-sensei,” he said. “You are from Canada, right?”

“Yes!” I said, delighted with his perfect English.

He narrowed his eyes and looked at me as if I was a complete and utter moron.

“No, no, no!” he said. “Not ‘Yes.’ Yes, I am.”

-------------------------

Busted

One of my favourite students came to visit me in the staff room between classes.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” she asked.

I told her I had seven boyfriends.

Her eyes widened.

“Seven boyfriends?!?” she said.

Yup, I replied, and they’re all Japanese.

“What are their names?” she asked.

Shit. I had to think fast. I made up a bunch of names on the spot. Tanaka Jiro, Kato Yuta, Mori Akira.

She looked at me suspiciously. Her eyes kept flicking between me and the Japanese textbook lying open on my desk.

She picked up the textbook and read through some of the dialogues where she found the names of my fictional boyfriends.

“Tanaka Jiro! Kato Yuta! Mori Akira!” she said, flipping through the textbook. “You are liar!”

-------------------------

And the Student of the Year award goes to . . .

I was giving a presentation about my trip to Borneo to one of the Grade 9 classes. I showed the students photos of some of the spectacular national parks. I talked a bit about the natural history of the area and the importance of protecting the Borneo rainforest.

After I had finished, the Japanese teacher asked the class what they thought.

“Isn’t Borneo beautiful?” she asked.

One boy raised his hand. I was surprised to see him volunteering to say something because he never participated in class. He was probably the most quiet and serious student in the entire school. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve even seen him smile once all year.

Anyway, he raised his hand and spoke up in class for the first time ever. In all seriousness and sincerity, he simply said, “I think Sarah-sensei is more beautiful than Borneo.”

Regret

I’m an idiot.

I’ve been kicking myself for a good three months over my decision not to stay in Japan another year.

Unfortunately, it’s too late to do anything about it now. They’ve already found someone to replace me. The paperwork has been drawn up and the contract has been signed. I’m leaving in two months whether I want to or not.

It’s so unfair that I had to make the decision back in February. I couldn’t have been in a worse frame of mind. I was miserably cold and overwhelmingly homesick. I couldn’t imagine signing on for another 18 months.

As much as I loved living here, I just couldn’t seem to shake the loneliness and the isolation. Saying “no” to a second year felt right.

Looking back on it now, I think it felt “right” because it was the easy and safe choice. Deep down I wanted to stay but I chickened out. I was worried that things wouldn’t turn around. I was worried about giving up my career back home. Leaping into the great unknown was a risk I was too scared to take. So I played it safe and I lost.

About a month after I made the decision to leave, things started to get better. I was given a lot more control and responsibility over my classes. I fell in love with the new students. I woke up excited to go to work every morning.

The isolation and loneliness faded as my social life picked up. I made a few good friends. I stopped sucking at volleyball. I signed up for weekly tea ceremony classes. My Japanese improved by leaps and bounds.

It’s taken almost a year to adjust and now I have to leave just when things are starting to get comfortable.

People keep asking me when I’m going back to Canada. I hate talking about it because these conversations always leave me on the verge of tears. I don’t think anyone really knows how much I want to stay.

I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell the students I’m leaving. They’re the main reason I want to stay. Saying goodbye to them is going to kill me.

Last week, one of my favourite kids from the track team asked me if I wanted to sign up for a 5 km race with him in December. I couldn’t tell him I wouldn’t be here in December. I just couldn’t. I would have dissolved into a sobbing mess. So I told him I didn’t know.

I’m not ready to leave. I want to be a part of these kids’ lives a little longer. I want to stick around and see my favourite students grow up and graduate.

I’m dreading the thought of returning to the world of adults and politics and regressive environmental policies. It’s all so Sisyphean. I don’t have the stomach for it anymore. I’d rather be standing in front of a classroom than sitting behind a cubicle.

Although I’ll be happy to see my friends and family again, I’m worried about going back to Vancouver when my heart’s still in Japan. I’m terrified of being miserable and consumed with regret when I get back. Who’s going to want to be around me if I’m like that?

I’m trying to remind myself that I was happy in Vancouver before I left. But it feels forced. I’m not very good at positive thinking. I’m a glass half empty kind of girl. I let a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity slip through my fingers. It’s a tough thing to live with.

I’m an idiot.

Getting paid to swim

As much as I don’t like having my identity tied up with being an outsider, there are times when it comes in handy.

Being a foreigner means I can get away with things Japanese people can’t. Like swimming with the students during school hours, for example.

The school’s outdoor pool finally opened last week and I’d been looking on with envy as the kids swam laps during gym class.

“There’s got to be some way I can join them,” I thought to myself.

I ran the idea past the vice-principal.

“Mmm . . .” he said, sucking air through his teeth. “It’s difficult.”

He polled a few teachers in the staff room. After a few minutes of intense debate, they agreed the head PE teacher would have to make the final decision.

I laughed inwardly. This was way too easy. The head PE teacher was a lecherous lady-killer whose favourite pastime was getting drunk and hitting on me at staff parties.

When the PE teacher walked into the staff room, the vice-principal asked him if it would be okay if I swam with the students.

He raked his eyes up and down my body and said something in Japanese that sounded like, “HELL YEAH!”

The students’ reaction was equally priceless. The first time I showed up on deck, I was greeted with a loud cry of “Eeeeeeeeeeh!” (which is basically the Japanese equivalent of “WTF!”)

One student spelled it out for me in English afterward.

“You come,” she said. “We surprise.”

Swimming with the kids during school hours is awesome. We warm up for about 10 minutes and then do some 25-metre sprints. After that, it usually deteriorates into handstands and synchronized swimming and competitions to see who can hold their breath underwater the longest.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of telling the PE teacher I once held the provincial record for the 200-metre butterfly. As a result, he now ends every class by making the students line up and take turns racing one length of butterfly against me. By about the sixth kid, my arms are ready to fall off.

Still, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had on the job. Sometimes it’s good to be a foreigner.

Best kids ever

These are my favourite students in the whole school. They’re the stars of the track team and just about the happiest kids around.

I took this picture yesterday after the prefectural track and field championships. Our school placed first, which isn’t surprising considering these kids train every day, twice a day.

The whole day was amazing. In fact, it was probably one of the best days I’ve had here so far. I didn’t even mind waking up at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning to catch the rented coach bus that took us out to the sports park.

The kids had asked me to come with them since I’m an honorary member of the track team (I run with them once a week after school). So I spent the day watching their races and cheering them on until my voice was hoarse.

I was so touched by how excited they were to have me there. They wanted to make sure that I saw each of their races. After the 100-metre sprint, one boy came running up to me with wild hope written all over his face and said, “Did you see me? Did you see me?”

I felt like a proud parent bursting with happiness.

In between events, they practiced their hilariously bad English on me and just acted like the happy, dorky kids they are.

It’s funny because I came to Japan for an adventure and a break from my “real” life. I didn’t have any passion to be a teacher. It was just a way to pay for a yearlong vacation. But being surrounded by these kids all day has turned out to be the most rewarding part of my time here. I’ve been blown away by the amount of joy they’ve brought into my life. I just want to adopt the whole lot of them.

Seriously. Could these girls be any cuter?


After the day was over and the trophies were handed out, the students formed a circle around the coach. I was standing off to the side taking pictures when they waved me over to join them.


They asked me to make a speech. So I told them how amazing they were and how much fun I had watching their races. And then I told them I loved them. They smiled and clapped and laughed and I knew that they loved me a little bit too.

My heart is breaking at the thought of leaving them in two months. Saying goodbye to these kids is going to hurt so much. I am sick with regret right now for not signing on for a second year.

My favourite Japanese TV show

I don’t watch a lot of TV out here. I only get two channels and my choices are usually limited to baseball, sumo or one of those mind-numbing variety shows (and sometimes, if I’m really lucky, Full House dubbed in Japanese).

But there’s one show I’m completely addicted to. It’s probably the most low-budget thing on television. There are no actors, no special effects and no complicated plotlines.

The show always begins the same brilliantly simple way. The host stands in a room that has nothing in it but a huge map of Japan. He stands about 15 feet back from the map and throws a dart at it. Then he and a friend rush over to the map, pull out their atlases and pinpoint the exact location where the dart landed.

Thanks to the magic of television, the dart almost always lands on some small town in the middle of nowhere. This is when the real fun begins. The host and his sidekick pack their bags and fly out to the town armed with little more than a video camera and a sense of humour.

Once they arrive, they simply drive around looking for unsuspecting locals to ambush. Whenever they find someone doing something outside (usually a grandmother working in a rice field), they jump out of the car and start interviewing them. The victim is usually bewildered at first but the host is so charming and funny he has them laughing and relaxed in no time.

This leads to all sorts of adventures. Sometimes an interview will turn into an invitation into someone’s home for lunch. Or they’ll stop to speak to a guy cleaning a boat and the next thing you know they’re on the open ocean trawling for fish. Or they’ll stumble across a group of kids playing drums in a garage and end up taking part in an impromptu concert later that night.

The show gives us a glimpse into small-town Japan and the people who live there. It’s spliced with interesting facts about the local history, population, economy and culture. It’s also hilariously funny (which is saying a lot considering I can only understand half of what’s being said).

I’d love to produce a Canadian version of this show. Canada’s so big and we have so many small towns. This is the kind of show that could bring us a little closer together. I mean, how many of us really know anything about Dildo, Newfoundland? Or Faro, Yukon? Or Kamsack, Saskatchewan?

I’m curious about each of these places. What are they like? Who lives there? What do they do? Each of these towns must be overflowing with stories and quirky characters.

I’m toying with the idea of pitching this to the CBC when I get back but I have no idea where to begin. I suppose I should figure out if this is even worth pursuing in the first place. Would a Canadian version of this show work? Or would it be better as a 10-minute segment on a show like The Hour? Would it be something people would want to watch? Or is this just a case of me having too much time on my hands out here?

Culture shock

When I first arrived in Japan, I remember feeling like it wasn’t all that different from Canada. It was clean, quiet, safe, friendly, polite and even a little boring.

I wandered around the streets of Tokyo thinking, “Culture shock? What culture shock? How could you possibly have culture shock in a place like Japan?”

And while it’s true that Japan doesn’t deliver the same blow to the senses that a place like India does, it’s a fallacy to think moving to a developed country means you’re immune to the effects of culture shock.

It’s a different kind of culture shock. It creeps up on you little by little, day by day, until you begin to realize that underneath the layers of politeness and efficiency and modernity lies a culture very different from your own. It hits you that as much as you try to fit in, you never really will. You are an outsider living on the fringes of a world that you are part of but don’t really belong to.

That’s not to say Japanese people are hostile to foreigners. Just the opposite. I’ve been shown so much kindness and generosity during the past 10 months here. Almost everyone in this town has had me over for dinner at least once. My coworkers are always inviting me out for drinks. I have lots of friends, I take tea ceremony lessons, I’m on a volleyball team. I have an apartment, a job and a life here. I’ve been welcomed into the community with open arms.

And yet there are days I still feel completely isolated and alone. Part of the problem is the language barrier. I’ve been studying Japanese two hours a day, five days a week, for almost a year now. I’ve gotten to the point where I can hold basic conversations but I can’t really communicate. Especially when so much of what is said goes unspoken.

So I sit at my desk in the staff room surrounded by people I can’t understand and who can’t understand me. Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a bubble.

The hardest part is when someone in the office cracks a joke and everyone starts laughing. I know they’re not intentionally leaving me out. I think they genuinely forget that I don’t always understand what they’re saying. But every time it happens, a little stab of loneliness pricks my skin.

There are so many little things that seem to highlight the distance between us. Every morning I am greeted by the daily schedule written on the blackboard at the front of the staff room:

Unless I ask someone to translate it for me, I usually have no idea what’s going on. And so I’ll show up to school to find everyone in grubby clothes because I couldn’t read the notice on the blackboard that said we’d spend the afternoon waxing the floors. Or I’ll show up to school to find everyone in suits because it’s parents’ day. Or I’ll be busy working at my desk and I’ll look up to find the staff room suddenly empty because I couldn’t read the memo that said there’s a meeting at 2 p.m. in the gym.

The teachers are happy to translate for me but it’s frustrating having to ask all the time. I hate the way being illiterate has stripped me of my independence. I feel like a helpless child instead of a real member of the team. I am completely dependent on other people to understand what’s going on around me.

It’s so hard not to be able to really talk, especially with the kids. I have so many opportunities to interact with them outside of class and once I’ve exhausted my basic Japanese, I’m left feeling pained by how superficial these conversations are. The kids are so great and so much fun and I’m dying to get to know them better but I can only go so far before I’m strangled by the limitations of the language barrier.

Sometimes my inability to communicate has more serious consequences. Like what happened with the PE teacher. She invited me into her home, she took me to Hiroshima with her family for the weekend, she brought me fresh vegetables from her garden, she introduced me to her son and, after a few drinks, told me she hoped I would marry him. She took me under her wing and made me feel like a part of her family.

And then in April, she didn’t show up at school for a week. I asked one of the teachers if she was on vacation.

“No,” he said in Japanese. “Her mother died.”

I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. I realized that if I hadn’t asked why she wasn’t at school, no one would have told me. I remembered her name being brought up at the staff meeting earlier that week but I didn’t understand why.

I felt completely useless. In Canada, I would know exactly what to do. I would buy a card and write a heartfelt note. I would look up the obituary in the newspaper and find out when the funeral was. If it were a close friend, I’d cook and clean and be a shoulder to cry on.

But here? I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t read the newspaper so looking up an obituary was out of the question. Even if I could read the obituary, I had no idea what the etiquette was for Japanese funerals. Was it appropriate to show up at a funeral unannounced? Did you need to be invited? Was it for family members only? Had I already missed it? I had no idea.

Should I phone her? But if I phoned her what would I say? I didn’t want to stutter my way through a condolence in Japanese and have her not understand me. So you know what I did? Absolutely nothing. I just went home and cried.

At that moment I hated being in Japan. I hated being an outsider. I hated the teachers for not telling me her mother had died. I hated myself for not being able to understand the world around me. I hated that a friend’s mother had died and I did nothing. I hated the thought of her thinking I didn’t care.

I blame myself for feeling alienated in this situation. But there are moments of isolation that I am powerless to control. I can’t escape the fact that I am a highly visible minority in a small, rural town. As a result, I am followed around the grocery store by stares, and I am often left with empty seats on either side of me on a packed train.

People here seem to have one of two reactions when they see me. They either go out of their way to avoid me or they bombard me with questions: “Where are you from?” “What do you think about Japan?” “Can you use chopsticks?” “Can you eat raw fish?”

I always answer their questions in a cheerful and friendly manner. It’s great that they’re so curious and interested in me. But I’d rather be accepted as an individual instead of always being pushed back into the gaijin box.

I don’t want special treatment. I don’t want to be the centre of attention. I want to blend in with the crowd, not tower above it. I want to be anonymous. Most of all, I just want to belong.

Sometimes I feel like my life in Japan has been a lesson in loneliness. This is not meant to be a criticism of Japan or Japanese people. Living here has been an overwhelmingly positive experience and I’d do it again in a second.

But I wanted to put my feelings of alienation into words. It would be dishonest of me not to do so. The frustration, the isolation and the loneliness have been just as much a part of the experience as the fun, the adventures and the wackiness. To only write about the positive stuff would be misleading.

The past year has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride. But the occasional lows have been balanced out by so many wonderful highs. The isolation isn’t an omnipresent thing. It seems to come and go. I don’t know. Maybe this is what they mean by culture shock.