Ninja Generosity

So I let it slip yesterday- the birthday thing- entirely by accident. Every new class I go to, I have to introduce myself, and every single class asks the same three questions. I have taken to writing the answers to these questions on the board, covering them with a sheet of paper held up by a magnet (yeah- all the chalkboards here are magnetic. If this is a property of every chalkboard, count me easily impressed) and then revealing the answers (to the students' amazement) as the questions are asked. The questions are this:

How old are you? (innocent enough.)
How tall are you? (fair enough.)
Do you have a girlfriend? (Wha?!!)

But on the "How Old" question yesterday, I stumbled. They asked, I said "Twenty-Two, wait, yeah, for another day." And that was that. The kids missed it, but it seems the team teacher caught it.

This morning, I found a gift and a handmade card (in English!) sitting on my desk, courtesy of my supervising teacher- and an entire teacher's office full of people saying congratulations in Japanese, putting on their biggest smile, and saying "Happy Birthday"- some perfectly, others heavily accented, but all of them so earnest about it that I was honestly taken aback. It was really cool.

Note to self- in a land where subtlety is king, always assume they notice EVERYTHING you say. Everything. This likely will be important in the future. These teachers are awesome people.

So the gift? A jar of Japanese "Starch Candy"- a bright green, viscous liquid that honestly looks like Godzilla blew his nose into a glass jar and sealed it up. This stuff is so much more awesome than it looks. The teacher suggested I eat it with a spoon, but a student of mine clued me in in Pantomime English (they love using the language, so much that they refuse to give me vital information in Japanese that could in fact save my life- they'd rather have a go in English for at least twenty minutes before giving up. This is, in my opinion, AWESOME. Makes my job cake.) that the real technique is to spin the chopsticks around each other until a glob sort of congeals around them, held in place by the constant twirling of the chopsticks- and then, ever twirling, you lift that spinning gloop to your mouth and stuff it in. So I can share it later, I only had one spinning bite- no re-dips - and it was awesome. Who knew that food tasted better when subjected to constant rotation?

Evidently, this student did. So when Dockett visits this weekend, he's gotta try some, and we'll get pictures- kind of hard to spin the gloop and snap a picture of it- it's a two-hand procedure.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday- this has been a heck of a day, and I didn't really do anything. I think I spent a few hours cleaning the house, I went to Starbucks, and now I'm going to get some rest before a sure-to-be epic weekend.

I'll hit everyone's questions with the megapost that's sure to happen Monday. I've got a list of sites to see in Kyoto- some I posted about, some new ones- and I'm going to show City Mouse around the country here, provided there isn't another typhoon.

Though, before it's over, a quick word on the curriculum here- I know at least one person's curious. We teach from a set of government-prescribed textbooks that teach directly to the High Schol Entrance Exams. We're supposed to prep the students for these exams, so they get into a good high school and subsequently lead productive lives. More often than not, the teachers realize that just teaching to the test is going to kill these kids' interest in the subject, so they're having me be Mr. Games and teach things that AREN'T in the book- likely so that they know that the book stuff's covered, they've got that, and while I'm here I get to be the good cop and make English fun.

These three grades we teach go from Absolute Beginner English (Hello!, color names, body parts) all the way up to imperatives (must/have to/will) to conditional sentences (if... then) and their last year's book is full of interestingly bleak little short stories for reading comprehension- one's about a lullaby to a child dying of radiation sickness in Hiroshima. The next page moves along as if nothing was out of place. Culture shock? Maybe. But it still strikes me as pretty weird, and more than a little morbid. So these kids are larning a whole gamut of English words and phrases- "I'm fine, thank you!" and "The little boy never woke up again." are given equal treatment.

This is not an isolated incident- there's at least one other crazily morbid story in the 3rd year book. It looks to just be a 3rd year thing- kind of Zen. Your middle school years are ending, so let's learn about death. In English.

I really don't look forward to the day they ask me to make a lesson plan out of that one, though.

Today's classes were more talkative than yesterday's- it looks like talking a lot is only a problem in Japan if everyone else is silent. If everyone talks, so much the better- and my teachers expressed just such a sentiment. If one student talks in a quiet class, they're acting out. If the whole class does it, they're "genki"- "super happy active sunshine happiness", in the words of one Conservative Princess. Hello Kitty is the archetypal "Genki" personality. Guess it's still all a group-cohesiveness thing.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. Let's Enjoy Culture Happy Exchanges Together.

Pax.