Say what?!

Japanese people are very private. Despite working together for years, many coworkers never learn much about each others' personal lives. As a private person myself, I appreciate that the teachers at my school tend not to ask many invasive questions, for more than once I've been asked by American coworkers both here in Japan and in the U.S. some very nosy questions. (Funnily, though, when it comes to being sick, Japanese people are not shy about sharing exacting details of their sickness.) So, needless to say, this tendency toward extreme privacy has led to some surprising discoveries on my part.

At the April 2010 welcome enkai for all new teachers, one of my coworkers complimented me that I use ohashi better than his wife. (A grossly overstated kindness on my ability to eat with chopsticks, I know.) However, it wasn't until December 2010 when another teacher and I were riding in his car to the end-of-second-term enkai that I learned he has a baby, which the car seat sitting conspicuously in the back seat couldn't hide. But it was only last week at the undoukai (sports festival) enkai that he shared that this "baby" is three years old. Maybe next year he'll tell me if his kid is a boy or a girl!

One Friday this summer, the teacher who sits next to me, who also happens to be the teacher with whom I talk the most since she speaks great English, told me that she was leaving school early and that she wouldn't be back until midweek the following week. That evening, when I went to visit an AET friend who'd been in the hospital for a couple of weeks, who should I run into at the hospital but that same teacher whose husband had had surgery that afternoon.

Then today, I received my third and most surprising bit of information about one of my coworkers. When I was talking with the jimuin (teachers' room manager) about what was happening with the youchiensei (kindergarteners) on the playground this morning (as I was supposed to teach them English and hadn't been informed of the change in schedule), she told me that they were learning how to run properly from a famous Japanese sprinter. When I asked if he was an Olympian, she told me that, while he isn't/wasn't an Olympic-level runner, apparently he's not too far from being/having been at the top of his sport. Then, quite out of the blue, she told me that the school nurse's husband was an Olympian and that he'd won a bronze medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. I was floored! Last year when the school nurse's desk was next to mine, I'd told her that I wanted to visit Nagano before I left Japan. And she showed me the hockey puck that she'd bought in Nagano when she visited there in 1998 and now uses as a paperweight. Not once did she say that she bought it when she went to watch her husband compete!

I wonder what other interesting biographical bits of information my teachers are hiding.

Until next time...

Kukkiman (Gingerbread Man)

When people ask me about my hobby, I'm always hesitant to answer because it's not exciting, unique, or accomplished. In fact, I'm especially embarrassed by my hobby here, as it seems like every Japanese person is able to do at least one thing extraordinarily well. So I share with you, somewhat sheepishly, that my hobby is reading. But my hobby is particularly useful in my classes.

Since the books that I read are large and colorfully illustrated and they don't understand much of the English, many students pay more attention to the pictures than the story. While I'm not an actor by any means, my love of books makes me want to get animated when reading to kids because my sudden maniacal laughter or jump into the air catches them off-guard, makes them laugh, and perhaps helps them start listening for words they know rather than just hearing my words as noise.

This month with sannensei (third graders), we've been studying the verb can. So last week I read The Gingerbread Man to them. The Gingerbread Man escapes from the woman's oven and runs through a field past a farmer and through the woods past a dog before finding its journey toward freedom impeded by a river. (Perhaps there are variations on the story because the version that I read to my students last week didn't draw forth any hazy recollections from my long-term memory.) Anyway... the Gingerbread Man spies a crocodile in the river and asks it for help in fording the river. When I got to the part where the crocodile stops in the middle of the river [SPOILER ALERT], I opened my mouth wide, snapped my jaws shut, and swallowed audibly before reading, "SNAP! GULP!" The kids were stunned into silence before one boy shouted out, "Kawaisou! (Pathetic!)" and everyone started laughing. Apparently, Japanese fairy tales aren't quite so sinister.

Until next time...