Uncomfortable conversations…

Last week, I got into a bit of trouble about my time card.  I gave my supervisor my October time card at the beginning of November, and she emailed me and said that she had checked it, and I was “late” a couple of days.  I knew that I hadn’t been late, so I asked her to explain.  She said that I had clocked in at 8:35AM (the time I am required to be at school) and was late.  While I knew that it was customary in Japan to arrive at work 5-10 minutes before your actual shift, I never knew that I was going to be considered “late” for arriving ON TIME.      Someone please explain this to me!  I usually do clock in a few minutes beforehand, but I guess those days I didn’t.  Here’s the kicker: the clock in the office that I use for my time card is five minutes fast.  Every other clock in the school is normal, but that ONE clock is five minutes fast.  If I clock in at 8:35, the actual time is 8:30.  Even though I’m there five minutes early (like a good little Japanese employee), according to my time card, I’m not.  My supervisor told me that I need to get to work five minutes BEFORE I’m supposed to be there and should be clocking in at that time.  Even though I’m not technically supposed to be at work until 8:35, she wants me to clock in at 8:30…….which is actually 8:25, meaning that I now have to arrive at work ten minutes before I’m actually supposed to be there.  Blarg.  I know that I shouldn’t complain about this because I’m very fortunate to have such a great job, but little things like this get under my skin.  I always stay a couple of minutes after my clock out time, and if you added up my total number of work hours, I’m positive that it would exceed the thirty-five hours I’m required to work each week.  Plus, I didn’t clock out until 5:20 (a whole hour later than normal) the day of the English speech competition because that’s what time we got back to Yunomae.  However, I get chastised for clocking in ON TIME…..  Sometimes I will never understand Japan…..

Anyway, onto a happier subject.  I was extremely giddy about some of my kids and the things they did last week.  My two third grade girls who I helped with the speech contest gave me the SWEETEST thank you card!  One of the girls caught me outside the library at break time and asked me to wait there for a second.  She went and brought back her contest partner and together they gave me the thank you card.    It was SO SWEET and appreciated!  It said:

Dear Ms. Melissa,

Thank you for teaching us last time.  You are a good teacher.  Sweets are very good!  [I gave them a candy bag for participating in the contest.]  We love you! 

It was just so sweet and so unexpected!  It’s things like that that make me love the individuals from my third grade.    Every day in my classes, we play hot potato as a warm up game.  I try to tailor the questions to something in reference to pop culture or something like “Are you a monkey?” to get their attention and make them laugh.  I think I mentioned in a couple of blogs back that two of my third grade girls confessed their love of One Direction to me.  I made sure that I threw in a One Direction question during our morning hot potato warm up game, and you should have seen those girls light up!!    As soon as they heard “One Direction,” both looked at each other and squealed (like teenage girls do).  The final cute thing that made me feel great was that three of my third grade girls came up to me after class.  They caught me in the hallway and had their textbooks in hand, flipping through and asking every question that they could find. 

“What….are….you….doing…..now?”  “Are….you….going….to….the….library….tomorrow?”  “What….is…your….favorite….food?”   

I was so proud of them for trying so hard.  Plus, approaching me like that definitely took a lot of courage! 

Ironically I also have a funny story from my third grade class at the elementary school.  Last Wednesday we went over animals (dog, cat, frog, elephant, etc) in class.  When I hung up the pig card, one of the girls in the first row said, “Oishi so!” (Looks delicious!)  I had to stifle my laughter because it was hilarious!!!

All week last week at the JHS there was a group of tree trimmers.  There is quite a lot of bush landscaping around the JHS, and they spent the entire week perfectly manicuring the bushes and rounding off the evergreen trees to make them look like perfect mounds of green.  It didn’t surprise me that it took them all week to complete the task.  Japanese gardens are very precise and manicured.  Think of a zen garden and how EVERY rock has its place, every twig has its distinct length.  Yes, everything definitely is trimmed or sculpted to perfection in a Japanese garden.  On the downside the sounds of the tree trimmers could be heard throughout the school for the entirety of the week.  I could hear the weed eaters and hedge trimmers in every classroom and could watch the trimmers meticulously sculpt a bush from the teacher’s room.

After the election last week, I got into QUITE the discussion with two of my co-workers.  We were the only three in the teacher’s room on Thursday afternoon, and they started asking me about the election.  “Did you get to vote this year?  Who did you vote for?  Are you happy with the results?  Why are so many Americans upset?”  It was totally cool UNTIL the subject of Okinawa was brought up.   

Back story on Okinawa:  A LOT of bad things happened to the locals there during the war when the Americans conquered, and many Japanese still harbor ill will for that.  Fast forward a few decades….after most of Japan was rebuilt, Okinawa continued to be the BIG military hub of Japan.  There are several bases around Japan, but Okinawa definitely has the most military of any other prefecture in Japan.  Many Japanese believe that the American troops need to leave Japan.  They still see the troops as the “conquering forces” and feel like they need to leave ASAP.  I can see both sides of this issue because when we were in Okinawa, it was definitely less like Japan and more like America.  There was gum on the sidewalks, trash in the streets, and Okinawa has the highest crime rate of all Japanese prefectures.  It’s the one place in Japan where I haven’t felt 100% safe.  Not only that, but the military in Okinawa are often rude to the locals.  Whenever we went to shops or restaurants, the clerks or workers would always say things like “You’re not military, are you?”  When we said no, we asked them how they could tell.  They told us that most military don’t bother to learn Japanese and seem to have a more arrogant attitude about them whereas we actually tried to use Japanese and would say “excuse me” if we bumped into anyone.  Bottom line: There are many, MANY Japanese who don’t like the troops and want them to leave.  HOWEVER, if the troops left, two things would happen.  a) Okinawa’s economy would tank.  The economy is based on two things: tourism and military.  Without the military, the island wouldn’t be able to support itself.  b) Some other country like China or North Korea would gladly try to take over Japan.  There is a deep, DEEP hatred between those countries and Japan.  As is now, they won’t mess with Japan because they know that the American troops are here.  However, if the military left……..

Okay, so back to the teacher’s room last Thursday….. my JTE asked me how I felt about the military in Japan.  I AUTOMATICALLY knew I was in deep doo-doo because there was no way I could correctly answer that question.  If I said that it was good, I risked the possibility of them disagreeing with me.  If I said that I wasn’t for it, I would be lying.    I finally said that I thought that it was OK.  My JTE recoiled a bit, so I asked him how he felt about it.  He said, “Many Japanese do not like.  Many Japanese want them to leave.”  …..meaning that HE doesn’t like the military and HE wishes that they would leave.  *insert cricket noises*  There was an awkward pause, but thankfully it was then time for me to go home.  I was glad!        

My finally story of this blog is about a lady who I randomly met.  I took off my recycling the other day.  We have a recycling center in town where we can just drop off our stuff.  As I was finishing up, a car pulled up and a lady got out to drop off her own recycling.  When she saw me, she seemed kind of surprised.  I greeted her and dropped off the last of my recycling.  When I went to get back on my bike, I noticed that she was still staring at me.  It wasn’t like she was being rude, but she was just curious.  We had the following conversation (in Japanese, of course):

Lady: Hey….so…..where are you from?

Me: I’m from America.  From Kentucky.

Lady: Kentucky……Oh!  Like KFC!

Me: Yeah. 

Lady: So…….what are you doing here?

Me: I’m the ALT.

Lady: The what?

Me: The ALT.  The English teacher.  I work at the JHS and ES.

Lady: Really?  How long have you lived here?

Me: Since August a year ago.

Lady: Really?  Where do you live?  Do you like Japan?

Me: Oh, yes!  I live over there [I pointed in the general direction of my neighborhood.] by the JHS.  I like Japan, Kumamoto, Yunomae, the inaka.  I like it all!

It totally blew me away that this lady had NEVER even heard of me!  I’ve been here for a year and a half, been in the town paper a couple of times, ride my bike through town all the time, but she had NEVER heard of/seen me.  WHERE DID THIS WOMAN COME FROM?!?! 

Anyway, that’s all for now.  Stay tuned for more fun blogs!