| Thursday, June 22, 2006 |
| Hangin' around this old town (for way, way, way, way, too long)... |
Home Sweet... Ho? Me? 
As I have a habit of leaving at all given (and plenty of taken) opportunities, spending an entire week in my own town was unusual. Having anyone to talk to or eat with is also unusual, and I found myself relaxed for the first time in months. Two different times when my parents were dealing with jet-lag mid-afternoon, I even (ssshhhhhh!! don't blow my bionic cover!) napped.
 Since I couldn't take any time off anyway, my parents humoured me and tagged along to 2 days of elementary school lessons. The Friday morning after they arrived was blazing hot, and we spent one period out in the sun watching the kids plant sweet potatoes as the principal (or as Mom would say, "kochi senso") babbled away to me in semi-comprehensible old-man Japanese and waited for me to translate. Honestly, I had to make half of it up, but no one was the wiser. Monday we visited my base elementary school and had some really fun lessons. My favorite class is of 5th grade punks that are so sharp and hilarious, but steamroll the homeroom teacher given the chance, so my parents got to see me wrangling kids with more personality and vivacity than the average allotment. We also toured the attached kindergartens/ preschools, which was a thrill for my mom since she teaches parent education. My mom was very impressed at all the free play, art stations, and self-directed projects, and remarked to me, "It's so Reggio!" (That's not new slang. Ignore if you're not a child-development dork.)
 The first school we went to was the one where all the kids from my neighborhood attend-- the teachers are great, but the school is a bit more rundown and there is a higher proportion of kids with blackened rotting teeth. The water here is not fluorinated, which wouldn't be a problem if the toothpaste contained fluoride or another cavity-fighting agent. Of course, it rarely does. The kids and teachers do brush their teeth together after school lunch-- great dental hygiene, right? No. They are using tiny tiny ineffective toothbrushes, don't really brush, and don't actually use toothpaste. It's all for show and the demon cavities triumph. When the Pavlov Does Dentistry music clicked on at the end of school lunch, my mom nearly fell off her (tiny tiny) chair when all the kids started brushing in unison, right at the table. That school uses an upbeat J-pop song with "Back left!"/ "Front!"/ "Back right!" instructions dubbed in between verses.
 Back Molars! Rotting-out baby teeth on the left! Rotting-out baby teeth on the right!
My junior high school nurse last year was on a dental-hygiene campaign and gave me a great explanation of what is wrong with tooth health in this country. At home, many parents (particularly those of the lower socioeconomic and education strata) do not brush their children's baby teeth. The attitude is that they will just fall out anyway, which they do, in various stages of rot and decay. By the time a kid is 6 or 7, he's not in the habit of brushing, and is at risk for gum disease and so forth. One of the wealthiest nations on the planet, but the problem lies not in lack of resources but lack of logic.
 And here's some more lack of logic-- my thrice-weekly transport to work. For reasons unknown to me or anyone, my nowhere town board of education deflects reason and bleeds money. I own a car, am well-insured, and have a (nearly pristine) Japanese driver's license, but am expressly prohibited to drive to 5 of my schools. Three would take about an hour by bicycle, all uphill on the way there, and I'm not extreme enough, nor do I want to show up to my job soaked with sweat and have to get ready in the ladies' room. I could drive my own car for less than $1 of petrol. This taxi costs $50-$70 roundtrip, 2-3 times a week, for about 20 months. Care to do the math? Adam has some old-timey phrase about watching your pennies, and the pence will take care of themselves. No pennies here, but I suspect they use 1man notes ($100) to sop up coffee spills. I think that if the Japanese economy is at risk of collapse, it will come as no surprise to anyone who has lived here. The taxi forgot to pick me up one day last month, so I decided I would just drive, got halfway there, and called my school out of a mixture of guilt and fear. The vice principal nearly went into cardiac arrest when I suggested I could drive myself, and hyperventilated in Japanese before shouting "No car! No car!! WAIT!!" in English. I raced back home, and then proceeded to foolishly wait another half hour like someone's unwanted prom date before my taxi brought me to school in time to miss half of my first lesson.
 I had a few of my friends from town over to meet my parents on Sunday. (Rie next to me, her husband Noriatsu in back, and Emiko next to my mother.) They've been so nice to me since the first week I arrived, and we do scrambled English-Japanese get togethers every few weeks. Rie and her husband just moved to Hiroshima last month-- I'm going to miss them!
 On Tuesday, my mom came with me to one lesson at junior high, which was about as stimulating as watching paint dry. (I like basketball. Do you like basketball? No, I don't. I don't like basketball. Replace noun, repeat X20.) I love my kids, but it's so hard to see them looking a little more beaten down by the system with each passing term. Maybe that is universal as kids grow up, but here it all happens at the same time, in the same way, and for the same reasons. In the evening, my parents joined my fledging attempt at a town eikaiwa (English conversation) group, and it was actually loads of fun despite Adametal's skepticism. My dad talked to my sister on the phone while I was at school, and he informed me that Annabelle had said they could get really out of control. I started to panic a bit, before realizing my dad had been referring to it as an enkai, which means drinking party. Yes, those get out of hand and almost always involve someone passing out and/or making a complete fool of themselves, but the eikaiwa class was fortunately tame. Included: one of my former students, 2 housewives, my friend Emiko, her senile mother who kept trying to tell my dad secrets about America (in Japanese that even the Japanese people in the room didn't understand), the Kibichuo ALT power squad, and a PE teacher I have a crush on who had never once spoken a word of English to me at school. Adam brought some great imported tea that made me finally understand why the British are addicted to the stuff, I baked, the housewives found trays and teacups and served everything up, and I'm now ready to start a regular class in the fall. Emiko promised to network for me to get more people.
My parents left early on Wednesday for Tokyo, and flew from there to Beijing to start their big China adventure. I must say I am a little worried about them, but I think that if they can navigate the world's oddest developed nation so well, they can handle the most populous. I was very sad to see them go, and now I don't know what to do with myself. The aparto suddenly seems too big and empty. (Empty-nest syndrome?) |
posted by Raychaa @ 5:27 PM  |
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| 1 comments: |
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Your post made me homesick for my folks. I love the pic of your Dad in the slippers. You write such hilarious and poignant posts...love them!!!
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Name: Raychaa
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About Me: “No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this - 'devoted and obedient'. This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.” (Florence Nightingale)
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Your post made me homesick for my folks. I love the pic of your Dad in the slippers. You write such hilarious and poignant posts...love them!!!