My Students - (The Babies)

I spend a large part of my time in Japan teaching people English. For these people, they are taking one hour out of their day to interact with the brown-skinned, gaijin with funny hair. For me, it's like an endless parade of the same people walking in and out of my classroom, creating a collage of experiences and conversations that paint a picture of my day, and then week, and then month.

So being that I spend nearly 70% of my time with these people, I might as well tell you about some of them. Every week, I'll write a little about my experiences with the more interesting ones out of the bunch (until I run out). I'll start with the youngest of the group . . .

The Babies

The babies are cute, chubby and adorable . . . AT FIRST. Then you realize that you have to keep their attention, make them happy and actually teach them something. That's when they start to look like little samurai warriors that you have to conquer.

I have about 3 of these classes. In one of my classes (my most interesting one), I have a 2 year old student, who is adorable, energetic, talkative, curious and outspoken UNTIL I step foot into the room, that is. That's when she transforms into a limp, sarcastic, straight faced, bored, cigarette smoking, 50 year old woman that I can't get to do ANYTHING. "Can you say Apple?" I desperately plead. She gives me "the brick face" shakes her head "no" (sometimes actually says "no") yawns and looks out the window. Her mother smiles at me with the "kids will be kids" look. I plead some more and she smirks at me, goes limp and lays out on the floor. Try to touch her and she angrily jerks her body away from me as if to say, "Don't TOUCH me." And it's 40 minutes of this. 40 minutes of me (and her mother) begging, dancing, and pulling out a million-and-one props to try to get this kid up off of the floor. It's during this class that I always thank God that there are no video cameras to document what my life has been reduced to. I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I am when her class is finally over and I can relax my face from the fake smile that I have plastered on the whole, entire time. I guess the little girl is relieved too because she hops up off the floor, grabs her bag and cheerfully says "Goodbye Sensei!", goes wobbling toward the door and ushers her servant mom to follow. The funny part is that when I walk into the lobby, she tries to play with me and even attempts to have a conversation. By then, I'm so exhausted and frustrated that it doesn't even matter to me anymore.

My other baby class is with 3 three-year-olds. These children (2 boys and a girl) are cute and pretty smart but one of them is really strange and hilarious. When I first taught this class, the other two students were absent and he was crying and begging not to come in. With his strangely large head and tiny, frail body, I didn't even think he was old enough to be in the class in the first place. I ended up just holding him and singing the ABC song over and over again as he quietly weeped on my shoulder. The next week when all of the students were in the class, his mother carried his limp body into the room, propped him up against the wall and left. He slumped over in the corner and wouldn't move. His eyes were glazed over and he stared up at the ceiling in silence. At first, I was worried . . . and began checking his vital signs to make sure he was still alive, but then when I felt a pulse and noticed that nobody else seemed to care, I assumed that he was mentally handicapped and decided to treat the situation like Japan treats the mentally ill . . . just ignore it and act like everything's fine. Occasionally, I made attempts to involve him in the activities but being that he'd mentally checked out, my efforts were futile and I didn't waste too much time begging him.

In these particular classes, the parents aren't involved in the lesson, which is actually fine because at this age (for the most part) the children's independence level is starting to develop and they want to play games and be physical more-so than sit on mommy's lap. So the next week in class, everything is going as usual. "Silent Boy" as I called him in my mind, laid slumped over in his usual corner of the room and I sat on the floor showing flash cards to the other 2 children, singing songs and playing games when the weirdest thing happened. He stood up. And I have to tell you, it creeped. me. out. It just happened out of nowhere. He's slumped over in his regular spot, I reach behind me to grab a prop and when I turn back around, he's standing at eye level, right in front of me. My heart silently exploded in my chest. "Wha-what are you doing?" I tried to say in my bubbly, cutesy voice.

Now it's important for me to describe this kid because he has a really unique look. His hair is the typical "bowl cut" that you see from time to time around here. He's always sweaty (which isn't unusual because it's very humid in Japan right now) but the sweat makes his hair stick up in a strange way accentuating his large, egg shaped head. His mouth is always slightly agape and his eyes are always half closed, but rather than opening them completely, he tilts his head back to look at you. Also, he has the longest, straightest eyelashes that I have ever seen on a child.

So he's standing in front of me and staring down at me and saying something in Japanese. The other children are in shock because I don't think they've ever seen him move. I nod my head and say, "Hai" a couple of times and then he turns around and plants himself in my lap and slumps over. I guess this is progress, I thought to myself.

So the next week in class, he does the same thing. Except this time, he quietly wanders about the classroom, standing and staring at the ceiling (or me, or the wall). The little girl in the group, notices that occasionally I attempt to place the little plastic bowling ball into his hand in order to initiate his participation but he pays me no mind and allows the ball to drop from his limp fingers over and over again. When it's her turn to throw the bowling ball, she walks over to Silent Boy and places the ball in his hand and essentially tells him (in Japanese, of course, and in her 3 year old way) to say the funny English word that "Sensei's" been repeating over and over again and throw the ball at the pins. The little boy looks at her with his head tilted back and says nothing. She repeats herself in a gentle, coaxing voice and attempts to guide his hand in the direction of the colorful pins. They throw the ball together and knock down a few pins. He smiles a little bit. Success!

The next week, he participates a little bit more, as long as the girl is there to help him (typical boy). But for the most part, he still says absolutely nothing, pays no attention to the lesson and occasionally slumps in his favorite corner, stands in random parts of the room staring at the wall or just sits slumped over in my lap.

At the end of class the parents walk into the room and watch as I show them what their children learned that day. This usually consists of me holding up flash cards with pictures and a word and seeing if the children will say the associated language. In this class, the children never remember the word and I usually have to coax them into saying anything at all in front of their parents.

Well, one particular Saturday, the parents walk into the room and sit down next to their children and wait for me to start going through the day's vocabulary (as usual). I hold up a card and no one says anything (as usual). After a lot of coaxing and a weak, mispronounced response from the usual little girl and boy, I moved onto the next card - a picture of a bird - and to my amazement Silent Boy yells out "A bird, a bird!" I almost fell over and died. This child, who's slumped over in every square foot of the room at any given time and had never looked up at anything that I was doing (or so I thought) had grasped the English vocabulary better than the other 2 who were active participants at every stage of the lesson.

Even his mother was shocked. It was amazing. Now, every week I look forward to seeing what this strange child will do next. He is now an active participant in class, but it's always something different with him. Like last week, he and the other boy had some kind of huge falling out. They were both competing for my attention and things got heated to the point where they were arguing, ignoring each other and exchanging these prolonged, silent "hateful" stares. (I in no way condone "hateful staring contests" but I have to say it. was. HILARIOUS). This continued for about 30 minutes of the class until, I guess, they both came to a truce and decided that they would work together. It was nice to see them make up and for a moment, I wished that mankind would take a lesson from these three year olds boys.

All right, so now you've met some of my younger students or as I like to call them, "birth control."

Next week, I'll be talking about the kindergardeners.

Silly Ahmeddicans

Okay, so I've already covered the common stereotypes that (most) Americans have about Japanese people. But do you reeeally think that they don't have some stereotypes about us? Well, if not then you're sadly mistaken and you might want to prepare yourself, because I plan to name a few of them right now. To a degree, I feel like this post is a little premature because there are some students that I have yet to ask about American stereotypes and they are a colorful group so their input would be greatly appreciated. But I'll list what I have so far and if there are any additions, I'll give you an update. Let's get started, shall we?

#1 - Americans LOVE to party

We party every single night, my student told me. We just love to get our "fun" on. But what's a party without beer and about 50 or 60 of our closest friends. This leads to the next 2 stereotypes.

#2 - Americans LOVE liquor and drink a lot

"Americans can drink lots and lots of liquor," my student said.

"Really?" I asked her.

She nodded.

"Well, I can't."

She tilted her head and looked confused. "You can't?"

"No," I told her. "One drink is enough for me."

Her - "WOW!"

And at that moment, an angel got their wings.

#3 - Americans LOVE large bars

The bars that we go to have the ability to hold hundreds of people and we fill those suckers up. People everywhere, with lots of yelling, drunken dancing, and spilled drinks. Now I've gone to a couple of those in my college days, so I had nothing but a smile and a guilty expression when she mentioned this stereotype. Also, it's important for me to note that a lot of the "watering holes" (at least the ones that I've gone to in my little town of Kurashiki, Japan) are very small and quiet. They can hold a capacity of maybe 20 people.

#4 - Americans Will Drive a Car Until the Wheels Fall Off

In Japan, people change their cars every 5 years because it's cheaper that way. Otherwise, they have to pay really high fees to get their yearly checkup. When she explained that it costs the equivalent of 1,000 American dollars a year JUST for the checkup, not counting of course the oil changes (which get more expensive, the older the car is) as well as the taxes, I understood why one would just shell out the bucks yen to buy a new car. She said that Americans drive cars until they die. After living in a country where every car is shiny and new, I can totally understand why she feels that way.

#5 - Americans Eat Hamburgers Every Day

That's prettymuch it. We eat them every day, kind of like the equivalent of English people drinking tea at a certain time every day . . . except our tea would be hamburgers. Big, greasy, hamburgers.

#6 - American Children Are Fed Ice Cream Every Night

And not just a regular bowl of ice cream . . . a huge bowl with scoop upon scoop of ice cream, towering as high as the child's head. I only say this because when I repeated my student and asked, "Children eat ice cream every day?" she shook her head vehemently and said, "No, no, no . . . BIG . . . big bowls of ice cream." and began to make what looked like a hand signal for humongous mountain or something and began shoveling it into her mouth. "Got, it!" I said.

#7 - Americans Are Very Nice

Maybe she just said this because she'd unloaded a few gut punches on me - with the "Americans eat hamburgers every day" (and drink, and spoil our children and pretty much have no class, LOL). But I don't think so, I actually think she meant this. She made a reference to a famous Japanese comedian who has a funny skit where he goes to America and jumps out of odd places, attempting to scare (and anger, I guess) the Americans. She says that everyone just laughed or smiled but no one got angry. She said if he'd have tried that mess in Japan, he would have gotten punched in his face. I laughed. I suspect that if some small, asian man jumped out of an odd place, attempting to scare me, my laughing, getting angry (or crying) might depend on the situation. Either way, it was hard for me not to think about the guy from "The Hangover," when she mentioned this.

#8 - America Is At the Top of the Technology Food Chain

According to my student, America has the latest gizmos, gadgets, whatchama-doozits and computers. I was shocked to hear this particular American stereotype because I assumed that Japan was the technology capital of the world, but when she said it . . . I couldn't help but to nod my head and grin. Yeah! One point for us!!! :-)

#9 - Americans Put Our Children to Bed Early

I then asked her, "What's early?"

And she says, "Nine pm."

So then of course I had to ask her what time Japanese people generally put their children to bed. She said maybe around 12am. Now, of course this is a subjective question. Maybe there are some Japanese parents who put their children to bed before 12, but generally all of my students have told me that they go to bed pretty late. Either way, my bedtime (and all of the bedtimes of the children that I grew up with - who had decent families - went to bed at around 9pm.) I thought it was really strange that she thought this was early. But if this is a stereotype about Americans . . . I feel comfortable enough to generalize and say that it's true.

#10 - Americans Have Happy Children

Because they all eat so much ice cream and go to bed early, of course.

#11 - Americans Travel All Over the World

I told her that only the Americans with lots of money and lots of time to do this. When she mentioned this stereotype, however, it helped me to understand why so many people looked at me cross eyed when I told them that this was my first time out of the country. A lot of times when the Japanese mention to me all of the places that they've been, they'll ask me if I've been there too. "No," I say. And then comes, the look followed by, "Why not?" Either way, my student told me that it's a common belief that Americans are very worldly and it's nothing for them to hop on an airplane and go to a foreign country. I guess my very presence in Japan does nothing to discourage that stereotype.

#12 - All Americans Have Big Houses and Big Yards

Well, not all of us, I told her. But yes, there are a number of big houses and spacious yards in America. Especially where I used to live in New Jersey. In Japan, I've seen a few nice, large homes . . . but I have yet to see a large yard.

So that's all I got for now. Personally, I thought about a lot of these stereotypes and I can totally understand why some of these views about American culture exists. You can really see the differences between the Japanese and American culture by examining some of them. Either way, I refuse to substantiate or oppose any of these stereotypes . . . I'll leave that to you. What do you think?