Mayu and me on our trip to Awaji Island.
I guess the culture shock has finally crept up on me. Sometimes I feel that it's rather futile to try to make learning English interesting, and I'm continually frustrated with the Japanese education system's lack of punishment and discipline. At least when I was a student, the bad students who made no attempt at their school work were only a very few, and even the bad kids made some effort to do their homework. And for students who refuse to cooperate or who keep disrupting the lessons, they can be removed and sent to the principal's office. That was the ultimate punishment, to have a lecture by the principal and to have your parents called to have a conference with your teacher. And if you get really bad grades, you would be forced to repeat the same grade again when you're a year older than the rest of the kids, and that was simply unthinkable. In America, students caught napping are punished. Students who are doing something they shouldn't be doing would be punished with detention or worse, and students playing with something or writing notes would have them confiscated by the teachers. Here in Japan, the students are the ones with the true power. The teachers have no real power. If they try to take something away from a student, the student can easily shout something at their teacher and yank it right back. At that point, the teacher immediately gives up and tries asking politely to pay attention, and it never works. I've worked with a few teachers who actually have control of their classes and actually make English fun enough to get the kids to participate. But unfortunately most of the teachers aren't like this.
I've talked to some of the older teachers, and they say that students have changed for the worse over the past ten or so years. Back in the 80's everyone thought that Japanese students were so much smarter and well-disciplined than American students because they had some high test scores, wore uniforms, cleaned the schools, and many attend juku cram schools. Some teachers here are surprised when I say that we don't have juku in America, except for the high school ones for kids to do well on the SAT test. I say we don't need them, because first of all we only have entrance exams for college and not high school. And I also mention that if some students are more advanced than others, they attend honors classes in which they learn at an accelerated pace, above what the average students are learning. At least where I am working in Himeji, I guess that most students don't attend juku.
The system here just sucks. It takes no effort to graduate junior high. You don't need good grades, and you don't even need to show up to class most of the time. The system lets these kids slide by without holding them back if necessary to make sure they learn. They set these kids up to be wiped out because they can't go on to high school. In America, if you pass the eighth grade, you're assured to go on to high school. Here, the students have to apply to a high school and pass a difficult entrance exam. So much stress shouldn't be placed on these kids at their age. They're too young to seriously think about their futures. Students who fail their entrance exams have been known to commit suicide. And the students who give up on trying to study have no chance to change their mind later on and end up working at convenience stores and gas stations. Years ago, all that bullcrap about "It's your duty to society to be a good student" used to work, but these days Japanese students just don't care. I mainly blame the breakdown of Japanese families, and working parents who work long hours don't pay enough attention to their kids. As a result, schools in Japan are degrading at a rapid rate. Unfortunately, we ALTs have to give up on the notion of making a difference and actually educating the kids in English in order to keep our wits. I'll just drive myself crazy if I care too much about the classes I teach and trying in vain to get the kids to cooperate. But the part of me that wants to do my job well has a difficult time with that. I try not to care when the students show no interest in my classes and not even regard me as a real human being with feelings, but I still want to do a good job and make English fun. I don't know what to think about the role of an ALT in Japan anymore.
I've learned not to get too attached to the students I like. At the end of August, I returned to the same school I worked at a year ago. I was really looking forward to coming back to this school last summer to be with the kids I like so much, only to find out that many of them are no longer friendly. I really liked the first grade junior high kids last year because they were so friendly. I even considered them as friends. So it was a bit painful when I came back to discover that some of them no longer talk to me, and one girl in particular avoids eye contact with me. I don't know why my popularity plummeted while I was teaching at another school last spring and summer. When I left back in March, I was very popular. All I know is that once the kids are in the second grade, all the puberty stuff kicks in at the age of 14 and they become so moody and unpleasant. It just gets worse as they progress in age.
But, I still enjoy the time I can spend with the students. I'm not very interested in teaching English per se, but I do enjoy being with the students. There are a handful of kids who always visit me every day. I've became acquainted with some students that I didn't know last year. There are still students from last year who still think I'm pretty cool. But I've decided to mainly just pay attention to the boys who are friendly, since they have proven to be not as flaky as the girls. Interacting with the kids outside of class is the best part of the job, I think. I can't imagine what it would be like if I was the kind of ALT who can't carry a conversation in Japanese, because usually I just talk in Japanese with the kids. If I spoke only English, most kids would be hesitant to approach me, I think. And since I'm different than the rest of the teachers, it affords me a kind of popularity that the rest of the teacher's can't enjoy.
One thing is for sure though: this is probably the easiest job I'll ever have. There are six class periods plus a lunch in between. During such a typical day, I only teach from one to five classes. Days like today I take my laptop to work to catch up on e-mail. I only taught two classes today. Despite the frustration this job may give me (especially since I really don't have a clue on how to teach, especially to students who don't speak the same language), this really is a cheesecake job. I've become much more literate and I'm reading so many books I've bought over the years that I haven't had time to read while I was a college student.
From left to right: my wife Mayu-chan, me, Mike and Lou overlooking the Akashi Bridge.
We all climbed into my wife's small little Suzuki Alto and drove to the island. Driving on the Akashi bridge is rather expensive. Basically anywhere you drive to in Japan, you will have to pay to use the highways, and to use the bridge is a bit pricey. But the experience is impressive when you realize the size of the bridge. The suspension pillars are very tall and you can't help your eyes from wandering up to the top. It's a magnificent bridge.
There isn't a whole lot to see on the island, which can be expected since it is a small island after all. The first place we went (after eating lunch at a cute little cafe) was the earthquake museum constructed on top of the epicenter of the great earthquake that decimated Kobe back in 1995. During most earthquakes, at the fault lines the earth either rubs together horizontally or up and down. What made this particular earthquake so destructive is that it moved both horizontally and vertically, and at the museum you can see the actual fault line at the epicenter and take a tour through the nearby house that was ruined and see how the fence was displaced. There's also a photography exhibit of the destruction the earthquake caused in Kobe. Entire city blocks on fire, elevated highways and train lines toppled, and even one building fell over on its side with its structure intact. The one good thing about the earthquake is that Kobe has been rebuilt and improved. It's a beautiful modern city after the all devastation and deaths years ago.
It was a fun day. I don't get to spend time with my friends back home much. And now that Mike has moved back home to Arizona, my wife's the only person I spend time with anymore. It's kind of a bummer not having any other friends, but Mayu is all I need. She is my ultimate companion for life.
Lou borrowed a very fancy Sony digital camera from a friend of his. I'd like to get a digicam for myself one of these days, but I'm too busy saving my money right now. His Sony digicam is capable of taking short movie MPEGs. A few of these are available for viewing for those with high bandwidth connections or lots of patience. The first movie is the drive on the bridge, soundtrack courtesy of Simple Minds. The second one is of me and Mayu-chan jumping around like happy weirdos, commentary provided by Mike and Lou. Click on the pictures below to watch them. Each are about 5.3 megs and 15 seconds each. It's almost as exciting as downloading the new Star Wars movie trailer.
Everything is so expensive here that it's truly making me appreciate my own country even more than before. For example, I had to pay about seven hundred dollars last month on Mayu's car just to have it pass an inspection known as sha-ken. Everyone who owns a car in Japan is expected to have it inspected every two years and pay a thousand dollars or more. I can imagine that it would cost that much if they took out the car's engine and then reassembled it for quality purposes, but I doubt that their inspection is really that thorough. It is a total conspiracy between the government and auto manufacturers to get people to constantly buy newer cars, but people here take it as normal life. Food is so expensive, customer service is gushing with sweetness and politeness but is nevertheless impersonal and not very helpful, banks are only open five hours a day and their ATMs aren't open 24 hours and you have to pay a fee to use them on weekends.
So living in Japan can be rather irritating and inconvenient at times, but it's still a wonderful experience. I've learned just as much about my own country as I have about this one since I've been here. I've heard people say that America doesn't really have much of a culture, but that's because they haven't spent enough time in a foreign country long enough to say the words, "That's not like America" or "Man, you'd never see that in America."
If only I was looking at the right camera. It's confusing when there's two cameras pointed at me.
"And I will form: THE HEAD!"
Our trip to Awaji Island
In October, my friend Lou (aka Hidari) came to visit us on a three week tour of Japan. I met up with him in Tokyo for a few days after he arrived in the country and we went to the Tokyo Game Show together. For his last week in Japan, he stayed with us at our apartment. We took him to Kobe and showed him Chinatown, Motomachi, and Harborland. I took him to Osaka for a video game and otaku stuff shopping spree. And my friend Mike joined up with us when we took him to Awaji Island. Awaji-shima is a fairly large island between the two main islands Honshu and Shikoku. Awaji is connected to Honshu via the Akashi O-Hashi bridge, which is the longest suspension bridge in the world they say. Awaji is the only island I've been on outside of Honshu. I've never had the chance to visit the other three major islands: Shikoku, Kyushu or Hokkaido. 
After we had our fill of death and destruction, we went for a nice drive along "Sunset Line," a nice drive along the coast of the island. Mike and I rolled down the windows and shouted at students as we drove by. It's hilarious that no matter what we do, whether it's a weird noise and a funny face, an "I LOVE YOU!" or even simply just a "hello," the kids just look blankly at the car full of strange foreigners as we pass by. It's impossible to get a reaction from these lifeless adolescents. But we keep trying! We drove to the small fishing village on the southern tip of the island. From there, we took a nice cruise boat that took us out into the Seto Inland Sea under the bridge that connects Awaji to Shikoku. At that point, two currents collide and create whirlpools. Depending on the moon, you can see some rather large whirlpools. But when we were there, we only saw baby whirls in the water and several jellyfish just under the surface of the water. My brilliant insight: "They look like plastic bags."
On the way back home, we took a car ferry. It's cheaper than taking the bridge, and it provides a nice view of the bridge at night. The Akashi O-Hashi is lit up beautifully at night, and the colors gradually change with time. When we landed and got back in our car, we visited Porto Bazaar, a factory outlet mall in Kobe. We visited the really cool Lego store and got to play with the displays. The prices were pretty high though. I bought a bunch of Star Wars Legos while I was in America last summer, and they were way cheaper then. At last, we had dinner at a place called "Big Boy," which may be related to the "Bob's Big Boy" restaurants I visited as a kid. it had a nice view of the bridge.
Our apartment, and looking ahead
Mayu and I are enjoying our married life in Japan. We have a nice two room apartment that we only pay ¥8,000 per month for (about $80) since the building is owned by the city department of education which I work for. Although I don't really enjoy my job as an ALT, it pays well and I do enjoy living in Japan. My job as an ALT in Himeji has a maximum contract of two years, so I will probably be coming back home in August. I'm trying to save money so that I can take computer training classes when I come back to America. I'd like to go back to ASU and get a Masters in Information Technology. But since we're enjoying our life together here in Japan, we may want to stay an extra year by getting a job elsewhere. So I'll have to look for a job that will provide us with an apartment or at least pay the "key money." It costs a fortune just to move into a new apartment. You have to pay a non-refundable deposit of a few thousand dollars which doesn't even count towards your rent, known as "key money."
Stay tuned for the next chapter in the ongoing saga of "Greg's Life!"
Go back to the "Greg's Life" Table of Contents