Japan is not Hamilton

I’ve been in Japan for exactly one year, so that’s nice. You know what else is nice? The kids no longer look at me funny!

About a month and a half ago when nature flipped the Spring/Summer switch and turned the humidity to full, students' attitudes towards me also flipped. No longer did they glare at me like they might glare at a ghost, make a face and then pretend they never saw me, or become so elated as to form head-splitting grins and try to talk to me in English only to realise that they can’t, and subsequently that not doing their homework has real-life consequences (which I had warned them about multiple times). Instead, their grins settled down, sort of in the way a 30-something year old settles down with kids and spouse, and it became more common for them to greet me without me having to greet them first.

Nowadays, they’re no more surprised to see me out and about the town as they would be to see me in the corridors at school. This is great! (The town isn’t much bigger than the school, so there's really no need for them to get a fright when they see me living my life.)

So, while I am one of probably four foreigners in Gotsu, at least the kids now see me as a friendly giant and not just a giant.

The elderly still give me looks, though.

East Gotsu on a cloudy August day.

I don’t blame these elderly folk. I mean, think about it. Whenever you see someone you think you know, first you look at them, and then you probably go over and talk to them. This is the same as that, just with the going over and talking part cut out. I mean, what would you say? “Hey, you’re a foreigner! Cool!”

That was meant to sound hypothetical, but it actually happened just the other day. I was perusing the yogurts at the local Youme Town (there are only 3 kinds of yogurt, so 'peruse' might be too strong a word) when an elderly man halted in front of me and said, “You. Foreigner.”

I said yes.

“What country?”

“New Zealand.” He didn’t hear me. I said it in Japanese: “Nyuu-ji-ran-do.”

“Nyuu-ji-ran-do?” he repeated. He gave me two thumbs up. “Good! Good!”

That was fine, because he talked. Usually they don’t talk, they just stare. Successive stares start to become burdensome. What I’m trying to say is, don’t get famous.

Anyway, there’s one very clear highlight about living in a small town in a super foreign country such as Japan (and just so you know, both of these criteria – small and super foreign – are necessary for this highlight to function). And it is this: ‘the opportunities to get involved with your local community’.

I put that in quote marks because it’s what almost everyone will tell you when you ask them what the highlight was of living in a town in a super foreign country. It just sounds super generic and unexciting, you know? Like they're trying to convince themselves that living in such a remote place wasn't a complete waste of their life. And they won’t really elaborate other than to list some general examples, like going to community events, watching performances, participating in [insert cultural activity here], etc. But of course, you’ve never even seen or heard of [cultural activity] before in your life, so you’ve no idea if it’s actually fun or exciting; you’re just taking the person’s word for it.

Well, let's put this matter to bed, shall we? These events are almost always fun and exciting.

It isn’t so much the event itself that makes it these things. If this event were in Hamilton (where I’d spent the last 20 years of my life before moving here), it would be pretty mundane. Hamilton is too familiar, and I’m familiar, and ‘getting involved’ isn’t even in my job description over there. Not that that last part should have much to do with it, but, hey, on a bad day it can be a motivator. If it’s my mission to attend, I’ll attend, you know?

So, if I wouldn’t go to such an event in a familiar setting, then it can't be the event itself that makes it worth going. Get me?

Rather – and it took me a bit of thinking to figure this out – it’s the act of engaging with people in a realm of unfamiliarity.

In Japan, few things are familiar. I’m also unfamiliar. So there’s something new for everyone! In these places, I see my students outside school, I meet their parents, and I meet locals who are probably related to these parents (due to the size of the town). These can be cultural events, dinner parties, festivals, sports events. The event itself doesn’t really matter. I get to be in the very centre of a culture that was previously totally unknown to me. At times like these, it feels very much like I’m in another world. And it’s addictive. Like watching a genre of film you’ve never seen before, and falling in love with it. The particular film itself doesn’t really matter; it’s the genre that you can’t get enough of.

It probably helps that the movies I'd seen set in Japan depict Japan extremely well. Everything you see there, you can see here. But movies are limited to sight and sound. Coming to the setting of these movies adds a whole new dimension. You can taste, feel and smell, and you can interact in real-time. It's a lot like playing a video game, only far less artificial because in video games your interactions are limited to what the creators meant for you to do. In fact, since coming to Japan, video games have lost a chunk of their appeal because, nowadays, real life is more interesting.

Even eating out on my own means more than just consuming food. It means talking with the staff there, sharing stories, speaking a new language, trading a new currency. They ask me why I came to Japan, they thank me for coming to Gotsu and apologise for its smallness, they (probably, due to the aforementioned town size) tell me that their kids go to one of my schools, and then, for this, they thank me again. This is half the motivation to go out in the first place - not to eat, but to interact.

A couple of months ago, we Gotsu ALTs went to Chizu's house for dinner. About a half hour after sitting down, she brought out a plate of lamb and set it in front of me. "NZ lamb," she said. "I remember you said you like lamb." It was my first time eating lamb in Japan, and it was heaven.

In a town like Gotsu, everyone’s connected, so I’ll probably see some of these staff at the next dinner party, and meet their kids, and realise that I already met their kids because I teach their kids. You know the giant tree in Pocahontas, or Avatar, or the other Avatar, with its infinite roots that ties everything together? It’s like that, though in my case the roots are a bit more finite – town size.

Sometimes these people don’t know each other, but they know me, and I know who they know but who doesn’t know them. In these cases I’m the tree. Being a tree sometimes equates to lots of pressure. In Gotsu, the moment I step out of my apartment door, I throw all secrecy of my existence out the window. The next place I go to – and even on the way there – I’m almost guaranteed to see someone I know (or have them see me, and then hear my name blurted in uncertain tones, followed by -san, -chan, or -sensei, depending on the relationship). Other than the 7/11 just around the corner, I don’t remember ever going out and not seeing someone I recognise. And even at the 7/11 I sort of know the clerks. So.

This pressure is relative, mind you. As I said before, most encounters are pleasant experiences. But there are those people you run into whom you’ve only met once and with whom you had an awkward first impression. All they know about you is that you’re awkward.

There are those people that seem to harbour negative thoughts, like why is he here, and oh it’s him again - like when I go for a run and I pass an elderly man, and he stops smoking his cigarette and just stares, and I start to wonder if I'm running wrong. And there are those people who give you the impression that they don’t want to make the effort of simplifying their Japanese or attempting to speak English. They don’t have the time for you.

Now, this is more a me problem than a them problem, because who even cares? And anyway, I can’t exactly read their minds, meaning everything in the previous paragraph could be completely false and just me being very silly indeed.

At the very least, it’s not a Japan thing. These pressures occurred in New Zealand, too; they didn’t start the minute I arrived here. It’s just that here it stands out more, because I stand out more.

The possibility of having to face these pressures was one of the fears that made me hesitatant to move to Japan in the first place. I coped well enough in New Zealand, I thought, and having achieved a stable life, why opt to move to a place where there was no guarantee?

And yet, this fear was also one of the prime reasons I did move. I mean, if it’s uncomfortable and scary, shouldn’t I do it? I think so, assuming that it isn’t also stupid – and it wasn’t. And anyway, by the time I began to get scared, I’d already got the job.

The job, by the way, is fun. This is primarily because the teachers are easy to get along with, and the students, for the most part, are pleasant and cooperative. At school and elsewhere, people are great and the food is delicious. Most importantly, I’m learning stuff and I'm helping other people learn stuff (if I wasn't doing both of these things I wouldn't have renewed my contract). I had no idea I’d ever learn a new language, let alone Japanese; and I had no intention of doing so when in university, or even afterward. I had no intention, ever, of moving to Japan and teaching English. Yet I'm very glad that I did.

To live here is an opportunity that not many people get, and that a lot of people wish they had. I try to remember this on the bad days, and I try not to take it for granted on the good.

The second year may be more difficult in this regard. The rosy tint of unfamiliarity is swiftly fading, meaning that, slowly, Gotsu is turning into another Hamilton. But then you have to remember that the kids no longer look at me funny. And this alone has me very excited.

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Gotsu

Gotsu is one of those places that some might say has one of everything. Only it isn’t, because it doesn’t have a movie theatre.

I haven’t lived in a city this small since before I was aware of my own consciousness, and then, even if I had been aware, would’ve had too small a frame of reference as regards town sizes to comment.

I took this from the carpark at one of my schools sometime last Fall. The things that look like gravestones are gravestones; you'll often find small graveyards like this adjacent to schools.

I live in an apartment that’s nestled between other apartments. Adjacent are a hotel/restaurant, a boxing gym, Route 9 (which connects Gotsu with everything else), a 7/11, and a house with a dog. I wouldn’t ordinarily consider a dog as relevant to describing one’s location, but this dog’s bark is so frightening (and so sudden, like right as I’m stepping out of the shower at 7:15am sudden) it takes a good deal of imagination to think of it as just an ordinary dog. Considering that I only hear it but never see it, and considering it’s more active at night, it could be a restless ghost.

There’s a giant community centre next to Gotsu Station, which looks to be as new to this town as me. It’s probably too large, and too expensive, as I hear the locals have complained about too many of their tax dollars having gone into its construction. Considering it’s a community centre and not a money-printing press, I can understand why one might harbour reservations.

It's also where many a student goes to study when they aren't at school, and thus where, if I don't want to be recognised, I should take care to avoid. So I have reservations of my own.

More striking than its controversial presence, however, is how vastly different it appears against every building around it. The rows of microscopic restaurants that make up the brunt of Gotsu’s ‘city centre’ have more rust on the metal than metal, and more peeling on the wood than wood. Mangled clumps of powerline look as if they’ve been grabbed and pulled from giant machinery. Cracked footpaths and uneven pavement have seen one too many earthquakes. Rust festering on pipes and stairs make you ask where the owners have gone to.

Well, as to that last point, the answer is known. The owners are inside, cooking tonkatsu.

Indeed, the interiors of these same places are healthy and thriving, and new independent businesses are sprouting up in more than a few places. But the buildings themselves – that is, their exteriors – are all in want of repair or demolition.

This includes Gotsu Station itself, which you might use if you ever choose to visit this quaint town. It looks prehistoric, both compared to other stations in Japan as well as other buildings (such as, opposite, the aforementioned community centre).

That said, there’s an ongoing effort to replenish parts of the town centre; and a new western-style-ish café, opened a couple of weeks ago and which serves great espresso coffee, is already doing its job to replenish me.

Speaking of replenishments, a little farther up the road is Youme Town, a mall which opened on Tuesday. It used to be ‘Green Mall’, but I presume Youme bought it out. It’s a good thing, because Green Mall was so old its name was beginning to take on literal elements. The revamped version isn’t all new, more like an HD remake with all the DLC included. It has new paint, a supermarket with consistency to its departments, an Indian restaurant, a good-looking bakery, and every store that had been at Green Mall, but with better textures.

Its temporary closure had left many a local stomach yearning, as it meant the simultaneous closure of Mos Burger, Japan’s primary source of sandwiched beef, and Gotsu’s only burger joint. For the last 5 or so months, whenever my appetite found itself burger-shaped, I had to drive at least half an hour to the nearest McDonald’s, or put up with 7/11’s shelved varieties (which, to be honest, aren’t terrible). Anyway, Mos Burger is back. Good.

Less crucial than burgers is the aquarium, which is decently big (likely bigger than New Zealand’s largest aquarium, anyway). Here you can watch beluga whales spin rings from their blowholes and then swim through them. You can also get really great ice cream.

There are also beaches, wind turbines, wind (often annoying), and several networks of suffocatingly narrow roads. These roads are supposedly two-way, but 8 months later I’m still having trouble believing it. You’d need a good 14 points to a turn to successfully get your car facing the other way. You’re better off finding the nearest driveway and cutting those 14 points down to a handsome six.

There are also pancakes in Gotsu, which can’t be said for most towns this size. Moreover, the road that takes you to the building in which pancakes can be had (you can’t miss it - it’s situated on a hill and taunts you with flags bearing the pancakes/icecream insignia) is very wide indeed. This town knows its priorities.

With six kinds of pancakes, it's difficult for this place to get old; and one of the varieties changes for a new one every season. A friend and I proposed bacon and banana (they have bacon and egg, and chocolate and banana, but no bacon and banana); but alas, next season’s flavour has already been decided. At the time of writing, it’s still a secret. (While the owner's kids go to one of my elementary schools, not even this is enough for him to divulge trade secrets.)

But I shall have to forego pancakes for a couple of weeks, as I’m currently on a Shinkansen bound for Tokyo, and from there a plane to New Zealand. It’s the middle of Golden Week, and half my mind is busy devising ways to ensure a seat on the next train. So, bye!

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Loads of new teachers, and a ceremony with a plot twist

In Japan, every three to seven years the teachers of one school leave and are replaced by others. I don't really know why, but that's not the point.

It’s been a week since the new school year started, such that the many new faces flitting round the staff room are now somewhat less new. In spite of Japan’s adherence to the codes of professionalism and courtesy, people’s mannerisms are never truly hidden, nor do they go unnoticed. In a way, these codes ironically serve to highlight each person’s individuality, to the point where they would make great fodder for fiction.

So it is, I decided to profile some of the not so new faces.

Prepping for a ceremony. There are countless ceremonies, one of which gets referred to further down.

Hamaoka Sensei

Miss Hamaoka is the new P.E. Teacher, but, really, she just wants to teach judo. This is hinted at on her drink bottle, which reads, “No judo, no life.” It’s hinted at in her self-introduction, which includes a lot of unfamiliar Japanese interlaced with familiar Japanese – that is, the word ‘judo’ pops up more than twice. It was hinted at by the English teacher I sit beside, who, just after I’d met them both, said, “She is Hamaoka Sensei. She is number one judo player.” And it’s hinted at by herself, who half the time can be seen going about the school in full judo attire.

Her not-so-subtle hobbies are matched only by her giant grin, which, despite the obvious glint in her eye that tells you she could wrestle everyone at the same time and win, still manages to display a full set of teeth.

Nor is it a scary grin. She is in fact very kind. And funny, and she likes to give her two cents in conversations between me and the English teachers. This usually doesn’t work out, and we all just laugh. I then attempt Japanese, and we laugh some more.

Chikashige Sensei

He’s the new English teacher, though you wouldn’t know this by speaking to him. He likes to think I speak Japanese, which isn't as frustrating as it is provoking - provoking because it gave me the fun idea of seeing how long I could speak Japanese back at him without giving away that I’ve no idea what he’s on about. Other times I do know what he’s on about, but not how to respond. Sometimes we go three whole sentences (single words count as sentences) without a single English word. Every encounter is a new opportunity to beat my record. One day I’ll be teaching him Japanese. You’ll see.

Not that he’s a man of many words anyway. “So, Matt, can you make a 25-minute activity for class?” he said hours after I’d met him.

“Sure,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said. No context was provided, but fortunately, in this case, it wasn't needed.

His tacit nature is coupled with a generally laid-back demeanour. He’s somehow very organised, which is noticeable because most of the other teachers can’t manage to erase enough things off their to-do lists or wipe enough sweat from their faces. He could be a robot (I’ve yet to see him eat).

He claims that he’s about to become a father. The evidence will speak for itself.

Kanayami Sensei

She’s the new music teacher. Her musical worth was proven at the after-welcome-party (karaoke) last week, where she sang a very harmonious rendition of… well, of a Japanese song that’s probably famous or something. I understood none of it.

But music isn’t her only talent. She can also bow super well – a perfect 76 degrees with nary a bend in the knees. Her bow contains such precision that it’s clear there’s something more going on underneath. Think of all the stuff that happens inside a piano when a key is pressed. It’s all very complicated and delicate, but all you see is the effortless down and up. She could quit music and teach bowing; though if you proposed this to her, she'd probably say something like, "One cannot exist without the other." And you'd believe her.

When all the new teachers walked on stage to introduce themselves, I remembered only hers because of her perfect bow. “Be careful of her,” I thought. “She’s too perfect.”

That about does it for profiles, but speaking of ceremonies, I’d made the mistake of thinking the entrance ceremony last Tuesday would be like all the others. That is, lots of synchronised and frantic standing, sitting and bowing, and listening-but-failing-to-understand antics. There was this; but towards the end, something happened in this ceremony that hadn’t happened in all the others: all the teachers were called to line up at the front and introduce themselves. It seems the majority of teachers hadn’t read the ceremony schedule, because, after the announcer said, “all the teachers will now introduce themselves,” they all at once flipped their schedules over (with a unanimous whoosh) and learned, by reading those schedules, that yes, indeed, they would.

Miraculously, I’d accidentally planned for this when I was bored one day during the Spring break. I’d hypothesised a scenario in which I had to introduce myself to hundreds of people, and I’d also hypothesised a short speech. (I'd decided that, if a formal introduction was ever required of me, I didn’t want to repeat my self-introduction from last August, which, in English, was something like, “My name is Matt. I’m from New Zealand. I like coffee. Nice to meet you.” I needed something new!)

This hypothetical scenario would become much less hypothetical a week later.

I recalled that speech exactly and, as the microphone passed from hand to hand, drawing ever nearer, I rehearsed it many times over in my head. Some of the students must have noticed this, because they kept smiling encouraging smiles, the way that parents smile at their children when they’re on stage and about to do something they’re suddenly too scared to do. Thanks, kids.

In short, it went well, though I did omit the joke I had planned because context (the ceremony was super formal; everyone was uncannily still). If there’s a downside, it’s that the parents of the new students now think I speak Japanese, meaning I must study fast in order to keep up pretences. I told all this to my Japanese tutor the following Thursday, who with hand to chin, said, “Mmmm, you are now in a dangerous position!”

She also revealed that my speech, which multiple students and teachers had said was perfect, wasn’t perfect, and could use some work. “They were just being nice!” she kept saying. Sensei tells it like it is.

There’s a student here who isn’t Japanese and doesn’t really speak the language. All the other students in his grade are doing tests today, but he isn’t, because he can’t. Instead, he and I are about to study Japanese together. The support teacher, who just realised she’ll also be free in that period, is currently preparing a quiz for us. This should be interesting; but I’ll be honest, I’ve a feeling that many pretences are about to be shattered.

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I ate raw chicken and lived

I'm watching two teachers converse, one on either side of the staffroom doorway. They do this at leisure, even as other staff enter and exit with regularity. Indeed, rather than move to a more stand-and-talk-friendly location so that passers-by do not create momentary obstructions to their chatter, the two who are talking remain right where they are, and the prerogative is on the passer-by to bow low, say 'sumimasen' (excuse me), and crawl their way between them with all the humility they can possibly exude.

Personally I find this odd. The doorway and its passage cannot be moved, but the teachers can. It only makes sense for them to talk somewhere less compromising.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining; the system works. In New Zealand you move to a place where it makes sense to talk. In Japan, you don't. It's fine. But it's interesting.

Here's a platter of raw chicken served at a restaurant. I'll get to this in a bit!

Oh, and look; one of the JTEs (Japanese teachers of English) has just demonstrated, with unrivalled humility, the above prerogative on her return entry into the room. After passing, reverting, straightening, and exhaling, she has noticed my less-than-subtle observation of the whole affair and has laughed, perhaps to acknowledge that this custom is indeed odd, but that, well, it is how it is: "shoganai", which is slang for "it can't be helped". Or perhaps she was picturing me in her shoes, trying to arch and crawl just so, then realising that I'm so tall I should really just jump.

Bowing is so ingrained that people even do so when they're on the phone. Not all of them, but I've identified who are the phone call bowers; as it turns out, more than a few!

I may not bow on the phone, but I certainly find myself doing so at all hours without my willing it. Bowing and the affirmative word 'hai' are twins that accompany me to every conversation. They're an obnoxious pair.

And finally, for otherwise the title of this post will have to be changed, I ate raw chicken. Raw chicken! And lived. It's quite edible here, apparently, including the waddle (plume thing on roosters' heads) and gizzard (digestive tra-- let's just call it the stomach, even though that isn't much better). Anyway, I ate them all - raw! I've thus learned that it is in fact possible to eat 'chicken sashimi' (single quote marks because I'm still a little bit sceptical) safely if the chicken is super fresh and super unhandled. It's also super chewy (and the waddle could scarcely be chewed at all), and I felt super primitive eating it. But in conclusion, it tasted fine - not rich or soapy (for some reason I imagined raw chicken tasting like soap) - and did not result in my stomach doing turns throughout the night.

But this doesn't mean that it was good. Like the sliver of fugu (puffer fish) I'd had the week before, it's a novelty. I probably won't have it again.

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A Giant in Japan

I've said it before that in Japan I have to duck to successfully clear thresholds. What I haven’t said is how significant this ducking needs to be.

Last week I was sitting on the couch, doing nothing much. At some point I rose, took my phone to hand, began thumbing away a text, and began the necessary looking down at my phone so as to thumb it correctly. (What this means is my neck and head were tilted forward just so.) Still texting, I proceeded from the lounge to the kitchen with all the speed and impatience of every millennial in existence.

Only, I did not reach the kitchen.

I was stopped.

Furthermore, someone had taken a hammer and whacked my head with it.

The pain was like a rising kettle, silent at first, then excruciatingly loud. I recoiled, my lips mouthed the syllables for something French (well, syllable; there's only ever one), and my fingers crunched into fists.

But then, though I glared at that doorframe with all the contempt in the world, I breathed. Somehow my knuckles thought twice about enduring the same fate as my head that, quite literally, sits in the clouds. Once again I'd learn that above these clouds is a ceiling.

This selfie took too long; I was borderline late to work. But see that door frame? And see my head? Yeah.

Yes. I’m tall. Tall enough that simply tilting forward doesn’t suffice. Instead, my head and neck must assume a sort of battering ram angle if I’m to navigate the apartment with any success. This becomes hazardous in the early hours when the lights are off but the bladder needs swift escort. Very hazardous. The potential for spilt blood - and spilt urine - grows.

Since then, I’ve mastered the bowing angle: my hair now grazes the frame like a cat’s whiskers while the integrity of my head goes untouched. Surprisingly, my spatial perception has not been compromised in the hammer thwacks hitherto; rather, it has only heightened: ‘ducking at thresholds’ is the newest and most reliable technique in my repertoire of defensive reflexes. I duck even at those doors built for the 6’2” citizen. For you see, in Japan one must adapt if one is to survive. And so I have.

This doesn’t mean that I enjoy bowing at every entranceway. I do not envision with pleasure the slowly shifting verticality of my spine, nor return with joy the myriad stares of those who watch me bow like a pitcher pouring forth its dignity. Exactly like a pitcher.

People look up at me like a mountain they’d prefer to go around than over; like a giant whose mere existence bids them question if it’s reality or just a dream; as if this town is, and will henceforth be, a foreign and foreboding place so long as I’m in it.

The first question my students ask when they meet me is how tall I am. When I tell them, their faces beam and their eyes grow wide with wonder. I of course pat them on the head and say, “Don’t worry, with time you, too, will grow tall.” Which is a lie.

Because this height thing is, oftentimes, coveted. Many a person has told me they’d kill to be half as tall. At least, that’s what I think they tell me; it’s hard to hear them from this altitude.

And how can I blame them? Here in Japan, height alone makes me an expert at many things. I’m a basketball pro; I’m a natural at high jump; tall or not, because I’m from New Zealand, I’m obviously great at rugby. Coach volleyball? Pfft. Course I can! I mean, I don’t exactly play volleyball, but if I did I’d be amazing at it. 

And that's not all: my hobbies include coconut picking, rescuing cats from trees, and laughing at ladders. (Hah… ladders…)

Well, that is until I tell them that I in fact do none of these things. To which the faces beam anew, and the eyes, again, cannot sit still. It's the kind of punchline that no one knows how to react to. The kind of news your audience wasn't quite ready to hear. 

“Oh,” I add, “but I do like volleyball.” This tends to work. The general composure returns once more. Hmm? What’s that? Stereotypes? Nonsense. I’m one of a kind!

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The sensei, the school, and the bitter cucumber.

It’s 4pm, school has finished, but the staff room is ever abuzz with teachers. To my left, Aizumi sensei graces a trio of sweat-smeared colleagues with two rigorously sweeping hand fans. On my right, Akubara sensei works the tape measure to see how, in millimetres, his height compares to mine. And in front of me, the vice principal stamps my work log before writing in the comment box, “Hot Matt!” Yes, hot Matt. Gochu’s vice principal makes the most of his rudimentary English.

I thank him as he returns the journal, and begin to head out. “Matt!” he calls after, and the sternness in his voice makes me wonder what dastardly thing I’ve done wrong. I turn to him, showing no fear; then, finally, without any give in his single expression, he says, “Easy come, easy go.”

Wise words. I tell him so.

“Wise?” he responds.

“Smart.”

“Wise, wiser, wisest?”

“Yes, that’s right!”

“Matt, Matter, Mattest?”

“Uhh...” I scratch my head. “We’ll get there.” Surely. I mean, that is what I’m here for, right?

Sensei's feedback is never taken for granted.

The average day at school is both seamless and straight forward: there is a class, then there is another class, then there is another class. If I’m with the same teacher for more than one of those classes, each of them is the same, just with a different set of kids. On a good day you might say the final set gets graced with a very polished duet from me and the JTE. On a bad day you’d say we sound like drones.

But even when our team-teaching is amazing, it is also, simultaneously, not. Due to a combination of excessive heat, excessive height and ever-increasing (bordering on excessive) hunger, by the third or fourth period I begin to feel light-headed. Class becomes a mission of searching for excuses to walk around the room or lean against flat sections of wall. Seriously, I’m no longer thinking about what the students are doing or what the teacher is saying; I’m devising schemes that will ensure I don’t faint for 50 minutes whilst all the time looking normal. 

It's funny in hindsight; it’s not so funny in class as I'm wondering when hindsight will be the only sight I have left.

But then the class finishes, it’s lunch time, and, as I sit down to eat, I learn anew that without the four-hour suffering, my stomach would not know heaven.

One perk is that I don’t have to prepare my own lunch: it’s all provided. Students and teachers each get a handsome helping of rice, soup, salad, and... well... to be honest, I often don’t know what the fourth thing is. Today I’d thought it might be onions, or shrimps, or some strange deep-fried insect that tasted like onions and shrimps. I shrugged and ate it anyway, but it was none of these things. It was bitter cucumber.

Other times it’s fish, or pork, or some unrecognisable thing to which I shrug and devour all the same. A yearning stomach does not discriminate.

There’s also a carton of milk, which I'm still getting accustomed to consuming with lunch, but which is fine because, for all those times when the food doesn't sate my appetite, the milk does its job convincing my stomach that it did.

On that note, a friend from back home asked me what the low-light is. I said the hunger. Another asked me the highlight. I said the food. Such is the world we live in.

I mean, yeah, there are other low-lights, like the time the teacher left and I proceeded to read half of a story before realising I was meant to get the students to ‘repeat after me’ with each line; but that was only a lowlight until I remembered all the times I could’ve made a fool of myself and didn’t. In the end I felt quite victorious.

But that’s school. I’m actually home as I type this. Procrastinating. Really I should be doing the dishes, cleaning up the plum wine that spilled in my fridge, and, I dunno, making dinner or something. I’ll get to one of those things now. Easy come, easy go.

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I Encountered a Sparrow Bee

"The stranger that greeted me today had three eyes, two antennae, six legs, and a buzz whose pitch caused the whole air to stop."

Is that a sinister enough opening for this retelling?

How about this:

"I was exiting my car, finding the keychain button to lock it, and gazing with pride at my perfectly calibrated reversed parking manoeuvre when, suddenly, I saw movement…"

Okay, whatever, on with it.

For future reference.

A bee had landed on my side mirror. Well, it could've been a wasp; who am I to judge? It was large for a honey, small for a hornet; but the word ‘small’ doesn't enter in the Japanese bestiary, so I'm going with the former. Anyway, this bee remained on the mirror for a good half minute, staring at itself, not exactly pleased with its yellow tan, and during this bout of self-deprecation undulated its abdomen in that way that bees and/or wasps can’t seem to stop doing - and for which reason they’d still be just as disturbing even without those hypodermics we call stingers.

But I would not be stung by this one. Soon, bored of its own face, it detached from the glass and disappeared into the air. Meaning I was alive. It was also alive, but unlike me was clearly mad at its own untanned existence. Perhaps its flight into the sky was to be an endless flight. Perhaps that’s why bees unhinge their stingers: they have a good look in the mirror and decide they can’t take it anymore. The undulating is probably a constant indecisiveness about whether to end it then and there, or wait to find an unsuspecting victim to take down with them.

We’re giving this one the benefit of the doubt. We’re saying it was a bee, and bees, as we know, deserve some sympathy. In fact, I’d be quite happy to befriend our humble honey suppliers if they would only stop that constant undulating. I once saved a bee from a spider’s web, which I felt quite good about until, fallen and too weak to fly, it began to, you know, undulate. In the end I felt worse for having deprived the poor, innocent spider of its dinner.

Which brings me back to the present story.

Free from the threat of bee undulation, I locked my car. Yet I'd no sooner pocketed my keys when I saw another sting-laden spawn whiz by from right peripheral to left. There was no mistaking this for the earlier bee: this creature took up three times the airspace, sported a far deeper tan (orange, so it could’ve been fake tan; I can imagine a bee of this size quite comfortably holding up a convenience store and stealing as many cans of the stuff as it felt the need for. Of course, no store owner would admit to this – to think, the shame!), and the beating of its invisible wings created gusts that messed with my hair and composure both. At first I was grateful - in this humidity, the breeze was a welcome one - but this breeze carried with it the smells of a thousand mutilated bees (death and blood and honey). Bittersweet it was, like the ending of a Christopher Nolan film.

You see, Suzumebachi (sparrow bees/Japanese giant hornets) hunt honey bees. And (from this point forward I’m no longer exaggerating) 30 hornets can murder 10,000 bees. This one, I was soon to find out, was on the hunt.

At this point, I still wasn’t certain of the insect’s identity, so I followed it to the garden. It was not a nice garden; granted, the bushes and trees were, like other bushes and trees, fine; but the space between was an indecipherable network of shimmering silk. Droplets of rainwater trailed from leaf ends to tightrope threads, down one and then the next, to bump, but not to disturb, the statues that were the Joro Spiders. Like bees, these spiders are striped: yellow, black, but also with a bit of red. But more than bees, their heads resemble human skulls. If you’re familiar with Skulltulas from Zelda, you’ll know what I mean. True to Japan, these spiders are large. They’re also cousins of the golden orb web; thus their silk is nylon strong. Of this garden, there wasn’t a space left unchecked; their traps covered every square inch.

Still, somehow, as if it had every web memorised, the hornet bobbed and weaved between them, searching the trees and the bushes, yet never tripping the wires that would’ve certified its death. By now I was more intrigued than afraid, waiting, hoping for a battle between two large and poisonous creatures – perhaps more than two, given the sheer infinity of rain-washed spiders that graced the air like Christmas ornaments.

This hornet gained its respect with every dodge of web, every start-and-stop, each decision to fly under rather than through. But the suzumebachi is an assassin; what else did I expect? By now I was sure of its calibre; though, in case there were remaining doubts, it landed on a branch to flaunt its size, its orange black jacket, its quarter-inch-long stinger. It was clear now: the thing was hunting for bees not unlike the one that eluded death (although, as we learned, wished it were dead) moments before.

Soon, like the honey bee before it, the hornet took to the air again and flew on. And the search for 10,000 bees continued.

Some more facts: When one of these hornets finds a hive, it drops a beacon in the form of pheromones. Doing so summons all other hornets within several kilometres. There's a raid, and after having their fill, they dismember the bees’ bodies and take their parts to feed to their hornet larvae. Pleasant.

But here’s where it gets cool. The Japanese honey bees (specifically them, not other countries’ honey bees) have adapted. When a hornet pays them a visit, they enshroud it in a blanket woven of 100% bee. In fact, it’s more like an electric blanket, because - hear this - they beat their wings so fast that it heats the centre of the blanket to exactly 47 degrees Celsius (one degree above that which hornets can withstand), cooking the hornet! The bees, meanwhile, are content up to 50 degrees. Crazy, right?

Right, so that’s where the story ends, because then I walked up the stairs to my apartment and did boring things like have a shower and iron shirts. Things totally unrelated to the title of this blog post. But, um, the cliff hanger ending is… let’s see here.

"This was but my first encounter. It would not be my last."

Good enough?

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