Ever feel like you’ve met some one or something that you want to grab hold of and never let go?  Had that moment of eye contact and everything around you fades and its just you and the possessor of those round orbs connecting on some metaphysical level?  That feel came over me one evening while scratching the hard scaly head of an iguana.

Lucky, the five-foot iguana, closed his eyes and raised his triangular shaped head as I scratched his skin and relieved him of some shedding.  For this pampered lizard utter happiness existed as long as my nails were running along his scaly hide.  Yeah, he likes having his carrots sliced, lettuce hand shredded and apples cut small so that he can ingest them in one bite, but he ignored his gourmet meal for me.  Being able to produce that kind of worship can go straight to a person’s head.  I talked to Lucky for well over ten minutes.  Chatting about my fear of insects, snakes, and reptiles with sharp claws, beady eyes and whip-like tails.  He didn’t seem to notice that I had described him and for a moment I didn’t either.

All this leads me to contemplate fear.  Fear of the unknown and fear of pictures of animals and creepy crawly things that you know exist and could one day show up uninvited at your door.  I can swear on a stack of Bibles that the sight of an iguana will no longer send me running for the door, but let me see a roach?  I don’t care if it’s dead and under plastic or displayed begin glass, don’t blink cause this girl will be gone.

   ║ (equals) ║

a recipe for disaster. 

However these are 2nd year Japanese students and this combination of flammable materials took place during school and on school property.

It’s an understatement to say that this world never happen in America.  Why?  Can you spell l-a-w-s-u-i-t?  The second little Susie got her finger singled, her parents, the teachers, principle, board of education, and the Mayor would be hit with a million dollar liability case.

But at Saiwaicho-daini it was just another opportunity for the students to practice cooking rice the soldier’s way.  They came prepared with bowls, chopsticks, and condiments.  Someday soon they will go camping and pull out carbonized metal tin cans and pressure cook the national staple over a roaring fire.

After the homeroom teachers laid out the rules and pointed out the materials and the time limits, the kids got down to business.  The activity was gender equality at its finest. The girls as well as the boys broke wood, fanned flames, and coughed from smoke inhalation.

I enjoyed watching fires start and die from neglect, students brag on who had the best fire, and chow down on some of the crispiness rice I’ve ever eaten.

There are nights when your dreams are so real, that you feel the sidewalk cracks underneath your shoes and the flakes from croissants fresh out of the oven spread over your shirt.  The coffee on the outside table has long since cooled, but you sit there watching the people pass.  The act of lingering over a meal with a glass of wine or just listening to the sound of language you can’t understand but your ears adore.

Something about the narrow streets and old building can’t help but charm the most die hard cynic.  Paris, the city of Romance, isn’t just for lovers; it’s for people who love to walk (just beware of dog poo).  Someone walks by with the latest designer clothes and high heels shoes.  The air is perfumed with that one of a kind scent which can only be purchased at a small boutique on a certain street.  And the displays at the high-end department store, Printemps,make you long for a size six body and American Express card.  yet, after leaving heaven, your feet take you down a long sidewalk and past a cafe, then you sniff and choke on the strong odor of second-hand cigarette smoke.  Amidst the burst of coughing and the struggle to breath,  the dream ends and you wake up in Paris.

Observation
Prisoners in America have it made… See I think that they complain too much. If we really want to make the criminals in America pay for their crimes. Then we should send them to public school in Japan. I never knew cold until I stepping into school on Monday. You know its cold when you just want to turn around and go back outside.

Fact: Prisons in America have some kind of heat. Schools in Japan have none. No, I didn’t make a mistake. There’s no heat in my school. I have to race down with my the hallways so I can beat the drafts that are nipping at my heels.

Then I see the students. They make me even colder. Here, I am bundled up looking like I’m about five months pregnant and they’re wearing shorts and a thin long sleeve zip up that someone had the nerve to label a jacket. The girls that aren’t going to and from gym class have to wear skirts. Now this is when I want to go all-Scottish on the Japanese men who run the school system. They should all have to wear skirts (sans hose) in the middle of winter. Their bonny legs would be knocking harder than a Toyota in bad need of a tune up.

So here I sit in the computer room typing out this email and I’m popping cough drops like they’re a last meal. I work up feeling fin this morning walked into school and was welcomed into class with a chorus of coughing. Can we say: tuberculosis, pneumonia, influenza, flu, and sinusitis? Yes all those things and more. When I took an informal poll about how all my students were doing.

Out of 100 kids almost 75% said they were cold while the rest said they were sick. I was impressed because usually they don’t respond, but this last week they’ve been quick to say one word: COLD. So when I get some free time or when my fingers stop shaking, I will write my Congressman a letter suggesting that prisons should not be heated and that all the money saved by the taxpayers should go to save the shivering kids and teachers in Japan.

PS. As I was tying this letter I noticed that there is also no heat in the computer room. Then I realized it’s only November and I have to walk alongside the train tracks to and from school for the rest of the term. After I had finished coughing up at least half of my congested lungs a Japanese teacher informed me in a highly amused voice that the coldest month in Japan is February. Sitting here looking at the frost inside the window, I wonder if I will survive that long.

After four hours with an over hyper group of Valium deficient kids on an Antarctic like airplane, I landed in Hong Kong with a sore throat, headache, and the beginnings of a sinus infection. Hong Kong: The world’s city. Too bad the custom’s agent took one look at my passport and another look at my braids, raised a bushy eyebrow, and asked me if I were related to Whoopie Goldberg. The look of disappointment was crushing, I felt like lying just so I wouldn’t get denied entry. As it turns out Whoopie has a fan who works at the Hong Kong International airport. Apparently Ghost is still a movie favorite in some parts of the world.

So after a mile walk through the airport that was once a part of the sea and unlike Tokyo’s Haneda airport is not sinking back into the sea, I boarded a high-tech express train complete with TV’s on every chair to Kownloon. It was as the cab pulled out of the station that I caught my first glimpse of the real Hong Kong; the famed view that captures the traveler’s imagination. To see the night skyline of the island is to never forget it. Skyscrapers and multihued neon lights in the sky and shimmering on the water.

In the morning we bought cheep sweet buns from a windowed bakery and boarded the Star Ferry to Hong Kong. In the overcast sunrise as we sped across the choppy water, the large cranes which littered the port harbor looked like crabs reaching into the sea to for a treat. The city during the day was a high tech forest. Trunks of concrete and glass reaching up into a canopy of cloud.

I spent a total of three days in Hong Kong with my friends and enjoyed every moment of it. The humid warmth of the country was a welcome relief from the icebox of my apartment. During that time I walked it’s busy, bustling streets, peeked into stalls and stores filled with unclassified herbs, fish, vegetables and meats. The food was a mixture of Chinese and Western, with fish heads and two-storied Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants but one thing is certain, the availability of English menus and English speaking wait staff won Hong Kong a permanent spot of affection in my heart.

During my time there, we jumped on a narrow metal tram and got off at the end of the line and using only the flow of traffic made strolled back to our originating point. I road on a double-decker bus that traversed the city and headed up into the hills only to descend into what could be classified as a small paradise complete with a beautiful beach, a mile of flea market shopping, European ex-pats living in gorgeous apartments and driving European luxury automobiles. Back in the city, we took pictures of public housing buildings with cracked walls and clothes hanging out of the windows. The divide between the haves and the have-nots is vast in Hong Kong.

All-in-all, Hong Kong is a great place to visit because it’s easy on the eyes, easy on the wallet, and for the non-Cantonese speaker. I can’t say that I will miss the city, but I do know that sights, the sounds, and the smells of the city as well as the adventures with my friends will stay with me forever.

 Pillows and Blankets for sale!  Why not be really comfortable on your morning and evening commute.

I could make a killing. Move over Martha Stewart, I would be the richest sistah to ever hit the Tokyo Kansai region.

Japan is a country filled with the sleep deprived.  Don’t like your bed?  Never want to go home?  Never want to sleep?  This is the place for you to be.  Even the kids don’t sleep over here.  The train in the morning and in the evening is crammed with sleeping people.  I don’t mean the little doze.  The salary men who never see their wives and kids because then leave home at 5:30am and don’t get back until 11:30pm are hunched over with the mouths wide open flashing rows of silver caps.

I’ve come to think that the Japanese railways and subways are just moving bedrooms transporting business people and high school students.  I’ve heard loud snores, seen slow moving droll, leaning middle aged Japanese men and make-up smeared Japanese women on the train.  What really took the cake was the elementary school student whose mother couldn’t get him to wake up and get off.

I have to give some praise though because the people who ride the train everyday seem to have seem to have a sixth sense built in, and from the depths of a hunched over slumber they spring forth to the doors upon arrival of their station.

You know I had to go and research the matter.  So I started asking questions.  To my surprise I was corrected.  A Japanese journalist sat me down and with a serious face said.  “It’s not just the train.  People fall asleep on park benches, behind the wheels of cars, on bicycles, on toilets, waiting in the line at the bank, and some poor man actually fell asleep on his fishing boat and woke up half-way to South Korea.”

I would think that this is a big problem, but apparently the Japanese government is happy to have a nation of work crazed sleep deprived citizens.  I know the Japanese beverage companies love the renewed surge of business.  Vitamin and power drinks, coffee, tea, a stronger version of Vivarian sell like hotcakes over here.  Need to stay away for 24 hours?  No problem, pop the cap and you’ll work like superman.  Feeling a little run down?  Try our new high potent mega-speed vita drink.  Guaranteed to have you going thru red lights and running down innocent foreigners on bicycles.

The craziest part of this mess is that this no-sleep thing starts young….and I fear I might be catching the disease.  After waking up at 6:00am, getting to school by 7:40am and spending the day pantomiming various gestures to over two dozen Japanese junior high school girls, I was tired.  I thought it was late, but as I walked across dirt covered concrete towards the exit of my school, I had to wave at the still practicing students.

“Ja matane!” a group of sixth grade girls yelled.

See you.  A seventh grade student picked up a soft tennis ball and slammed it into the green net for what had to be the hundredth time.

Across the field twenty boys gathered ready to and fall in the mud while chasing the soccer ball.  Mind you that these same boys had been on the field at 7:00 am that morning.  I had waved my hand and then set off towards the train tracks and in the direction of the bus that would take me to the closest station.

It took less than twenty-five minutes for the fatigue to take hold once I sat down on the eerily silent train .  Although the local train was packed tight with students of all ages, you could have heard a pin drop.  From the glow of a teenager’s cell phone next to me I knew it was 6:00pm.  With his blond streaked hair, baggy black pants, gaudy gold chain, and oversize white button down shirt, he looked like a normal wanna-be badass Japanese high school student.

Being the curious person that I am I asked him if he was going home.  No, he wouldn’t get home until around 10:00pm or 11:00.  After being at school all day, then participating in after school activities, the boy was going to cram school for Math, English and Science.  I gave him that universal look if pity and he shrugged.  Before I could blink he tipped his head back and fell asleep.  Just as the shock wore off, the train pulled into my station.  I stood up, the teenager let out a soft snore.

That night I went to bed at 8:00 pm.

Got out of bed…

And promptly landed on the tatami covered floor.  First words out my mouth.  “Damn, must be in Japan.”  No more stepping out of bed.  It’s all about rolling off the futon.  At the age of twenty-six when most Sistah’s I know are talking about rocking the Prada, buying the house, and getting a ring from the man they’ve been “seeing” for the past five years, I’m starting over in a new country, new apartment, new job, trying to remember a hard-ass language.

By my age, Condoleezza Rice had her master’s, Brandy had a baby, and Alicia Keyes has won over five Emmy’s.  In comparison, I’ve had four jobs in four different cities and in the end either hated each and every one of them or was bored to tears.  I was single relatively dateless in New York City with a cushy monotonous job watching my life pass before my eyes like a bad PowerPoint presentation.  So when the possibility of an all expense paid trip back to Japan to teach English to well behaved Jr. High School students….and get paid for it popped up, the next thing I knew I was kissing the Big Apple good bye and moving all my stuff back home to my mother’s house in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Packing two seventy pound suitcases, a carry-on, and a laptop stuffed backpack, I dumped the corporate life and jumped on a fourteen hour plane to Chiba City.

After an hour and a half bus ride from Tokyo, I arrived at my new home.  As the bus crept through the afternoon traffic, I had to wonder how the people got anywhere with all the congestions and not to mention the toll.  Move thirty feet?  Pay a toll.  The streets should be paved with platinum for the amount these people have to pay in order to pull up and stop on what is defined as a freeway (such irony). 

Chiba City.  Home to a 1,000,000 people and it isn’t really on the map or in a guidebook.  The place has its own monorail, international seaport, is about 45 minutes from the center of Tokyo, hosts the biggest mall in Japan, plus a Costco, but you can’t find it.  Looked on the Internet and I couldn’t find jack, tried the map, just found a black dot.  Had the impression that the place would be a nice suburb, complete with nice front lawns, backyards and the occasional swimming pool.  Nah, I’m going to be spending a year in a city that bigger than Manhattan and has more concrete.  In 2002, I’m living small one tatami closet on the first floor of what has to be the busiest intersection in place; paying ridiculously little rent in an apartment building that looks like it couldn’t survive another earthquake…. 

I may not be a fully certified teacher with years of teaching experience under my belt, but if there is one thing I know for sure you don’t discourage a student or tell him or her that they are not intelligent enough to learn the lesson.  More to the point, I know the kids understand the grammar, and know the answers to the JTE’s questions, but they chose not to answer.
After listening to a monotone lecture complete with writing on the board, the teacher walks over the shiny CD player and has the students read after the Canadian’s on tape.  Mind you that I am still standing at the back of the room and as far as I’ve been told I speak very good English.  Then they get to open their notebooks and answer true/false questions.  I see them glare at the teacher, I hear them curse the English language, and I can only shake my head in shame.   I am being paid to do nothing and the students are miserable for free.

Now, this wouldn’t bother me so much if were an infrequent occurrence.  No, this is an everyday event when I have to “team teach” with this particular English teacher.  Many times as soon as the bell rings, I exit quickly and make my way down the back stairwell to the teacher’s room.  Why?  Because I am riddled with guilt that I can read, write, understand, and speak English.  You see… if these students want to go to a good High school or heaven forbid a decent university, they have to know English grammar.
Right now the third year students, the American equivalent to eight graders are taking a series of tests that will determine what they can and cannot do for the rest of their lives.  I used to ask the students how they faired on their exams.  After witnessing the complete and utter breakdown of a girl who was unable to get into her chosen high school because of one point, I stopped asking.
Many might wonder why Japanese students have a long history of jumping in front of trains.  I, however, know the answer.  Japan’s education system is merciless.  If you cannot master the expected level of English grammar comprehension prescribed by the various Boards of Education then you have a snow balls chance in hell of getting into a good high school.  This dilemma multiplies in that you must graduate from a top-level high school in order to pass the even more rigorous University examinations.

The pressure on these kids can start as early as pre-school.
Many mother’s take part time jobs in order to pay for cram schools, private
pre-schools, private Elementary,
Junior High and High schools,
English conversation lessons, and private tutors.  They make these scarifies all in the hope that it will give their child a better chance to get a high score on whatever examination they will have to take.

In this country of East and West, the Confucius educational values rein supreme.  Thou must not think, Thou must memorize and regurgitate.  All that matters is how well you score.  Not how well you think, what grades you made in school, what sports and volunteer activities you participated in, how well recommended you are by your teacher, or the community, or what experiences you may have had.
There is a pervading belief in this country that the Japanese cannot speak English.  In a way, I have to agree because although almost all Japanese people studied English as a foreign language, they only studied English vocabulary and grammar.  Give any Japanese adult a sheet of paper and they write in very good English about why America should drop a nuclear bomb on North Korea.  But ask how to get to the nearest train station?   All you will see is the back of their head as they point and rush away.  Many are afraid to talk to foreigners because they have never spoken English.
I have noticed that the younger generation is changing its focus and trying to concentrate on speaking English.  Many of my students that go to cram school or have a real interest for everything American/Canadian/British (music, movies, commercials, clothes, food) approach me in the hallways.  We usually do lot of gestures or speak in simple sentences, but where they’re communication, there is a smile.  Sometimes they get frustrated and switch back to Japanese, but the desire to talk and to ask questions is there and I feel more positive.

To sum up one of the main differences between how we learn language in America versus Japan, I leave you with this simple example.

I learned French and Japanese to communicate.  Most if not all Japanese students learn the English language to take a test….

Bathroom: hate it.  Peeling paint, child sized bathtub, with a permanent mildewed smell, and a gas heater that has to be coaxed and patted and kicked to work. Not to mention that the bathroom sink is in the kitchen and only has cold water.

Bedroom:  That would actually mean there would be a bed.  I have no bed just a futon that gets rolled out at night and rolled back up in the morning.  The room is more of a lounge complete with el cheapo sofa that converts into an uncomfortable bed, a desk that could fall down ant minute, a TV (love those Japanese commercials), and a VCR.

 Kitchen:  Small fridge, small stove, small table, small sink, small water heater.  (Are we seeing a pattern here?)

Laundry Room:  Try the balcony.  That’s where you will find my circa Ronald Regan washing machine.  Instructions in Japanese, with two bins for your clothes ,a timer, and mass confusion.  Hmm, almost forgot to mention:  many Japanese homes do not have dryers.  Mine included.  The only way to dry my clothes is to hang then balcony and pray that it does not rain for two days…..

Driving:  Must be one of the best kept secrets in the country along with the fact that it has the highest number of traffic accidents in all Japan.  They pay on an average of over $2,000 to take driving lessons and take a test.  Yet, I have never seen so many near accidents in my life and I only just got here.

Weather: Before you read this email you have to clear your mind….

Then think of Nelly’s newest hit dealing with the heat…something like it’s getting hot in here….so take off all your clothes

Now picture me stripping butt naked in the middle of a busy intersection…

Crazy isn’t it? 

Welcome to Angela’s life in Chiba City Japan.

I would have rather walked through fire than to have left my apartment this morning.  All I had to do was open the front door and sweat started dripping down my forehead.  With a 100% humidity, it literally feels like I’m swimming as I walk.  I can’t even begin to tell ya’ll about the hair situation.  Let’s just say by Christmas I should be sporting a big ‘fro. 

Back to the important details like how’s the job.  One word: boring.  Since school hasn’t started yet I get to take a 8 minute walk to the board of education and sit for two hours, then I’m free to go shopping, ride my bike, go home and take a nap etc.  Sounds great and it is.  It’s just that with today’s weather you’re too busy sweating to enjoy the day off. 

This wasn’t a new thing that came out when I discovered that all the “beautiful” models had to be over 5’12.  No, this ‘I want to be so tall that you have to crane your neck up to look at me’ started way back in the day when every cousin in my family started patting me on the head.

As the seasons changed and my height seemed to stay the same, I took to trying to be cute by wearing high-heels and thick clogs.  I only succeeded in spraining an ankle and hurting my feet.  When I finally did get to the point where I seemed to gain vertical inches instead of hips, I still had that tall people envy.

Mind you thanks to Flintstones vitamins and chocolate milk, I grew to be a slightly above average 5’8’.  However, at the age of twenty-one, I was still thinking that had I just been a few more inches taller my life would have been better.

On a student exchange to Tokyo, Japan, I got my wish.  After a fifteen-hour plane ride, two-hour layover, and half-hour interview with customs inspectors, I stepped into a crowed subway train and looked down onto a sea of black hair.  To my weary jet lagged eyes, the sight was just the first step on a long road of culture shock.  I knew that the Japanese were not the tallest people on the planet, but I’d ignored the fact that my average height would be considered tall.

That night after sitting down at the dinner table with my new Japanese family, the topic of conversation wasn’t about my color or nationality, but it centered on my height.  I was taller than the parents and my host mother had decided to use my height as an example of why her twelve-year old son should drink more milk.

For the first time in my life I was tall and I was loving the feeling for about four weeks.  At that point, I was less of a tourist and more of shopper and as I watched all my petite classmates go crazy buying cute clothes, I could do nothing but pick up a pair of pants and laugh ‘til I cried.

I put a pair $250 jeans next to my waist and looked down.  You couldn’t even say that they were high water since they weren’t even long enough to be called Capri.  Even if I could have fit my rear end in the tiny pants, they would have been shorts.

Shoes?  The middle aged salesman took one look at my feet, bowed while mumbling some incomprehensible apology, and ran not walked in the opposite direction.  That morning I could have signed my name, Brandy and gotten my picture taken with a group of kids.  That afternoon after watching one more shoe salesman flee into some back room, I felt more like Godzilla.

There are many ways to cure phobias and I unknowingly stumbled into a way to cure height envy.  I’m not saying go to Japan or if you’re really tall take a trip to some parts of Africa where the average height is a mere 5’10.  No, you don’t need to do anything that expensive.  Just follow the prescription:
Be a mentor to a little kid (I mean age not size)
Buy a cat or dog: Everyone’s a giant in a pet’s mind
And remember: The grass is always greener on the other side and the standard sizes of clothing will be 2x shorter on you.

Now, in the 2002, I’m older and wiser and going back to Japan. Only this time, I’ll be carrying a lot less envy and a lot more pants and shoes.

]]> http://angelaweaver.com/a-lesson-on-envy/feed/ 0