Further Reflections on Cross Dressing

Hello friends and sorry for the radio silence the past few weeks.  Life has been rather dull, largely thanks to two Typhoons passing through on consecutive weekends.  I had two straight weekends of literally pouring rain from Friday night to Sunday night.  At least I didn’t get swept out to sea so I guess I have something to be thankful for.

Our kid’s Halloween party was a success, and my cross dressing lunch lady costume was wildly popular.  Actually I think the moms that came with the little kids got the biggest kick out of it.  I didn’t think a costume consisting of a blonde wig, an apron and two rolled up socks would delight so many people.  I think next Halloween I will be a cross dressing witch. 

I was also forced to wear a one piece elastic Mario costume for an entire day of work this Monday.  I actually got lucky as the branch boss dressed as Yoshi (the turtle/dinosaur) which was a heavy cloth costume on a not-so-cool fall day.  The kids were delighted.  I have one particular class of eight grade boys that has been behaving terribly, so I was planning on giving them a good talking-to on that day, but the felt mustache I had taped on my lip derailed those plans.  For some unknown reason the boys all participated, didn’t make any dirty jokes and stayed in their desks for the full 45 minutes.  I guess I have to wear another cosutme next week.

Speaking of dressing up, I went to a cross dressing bar last night.  Two coworkers and I decided to do it on a whim after splitting a bottle of wine.  The bar is only 10 minutes from our house, and there were two “hostesess” there that poured drinks and chatted with us for an hour.  The whole thing was really silly and one of the “ladies” was a 60 year old man in a wig with no make up.  At the end we had a fencing duel with foam sords and he (whoops she) beat me soundly.  In the Japanese tradition, we each paid a flat $30 fee for an set period of drinks and conversation.  At the end I found out I had been charged an extra $10 for letting our hostess have a drink as well.  The hostess bar experience has been on Japanese bucket list for a while, so the gender bending thing was really just a bonus.  If there had been actual women there pretending to flirt with me there’s no knowing how much money I would have wasted!

Other than that I have been trying to read a light novel that I accidnetally bought.  I though it was a comic book, so I bought a set of three for like three dollars.  It turns out light novels are just small books with pictures every 20 or 30 pages.  So far in two weeks I’m up to page 60.  It’s even less impressive than it sounds since the book is like 3x4 inches and each page has 10 lines of text.  Oh well, another thing off my bucket list.

Okay it’s a work night here, so I should wrap up and get back to watching late night TV and plotting revenge on the teacher who made me wear the Mario suit.  Good luck and good night!

On Being Pelted with Rice Balls and Preparing to Cross Dress (again).

Hello friends, family and internet stalkers!  Here’s a quick rundown on my activities for the past few weeks to help you feel up to date in touch with your Japanese side.  Today was the Jumangoku festival, which the Ogaki city website translates as “festival of 10,000 stones”.  It features a big parade where people march through the streets carrying ornate mini shrines attached to poles that people put on their shoulders to carry the shrines in the parade through the city.  You get the idea.  In the past there was a group of Americans that carried a float, but I was unable to find anyone who was doing it this year, and didn’t see any foreigners in the parade.  I did get to participate in Mochi-nage for the first time though.  This is a fun event where men on 20 foot high platforms pelt crowds of spectators with Mochi (hard sticky rice balls).  I caught one and ate it.  It tasted like rice.  The other participants, from children to old people, showed no reservations about diving between my legs and scrambling on all fours to get their Mochi.  Luckily there was plenty for all.

Last weekend I had a fun time visiting an organic farm run by a Chinese family on the outskirts of town.  The mom took us out in the fields and four of us picked about 12 cubic yards of herbs and peppers and potatoes.  It only cost $10 but I have no idea how to cook with most of the plants I picked.  I am enjoying the spicy peppers but remain perplexed as to how to use 4 pounds of basil. 

Next weekend we have a Halloween party for the kids.  I am going as a lunch lady to fulfill my role in a play we are putting on.  The play is about zombies that eat PB&J.  Then I’m doing a game that involves racing plastic spiders by blowing them with straws.  Should be fun, although I’d enjoy it more if my students were invited. 

Work has continued to present problems, the most recent of which is that all the branches are closed the week after next, except for one.  The single renegade branch boss may cause me to have a one day work week instead of a week off.  Really I wouldn’t care, as no one else I know has time off that week and I obviously haven’t had time to plan anything.  The reason for this situation is that Shimon is taking a 5 day company trip to Hawaii (with over 100 staff!)  It’s cool that the company would offer something like that, although I’m not sure if it makes up for the required 14 hour days most staff work over summer break.  Alright, rather than stressing about work, I’m going to go eat spicy pepper and read the 500 page comic book that I bought for $4.  Until we meet again!

Blond Jesus and Emergency Toilets

Good evening dear readers.  Another long week of squeezing English out of reluctant Japanese children is in the books, so I thought I would bring you up to speed on this lovely Saturday night.  Fall semester is in full swing, although it’s still 80 degrees here most days.  The main change lately is that three Americans have left, which brings our total down to nine.  The last couple of weeks we were able to get in a lot of fun, including Karaoke and $1 drinks at the nearby German tent restaurant. 

The kids are settling back into school and thankfully I only have 2 or 3 new students this term.  I am still struggling to remember the names of kids that I’ve had since April, partially thanks to the fact that at some branches my classes are “optional”.   This means the kids can skip them if they have a test coming up or if they got hit in the head with a basketball and can’t remember how to do their homework.

One class of all 9^th grade boys has begun to suspect that I speak fluent Japanese and has been trying to make me laugh by whispering ridiculous Japanese words in class.  I asked them if they knew “coming of age day” (a national holiday in January) and one boy responded “graduate from virginity day?”  I burst out laughing, and now my credibility is lost.

Last weekend the whole gang of went to a Japanese wedding which was actually a first for me.  The groom is a coworker, although I don’t teach with him so I only see him once a week at our Friday meetings.  The ceremony was very short and spectacularly choreographed, including a choir dressed in all white singing amazing grace in English.  It was also in a chapel, although not a real chapel, just a fancy wedding-venue-only chapel.  It had rows of pews, white marble flooring, and stained glass windows complete with a Madonna and blond baby Jesus.  Thankfully the couple didn’t hire a white man to pretend to be a priest, which is common here.  After the ceremony there was a lavish banquet where members of the wedding party took turns pouring beer for each guest.  The groom must have about 16 brothers and sisters because I consumed about 2 gallons of beer without requesting a refill once.  Thankfully there was also an after party where they rented out an entire restaurant for two hours, also with unlimited alcohol.  We played bingo and I won an emergency survival kit.  It contains items such as rope, nail clippers, a tarp and an “emergency toilet”.  Not quite sure how that one works yet.  It was fitting prize though, since just as we arrived home a typhoon passed through.  No one was swept away, and sadly the water supply was not disrupted so I didn’t get a chance to try my emergency toilet.

Okay, hopefully something exciting will happen soon and I’ll have more to write about.  Until then, Sayonara!

Fall is here!

Hi everyone!  It’s September already and I’ve been back to work for two weeks after a refreshing vacation in Minnesota.  The weather took a much needed turn towards fall just a few days ago, so I can run outside again without my scuba mask.  Actually I joined a small gym above a super market last month so I would have a place to run inside.  Now I’m torn as to whether I should get my money’s worth or enjoy the nice weather.

It’s Monday here and the kids should be back in school starting today.  That means when I show up for work the school will be empty instead of having a dozen 9^th graders milling around the lobby.  That should be nice.  The bad part about work is that I have classes all this week while all the other Americans are off.  Last week I only had one day of class, which I found out on Monday.  I wound up taking Wednesday through Friday off and doing very little.  I may have another vacation in October, when Shimon shuts down and all the teachers go to Hawaii for 5 days.  (The other Americans will still be working though.  Confused yet?).

Also September is a big transition for the American crew.  A new teacher has arrived and we’re losing three old ones.  Since we’re in the overlap period right now there are a total of 12 of us (I think) and we’ve been having a lot of festivities and generally being social.  Last week we had a banquet for all 20 Hellos staff.  We rented a private room at a nice restaurant and had all you can Sashimi and Sukiyaki for two hours.  There was also a tremendous amount of alcohol.  As the party was starting I learned that it was also my (belated) welcome party so I got to sit at the same table as the company president (again).  No palm readings this time, as he was much more focused on the young female teachers around me.

Last night we went to a soccer game.  We had a group of ten and we got tickets to sit on the big grassy area behind the goal.  Our hometown Gifu team is in division II, so tickets are just $10.  Our team won 2-1, although the real highlight was the cheering section, when like a hundred people sang fight songs in unison for the entire game.  Like singing and dancing for two hours straight. 

Okay that should be enough paragraphs to satisfy most of you.  I’m off to get ready for another work week!

Bon Odori and English Days

Okay kids, I’m going to keep this one short as I’ll be home in a few days and will be able to catch up with you all then.  My classes started back up again after a week of sitting around the office.  The kids are on summer break but most of them still stop by our branches to keep us company from time to time.  Actually our schools are extra busy and open extended hours.  One branch was so full I taught four classes of “English conversation” to junior high kids in the office.  Like the teacher’s office with the copy machine and the ringing phone and all.  I think the kids deserved a refund for that one.  At one branch my high school classes are canceled for the summer.  At another branch I have high school classes, but with different random students each week.  My elementary kids get the a special summer course called “Popcorn S” where the anthropomorphic popcorn man in the Power Point now wears sunglasses and a summer hat. 

This weekend there was another festival in town.  This one was the “water city festival” where people make little paper lantern things that float, and then send them down the river.  The first float to go was a huge one with a giant picture of the face of the city planner guy who is in charge of the festival.  I put a picture of it on Facebook.

The festival also featured a group dance called Bon Odori.  Somehow I lived in Japan for three years without getting roped into doing it once.  Basically everyone just dances in a huge slow moving circle to some slow 50 year old pop songs.  It’s kind of fun, but I could never remember when I was supposed to go backward, so I the people behind me were a little uncomfortable. 

Well tomorrow is our “English Days” camping trip.  About 20 staff members take 70 elementary aged kids on an overnight trip to a rustic nature center.    I have to up at 6am the next two days, and literally every hour of both days is filled with scheduled activities that we get to run.  My main activity for the first day got changed at the last minute, so now I’ll be in the video room showing Pixar shorts.  I am lucky not have to be outside in 90 degree heat.

The trip ends Tuesday and I’m flying home Thursday for 10 days.  See you soon!

Birthday Palm Readings and Paper Fans

Hello again internet comrades.  Thank you for sparing a moment of your valuable internet time to catch up with me!  First off, this week I did not teach a single class!  Since it was the first week of our summer schedule, basically everything was canceled and many of the branches were actually shut.  I didn’t discover this until after I had bicycled 6 miles to my Monday branch.   I think I actually should have been off this week, but due to lack of planning I spent the week cutting strips of fabric for an upcoming craft, and handing out paper fans to promote our new branch in Nagoya.  The root of the problem is that I work at Shimon schools, but am actually employed by Hellos English.  So while I was fooling around all week the other Hellos teachers were administering finals and holding parent teacher conferences.  I wonder if they noticed me twiddling my thumbs in the corner…  But never fear, I’ll be back to work tomorrow with a confusingly altered class schedule.  I learn as I go.

So the week before last I had my birthday brunch.  Over 20 July babies went out to an Italian restaurant and had a 5 course meal complete with a happy birthday serenade from the staff.  I sat next to the company president who demanded that I make a speech in English and then translate it into Japanese.  I told everyone that even though I was born in July I don’t like hot weather.  Deep, huh?  The president also gave me a palm reading and discovered that I will live a long life despite having my heart broken as a young man.  He is not your typical boss.

I also had my birthday one week ago.  I got a couple people to go bowling with me and we managed to knock over a few pins.  Then some other Americans surprised me with rice crispy bars and cake.  It was subdued but a big improvement over my last birthday when I worked and four buses overheated in the span of two hours. 

This weekend I went to an Opera concert.  My coworker and former classmate Ryan is an avid singer and invited all of us to his yearly performance.  The event was sold out and people were actually lined up outside the door.  I couldn’t figure out what language they were singing in most of the time, but I enjoyed the extremely shiny and provocative costumes.  Afterword we had a big a party at the apartments and took shots of carbonated sake out of square wooden shot glasses. 

Well that’s all for this report.  I’ll be back again in a week or two!

Summer!

Hi folks, time for a quick word from Japan.  The rainy/crappy season continues here and the past couple of weekends have been humid, cloudy and 90+ degrees.  So no outdoor adventures unfortunately.  I am looking forward to nicer weather though, as yesterday I bought a unicycle at a second hand shop.  It was 50 bucks and rides pretty well.  The seat is too low for me though.  I’ve fallen off quite a bit from my prime, but I can still ride in straight, turn and stop pretty well.  It will be fun to see if I get even more stares riding down the street on one wheel.  I also found a gym inside a shopping mall near my house that only costs like $25 dollars a month.  I am debating if I can motivate myself enough to go when it’s too sticky to run outside.  It’s in the same building as the 24 hour supermarket (five minutes from my house).  The supermarket is ridiculously convenient, but it’s impossible to go to without seeing coworkers.  On Friday at 1130pm I ran into to three Japanese Shimon teachers in one shopping trip.  None of them mentioned that the strange fruit liquor I had selected was actually intended as a base for brewing your own home made fruit liquor.  Oops.  I found that out after I opened it and started drinking.

Well, it’s mid-July and that means my birthday is coming up.  Tomorrow I’m going to a birthday lunch that the company president throws for all employees once a month.  We’re going to a fancy Italian place with a three course lunch.  Word is I have to make a speech at some point.  Not sure if it will be in English.  I don’t know how many people will be there, but there are at least 5 July birthdays just in our section.

The kids are nearly to the end of the semester and are behaving wildly.  On Wednesday a 10 year old boy said the F word several times in class.  When I scolded him he insisted he had no idea what he had done wrong.  The he turned to the boy behind him, whispered “Fuck fuck” and gave him a double middle finger.  I blame the TV.  Summer vacation should start any minute now, but I still am not sure what my teaching schedule will be for July and August.  The kids come to the branches any time between 10am and 10pm, and they often have special study camps, where we challenge them to study for 8 or 10 hours straight.  Fun times. 

The one thing I do know about my summer schedule is that I have a plane ticket to come home from August 10^th to August 20^th.  I put this at the very end of the blog to see who reads it all the way through.  Congratulations for making it this far without a half-naked picture or the promise of a free credit score.  See you soon!