Teacher: “Have you ever eaten cats?”

Student: “No… I have… never eaten cats!”

All well and good. No cats were harmed in the making of this lesson.

My students all have western names for the duration of their stay at our hagwon: Laura, Peter, Fred, Chris, etc. One happens to be Sam, a lower-level student who can understand some basic phrases and a few hundred words, but not much beyond that. So, naturally, when a lesson on food popped up, I thought of a creative way to teach a phonics point:

Teacher: “Please repeat, ‘What are you eating?’”

Sam: “Teacher, NOOOOO!”

Why do I tease one of my students like that? It’s certainly not to bully him, but rather to show I’m capable of joking around during a lesson. Since the students laughed, I know they understand the difference between “sandwich” and “Samwich”. An important phonics lesson for beginners. Still, I hope none of them get the idea to take a bite out of the little guy.

My next lesson in cannibalism comes from one of my highest-level classes. They’re able to form complicated sentences and improvise conversations on a limited scale. We still go over the basics as according to the textbook, and that includes lessons on personality:

Teacher: “Please repeat, ‘Jenny is talkative.’”

Hun: “I am not delicious! Jay is delicious!”

I think the humor in the situation comes through rather clearly for these students. Let’s just hope they never make it over to New Guinea:

I’ve started teaching workers at the nuclear power plant from 6:30-8:30 AM, meaning I really shouldn’t have stayed up to write this blog. Good night.

“Shibuya in Action”, digika

Of course I had outings with Americans, Kiwis, English, Aussies, Canadians, even the occasional Jamaican… but 90% of the time, the Japanese language was my sole source of communication with others. I can just imagine my typical evening after AEON hours:

1. Finish my office paperwork and bid coworkers farewell with the customary “otsu kare sama deshita“. Emerge from the building on a cold winter’s night, just opposite a gas station.

2. I might pass a student, a kid, or a random passerby. Perhaps a friendly “konbanwa“.

3. Lawson convenience store for my usual turkey and pasta bento, with a heated bottle of green tea. Do I want it heated? Hai, shite kudasai. Any chopsticks with that? Hai, ippun o kudasai. Arigatou gozaimasu.

4. Finish the walk to my apartment building. I’ll probably catch another tenant in the elevator:

“Ahhh… Kimura-san. Ogenki desu ka?”
(I’m fine, Turner-san. How are you?)
“Genki des yo. Oyasumi nasai.”

Only when I’m back in my cramped 6-tatami mat quarters do I truly relax. After all, the internet is language neutral, though I’m sure most would agree English dominates. And this is a light, carefree evening. Imagine a full day of all Japanese. Now imagine a week. A month. A year. Five years…

There’s more to living abroad than embracing a different culture and being comfortable with your changing environment; the pressure of communicating in a foreign language builds up inside your brain without any realization. After all, you’re in Japan! An amazing, exciting experience! Who wouldn’t trade places with you?

I love Japan and I love traveling, but I get tired. There are long stretches when I wouldn’t wish to be anywhere else on the planet, but there are also plenty of times when I would give my heart and soul to be surrounded by countrymen who understand my words, my upbringing, my way of thinking. How did I combat this in Japan, once I had learned to live well?

GetHiroshima Classifieds and Events

Hiroshima doesn’t exactly have the largest population of foreign residents in Japan, but there is a sizable number… enough to warrant the publication of a online resource for expats: GetHiroshima. Culture salons, 10Ks, Japanese wanting friends… I even got replies for a Texas Hold ‘Em group; we were soon meeting once a month for a nice cash game.

Nightclubs and Bars

I admit it, I went downtown many Saturday nights in effort not to hook up with random Japanese girls, but just to sit at the bar of an Irish pub and listen to background conversations… in English. Call me a language whore.

Blog Searches

By using Google Blogsearch, I was able to find many expats in my general area, and learn a great deal about them and their travel experience. You never know who’s reading.

I followed these same techniques in Kagoshima, and found the prefecture’s JET participants had a decent Facebook page; without that, I never would have ended up volunteering at an orphanage in Aira or cycling all the way around Sakurajima for the first time.

Everyone has their own ways of coping with this pressure of feeling like you’re the only one on the planet. Lost in Translation was such a success for showing this through film. Sometimes you do have to travel halfway around the planet… to come full circle.