After my batch of JET Programme members arrived in Tokyo, we were subjected to three days of orientation of questionable benefit. Our prefectural orientation involved a handful of people telling us that we’d get more pertinent information at our August training. One of our presenters then explained that the training would take place at something called a Kyoiku center, which is a kind of education hotel, and that there would be a lot of rules. The most important rule was that the there was a 10:30 curfew. In fact, at 10:30 the outside doors were locked.

This prompted one English lass in the front row to go into shock and keep repeating “You’re taking the piss. Right? You’re taking the piss right?” Our presenter assured us no piss of any kind was being taken. Now perhaps because, at the time, I was pushing 30 and had been in Air Force ROTC and the Peace Corps, I wasn’t surprised. A few years in those institutions will prepare you to handle both random rules and random bullshit. And then there was that “It’s part of the job” thing. However, “It’s part of the job” doesn’t go very far with young people yet to actually start their first jobs (in their minds, the orientations were just an extension of university).

We were then sent to our towns and while those of us working directly for the local governments were required to show up to the office and do “work”, those assigned to the prefecture got a month’s holiday. After that month, though, we all arrived at the Kyoiku center, some of us happy to see different faces that all spoke English and some of us wondering why the hell vacations had been interrupted for more classes.

The fun started right away, when we learned a couple more dirty little secrets of the kyoiku center: not only were the doors locked at 10:30 but it was lights out at 11:00 because that’s when power to all the rooms was shut off, which also meant there’d be no air conditioning until morning. Keep in mind, this was Japan in August and it was nasty hot and humid (those are technical terms). Also, any official drinking could only occur in certain common areas during the half-hour between lock in and lights out as we were not allowed in the common areas after lights out.

The kyoiku center did make one concession by opening the baths and showers in the morning to appeal to our bizarre Western idea of not waking up sweaty and going straight to work.

We were allowed to leave the center for the 5 ½ hours between the end of classes and lock in. The complication is we were in a rural area with spotty train availability. In order to get back by 10:30 we had to leave Niigata City around nine. It was amazing to see how much partying a group of Westerners could fit into the 2 ½ hours available to them.

Not much happened the first year, but in the years after that there were incidents involving loud noise and people pulling fire alarms to get the doors open after lock in.

I suspect things would have been different if we’d gone to the center straight from Tokyo. Please keep in mind we were not in the military and this was not a military institution, although it was where local firefighters did their course work. The organizers kept insisting, though, that this kind of thing was important to the Japanese. It was a hell of a test of flexibility, but it all seemed very old school in a well, old kind of way.