Category Archives: Japan

Early Finish Often Means Well Done

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One of the things I like about Japanese TV is very similar to what I like about British TV: The seasons are short, only really popular shows come back and the come back seasons are short.

A Japanese drama typically runs for 12 episodes shown in 12 straight weeks (which is much better than US broadcast television’s two episodes now and three months later we’ll give you three new episodes in a row before a one month hiatus).

Also, because each series is short it doesn’t run the risk of getting stale and being forced to have every living human on the show and one or two robots have relationships with every other living human on the show and one or two robots. The truth is that, even in “gun free” Chicago, someone at County General would have gone into jealous rage and killed at least three people in the e.r. whilst trying to remember who they were in a relationship with.

I find the notion that any woman on E.R. actually spoke to any other woman on E.R. to be absurd. (Even I can’t suspend disbelief about that and I’m looking forward to the chance to see a movie with a talking tree and a talking raccoon when it arrives in Japan in a couple days.)

The other good thing about a Japanese drama is even if it’s not popular you always get a resolution to the story.

The most popular shows, however, will eventually be brought back. Since I’ve been here that’s happened to only a handful of shows. Shomuni, about a group of, well, super office ladies came back for two more series and a couple movies. The most popular, though, was Hero, starring the ubiquitous Takuya Kimura of the (still) ubiquitous SMAP. The show was a huge hit in 2001–and people still quote the bartender’s one line–but the full sequel didn’t get released until this year. Instead there was a special in 2006 and a movie in 2007.

The result is that good shows never get a chance to go stale and actors get a chance to play different types of roles. Takuya Kimura has played a quirky crime solving scientist in Mr. Brain and a kind of terminator in the surprisingly clever sci fi drama (with the terrible title) Ando Lloyd – A.I. Knows Love?   You don’t have to worry about Kate getting shot or Ziva leaving or the Doctor regenerating into a right wanker.  You also don’t have to worry about the writers making up crap as they go along and then stumbling into absurd/bullshit endings. (Lost, Battlestar Galactica, etc.)

Mind you, there aren’t that many good shows and there are far too many RomComs. Also, there are exceptions to the 12 episode rule, but those are for another post.

In With The Bad Out Comes The Good

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A short one today in honor of bad students. This is the first full week of class after summer vacation and that means that we are now reintroducing ourselves to our students and reminding them why they are supposed to fear us and/or why they think we are jerks.

Today for example, one of my worst students spent the first few moments after the bell rang zipping and unzipping his trousers in front of his friend’s face. I told him “I you need to do that, get out and do it some place else.” He stopped zipping his pants (with the zipper up, luckily) and sat down in a huff and added, in English “I don’t understand English”. My inner snark monster, encouraged by the devils over my shoulders said “I know. Maybe if you sat down and listened you might learn something.”

I then gave out the assignment, which involved telling a summer vacation story by captioning a series of cartoon images. The students were encouraged to use their imaginations and dictionaries and I wouldn’t give any hints except to remind them it had to be one story. (I also don’t help them unless they ask for help.) The bad student didn’t understand and panicked quite spectacularly. Even lashing out at foreign teachers for not having Japanese instructions on their worksheets. I told him, in English, as the inner snark monster reached 50% capacity, that a lot of Japanese blamed their teachers for their bad English not their own unwillingness to study. “Your bad English is not my fault.”

Finally, someone explained the lesson to him (probably in Japanese). He started writing and after a he had a few sentences I peeked at his paper and he was actually doing the assignment. This surprised me because I assigned a punishment letter to a student with similar behavioral issues and, although he appeared to working, he turned in an expletive laden screed full of death threats to me and the principal and wishes that we both would die. In his defense, it was the most English he’d ever written.

Eventually, zipper boy finished the assignment. Oddly, this was the quietest he’d ever been in class and he earned a very rare full class marks.  I may have to give him more caption assignments.

Next class, though, the students have to present their stories as a speech. They get bonus points if they can do it without using the paper.

The inner snark monster never got past 50% today. it is still mad at me. However, history has shown that at least five students will forget their papers next class, including zipper boy.

The inner snark monster will then go full snark and say “Lucky you! Now you get bonus points!”

Overnight Instant Sensations

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With Kei Nishikori about to compete for Japan’s first grand slam (more on that comment in a minute) I suddenly find myself thinking about other Japanese who’ve won things and those who haven’t.

As a rule, the Japanese focus primarily on baseball with priority given to the local major leagues. When a Japanese player goes to the US majors, he’s given what can only be described as a base level of popularity. The news will always report what he’s doing, especially if he’s doing well. If he’s a star, Matsuzaka, Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, he’ll get a shocking amount of media coverage. If he’s playing, NHK (Japan’s BBC) will cover the game, until the moment he’s pulled and then they switch to regular programming and viewers never learn what happened. (No joke, I’ve seen this happen twice.)

However, everyone loves a winner, especially Japan which suffers from a very strange lack of confidence you wouldn’t expect from the third largest economy in the world (for now). The Japanese press is always looking for “Local kid makes Japan look awesome” stories and is always interested in what foreigners have to say about Japan, so long as what the foreigners have to say is positive. If it’s negative, there’s lots of excuse making and accusations that Japan is being picked on even though it’s the only country to have been attacked with atomic bombs. (Yes, they really do go there sometimes, especially on panel shows.)

Before 2011, barely anyone in Japan could name more than a couple players on the Japanese women’s soccer/kick ball team. Everyone knew their nickname “Nadeshiko Japan” but knew little else about them. Nadeshiko, by the way, is a surprisingly sexist thing to be called. It’s roughly the equivalent of calling them “They don’t make women like that anymore Japan” or “Good girls Japan”. However, after they won the world cup, they were suddenly popular. Attendance at women’s soccer started breaking records (at least for the team with the most “Good girls”) and some of them started appearing on TV a lot.

The same happened with a group of women wrestlers who brought home Olympic medals, and even a group of women archers and a some badminton players. They didn’t even have to be cute, just successful, although if they wanted to make real money from their 15 minutes, they had to be cute.

That said, no one is as brutal toward their athletes as the Japanese. If someone loses, a reporter will ask “what happened” in a very strict tone. The athletes have their own cliches “Well, I got a bad start and I wasn’t able to swim my race, I had to swim their race” or “I wasn’t able to play my badminton and couldn’t make the shuttlecock work for me”. At that point, it’s common for the reporters to say something like “well, I hope you’ve learned from this and will do better next time.” (I would love to hear the expletives some US athletes would unleash on a reporter who said that.)

This brings us back to Kei Nishikori. If he doesn’t win, he’ll get some praise for going where no one has gone before but we’ll see at least two weeks of detailed analysis about why he sucked. If he wins, we’ll hear about it for at least month and it will be considered a victory for Japan. (Even though he spent most of his career at IMG Bollettieri Tennis Academy and is currently coached by American Michael Chang.)

I hope he does well, but part of me kind of hopes he doesn’t, because the press coverage will stop sooner.

 

A Container Full of Stark Raving Jerks and the Mad

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Autumn term starts tomorrow which means I’ll once again be riding the train. Riding the train means I’ll once again be thrown in the mix with the normal train riders and the train jerks.

First you have to understand that, for all their seeming politeness, the Japanese, especially those in the Tokyo area, are in fact seething with a surprising level of selfishness that gets turned loose as soon as the train doors open. The ugliest fights are for the seats on the ends of the benches and for the last seat on the train. Granted, I don’t mean a fight in the literal sense, instead it’s more of a “#@$% women and children first; I’m getting mine” attitude, Which leads us to:

Jerks Inside the Train:
Once in their seats, the occupants will immediately become train jerks and enter what I call the “Tokyo Doze” which is a form of sleep that allows the seat occupants to ignore the senior citizen, pregnant woman and/or man with crutches standing in front of them. This is especially true if the Dozers have occupied the “silver seats” reserved for senior citizens, pregnant women and/or men with crutches. (Not a joke. I’ve seen that happen, even with She Who Must Be Obeyed. More about that in a minute.)

Anyone who doesn’t get a seat then enters a battle for space. It’s important to plant your feet securely and grab hold of the cross bar. At this point, you encounter the Oozers. Oozers start to ooze over into your space in order to make more room for themselves. They use a combination of hips and carry bags to push you over. The secret to defeating the Oozers is, if you’ve remembered to grab the cross bar, a well placed elbow right next to their faces. They’ll stop oozing.

The next form of train jerk is the Readers. The Readers open up their newspapers full, especially if their seated, and it rubs and annoys you the whole ride. Or they are standing and they open it up to that it’s over your head or in your hair (if you’re tall). Or, the Readers pull out books and use you as a book stand. I’ve been knows to fold up the tops of newspapers and remind people I’m not a book stand. (More on that later.)

Jerks Outside the Train:
For the most part, the people boarding the train let the people on the train deboard. For the most part. But there is always a form of train jerk called the Barger. The Bargers come in two flavors, those who barge directly through the people trying to exit and those who wait until the main wave exits and then pushes through the slow moving little old ladies to get an open seat.

Before the doors open though, you encounter the Dashers and the Drifters. The Dashers stand in front of a door, then as soon as that door opens, they Dash down to a different door because they see more space or an open seat. If they bump into you, well, you should watch where they are going. The Drifters float between doors. (Important note: Unlike the USA and the UK, trains in Japan actually stop with the doors next to the numbered marks on the platforms.) When the doors open, Drifters suddenly choose sides and push into a line.

Hybrid Jerks:
Pushers wait until everyone else has boarded a crowded train and then use a combination of leverage and Judo to force their way onto the train, even if it’s so crowded that even the air has been pushed out of it. It doesn’t matter to a Pusher if a little old lady or a child is in the way, all that matters is that they are in the way the Pusher wants more space.

Cutters are an especially vile form of train jerk. Outside the train they may be a Drifter or a Dasher or may seem like normal people. When they door opens they walk in carefully and then abruptly change directions. For example, you enter on the right, the Cutter enters on the left. Suddenly, the Cutter decides he should have gone right and cuts in front of/through you. It’s like someone on an expressway suddenly realizing they’re in the wrong lane and about to miss their exit.

This takes us to our final category of jerk, the Foreign Asshole. The FA comes in a couple forms, most of them loud. If they are not talking loudly and disturbing the wa, they are being unpleasant to other train jerks.

Guess which category I’m in?

I’ve been known to, how shall we say, get vocal with Dozers pretending they are asleep, especially when She Who Must Be Obeyed was several months pregnant and had been cut off and forced to stand by a Cutter. I’m also pretty good at leg sweeps and can perform world class soccer dives that bring both me and the Cutters down. I’ve stood close to Cutters once they got a seat and pretty much had a “chat” with them about their rudeness. I once gave a man three warnings about resting his book on my shoulder, then snatched the book and put it on the luggage rack.

Oddly, I’ve never been a physical fight. Mind you, I don’t intend to, I’m just an FA when it comes to dealing with train jerks.

The Casual Business of Waiting Your Turn

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Classes start this Friday at the school where I work and that means I’ve had to drag myself in a few times to get ready. Today, especially, was important because I had to proctor a make-up test for a student who managed to fail seven different classes.

What’s odd about the week before school starts is how much it reminds me of a track meet.

My only experience with track and field occurred, if I remember correctly, in 8th grade. I was trying to get the Sports merit badge in Boy Scouts which required I play a full season in two approved sports. I’d already played basketball–and that was the only sport I played for more than one season–and that left track and field. Now, technically, track and field was not an approved sport but it was Hayden, Colorado so lacrosse, soccer and water polo were right out and the powers what are in the Boy Scouts were lenient.

This left the problem of deciding which events I should join. I was capable of short bursts of speed, but not 100 yards worth. I wasn’t coordinated enough to do high jump. I couldn’t even clear a bar set at waist level. (My Fosbury Flops were, well, you can finish the rest of that pun.) For the record, I admire high jumpers probably more than any other athletes as I do not understand how they do what they do.

I ended up running the mile and doing triple jump and, for at least one tournament, throwing discus. I was, at best, an average miler; a below average triple jumper; and an absolute disgrace as a discus thrower. I was also, clearly, not worth the coaches’ time. I don’t remember getting any specific help on getting better from any of the three coaches at any time during the season. I learned the basics of triple jump by watching other jumpers.

Having come from basketball, though, what surprised me about track practice was the way it seemed disorganized. People wandered about practicing various events and occasionally being told to run to some location out in the middle of nowhere and then return. It didn’t feel like a team practice.

The same was true of track meets. It was very strange to be told “be over there in an hour” and then be more or less left on my own. There was no sense of being on the same team and no particular cheering section. No one seemed to care if you made it to your event or not. I remember how odd and scattered it all felt.

The same is true of the week before school. Teachers wander in and prepare lessons (most of them dressed in shorts and  t-shirts as if it really were a track meet) and no one seems to care that anyone else is there. With make up tests we’re not even sure if the students will be there. (My student showed up, by the way, which means I lost a bet.)

Starting Friday, everything will be more regimented and some of us will start working as if we were on the same team.

 

Itsy Bitsy Noiseless Patient Spider Agreements

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As I have become the designated bug killer in my house, I thought today I’d talk about bugs, or more specifically, spiders.

When I lived in Nou-machi, my apartment was surrounded by large green and black spiders. We quickly made an arrangement, the spiders and I: If they didn’t come inside my apartment, I wouldn’t kill them.

This agreement would, however, undergo a few modifications.

First you have to understand the spiders’ size. They were about 3-5 centimeters (1 1/3 – 2 inches) across. Their legs would just about reach across the width of an iPhone without having to stretch. They built their webs around the walkway lights and around my door light, which meant getting from the steps to my front door was rather like walking through a tunnel in lost Carcosa. The webs themselves were surprisingly strong and could move your cap a bit before they broke.

This led to the first modification: I would tear out any web that hit me in the face or head as I walked to and from my apartment, even if the web wasn’t in front of my door. I would also tear away any webs that touched my door, although I let them have the front window.

The second modification was that they couldn’t build any webs on the laundry pole on the back balcony where I was supposed to hang my laundry.

However, the third modification was a rescission of the second modification. This was done because the “balcony” was little more than an unsupported plastic shelf stuck to the side of the building, I wasn’t confident walking around on it, so I ended up drying my laundry indoors next to the window and using a fan. This actually worked better than putting laundry outdoors in three of four seasons (Pleasant, Humid and Static). (My adult students were convinced I was crazy, but I had dry clothes and they didn’t, so there.)

What I earned from this bargain with the spiders was a nearly mosquito free existence. My apartment had a rice paddy right in front of it (that I once fell into; long story, especially since I was sober when I did it). and a rice paddy next to it. There was a third rice paddy on the far side of the parking lot. These weren’t as bad as you’d think because they had frogs and crawfish eating a lot of the mosquitoes, but Nou-machi could still be overwhelmed with the little bloodsuckers especially during the Season in Which It Rains.

I only found spiders inside twice. They died.

Thou Art Hither Now Get Thee Hence

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One of the fun parts about being a foreign teacher in Japan is that I can get away with a lot. One of the problems of being foreign teacher in Japan is that I can’t get away with a lot forever.

On rare occasions I’ve taken students to the principal’s office or to their homeroom teacher in the teacher’s office. With junior high this is rather risky, not only am I foisting my problems off on someone else and admitting I can’t control my class, but I’m also “forgetting” that education is both compulsory and a right until the end of 9th grade and removing a junior high student is a questionable legal act. It’s better to stick them in a the corner, or at a desk just outside the door. Also, in Japan, the Group is very important and being removed from the Group can be quite shocking. With high school students this isn’t as big a legal deal, but removing them from the group is.

That said, I’m also the only teacher I know who’s thrown students out of class during observations.

The first time happened in a first year high school class. One of my worse students, let’s call him Mr. Sato, was famously bad and the kind of student who immediately goes to sleep and counts on his friends to take notes. Since my class was a speaking class, that wasn’t possible. He had to be awake and he had to work with a partner.

However, on the day of open classrooms (during which other teachers in the school could observe our classes) Mr. Sato’s usual partner was absent and he believed that meant he didn’t have to do anything. After the warm up, he immediately went to sleep. I woke him up and he pointed to the empty chair next to him and went back to sleep. I woke him up again, he pointed to the chair again and I pointed the empty chair next to another student and said be his partner. This repeated a couple more times. Finally, the fifth time I woke him up, Mr. Sato snapped and said “WHAT!” which is Japanese for “leave me the fuck alone already”.

I told him to get out and, surprisingly, he left without any argument. This, in it’s own odd way, is telling. As I said before, In Japan, the Group, in all its forms, is important. Mr. Sato clearly wasn’t feeling a part of the group.

The teacher observing my class was visibly shocked, but he understood.

The second time it happened was fairly recent and occurred during open school when three mothers were observing my class. The open school happened to fall on a presentation day when my students had to get up in pairs and do an original conversation. The first couple pairs were okay, but the third refused to go up. I wasn’t too surprised, as one of the partners, let’s call him Mr. Kato, had been sleeping, trying to do other homework and generally being unhelpful during the writing phase (prompting his partner to declare “I don’t have a partner.”) I said they didn’t have a choice. They had to go up and do their conversation.

After some “negotiation” they finally went up and, well, first Mr. Kato tried to take his script (not okay) then he tried to cheat (also not okay) then he tried impress me with his attitude (fool). I pointed out I have a nine year old daughter with more attitude and better English and put him and his partner out in the hall to practice. I apologized to the mothers and, surprisingly, they stuck around apparently to watch the end of the match.

Eventually Mr. Kato and his partner went up and did a decent job, which earned me some points with the mothers. Although that’s exactly the kind of stuff I have to worry about and I reported what had happened to the homeroom teacher (I also told him the other students had done well). It’s also the kind of stuff I really ought not try a third time.

Special Things and Unspecial Things

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Tonight’s topic is based on this probably apocryphal conversation:
Isadora Duncan to Anatole France: Imagine a child with my beauty and your brains!
Anatole France to Isadora Duncan: Yes, but imagine a child with my beauty and your brains!

I think it’s a truism that if you want to know what you love about your spouse, imagine what features of theirs you hope your children inherit. If you want to know what you hate about yourself, imagine what features of yours you hope your children don’t inherit.

Since we already have kids, I spend a lot of my time watching them and going: lucky, lucky, lucky, push, damn sorry about that, and well, it could be worse.

Luckily for the girls they inherited most of She Who Must Be Obeyed’s face. Especially important is they actually have lips, which is something I was pretty much denied which makes me look pensive even when I’m not, um, pensed. They both did, more or less, inherit a version of my nose, but that could be worse. They also inherited my creased eyelids which will save them a lot of make up and/or plastic surgery in the future.

The push is that they both seem to have inherited my height. Our oldest is already taller than her mother and the youngest is getting closer and closer. The oldest has big feet, which makes this a push. Being tall is a mixed blessing in Japan, especially when you try to buy shoes.

Unfortunately our oldest inherited my oily skin and the youngest at least some of my allergies. The odds are more or less against their hair. She Who Must Be Obeyed’s hair went completely white at a young age and white hair runs in my family. Mine waited a while, but is getting there slowly. My Dad’s hair was completely white by the time he was my age.

They both have good eyesight, which comes from me, but have inherited She Who Must Be Obeyed’s inner ear disturbance which makes it difficult for them to hear and understand the male voice.

Our oldest has inherited my propensity for putting off until tomorrow what is due the day after tomorrow. She’s already pulled her first almost-all-nighter and is, as I write this, finishing up the homework she had all summer to finish. (It’s 11:45 Japan time.) The youngest inherited She Who Must Be Obeyed’s work ethic, mostly. She likes to help out, but mainly on her own terms and she distracts easily, which she got from both of her parents.

Our oldest has a well developed back-talking skill, which she got from me, and she frustrates easily, which she also got from me. These are things of mine I really wish she hadn’t inherited.

Our youngest has a remarkable ability to make a small mess into a big mess when she doesn’t want to clean something. She didn’t get that from me as my skill is stretching a small five minute project into a seven day project, which means she must have got that from She Who Must Be Obeyed.

They are both much more aggressive about getting out and making friends than I am. They aren’t exactly extroverts, but they seem to enjoy people. They also aren’t easy to push around. I’m glad they inherited all that from She Who Must Be Obeyed. What they would have got from me wouldn’t have been as helpful to them.

Audience Without Joy Teacher Bringing Anger

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Yesterday I mentioned a failed business and how I ended up teaching the classes I’d hoped to teach, sort of. I also mentioned there were some issues. Today I thought I’d talk about those issues.

Basically, you have to keep in mind that although Japan managed to reduce its workers unions to empty, somewhat  noisy shells, the teachers’ union still maintains a certain amount of influence and prestige. The mandatory four skills classes were, essentially, a shot across the bow from the government to the teachers’ union that they’d be facing new rules and, possibly, regular evaluations. They also took place during summer vacation.

I taught the classes in two phases. First I was called in as a substitute on weekend for a shortened proto version of the course I still don’t understand. The Japanese English teachers were polite enough but there was a lot of sighing and eye-rolling every time I said it was time to do an activity. (It was a lot like telling a teenaged daughter to clean up her stuff and/or a lot like me when I’m forced to attend such workshops.)

Not a lot happened, to me but one of my friends came back from a break to find “Fuck You” written on the blackboard–remember what I said about teenaged daughters. He went through their handwritten assignments and using handwriting analysis figured out who wrote it and then strangled the guy and threw his corpse out the window. (So I heard; my friend may have simply discussed the issue with the guy but that doesn’t seem as plausible to me.)

Eventually the courses went “live”. They were Monday through Friday six hours a day. At first the students were actually pleasant because the ones who went early were keeners/ass kissers apparently intent on impressing someone. I came away from the first classes with several friends among the students until the voice came down from on high “Thou shalt make no friends among thy charges! Neither shalt thou have any friends amongst these masses which are around thee!” (Something like that.)

Towards the end of the four years, as the deadline for teachers to complete the course came closer, we got the diehards. We got the teachers who’d fought the course as long as possible and when I arrived to teach my class you could feel the anger and hatred.

Oddly, they were not the ones I managed to piss off.

I started class by saying I appreciated them being there because I was sure there was nothing they’d rather be doing on a beautiful summer’s day than sitting in a room in a school having some foreign guy tell them how to do their jobs. I then told them that I sympathized because there were a lot of things I’d rather be doing too–I just left out the part about me being there voluntarily, which is not, technically, lying–and that I hoped I could give them something to take away and that I didn’t waste their time.

Everything went well after that. They relaxed and participated, even when the curriculum was clunky. While I and the other teachers taught, we had a woman from the Tokyo Board of Education office roaming around listening in on us. At some point I told them my students were lucky. Because they teach at public school and when the students asked “Whey do we have to study English?” they could just say “Ask the Ministry of Education”.  (I said it with it’s Japanese name “Monbukasho” This brought some laughs. I said because I was at a private school I couldn’t say “Ask Monbukasho.” This brought more laughs.

Then, at the start of lunch time, I was told by a Japanese staff member from my company that there were some issues about my class making fun of the Ministry of Education. I said that’s not what happened and I’d talk about it after lunch. By the time I got back from lunch things had hit the fan. The staff member panicked and high level people from my company were already there. Apparently the woman from the BoE, who’s English wasn’t that good, heard:

Me: blah blah blah blah Ministry of Education. (snort)
Students: LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL They suck.
Me: blah blah blah blah Ministry of Education. (snort)
Students: ROTFLMAO ROTFLMAO ROTFLMAO They are evil.

I explained everything and apologized and during their brief interviews/interrogations–yes, this is how things are done where I work–my students vouched for me as well.

Luckily for me, other teachers were doing worse. The course was supposed to be conducted only in English and one guy was holding a major graded discussion in Japanese, which actually did make his students angry. In the end my students rocked their final presentations much to the delight of the woman from the BoE. I praised the students but she said they had a good teacher. I thanked her and said “Do you have any BoE positions available?”

Apparently she didn’t, but I was invited back the next year, so it wasn’t a complete loss.

 

Business Dreams and Breaking Down

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Because I tend to dabble in writing, put off doing a lot of stuff while I over think it and, until recently, had way too many hobbies, the handful of business ideas I’ve had usually end up filed away somewhere until someone else does them. However back in the early aughts, a year or so after I moved to Tokyo, I attempted to start a small side business. This is miraculous enough, but that I attempted to exploit connections to do it is also a small miracle.

Not much else about the endeavor was miraculous.

What happened is I learned that teachers in Tokyo were going to be forced to attend “Four Skills” training. (Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening) and the company I work for was planning on competing for the contract. My mad idea was that such things would probably happen in other prefectures and if I could get organized enough, I might be able to get similar courses started in Niigata. The teachers could then tell the government: see, we already did that.

I contacted a friend from Niigata who besides being a good Japanese English Teacher, was also very well connected in the prefectural education department. I pitched the idea to her and we started working on the preliminaries. I put together fliers and the curriculum (in my free time, of course, not on company time) and she was going to contact her contacts in both the prefectural and regional education departments and get back to me.

She didn’t get back to me. I sent her a copy of the fliers and information and waited. I didn’t want to be too pushy partly because I knew she was usually rather busy.  After a few weeks I received a letter dripping with, well, nervous breakdown.

I won’t get into details but let’s just say, as a rule, it’s a bad omen when your future business partner begins decrying money and materialism in what is supposed to be commentary on future business propaganda materials. I called her and it’s the second time in my life I’ve spoken to a person who was so upset her voice had changed. (The first was a good friend who wasn’t having a good time in her first year of teaching in my hometown.)

I was able to determine that my future former business partner had encountered some direct verbal bullying and had suffered a whisper campaign that had pretty much freaked her out and more or less caused her to burn her bridges with her prefectural connections.

The business never happened, as I suddenly found myself without any contacts in the prefecture. Luckily it only cost me some postage, a couple phone calls, some time and some printer ink. I realize that I should have immediately gone to Niigata and said “take me to its leaders” rather than letting things get put off. Although I have my moments, I don’t know if I could have pulled that off, but at least it would have been an active mistake and perhaps left me with a few contacts of my own. (If that makes sense.) I also realize that I needed to be more aggressive in pushing my business partner.

I did end up teaching a lot of the four skills classes when my company got the contract. (Those will require another post to describe. Preview: huffing and sighing, “Fuck you,” and “I’m sorry you misunderstood.”)

Also, for the record, my curriculum was better.