Long Time, No See

“Miyukiiii, you’re late!” shouted a teacher from his sidewalk post.

The staff of Douyoto School acts like protective parents stationed on street corners around the school looking out for stragglers. This is a small school – only 280 students, and thus has a family atmosphere. They almost lost one member before my eyes. Had the same teacher not blocked Miyuki’s intended sprint through the crosswalk, he would have had an unfortunate encounter with a minivan.

It was a bittersweet week. I hadn’t taught at my favorite school since Halloween, but January’s reunion would be short-lived. It was my final scheduled appearance. The 7th graders seemed to have forgotten my name because some insisted on calling me Johnny or Bobby. I think they’ve been watching too much TV again. Nevertheless, they welcomed me back with open arms and a few questions, like “how do you say ‘anus’ in English?” and “was that you on TV?” I hope the two weren’t related.

I quizzed them with listening comprehension passages about Thanksgiving and Hanukkkah. Unlike at Kanokita School, where only the walls pay attention, Douyoto students volunteer to recite model textbook readings. English, while not as popular as gym, is at least favored over math and art. In a school survey, 61% rated English as either their favorite subject or one they like.

This, after all, is the school where I coached two students to victory in a sweep of the two first prizes at the ward’s English speech contest. Douyoto divided my loyalty by unseating last year’s champion Nubata School, the second favorite of the four I teach at.

As a parting gift, Douyoto 8th and 9th graders gave me a new batch of compositions to correct. The 9th graders, currently mired in jiken jigoku (high school entrance “examination hell”), wrote about their dreams. It was heartening to read their aspirations pieced together in mangled English. Among the future bakers, barbers, clinical psychologists, weather forecasters and nursery school teachers, some didn’t yet have a “future dream.”

Others expressed exactly what they wanted. One boy confessed an urge to “become a temporarily straight adult.” Talk about lost in translation! Two verbalized definitive goals. One, to follow in dad’s footsteps at Japan Rail. The other, to become a conductor on the Seibu line in a 3800 series train, a mechanical diagram of which accompanied his text.

A humble girl had this to say:
I want to be common housewife in the future. Why? First, it is an ideal every morning that send a husband and child out. I am similar afterwards and do terrible housework in various ways and want to finish first. Now I do not like a help of a house very much. Therefore I want to do my best little by little.

I’m setting her up with this boy:
My dream I would like to be happy old man. What’s happy? Happiness might be different for the person. The dream for me is to do to want do it is necessary to do, and doing. It’s my dream!!

Meanwhile, the 8th graders described “their important one thing.” Family, pet cat, soccer ball, baseball glove and Nintendo were common. One girl wrote about having “a considerate heart.”

This capitalistic boy coveted more tangible values:
My important thing is money. A mony can change everything.
Japanese money is yen that has many kinds. The smallest yen is own yen next five, ten, fifty, hundred, 500….A money made all of us happy, and it is life.

Comic books enthrall Japanese young and old, apparently even in the afterlife:
My important thing. It is many comics. It gave me many some thing. For example, knowledge, smiling face, etc…It isn’t miss my life. I like comics. So my coffin in these comics. Because I want to read comics in the other world.

As this blogger well knows, never underestimate the power of the pen:
I have a important thing. It’s a pen. Because it is needed to write. But I often break it. Now I have six pens in my pencase. I often by pen. But it is expensive, isn’t it?
If you say “Yes” you are right.
If you say “No” you are stupit.

Yet even teacher make mistakes. I misspelled cockaroach, cavier and badmitton on the board. I drew an uncomfortable silence after mispronouncing the Japanese word for Thanksgiving (kansha-sai) as kancho-sai. Day of Thanks came out as “enema festival.”

A blooper at recess was just as embarrassing, but more painful. I should have known better than to play a sport I know nothing about while in loafers. I’m not sure how it happened. Maybe I tripped on the soccer ball, or maybe over my own feet, but the next thing I knew I was tumbling. Not just falling down, but a sputtering, flailing dive. Had my palms and right knee not broken the fall, I would have tasted playground dirt.

My stumble drew a chorus of laughs. I casually dusted off my stained trousers, which hid a skinned knee glistening with blood that hadn’t broken the surface. “You’re weak,” one boy shouted in Japanese, adding “and slow, too” while I hobbled after him ready to ring his neck.

I atoned by teaching two 8th grade classes on my own. Technically this is illegal because I am not a certified teacher in Japan. However, Ms. Kimura had to take her feverish son out of elementary school and to the doctor, leaving me in charge of the lesson plan. I drilled cooperative students on reading passages and vocab before running out the clock with hangman. I told them it was our last class together. They stood up, bowed and gave me a mild round of applause. I high-fived my way out the door for the final time.