I’m dyin’ here. The heat is so overpowering it has unmanned me. I don’t know where the hell it came from, either. One day I was sitting comfortably at my desk, eating my yoghurt and enjoying a nice cross breeze, and the next day I was stuck to that same desk. Quite literally. I had to peel my hands off of my cheap plastic seat and wipe pooled sweat out from under my eyeballs. It all happened in one day. Suddenly I was dreaming about how nice it was when I froze my balls off all winter. Then I realized that the winter weather was just as terrible. And then I got really angry and wanted to hit something, and I would have too, if I wasn’t so sure that the second I stood up I would pass out.

Oh, and they’ve finally decided it was Ok to turn on the air-conditioner at work. That’s nice of them. How thoughtful. Never mind that I’ve lost four pounds of water-weight over the past two weeks. I was wondering when everyone would realize that having the windows open doesn’t do a damn thing on days when there’s no wind! All that happens in that case is that a huge fat fly inevitably comes in and hits Brad on the back of the head and scares the bejesus out of him while he’s watching Entourage at his desk. There is a set date at Koho for when we are allowed to turn on the AC. In this country, temperature has very little bearing on decisions of personal comfort; the calendar dictates everything. Hot-as-a-whore-in-Church in the staff room? Sorry Guy, wait until June 30th, that’s the date to turn on the AC. Cold as a witches tit? Not so fast there Ace, it’s not time to turn on the heat yet.

It’s the same with school uniforms. The decision to change over from “Winter Uniform” to “Summer Uniform” and vice versa has nothing to do with whether or not the kids are comfortable in said uniform style, it’s all about the changeover date. No matter how hot it is in October, you still wear the Jacket. Sorry Sally! Power through it! If you pass out during morning assembly, somebody will probably carry you out, so don’t worry.

As far as classes go, I’m just going through the motions. Somebody had the brilliant idea of requiring kids to go to class after the exam for two weeks. As if I didn’t already have a class full of kids without any motivation to begin with, now I have to come up with two weeks of completely worthless filler, and try to keep them from meowing at me at the same time (Recently, my 1A kids have taken to meowing at me during class. They think it is absolutely hilarious). You can only play so many games of hangman before the kids start throwing things at each other. I am about at that point right now.

In other news, every single kid in every single class I teach has passed. You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t break out the champagne. I have five kids who didn’t even bother to show up for the exam, but who will be given a second shot to take it anyway. At their leisure, I’m sure.

“So they can just take it again? Just like that?” I asked my JTE.
“Yes, a makeup exam,” she said.
“And what if they don’t show up then? Do we give it a third time?”
“No no,” she said, laughing. And for a second I thought I might have stumbled upon the absolute end game, the point when a kid has to fail. But no.

“Then we give them supplementary lessons,” she said.


I see. So if the kids don’t give a fuck, it’s the teachers who end up paying for it.

No wonder everyone gets passed through.

I’d like to let you all in on a little conversation I just had with one of my JTE’s today:

JTE: Uh oh, Toyota-San got a 35% on his test.

Me: That’s right. He failed.

JTE: That’s not good. That means he fail the class.

Me: Makes sense to me.

JTE: Let’s look at his attendance.

Me: (Sigh) Fine. Says here he showed up 30% of the time.

JTE: Oh no. Not good.

Me: That’s what, three of our ten classes?

JTE: That’s right. Let’s look at his notebook.

Me: Fine. Here’s his notebook score...Well will you look at that! He doesn’t have one! He never turned it in!

JTE: He might have for the last class, let’s check the class box.

(runs to check class box)

JTE: Here it is! He turned it in!

(flips through it)

JTE: He filled out everything for the three days! That’s a 30%!

Me: So? That's a fail in my book.

JTE: Let’s make 30% a pass!

Me: What? 30%?

JTE: Yes!

Me: You’re telling me that all anybody has to do to pass is show up 30% of the time and do 30% of the work.

JTE: Yes! And look 35% on test, 30% on notebook, 30% on attendance...Toyota passes!

Me: Unbelievable, what a surprise that is.

JTE: What?

Me: Fine. Whatever. He passes.

JTE: And what about Honda? Honda got a 34%...

Me: ...

JTE: ...

Me: (sigh) What do you think?

JTE: I think he should pass!

Me: Wonderful. He passes. They all pass. Happy Midterms to everyone.

And trust me when I say that if Toyota had a 20% on everything, 20% would have been the benchmark.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that’s right, it’s Midterm Test time. The time in a JET’s career when it is no longer possible to ignore the fact that every single child would be shuffled through the school anyway, regardless of if you’re being here or not.

This kid Toyota, he never did anything. That’s right! Nothing! Nothing at all! He never turned in a notebook, he never participated, and he got a 35% on his test by being able to tackle difficult questions like the one that asked him to correctly identify a picture of a cat, a pizza, a pencil, a cake, a lion, and a piece of cheese when I said them in English.

Incidentally, for those of you who don’t know, in Japanese, “Lion” is pronounced Lion, “Pizza” is pronounced Pizza, “Cake” is pronounced Cake, and “Cheese” is pronounced Cheese.

No matter. Move him on up.

On a totally unrelated and awesome note, the Toyama Charity Show was this past weekend, and it went splendidly.

Together, Geoff and I were Trees:

And Ninjas:

True to character, the two of us started celebrating early with champagne at the final dress rehearsal before the play, and a heavy Cabernet during the scene breaks of the actual play. It kept us loose. Trust me when I say that the antics we did, we would be unable to do correctly when stone cold sober. Also, all of my stoner hippy friends in college used to always say to each other whilst watching cartoons and eating bagel-bites: “Well, you know dude, they say that if you were stoned for all of your studying time, you should get stoned for the test, ‘cause it’s like….it’s like, your brain…right, you’re brain is used to bein’ exposed, man, to the weed and the material at the same…or something. So look, it’s no worries, man, you’re supposed to get totally stoned for the test, ok?”

Well, we took the same lesson to heart with booze! And it worked! Everything went perfectly! And here I thought all of my friends were just washout, tie-dyed-in-the-wool communists. That’ll teach me.

Our jackass antics on stage garnered nonstop laughs, as well as 2000 dollars for each of the charities to which we donated, including that one with the adorable guide dog that looked absolutely terrified on stage and kept slipping all over the varnished wood while it tried to escape the monster foreigners.

Well done, everyone. Applause and after-show cigars all around.

This past week we had the infamous “Sports Day” at Koho High. Sports Day is kind of like the Field Day we all loved (or hated) in middle school, except that whereas in the US it’s a pastime reserved mostly for kids under ten, in Japan every student from the age of five to the age of eighteen takes part in some form of Sports Day every single year.

Now, being the type of child that mostly liked to read the Chronicles of Narnia and play with my GI Joe’s in the sandbox, I thought even the modest Field Day I was forced to take part in at Governor’s Ranch Elementary School unnecessarily competitive. "Why," I thought, "are they making me run so far, and with so many people?” I’d much rather hang out with JoJo, our overweight class rabbit (RIP).

Suffice to say, I would not have been very happy growing up in Japan.

One of the second year JETs prepared me for Sports Day thusly:

“It’s like you close your eyes, and when you open them again you are magically transported back to 1938 Japan, where the Emperor is still God, and where everyone is recruiting for the war effort. It will blow you away.”

The pageantry associated with this day is intense. The students were split up into three teams: Blue Dragon, Red Phoenix, and White Tiger. Each team had a massive flag and a two story tall mural emblazoned with a glowering picture of their corresponding animal (or fantastical creature, whichever the case may be). Every student was given a headband to represent their color. At the correct musical cue, every student marched (yes, that’s right, marched) up to present their colors to the principle, who in turn blessed them, and gave a speech. There was much chanting of slogans and bowing. It was truly a sight to behold.

The Japanese Sports Day has everything an American Field Day has: the relays, the sack races, that infuriating relay in which you carry water bit by bit into a receptacle of some sort, shot put, etc. etc. And then some.

For instance, for the life of me I cannot ever remember having played anything like “Tire Fight” during Field Day at home. This is a delightful Sports Day game in which all of the girls (and only the girls) line up facing each other in two rows, in the center of which is a bunch of tires. A whistle blows. The girls run to get the tires and carry them back to their lines, and the side with the most tires wins. Simple, right? Except that for forty girls there are about ten tires. There is pulling, yanking, dragging, and screaming. A Tire Fight is the type of sport that would be at a redneck barbeque.

Nor did we have “Pyramid Wrestling” at Governor’s Ranch, thank Christ. But boy do they ever have it here. Pyramid Wrestling is a ludicrously violent competition in which the Japanese boys wrestle in groups of four until somebody falls, or until somebody gets stripped of their headband. Remember playing “chicken fight” in the pool back when you were a kid? That was fun, right? A few laughs, a few pushes, and everyone falls gaily into the cool water. Well, think of that, except the fighter is on top of three kids, and instead of falling into cool water, the loser falls onto dirt. Broken and bleeding.

Here is a perfect picture:

Somewhere along the line, probably back in 1938, some masochistic bastard apparently thought starting from a standing position was just too safe. They all get running starts now.

Here was a particularly nasty fight.

This….

Turned into this:

All of the sudden, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody, one of the poor kids fell directly on his neck. He was also bleeding from the forehead. They took him to the hospital. Don’t worry though! He was back in time for the closing ceremonies! If only there was a medal for awarded for head wounds!

After the event I interviewed two students. One of them is a “tough guy” and the other is a pretty Average Joe, just a nice guy.

First, Mr. Nice Guy. He always says hi to me and waves goodbye to me at the end of the day. When I taught him, he never slept or made disruptions. An all ‘round good kid.

Me: What do you think about this?

Nice Guy: It hurts.

Me: What hurts?

Nice Guy: My arm. I fell on it.

Me: Well, at least it’s over, right?

Nice Guy: Until next year. Then it comes back. I don’t want to do it again.

Me: I see.

Now, Mr. Toughie. He likes Slipknot and Marilyn Manson. He is also, strangely, a pretty good student.

Me: What do you think about this?

Tough Guy: I love fighting.

Me: I see.

Like many things in Japan, Sports Day is both ludicrous and endearing, and if you get into it, it can be a hell of a lot of fun. Hell, even the Teacher’s Relay was a lot of fun, and I almost threw up after that! (In my defense, I had to run a whole 300 meters). I also took part in the High Jump competition; you see, I was a pretty hotshit highjumper back in my day, (I believe I took third place in Elementary School), so when the top guy at Koho won and they asked me if I thought I could beat his height, I took off my hat and sunglasses, handed my camera to someone, and walked out onto the field, preparing to bask in the glory and adoration of my students once I shattered his mark.

I made a big show of stretching, began my slow approach, took bigger and bigger strides, lifted into a beautiful backwards jump……..aaaaaaaand slammed right into the pole. I landed spread eagle on-top of the pole on the cushion. I almost took the whole apparatus down on top of me. Everyone politely chuckled. The boy who won smiled and bowed when I shook his hand.

Back in the day though, I’d have been all over it.

A few months ago I was privy to a Japanese Pimp fight. It was my first Pimp fight ever, (except for me, there aren’t a whole lot of pimps in the Denver Suburbs...BADABING!), so naturally I was intrigued.

I’m not sure how the whole incident got started, but by the time we had arrive on the scene (to sing karaoke at a joint nearby), there was already one dude knocked out and bleeding from the head on the sidewalk, and the street was swamped with pimps and ragtag individuals of every sort.

First, a word about Japanese Pimps. They don’t look like much. Unlike pimps in the US, they don’t wear flashy colors or badass velvet fedoras, nor do they carry gold tipped, ivory handled canes or wear Chinchilla coats dyed a rainbow of fabulous colors. In fact, the only thing pimps in the US share with pimps in Japan are the shoes, (mostly gator-skinned, silver-tipped cowboy boots, or 1970’s style pointy-tipped bright leather loafers with absurd heels for a man), that and the Hos of course. Otherwise they dress in sleek looking suits, either white or black. They choose to express their pimpdom through their hair, which they mullet out and bouffant, or purchase extensions for until it’s down to their lower back, then they dye it rusty red or gold. Now that I think about it, they look pretty ridiculous. Really quite stupid.

Their job is to pick up potential girls for hostess positions, and to direct you to the nearest hostess bar that they represent. Virtually every single one of them is connected at some level to the Yakuza, and there are hundreds of them, one at every street corner on a Saturday night. Some of them have little FBI earpieces, and should you require their services, they will call up a car and whisk you away to wherever you want to go. They are also all about 5 foot 3, and, despite the whole Gay Elvis thing, most of them look about as menacing as Jon Arbuckle.

At least that’s what I though, until one of them dropped the poor fellow that ended up bleeding from the head on the sidewalk that night. You see, I failed to recognize that practically none of these pimps compete against each other, and are, in fact, all most likely part of the same underworld gang, sort of like different branches of the same franchise, so the second somebody fucked with one of them, that person got on their little earpiece and brought the pain with the entire crew. While I could most likely deal with one of these pimps, I wouldn’t want to have to contend with 35 of them.

The whole spectacle was notable for one other reason as well: The Japanese Police. Now, I respect the police system here for the most part. They have a very visible presence in every major area of traffic, and they were very capable when an old man ran down Geoff as he was biking across the street, before promptly driving off. They tracked the guy down, made him apologize, fined him, etc. etc. But the way that they pandered to these worthless pimps, and tried lamely to diffuse the situation that night, well, it was just embarrassing.

You see, once the dude got hit, his posse showed up, and then the pimp posse showed up, and everyone was in each other’s face, and people were shoving and fighting, and then the police showed up. It’s all over, right? Wrong. Nobody is arrested, nobody is even taken away. The police pretty much played the part of the High School teacher who pulls kids apart and holds them back while they do their macho posturing. But still, it’s the cops, right? So we figure that the situation is under control. So we go in to sing our karaoke, and an hour later we come back out...and the pimps are still yelling and trying to fight! Unbelievable! Nothing has changed except the fact that there are now fifteen policemen being worthless. It’s mayhem! There are Hos running about in their high heels, and dudes yelling and pushing, and a big crowd has come to see what the hell could possibly be have been going on for an hour and a half, and the police are doing their part by saying “Sir, calm down sir. Please sir. Just calm down sir.”

We even saw, repeatedly, the pimps pushing and kicking at the police, which, as you know, would have lasted all of one second in the US, and most likely would have ended with the perpetrator dead.

The US cops aren’t perfect by any means, Lord knows our police have their own problems, but as I watched these pimps yell and shove and kick at the police I couldn’t help but think that what the whole situation needed was a nice dose of NYPD whoopass.

I can imagine how it would have gone down:

Pimp: (moves to shove police officer)
NYPD Cop 1: Sir, if you touch me I’m gonna have to shoot you.
Pimp: What?!?
NYPD Cop 1: Sir, is that a gun?
Pimp: This? This is a cigarette!
NYPD Cop 1: Fred, I think he’s got a gun.
NYPD Cop 2: TAKE HIM DOWN!!

(blamblamblamblamblamblamblam...........blamblam!)

All of the activity on the street stops. The pimps and hooligans put their hands up.

NYPD Cop 1: Requesting backup! Requesting backup! Officer down! Officer down!
NYPD Cop 2: Yeah! Officer down! TAZER ‘EM ALL!


And that would be that.