Well, alright. Had my first day of teaching today. Went quite well if I do say so myself.
Today I went down to Minobu. It's about an hour fifteen on the train. I'm sure that eventually this will seem like a long journey but since today was my first time, I just looked out the window at all the sights and the hour went by quite quickly. Amy lives about a half hour south. I've been down there twice and for the most part, it is hard to tell when Kofu ends and the other small towns begin. But south of her it gets quite rural. Lots of small towns and lots of rice fields. I mean a lot of rice fields. Makes me wonder why rice is so expensive here. Also there are a few rivers along the way, some mountains with tunnels for the train, and many many trees. Damn nice country.
Stuck in between some mountains and next to one of the bigger rivers is Minobu. I don't know the population of the town, but it isn't too big. Bigger than some of the towns along the way, but not nearly the size of Kofu at 200,000. Although Kofu actually feels quite larger than that due to the surrounding towns being separated by a only a street at points.
Anyway, I got off the train and walked out to where I was supposed to catch a school bus up to the school. It was supposed to be about a fifteen minute ride according to Alaina. But there was no school bus out there when I got there. "Well, no big deal," I thought, "I'm sure it will be here soon." So I sat down and waited for about 5 minutes when this man walks up to me from the side (so I didn't see him coming) and says, "Excuse me, but are you Mr. Marcus?" In regards to names they do things the opposite of how we do. Family name first, given name second. So I have gotten quite used to the misunderstanding surrounding which name is my last. So I jumped up, because being out in public alone and hearing English wakes you up, and looked over and here was Mr. Kobayashi, who I had met about 3 weeks ago, coming towards me. He told me that today there was no school bus running so he was here to pick me up. "Damn good thing," I thought.
So off we go, making small talk and heading for the school. Quite suddenly though, he says something (to himself?) in Japanese and we make a u-turn. I figured he'd forgotten something but what it turned out to be was that he'd seen one of the students waiting at a bus stop. He yells out the window what was obviously, "Name, would you like a ride to school?" The young man says, "Hai," runs across the street, gets in the back seat and we are off again. Kobayashi introduces me as Marcus-sensei (teacher) and the young guy and I exchange pleasent but very brief greetings. "Marcus-sensei," I think to myself, "how the hell did I get to be that?"
So we arrive at the school and quite honestly I was a little disappointed with the look of the place. As this was my Buddhist school, I was expecting some kind of temple looking building. But this looked like the rest of the school buildings I'd seen. It was just a big concrete thing, off white, about 3 stories tall, really no big deal. But that is where my disappointment ended.
We walk in, change into school slippers (you DO NOT wear outside shoes into schools here), and head for the teachers' room. Kobayashi had told me in the car that I'd be meeting the principal and that we'd be having a school assembly where he (the principal) would introduce me to the school. Ok, I can handle that. So we go into his office and Kobayashi announces our pressence to which the principal comes over bows to me and says a few words in Japanese. He was smiling the whole time and seemed extremely happy. So that, of course, loosened me up a bit and all in all it was good meeting. He asked if I spoke Japanese to which I said, "no." And then he says, and I actually understood this part, "well, I don't speak English." Then he uses his right hand to smack me in the chest and then himself and said (I am translating), "we don't speak each other's language, we are comrads in this way." "What a great guy," I thought.
So after this I had to write a quick speech that Kobayashi would then translate into Japanese so that the principal could introduce me at the assembly. So I did, then we went over it together, he liked it, and then he worked on the translation while I went back to my desk to waste some time and review my self-intro for my class.
Kobayashi then came over to clear up some points on my speech and also to tell me that the school assembly was taking up one of my class periods and that I had only one class to teach this day. "Ok," I said, thinking, "well, that makes my day a little easier." Then a few minutes later, Mr. Watanabe comes over and hands me his business card and introduces himself. I'm not exactly sure what he is (probably the vice-principal) but he was very friendly and also seemed happy to have me there. So far, so good.
Soon after we all walked up to the assembly together where the students, that's right, the students, were getting out the chairs and putting them into neat rows in a large room. Over here the students are responsible for much more than just showing up and learning. From what I hear, they clean their school, and from what I saw today have a lot more responsibility in the maintainence of their school. Seems like a good idea to me. But anyway, the students, of course, looked at me as I walked in, probably wondering, "who the hell is this guy?" I just smiled and gave slight waves. So soon all the chairs were in place and the assembly got under way.
First they all bowed with hands together, then there was a Buddhist chant, and then they all bowed again. The chant lasted maybe two minutes. I had no idea what was going on, but it was all rather interesting. There were about 90 students and probably 10 faculty members present. Small school. After the chant, I was the first order of business. The principal introduced me using what Kobayashi and I had written, and it was kinda strange to know that this guy was talking about me, but that I could not understand him. The students all laughed at one point and I still wonder what he said at that point, guess I'll never know. When he was done I got up there with Kobayashi and I basically read what I had written earlier while Kobayashi translated. I thought I'd be nervous for sure, but I really wasn't. And I thought to myself later that that was a nice easy intro for the 700 people I have address on Thursday. So all in all, it went pretty well. After I took my seat, they had a few more points of business to conduct and then they all sang some song accompanied by recorded piano (school song?) and then had another minute of chanting. Then it was over and once again the students got busy folding all the chairs and stacking them away.
About 10 minutes later my first class started. I have never taught a class before and thought I'd feel more nervous than I did but I chaulk the lack of that anxious feeling up to being pretty well prepared. I thought I had plenty of material to cover the 50 minutes and it turns out I did. In fact, we didn't get to much of what I thought we would. We got through my introduction and the bingo game and when I asked Kobayashi how much time I had left, "three minutes," was what he said. "Eggcellent," I thought to myself in that Mr. Burns from The Simpsons sort of way. So I thought I'd fill the last three minutes by taking questions. No harm in that. Maybe these little buggers want to know something more about me, maybe they want to know something about American sports, maybe they have a question about the finer points of English grammer, but what did I get? Well, at first I got a question in Japanese to which I answered, "English!" And I have every right to answer that way as this is an English class after all. So the kid looked for the words and came up a minute later asking, "is it dangerous in the Bronx?" Shit, man, I don't know. I've never been to the Bronx. So I told him I'd never been there but that I'd heard the Bronx are dangerous sometimes. Just makin' it up as I go along. That's probably going to be a way of life for me over here.
Kobayashi came to me after class and said that he thought it went very well. So I was pleased to hear this as I too thought it went pretty well. No, not every one of them was hanging on my every word, but I guess that's the life of a teacher. Overall, they seemed to enjoy themselves and I did too.
Now it was lunch time and there is not much great stuff to tell. Kobayashi and I had lunch together in the cafeteria and then he offered to show me the temple. This temple is apparently pretty famous if you are into that sort of thing and in the next half hour I would find out why. It was quite large, very clean, and really beautiful. We took off our shoes and walked in. There were many Buddhists (priests and/or those below them on the chain of command) walking around. All very polite and quiet. There was also some small ceremony going on, more chanting, a great garden complete with pond, trees, rocks, koi, and a water fall coming down from the mountain behind. The garden was the best part. Then there were many rooms, some with just tatami and low tables, others with many sorts of trinkets (for lack of a better word) in them. And then this guy walks up to us, and lo and behold, after asking Kobayashi where I was from, starts telling me about the garden in English. He was some kind of a worker there and I probably could have talked to him for a couple hours if I'd had the time. But alas, I did not and we had to move on. Kobayashi also pointed out the cherry blossom trees (not in bloom right now) and said that they bloom in spring and that many people come to see them. "Great," I thought, "I'll already be coming out here for school." Can't wait for that.
So we went back to the school and I just had to kill a half hour at my desk until Kobayashi took me back to the train station and I was gone. Good day. Good first day of teaching. I just might be able to pull this off.