booze and kindergarten

I guess I haven’t talked about my junior high school’s enkai, or welcome party. It happened last Friday. And of course, I completely messed up the time it started. Well I showed up slightly late, not too bad. But still, I strolled in a good fifteen minutes late for the party that they threw for me. Even though it was my welcome party, I still had to pay them 3000 yen ($30) for the meal. Everyone has to pay. And everyone has to pay every time that the teachers have a party. So I have to budget for one more thing because enkais are mandatory optional events. By mandatory I mean that if I want to foster good ongoing relationships with my office people I need to drink with them. Bottom line I need to booze it up. Don’t worry. I have learned how to look like I am drinking without actually drinking a lot, which requires skill.

If you are not careful at an enkai, your glass will keep refilling magically. As soon as you take a sip five people rush to grab the closest drink and fill your cup up to the brim, whether your cup is full beer or hard liquor. This brings me to rule number one: stick to beer. Drinking beer ensures that your blood alcohol levels are lower than if you drink nihon-shuu (what we refer to as sake) or sho-yuu (Japanese potato wine). With the first rule in mind, it is possible to avoid disaster because if you are like me, you keep drinking anything that is in front of you. As a habit I will drink anything put in front of my at a restaurant. This started with water, but I absent mindedly sip my drinks until they empty. Why? I have no idea, but even with water this because a problem because my bladder fills up quickly and then I have to make innumerable trips to the bathroom. I treat alcohol in a glass like water not because I want to get drunk, but because I don’t realize I am doing this. So, my dangerous habit combined with everyone refilling my drink I get into a vicious cycle that never ends. I can’t stop drinking, but I don’t realize that I am doing it. Solution (and second rule) have either a cup of water or cup of soda along with your beer cup. I can satisfy my constant drinking habit with the soda and not drink too much alcohol. Rule one: ask for beer and rule two: have a non alcoholic drink.

If you have to break rule one (only beer) then you can still maintain sobriety by leaving some sake in your glass. VERY IMPORTANT to leave at least a little. When your Japanese friend sees it empty your glass will be refilled before you can refuse. I think their refilling system kind of works like meerkats. A sentry, “or booze master” also looks out for empty glasses, and this duty seems to shift throughout the night. I am making this up to explain how dangerous drinking with Japanese can be. You are never safely able to finish a glass. BEWARE. I escaped booze disaster my enkai night, but I am lucky that I have played their game before. Making mistakes previously (and bad headaches) enlightened me, and I am now very careful.

The food was absolutely amazing. There was sashimi, tempura, yakiniku, fried fish, edamame, and soup. So, I started with the sashimi of course. I surprised everyone that I could eat everything, and that I like Japanese food. Every time I have mentioned that I like sashimi Japanese people look very impressed. They actually don’t realize that people consume sashimi regularly outside of Japan (which goes to show how egocentric they are). I can tell they don’t believe me when I tell them lots of people eat sashimi in the states. So strange that they can’t imagine foreigners eating Japanese food. Because in my opinion raw fish isn’t that big of a deal. Europeans have traditionally had the smoked salmon, and that is basically raw. Their amazement just reflects the thought that foreigners can’t do or understand Japanese things: food included. So when I used my chopsticks I kept getting, “Oh you are so good with chopstick.” Yes, people in America can use chopsticks. Yes, people in America know about manga and anime. We have heard about some parts of Japanese culture. But, almost everyone knows stereotypical cultural tidbits.

They made a list of questions for me which was by far the most awkward part of the enkai. Some questions asked about my birthday or about what I like about Arikawa. But then they asked me to guess the ages of the male workers. What? The worst part about this was I had forgotten my glasses. My vision significantly hindered my decision making abilities. So this tiny exercise turned into a horrible mistake. There are only five of men in the office and most look around the same age. Since they asked me to do this I didn’t think it was a big deal (after two beers why worry?) and I started selecting. For certain I knew the youngest and the oldest so fill in the rest. But what to do? I had to judge but I couldn’t base my decision on sight because I couldn’t tell easily with visual cues (I was blind after all). I guessed that the vice principal was second oldest because of the age-related hierarchy in business. However, I couldn’t decide for two men how old they were. I guessed the secretary was second youngest and that the assistant director was as old as the principle. ERRRRRR, wrong. The assistant director actually was second youngest. Oops He looks old! Nakamura sensei turned to me and said, “Be careful.” TOO LATE. I had already blundered and I couldn’t take it back. I felt so bad but everyone else thought it was funny. So two huge errors on the night of my enkai: I was late and I made someone (second youngest!) feel really old.

Look through my captions on picasa to see how my weekend went http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/adriene.giese/8_23_09SumoAndNarao?authkey=Gv1sRgCLuwhczj0ObGfg&feat=directlink . I went to an elementary sumo-wrestling tournament and to Narao on the southside of the island to visit Shinju.

Monday, oh joy, a day with none other than my most favorite person on the island! Yup, Toki. Oh my what a day it was. I had great plans for Monday: 8:30-9:30 read linguistic papers on vowels, 9:30-10:30 organize bills and finances, 10:30 – 11:30 continue lesson plans, 11:30- 12:00 blog, 12:00 -12:30 lunch, 12:30- 2:30 med school essays, 2:30- 3:30 study Japanese, 3:30 – 4:15 english board. But my lofty goals suddenly came crashing down when I realized that Monday I had the last half of the day with Toki going to the different elementary schools.

When he showed up he looked flustered. I think, like me, he doesn’t look forward of our time together. In my defense, I really don’t ask him to do very much and he doesn’t tell me anything. I think that he wants to save face, and so he doesn’t enjoy time together because he feels like his English should be better. And it should be in his position. He can’t articulate anything in English to me at all. When he does he often misleads me. So, he just avoids telling me anything at all. For example, he failed inform me that I am also working at kindergartens once a week. But, I had to figure this out for myself and here is how.

We went to the first elementary school Sakiura. At this point I was in a bad mood because I was sitting the car with Toki who smelled like BO and he was making weird breathing noises. It was right after lunch (my down time) and my natural demeanor after lunch tends to fall into the category of sluggish and moody which has nothing to do with Toki. I lack my usual zest. So post-lunch Toki time drags me deeper into a bad state of mind.

At Sakiura he pulled out a schedule to give to the principle, vice principle, and JTE. (WGO) On it, I noticed that new kanji (Japanese characters) appeared at the top of the schedule. He began discussing the schedule while pointing to various circles placed in sections of the spread sheet. I also noticed that new dates appeared that were never on the school schedule I was given. With some consideration I started to realize this new schedule meant I had more dates at these elementary schools and less dates at Arikawa junior high school. Strange. Strange because I have already laid out my schedule (not in stone). So like a responsible employee I asked what the new schedule had to do with me. Oh, I didn’t know? I was going to be working mandatorily with kindergartens. Wait what? Toki hadn’t mentioned anything about three kindergartens before this. Not only that but I am supposed to go to a different kindergarten every Monday and go to the corresponding elementary school that afternoon. I tried to not be upset but I told him in front of the Sakiura people that he hadn’t informed me of this beforehand. Sakiura people looked sympathetic and tried to explain to me my schedule because Toki had failed to do so.

On that day I was furious. I couldn’t believe that he was trying to take advantage of me as an ALT and spread my duties thin. Well, re-read my contract and I do have to work at kindergartens. Also, there is a clause stating that my supervisor can assign me duties that the board of education deems necessary. I don’t think that they will really try and have me do too much, but it is somewhat disconcerting to know that they can make me do whatever they want me to. My understand is the have to make me do extra things during work hours, but in my description they told me I have adult conversation classes. I keep asking Toki when they start and he told me that the adult classes didn’t fit into his job description. Yes they do. His job is to make sure that we are comfortable and taken care of during our time here. Since I have no idea who to contact, wouldn’t it be a good idea for him to call? We figured it out without him, but I am starting to resent his inability to be useful.

On a happy note, the rest of the elementary school visits went well. Everyone boosted my confidence in Japanese (because I could actually understand them unlike Toki) and I got tea at every place. Drinking so much tea nearly made my bladed explode but I love getting refreshments everywhere I go.

One last thing, I have decided that I will do the iron man triathlon next summer here in Shinkamigoto. If I can do it I will feel pretty bad ass.