Chinese mothers and the free umbrellas…

Hello everyone! I say it every week, but thank you for reading. I have notice I have gained some readers in the past few weeks. I am happy this is something people find interesting enough to click on. Recently, I have had clicks from all over the world. My American, Chilean, and Japanese friends seem to have been keeping tabs on me from the start, but over the past few weeks I have seen some other countries pop up as well. Italy, Uruguay, Germany, Portugal, Singapore, Argentina, Brazil, Netherlands, Philippines, Thailand, and Mexico. This is just something I started doing just to let my mom know I am still alive without having to send an email every week. It is also a nice way for friends to see some of the more interesting happenings in my life. It has started to become a bit more than that to me recently. It isn’t like I am climbing the ranks of “most visited websites” or anything, I just cracked 1,000 page views after being on here for almost 4 months. It is just cool to see that somehow people from outside of my circle of friends have found their way to my website. Maybe it is just some robot computer somewhere “clicking” and inflating the data, (in which case I hope the robot keeps it up) but I like seeing new countries on my stats page, it is encouraging.

Enough gloating about the massive amount of page views my website is noticing though. I am not saving the world with my international influence or anything. I still have a long way to go before I am as cool as Bono….

My week of open classes went fairly smoothly. The parents seemed to enjoy my lessons. I was a bit nervous at some points and made a few mistakes, but I was able to play most of them off so the parents didn’t notice. One class was pretty rough though. It was with these two four year old girls who love me. luckily, they helped disguise my disorganization with their usual craziness. Before the class, my manager put the pressure on me and told me one of the parents was tough to impress. She seemed to like me well enough in the lobby after class every week, but I guess the manager didn’t have confidence in my normal style so she decided to make me more nervous about things. She said “Remember…her mother is Chinese… so, very serious… do good… she wants her daughter to be good at English”. Before coming to Japan, I had no idea about the differences between Japanese and Chinese culture… to tell you the truth, I still don’t know the differences, but to my Japanese friends they couldn’t be more different from the Chinese. I have noticed some of the mothers which I have been “warned” about as being Chinese are usually more serious, but there are a lot of Japanese mothers who are even more serious and strict. There is real political tension between Japan and China right now. However, it does not spill over into racism against immigrants, aside from an eccentrically painted van that sometimes drives around by the Korean embassy in Osaka blaring music, which I have been told is telling Koreans and Chinese to get out of Japan. I am told that  this van is very offensive to most Japanese people as well and it is not a good representation of the feelings of the rest of Japan.

Anyway, where was I… nervous about a strict Chinese mother coming to my class. The lesson went pretty well overall, I misplaced something for a minute, and was kind of stressing until the “strict” Chinese mother found it for me. One of the students had put it over next to her bag without me knowing… it was a bit embarrassing but nothing too bad. The worst part about the class was that the air conditioner was never turned on in my room. I was sweating bullets. I thought it was mostly just me being nervous, but when I looked down towards the end of class I saw my shirt was soaked with sweat and figured I don’t sweat that bad from just “nerves”. I was really embarrassed about that. Other than ending up a gross sweaty mess, the class went well. The “strict Chinese mother” was not so fierce after all (which I expected before the warning). I think she still likes me, or maybe she just felt sorry for me because I was so sweaty and gross looking. Either way it went much better than my boss seemed to think it would. Sometimes I think she doesn’t trust me. I am usually one of the less serious people in the office, and am usually joking. I think because of this she thinks I am some sort of liability. My students all seem to like me, and when my lessons have been observed I have gotten mostly positive feedback. I do everything that is asked of me, but my demeanor may not be “Japanese” enough for her. She likes me, but she often feels the need to over explain even the most simple things to me. I still like her as a boss though. She is able to joke around, so we get along well.

So this week was not the most fun I have ever had teaching English, but it was not the worst either. I have one more open class tomorrow, but I think it will go alright. It is one of my favorite kids classes, and they are pretty smart. I am ready to get it over with. It has been a busy past two months. We have had a lot of student counseling’s and things going on. I am getting to the end of my list of counseling’s, and after this last open class is finished I wont have to worry about them any more until October. I like this job, but mostly because of the teaching aspect. I understand the necessity of the counseling’s and such, but it is definitely not my favorite part of the job. Weeks like these make me appreciate the weekends much more though. I try to take advantage of my free time even more after busy stressful weeks.

Before this week, I was thinking I would just take it easy on the weekend. I knew I would be worn out from all the open classes and I figured I would just want to catch up on sleep. When I got home from work on Saturday evening, I laid down on the floor and fell asleep while playing on my phone. I woke up a little while later to a few text messages about a party in Osaka, but I was still pretty unmotivated. Somehow, after lazing around and debating what I should do for another hour or two, I all of a sudden found the energy to catch the last train into Osaka. Not long after I got on the train I saw rain drops start to hit the train windows. I immediately began to regret my decision. When I finally got to my station I went up the stairs to the street and saw it was now pouring down rain. I joined the several people who were standing in the stairway waiting/hoping for he rain to pass. I was texting my friend, who I was going to meet up with saying I would be late because I had no umbrella and no rain jacket. He offered to walk the 1.5 km to the station to bring me an umbrella. As soon as I accepted the offer, a guy came by the station exit and handed a few people umbrellas. He gestured to the rest of us and then set the umbrellas against the wall before leaving. I waited a few minutes before I took one. I wasn’t sure if he was seriously offering us strangers free umbrellas. I looked around and tried to gesture to the other people there to see if they wanted one and if it was acceptable for me to take one. They all seemed to be telling me to go ahead and take one. So I did. This dude dropping of the umbrellas made my night. It was the nicest thing I have ever seen anyone do before. People in Japan can be a little weird compared to what I am used to with Americans, but they are definitely much kinder and nicer than us by a long shot. Although one of the things I miss most about America is people’s blunt honesty and assertiveness, I really love how humble and kind the Japanese are.

The party was an awesome time. I had a blast. It was and “invite only” dance party at an Irish bar I have been to a few times. Koichi got my name on the list/ talked them into letting me in. The music was pretty good. One of my good friends Claudia was bartending, so I enjoyed the speedy service in a crowded bar 😉 I met a few new people as well. Honestly, I had a blast. I was dancing with my friends, and with strangers. People I had met only once or twice before were coming up to say hi to me. I felt like I knew people. It was nice.

The manager of the bar is half Brazilian, half Japanese so she put the end of the Chile vs. Brazil soccer game on. Although the music kept playing, it seemed like the whole party stopped to watch the end of the game. It ended up going into penalty kicks. I was the only person there rooting for Chile. Brazil ended up winning and the party resumed as Tati (the manager) danced on the bar celebrating with everyone. We went to get some Chinese food when we did finally end up leaving the party. Then we went back to my friends’ apartment and I went to sleep on the couch.

When I woke up all the roommates were up and talking about the night. Not everyone went to the same party, but it seemed like everyone had fun. It reminded me of Saturday and Sunday mornings in college with my fraternity brothers. Everyone was joking and sharing stories while lazily watching whatever was on TV. Around 3, we finally mustered up the energy to go get sushi. After sushi everyone else went back to the apartment, but I went for a little exploratory walk to see some things around Osaka. I walked to Tennoji, where the tallest building in Japan was. I wanted to see how much it was to go to the top. It was 1500 yen, so I decided to save it for a better day, when it wasn’t so cloudy. I walked around some shops then headed back to the apartment. Everyone was asleep “watching” a movie when I got back. Shortly thereafter I got my things together and headed back to my apartment in Nara. I slept well.

This morning I woke up and went to the boxing gym. I pushed myself pretty hard again since I had skipped a week. I felt pretty crappy when I got back home, but after cleaning my apartment, doing laundry, and going to the grocery store, I feel much better. I just made some dinner, which was not my best creation, but I am full now, and tired. Almost ready for bed. I want to look into buying bus tickets to Tokyo for next weekend. I hope to have some stories about Tokyo next time I write.

I hope everyone has a good week. Thanks for reading.