Over the weekend our friends Chris and Caitlin had a couple of their friends come to Nagoya to visit and we all went out for dinner. While we were eating these two Japanese girls came over to talk with us. This is common in Japan. After a sufficient number of alcoholic drinks, Japanese people lose their reluctance to practice their English on foreigners. They stayed for a few minutes to talk about where we were from and how they wanted to go to America and Canada and then returned to their table.
After dinner we saw them again with their male friends at the subway station. This is where things got a little weird...
I guess the male friends wanted to see what I looked like under my shirt so they come over and before they had even introduced themselves they lifted my shirt up to see what I was hiding. I found this very amusing. I guess they liked what they saw because then they felt my pecs. They felt over my shirt so it was only a little weird. I probably would have drawn the line at being felt-up underneath my shirt. Instead of responding like a lot of foreigners would (yelling, lashing out, screaming) I just lifted their shirts up. They and their girl friends found this incredibly amusing because they all burst out laughing. The guys then slapped their bellies and said they were fat. I told them that I'm skinny because I run every week; they told me they were fat because they drink beer every week.
That episode was definitely the strangest thing that has happened to me since moving here. I thought maybe I wasn't offended because I had been drinking but even two days later I still think it's just funny. I think a lot of it had to do with the demeanor of my frisky friends. They were drunk and happy and harmless. Had some sober Japanese business man come up to me to lift my shirt my reaction would have been much different.
My only regret was that I didn't tell the guys that next time they want to see a foreign man's stomach they should send their girl friends over to do the undressing.
17 June 2010
Beer Gardens
This past Sunday Aimee and I had our first visit to a Japanese beer garden. It was hosted by one of the schools Aimee teaches at and we, along with a friend and a couple other Western teachers, were the token Westerners attending the party. This afforded us a discount on the entry price (1500 yen instead of 3300) and the rockstar status most foreigners get when they're surrounded by a group of Japanese people who wish to speak English.
Beer gardens are all you can eat and drink so there is no shortage of entertainment in the form of Japanese children running around with heaping plates of food and Japanese men inebriated enough to try their best at picking up women. I saw more unsuccessful flirting Sunday night than at a high school dance. Keep high school flirting in your mind while you read the next paragraph (I'm thinking specifically of this scenario: You ask your friend to tell the friend of a girl you like to tell the girl you like that you like her... maybe... only if she likes you back).
Draw a tall, narrow rectangle. In the bottom right corner is M (for Mike) and the top right corner is K (for Kate, our friend). The top left corner is JM (Japanese man) and the bottom left corner is JL (Japanese lady). JM makes small talk with K before revealing the reason he introduced himself - JL would like to be introduced to M. K tells JM to tell JL to introduce herself then. JM smiles and says she is embarrassed. K interrupts my conversation with a different Japanese lady and introduces me to JM. We make small talk until JM tells me that he had himself introduced to me so that he could introduce me to JL. Two things should strike you as odd here. First: we are adults and should be able to make our own introductions. Second: JL was sitting closer to me than JM was (you can see this because you drew a rectangle). JM and I had to lean uncomfortably over the backs of our chairs to make the kind of small talk you make when you first introduce yourself to someone you like so that JL could overhear it ("Where are you from?" "How old are you?" "You have the most beautiful eyes in the world and I could be swallowed up in them..."). I found the whole episode quite humourous - I'm not sure that my tone has captured that.
JL and I talked (with JM translating a little since his English was pretty good) for a little while until Aimee came back from refilling our glasses. JL didn't lash out when I introduced Aimee as my girlfriend but I could tell she was disappointed. Brief aside: I've had numerous conversations with friends and girlfriends (ex and current) about the appropriate time to divulge that you have a boyfriend/girlfriend and have never reached a consensus.
Now, to continue my tale...
The garden is on the rooftop of a 6 story building in the heart of Nagoya. It was raining though so we were eating under tarped gazebo frames. This was a pretty stifling environment to be in. The food at a beer garden is cooked at the table on hibachi-like grills so there's lots of smoke which gets trapped because of the tarps. This smoke is mingled with cigarette smoke since there are no laws in Japan banning smoking in restaurants. Add to this a humidity level that is rivalled only by sitting in tub full of water and you get a recipe for a not-so-comfortable night. I had had a lot to drink the night before so I wasn't in an all-you-can-drink mood otherwise I probably would have been more comfortable than I was.
I'm also not as enamored with all-you-can-eat restaurants as I used to be. When you're a teenager they're fun because you have an appetite that could shame an elephant and no real understanding of how wasteful it is to eat a twentieth of your body weight in one sitting. The problem is that no one needs to eat 5 dinner plates worth of meat and 3 bowls of pudding. All-you-can-eat restaurants perpetuate the belief that people need to eat until they're stuffed when people actually only need to eat until they're not hungry. I think this message would fall on deaf ears here though (if I could even translate it into Japanese properly) because Japanese obesity rates are essentially non-existent when compared to obesity rates in North America.
Beer gardens are all you can eat and drink so there is no shortage of entertainment in the form of Japanese children running around with heaping plates of food and Japanese men inebriated enough to try their best at picking up women. I saw more unsuccessful flirting Sunday night than at a high school dance. Keep high school flirting in your mind while you read the next paragraph (I'm thinking specifically of this scenario: You ask your friend to tell the friend of a girl you like to tell the girl you like that you like her... maybe... only if she likes you back).
Draw a tall, narrow rectangle. In the bottom right corner is M (for Mike) and the top right corner is K (for Kate, our friend). The top left corner is JM (Japanese man) and the bottom left corner is JL (Japanese lady). JM makes small talk with K before revealing the reason he introduced himself - JL would like to be introduced to M. K tells JM to tell JL to introduce herself then. JM smiles and says she is embarrassed. K interrupts my conversation with a different Japanese lady and introduces me to JM. We make small talk until JM tells me that he had himself introduced to me so that he could introduce me to JL. Two things should strike you as odd here. First: we are adults and should be able to make our own introductions. Second: JL was sitting closer to me than JM was (you can see this because you drew a rectangle). JM and I had to lean uncomfortably over the backs of our chairs to make the kind of small talk you make when you first introduce yourself to someone you like so that JL could overhear it ("Where are you from?" "How old are you?" "You have the most beautiful eyes in the world and I could be swallowed up in them..."). I found the whole episode quite humourous - I'm not sure that my tone has captured that.
JL and I talked (with JM translating a little since his English was pretty good) for a little while until Aimee came back from refilling our glasses. JL didn't lash out when I introduced Aimee as my girlfriend but I could tell she was disappointed. Brief aside: I've had numerous conversations with friends and girlfriends (ex and current) about the appropriate time to divulge that you have a boyfriend/girlfriend and have never reached a consensus.
Now, to continue my tale...
The garden is on the rooftop of a 6 story building in the heart of Nagoya. It was raining though so we were eating under tarped gazebo frames. This was a pretty stifling environment to be in. The food at a beer garden is cooked at the table on hibachi-like grills so there's lots of smoke which gets trapped because of the tarps. This smoke is mingled with cigarette smoke since there are no laws in Japan banning smoking in restaurants. Add to this a humidity level that is rivalled only by sitting in tub full of water and you get a recipe for a not-so-comfortable night. I had had a lot to drink the night before so I wasn't in an all-you-can-drink mood otherwise I probably would have been more comfortable than I was.
I'm also not as enamored with all-you-can-eat restaurants as I used to be. When you're a teenager they're fun because you have an appetite that could shame an elephant and no real understanding of how wasteful it is to eat a twentieth of your body weight in one sitting. The problem is that no one needs to eat 5 dinner plates worth of meat and 3 bowls of pudding. All-you-can-eat restaurants perpetuate the belief that people need to eat until they're stuffed when people actually only need to eat until they're not hungry. I think this message would fall on deaf ears here though (if I could even translate it into Japanese properly) because Japanese obesity rates are essentially non-existent when compared to obesity rates in North America.
10 June 2010
Boys Don't Cry?
One of the boys in my class lost a game to another girl and he freaked out - he started swinging his arms and stomping his feet. Inadvertently he hit me, so I told him he had to leave the class for 5 minutes. He refused and instead sat down on the cushions and cried. So I picked him up, carried him out of class and sat him down outside the room. The tears kept rolling down his cheeks and he buried his face in his sleeve so none of the other children (nor the giggling mothers who were also outside the class) could see him. Oh, this boy is 10 years old.
What 10 year old cries because they lose a game to another kid? I was embarrassed for him. I told them to touch their noses with their right hands and the girl was faster than the boy, so she got a point. It's not like he got the answer wrong - he was just slower. When I tried to bring him back in he again refused. Perhaps he realized he was being a baby and felt embarrassed? I had to pick him up again and carry him into class, stand him up and give him a ball to shoot in the basket on the wall (we play "shoot the basket" a lot). Miraculously he got the ball in the basket (they rarely do) and afterward all was well.
After talking with other teachers I've found out that the crying boy phenomenon is common. I don't think there's anything wrong with crying - if it's for a legitimate reason. I had a different boy in the same class cry once but he got hit in the eye by one of the other students. There's no shame in crying there. But because you lost a game?
The consensus seems to be that it's because Japanese boys are spoiled. I agree with this. I see more boys walking over their mothers and getting away with murder than I have seen in Canada. It's ridiculous. If these boys don't get what they want from their mothers they start to cry or they throw temper tantrums. It's logical for them to assume that the same thing will work with Native teachers. This is one reality I'm happily destroying, one crying boy at a time.
What 10 year old cries because they lose a game to another kid? I was embarrassed for him. I told them to touch their noses with their right hands and the girl was faster than the boy, so she got a point. It's not like he got the answer wrong - he was just slower. When I tried to bring him back in he again refused. Perhaps he realized he was being a baby and felt embarrassed? I had to pick him up again and carry him into class, stand him up and give him a ball to shoot in the basket on the wall (we play "shoot the basket" a lot). Miraculously he got the ball in the basket (they rarely do) and afterward all was well.
After talking with other teachers I've found out that the crying boy phenomenon is common. I don't think there's anything wrong with crying - if it's for a legitimate reason. I had a different boy in the same class cry once but he got hit in the eye by one of the other students. There's no shame in crying there. But because you lost a game?
The consensus seems to be that it's because Japanese boys are spoiled. I agree with this. I see more boys walking over their mothers and getting away with murder than I have seen in Canada. It's ridiculous. If these boys don't get what they want from their mothers they start to cry or they throw temper tantrums. It's logical for them to assume that the same thing will work with Native teachers. This is one reality I'm happily destroying, one crying boy at a time.
06 June 2010
Strange things...
I saw three very strange things today. In order of strangeness: a 5 year old boy dancing to Michael Jackson in the street; a man wearing a sandwich board advertising porn; three girls on the train touching each other's breasts. All of these events were within an hour of each other.The boy in the picture above was dancing where these guys usually dance. He must be a good dancer if he can scare off those greasers. Kidding aside, the kid was quite good. He was dancing to "Smooth Criminal" and he definitely was one.
The man wearing the sandwich board with scantily clad women on it was kind of creepy. He was handing out tissues (handing out packages of tissues with information about your product on them is a mainstay of Japanese advertising) which had the address of some sort of strip club on them. I was most intrigued by the look on the man's face. He was just as resigned to his crappy job as anyone else I've seen doing something they hate. It didn't seem to bother him at all to wear a sandwich board with pictures on it that 13 year old boys would happily masturbate to. Although with the advent of the internet I imagine 13 year old boys now need something more racy than women posing provocatively in their bras and panties to get off...
The young girls touching each other's breasts was the strangest thing I saw all day. I was riding the train home from work and these girls got on the train and stood next to the door. One of the girls had a loose bra strap so she asked her friend to tighten it for her. I'm sure just this act would give a lot of Japanese men something to think about for the rest of the evening. After it was tightened the girl admired herself in the glass door. When she turned around her friend poked her in the breast. Then the pokee poked the other girl in one of her breasts. After a few more rounds the poking turned into groping. It's like they were feeling for growth. I'm sure young girls do this all the time - at home. Everyone is curious about their bodies and there is nothing wrong with that. However, you don't explore your body and your friends' bodies on a train that, from 5am-9am and 5pm-9pm, has women only cars because of problems with sexual assault in crowded trains.
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