Tune in Tokio

by Tim Anderson

  PLI and Wyndam, the two companies that until recently co-owned Lane Language School, are constantly at odds with each other, the former being PR-based and the latter concentrated on curriculum development. It is a marriage made in hell. As teachers, we are actually contracted to and paid by Wyndam, but this is all about to change. The two companies are dissolving their partnership, and PLI will take over the entire school. For most of us teachers, this is not good news. Why? The PR people.

  The job of the PR people is to bring prospective students into the school, show (sometimes drag) them around, and convince them that really expensive English lessons are just what they need. During their tour of the school, the PR person will joyfully tell them as many lies about the greatness of the school as they can fit into thirty minutes. To a young, homely male college student-“Most guys your age usually find girlfriends here.” To an elderly, blue-haired obaasan-“Do you like my Japanese? I learned it using this school’s method.” (Our school doesn’t teach Japanese.) Lies, lies, lies. And then they come to us and ask us to do a “level check” on the student, hoping we don’t manage to ruin the momentum they’ve got going and scare him or her away with our loud Western speech and pronounced gestures.

  The PR people are an enigma, and they wear very strong cologne. They’re kind of like “the TV people” that Carol Ann is so spooked by in Poltergeist: disruptive, creepy to be around (as salespeople usually are), and possessed of evil clown faces. They also never take on the same form twice, and the smile you saw yesterday may turn into something much scarier if you don’t watch yourself. So we’re less than thrilled that they will now be overseeing every aspect of the school, lording it over us with what we can only assume will be a firm hand, a steady grip, and, perhaps, a swimming pool full of dead bodies.

  But the real poignant moment comes when we’re told via office memo that as a result of the switchover in ownership, the Ginza school will close and the entire Lane School will become concentrated on the two floors we now occupy in Shinjuku. Which means that some of Lane’s one hundred teachers will be let go.

  Upon hearing the news, each of us feels a surge of vulnerability course through our bodies.

  “Oh shit, if I lose a job as a freaking English teacher in Japan, I’m going to gouge my eyes out,” Rachel said. And I must say I am right there with her. It’s about as hard to get fired from a teaching job in Japan as it is to be mistaken for a native Japanese. As my former employer so clearly demonstrated, some schools seem to import village idiots from across the English-speaking world to come and try their luck teaching in this fair country. As a result, some poor Japanese folks are probably walking around saying things like “Jerry, he a lazy, good-for-nothing mama’s boy and he deserve what he get. I’m glad I fucked his cousin!” So what does it say about one if one is actually sacked from the easiest job to get in the country?

  I shift immediately back into Survivor mode, making a mental list of all of those who are more likely to get the sack than I am. The word on the street is that there are certain teachers who have numerous complaints in their file already: Fran, who is always putting his name and phone number on the board at the beginning of every class and has been heard encouraging a few unimpressionable young girls to use it; Brad, who has offended a few with his chronic sweating problem; and of course Will, whose file allegedly overflows with accounts of students unable to follow anything he said in any of his classes, ever, in his history as an instructor. And this is only what Tami knows. Rachel is bound to know more.

  “So Rachel, what’s the story? Who’s gonna get the axe? Give me the lowdown, the 411, the in-fo-ma-shun.”

  “Well, I don’t know. I’ve heard a few rumors about Fran, Brad, and Will, but not much else.”

  Drat. The one person I thought I could count on to have her finger on the pulse is no more clued-in than I.

  Work becomes a little unsteady. It’s kind of a dramatic time, each of us teaching our classes as if in a matter of weeks we will be peddling English lessons door to door. All of a sudden, our lives have turned into Survivor: Tokyo Smackdown. Will we start engaging in sabotage against each other, planting incriminating evidence in each other’s classrooms? Will I walk into a class one day soon and find that my students have already been given a handout with a paragraph at the top detailing the order in which I’d like to see them naked and the reasons why followed by a fill-in-the-blank exercise at the bottom? Will I retaliate against this unknown trickster by replacing all of his or her worksheets for students with a positive chlamydia test result made using the Roppongi Hills Clinic letterhead? Will embarrassing dirty laundry start being aired, like what so-and-so did with a student in the restroom of the club the other night that’s not really true but would really make tongues wag if announced in the lobby where everyone can hear it? Will friend turn against friend and colleague against colleague in a ruthless race to see who will be the ultimate sensei? Sounds fun.

  Unfortunately, some folks have already decided they’re not up for this kind of cutthroat competition. They are happy to pack it in, to give up like a bunch of gutless Democrats. Pam takes this company upheaval as a sign that she should move herself, her Japanese husband, and her little girl back to mighty Canada.

  “We went home last summer and visited my sister, her husband, and their two children. Their combined income is just a little more than ours and they have a house in Vancouver that’s so big they have rooms that don’t get used for weeks.”

  “But Pam,” I say, “don’t you want to see who gets taken down in all this? Aren’t you the least bit curious to see how popular a teacher you really a-”

  “They also have a sailboat and a little getaway cabin on the Puget Sound!”

  “Wow, that’s pretty cool, Pa-”

  “And they have a nanny helping her with the kids. A nanny, for God’s sake!”

  “But, Pam, your students need you!”

  “Oh, fuck the students! All we have to show for our income here is a two-bedroom place two hours outside of Tokyo and my daughter’s print club collection! It’s time to move!”

  A few other craven souls have the same idea. At least three other teachers are packing up their Japanese spouses and getting the hell out of Dodge. Greg is going back to Detroit, Lyle is moving to LA, and Rich is returning to Australia to buy a house and settle down and marry his girlfriend. It is a time of soul-searching and uncovering what one really wants out of life. Pfft. Obviously some people would rather leave and do something substantial and rewarding with their lives than stay and play Tokyo Smackdown for a prize they’re not sure they even want anymore. Pussies.

  The number of teachers is already dwindling, and nobody has even gotten fired yet. Thankfully, there’s a good number of us who have decided to stay and fight. Or at least stay and keep teaching until we get the axe, at which point we will beg on our knees for our jobs back. None of us is foolish enough to think that we’re in the clear. After all, we really have no idea what the students say about us. I assume I’m a well-liked teacher, but who’s to say I don’t have a long list of complaints from students offended by my statuesque frame, undeniable and distracting sex appeal, intimidating intellect, impeccable taste in music and hair products, and enviable sock collection? The drama of knowing that not one of us is safe is absolutely delicious.

  Of course, the big talk around the shop is about the prize that will be bestowed upon the chosen ones, namely, what kind of compensation we’ll get from Wyndam for breaking contract with us, because essentially they’re firing us and another company is hiring us. There have been whispers about three months’ salary, the prospect of which makes me weak in the knees. That sweet cash could completely clear me of all my debt and also pay for something new and completely unnecessary, like that giant, gold-flecked piggy bank I’ve had my eye on at that shop on Omotesando Dori in Harajuku.

  “Oooh! I could also get that five-foot statue of that drag-queen Buddha for my room!” I think as I Photoshop a picture of McD from t
he Christmas party to make it look like he’s lifting the skirt of one of our elderly students, a picture I plan to leave on the floor of the lobby.

  The whole takeover thing takes on a new light. For those who survive the downsizing, it’s beginning to look like getting fired will be the best thing that’s happened to us since all that high school graduation money. We’ll be paid for doing absolutely nothing, an idea that has always appealed to me but never seemed all that realistic.

  School spirit lifts. We begin teaching our classes with enthusiasm and verve once again, knowing that in a few short weeks we could be going shopping.

  Finally, after weeks and weeks of hand-wringing, the decision is handed down. The tribe has spoken, and sure enough, Fran, Brad, and Will have been unanimously voted off by the new management. And there’s one surprise. Keith Brady-cute, sweet, cuddly little Keith; gentle, soft-spoken, sensitive little Keith, and, at five feet two inches and 130 pounds, just plain little Keith-has also gotten the can. Apparently little Keith had a little problem with sleeping with almost every little student under the age of eighteen (the age of consent in Japan is sixteen) and then never speaking to them again, even in class. Little Keith was a little pig.

  The remaining teachers will be paid in full next month, and there will be much celebration all over the greater Tokyo area. We have indeed been the ultimate survivors, and we haven’t had to eat cow brain, sleep in the rain, or wipe our asses with leaves. And though I would have preferred to watch my colleagues engage in a little more backstabbing and shit throwing, you can’t have everything in this world.

  I may not be the ultimate survivor, but I did survive, even if ultimately I’m not sure how badly I really wanted to. But the bottom line is this: I survived, and I have a giant tranny Buddha with a gold-flecked piggy on a leash standing in the corner of my bedroom to show for it.

  But will I survive the PR people?

  # of “X-large” T-shirts bought that cut off blood circulation to wrists and hands: 4

  # of kanji characters studied: 120

  # of kanji characters forgotten: 104

  12

  A deeply personal chapter about the transcendental pleasures of artfully drawn dirty pictures.

  Being in this country what the French call a homosexuel is an interesting study in comparative queerness. I’ve always had trouble in my day-to-day life deciding if a certain gentleman on the train or in the noodle bar might have un-Christian desires toward his fellow man. Not least because Japanese men, with their prominent cheekbones, narrow noses, tailored suits, impeccably moussed hair, and spot-on fashion sense, are often prettier than their female counterparts. I’ve always had incredibly faulty and unreliable gaydar, and to complicate matters, since I’ve been in this country I’ve had to adjust its settings to allow for straight men who check themselves in pocket mirrors on trains or pluck their eyebrows in the locker room.

  Like almost every other aspect of life in this country, the “gay” thing isn’t easy to get to the, er, bottom of. There is no big dramatic coming out for the vast majority of Japanese gay people. Newly out of the closet queers don’t all of a sudden start wearing T-shirts that say, “Nobody knows I’m gay” or “I’m not gay, but my boyfriend is,” prancing around in pride rainbow colors and tight Lycra shirts, and forcing their same-sex lovers on their families at holidays.

  Coming to terms with one’s homosexuality is a much more low-key and much less public affair. None of the gay guys I know in Japan have told their parents about their gayness, and none have plans to. I think this is a tragedy. If gay men in civilized countries have only one right to speak of (having relinquished all hope of ever having biological children, getting into a decent fistfight, or being tough on defense), it is the right to make a big cathartic announcement at an inopportune (preferably public) moment and force their friends and family to visualize them (1) engaging in sodomy and (2) marching half-naked in a parade. If a gay man has that right taken away, what on earth does he have?

  Gay Japanese men who wish to maintain relations with their families will largely live as bachelors for the rest of their lives, and though their families will probably eventually figure it out from their love of shlocky pop radio, their coterie of hopelessly platonic female friends, and their love of gladiator movies, nothing will ever be said.

  (Also, much to my displeasure, I’ve yet to meet a Japanese lesbian. Where are they hiding? How do they dress themselves, and more to the point, how do they style their hair?)

  I ask my friend Shunsuke, who has a close relationship with his mother and brother (his father left when he was young), if he will ever high-kick his way out of those familial closet doors.

  “My family have no doubt who I am,” he says.

  “Oh, really? They know?”

  “No, they always ask when I to get married.”

  I exclaim that surely they realize that something is different about him. Like that he’s never had a girlfriend and always matches the color of his handbag with the color of his socks. Also, that he carries a handbag.

  “Yes, but they no think about it. My grandmom don’t think gay people exist.”

  “If you are different from the others in Japan, it is a really big burden on your life,” another gay friend Takahiro tells me. Taka’s reliably negative view of his countrymen never fails to make me feel happy not to be Japanese. “For many people, still, it is not really understandable that there are Japanese people who are gay. It would be much easier for Japanese people to accept and understand that you, Tim-san, are gay. Because, you know, you are weird anyway.”

  Interesting. “Weird meaning non-Japanese, right?” I ask as Taka looks at me with furrowed brows and gives the typical Japanese response when the answer is no: “Mmmm…maybe.”

  I get his point, though. It is much easier for me, a weird gaijin from another planet, to get away with being gay. We’re expected to be strange. It’s part of our culture. We also wear our shoes indoors and happily bathe in the same room we take dumps. It is much harder for a homegrown Japanese to get away with it. Unless, as Shunsuke points out, he works in the fashion industry.

  “My mom think all gay people work in fashion. I no work in fashion. So, of course, I not gay.”

  Once, a few weeks after I’d moved to Tokyo, I was on the train riding home to Koenji from Shinjuku. I was tired, and like everyone around me on the train, my eyes were rolling around beneath sinking eyelids and my head was beginning to bob and sink into the familiar sleeping-while-sitting-up position.

  I woke myself up snoring, looked around to make sure nobody had noticed, and then decided to take out my book, which happened to be Haruki Murakami’s Underground, the uplifting and life-affirming story of the Tokyo sarin gas attack of 1996. I hadn’t been reading for long when I detected eyes on me. This is of course not unusual. With the number of pairs of eyeballs in this city, a few are bound to land on you and perhaps linger for a moment at some point, especially if your eyes are a piercing baby-blue like mine. I looked up and noticed that the eyeballs belonged to a young man sitting directly opposite me. He looked to be in his early twenties and was wearing a brown zip-up sweater, blue jeans, silver laceless sneakers, and on his head one of those trendy knitted hats that fit squarely on the head like an oversized yarmulke. He gazed at me nervously and darted his eyes around the carriage as if checking up on the other passengers.

  I looked around the train also, fearing that he had heard me snoring and that perhaps I’d caused a disturbance in the carriage. I looked straight ahead again and our eyes met. He then winked his left eye as fast as the wing flap of a hummingbird-so fast that I couldn’t be sure it was a wink and not simply a nervous twitch-and once again darted his eyes in a different direction.

  Am I being wooed? I wondered. What an interesting way of going about it. Normally in this situation I would prefer a potential suitor to smile at me handsomely and ask, “Is that a good book?” “Gosh, those are cool pants, where’d you get ’em?” or “I can kiss m
y own butt, how about you?” How would he have me answer this wink?

  And was it actually a wink? God knows I’ve made horrible mistakes before when faced with an ambiguous gesture from an attractive male. Like the time in college when I was reading on a sofa in the library and became convinced that the frat boy making friendly faces and eyebrow wiggles at me was going to up and leave the girl he was sitting with, come over to me, and either propose or ask me to join him in the bathroom. (Turns out he was making those faces at someone sitting at a table behind me.) As is so often the case, I couldn’t be sure if this guy was flirting with me or simply having a spasm. I gave an uncomfortable and silent laugh in answer, his eyes dropped to the floor, and he scampered off the train at the next station, no doubt filled with shame for himself, his family, and his ancestral lineage.

  So it wasn’t a spasm!

  It makes cultural sense that homosexuality is not the most comfortable of subjects for the Japanese public to confront. There is a definite history of hot man-on-man action amongst the samurais of the Shogun era. But those times are long gone and do not really gel with life in modern Japan, with its belief in the importance of homogeneity, its dwindling birth rate, its aging population, and its preoccupation with safeguarding oneself and one’s family from any kind of public shame, like the kind that comes of being caught dancing to house music in a muscle-T at the club and singing into a hairbrush in one’s bedroom.

  Overall, gay culture in Tokyo holds few surprises for anyone familiar with gay culture anywhere else. The gay district is called Ni Chome-“Second Street”-and is famous for being the best place in the city for a horny businessman to go to give and/or get a blowjob. Most places I’ve been to, like GB-the most popular bar for gay gaijin and the men who love them-really seem indistinguishable from any other big city gay place. Lots of useless diva dance music and power balladeering on the speakers, sinfully tight T-shirts on the bodies, and the smell of overpriced cologne mixed with cigarette smoke on every floating molecule of air. I don’t know exactly what I was hoping for, but I guess I wanted Japanese gay bars to offer something that I’d never before thought possible. I’ve always been frustrated with the mind-numbing predictability of the gay scene in general. The Japanese always take things and tweak them until they’re just weird enough. The mind boggles at what they could do with gay culture, already weird by definition. Like, instead of the obligatory gay uniform being tank tops and tight jeans, wouldn’t it be fun if it was hula-hoops and little pup tents? Or see-through kimono and banana hats? Fun, right?