As word of the lunch-time games spread the team numbers expanded, until we had well over twenty on either side of the field. After several tiresome weeks of repeatedly explaining the rules about passing the ball backwards, and the fact there were at least a hundred penalties for breaching this rule, everyone got the hang of things and the games became very competitive. Several trickier techniques soon followed, such as kicking the ball and some clever little set moves that I made up.
All the boys congratulated me warmly whenever I scored a try, tagged an opposing player, or even managed to pass the ball. They exclaimed that I was a brilliant rugby player, and were adamant that I would one day make it into the All Blacks. I nonchalantly tried to tell them that I didn’t want to be in the All Blacks, but they encouraged me to try out anyway. The third-grade students were fast becoming my friends.
I was fast becoming quite fond of the first-graders as well. These little kids were giggly and happy, and responded well no matter what unplanned load of cobblers I took to class as a lesson plan. I generally made a big effort though, and designed fun games and comical routines to get them rolling in the aisles.
When teaching the present tense, I took along a block of chocolate and a carton of strawberry milk. I cheekily ate the entire block of chocolate in front of them and noisily slurped up the strawberry milk, all the while loudly stating that ‘I am eating, I am drinking’ and rubbing my stomach.
The kids were shocked to the core. To eat in the classroom outside of lunch-hour was strictly forbidden, and would earn an offender a trip to the staffroom for some corporal punishment. They implored me to stop, and one boy looked as though he might cry. I had arranged for the first-grade English teacher, Mrs Takaoka, to storm into the classroom and give me a telling-off. Mrs Takaoka was, however, a kindly soul, and her less than convincing telling-off soon gave the game away.
This simple stunt earned me a huge reputation throughout the school and all around town. Colleagues confidentially whispered to me that I had been teaching radical lesson plans and had all the students talking. I was soon referred to as the teacher who ate chocolate in class, and was even approached in the supermarket by parents congratulating me on my daring lessons.
One class, however, that was never any fun and that I was fast beginning to despise was my Wednesday afternoon ‘English Elective’. The elective was the one class of the week that students were allowed to choose for themselves. There was a range of options: woodwork, pottery, art, history, physical education, science, music – and English with Mr Hamish. This class was, therefore, intended to comprise the best and brightest students in the third grade who wanted to and enjoyed studying English.
I had been asked to prepare a blurb which would give students an idea of what they could look forward to if they chose to take my course. I had foolishly given this task only cursory consideration. Surely, I thought lazily, all these brain-boxes will be able to teach themselves? We can laze around, watch some movies, chat in English and enjoy ourselves.
My subsequent, poorly planned blurb read as follows: ‘English Class with Mr Hamish. Learn about foreign countries, culture and food. Watch movies and learn about foreign pop culture and music.’
It should have come as no surprise, then, that my English Elective class did not attract the academic élite I had been hoping for. First on the roll were the ‘cool girls’, Waki, Mayo and Yuki. These three ditzy yet endearing airheads had chosen English with Mr Hamish as they had misinterpreted my blurb and were looking forward to producing their own music video. They gossiped noisily in the front row, fluttering their eyelashes at me, and checking one another’s hair.
Next on the list was Jun Fujita. Jun had demanded an extra hour a week with Mr Hamish, and had staunchly refused advice that Elective English might be above his level. Jun sat nervously with Mrs Hotta. He had overheard the cool girls chattering about making music videos, and now hoped that I would be able to help him direct a Pokémon cartoon.
Hiroshi Yamaguchi sat in the third row, reliving moments from the day’s touch rugby game with three of his team-mates. The team-mates were not thrilled to be part of the English Elective class. They had chosen PE but it was full.
Last but not least were eight quiet and ridiculously shy female English enthusiasts. This timid little academic band sat desperately praying that I would not ask them any questions, or embarrass them by speaking English to them.
English Elective was a nightmare from the very beginning. No one responded to my ‘self-introduction’ game and the class sat awkwardly when it became apparent that I had absolutely no idea how to cope with such a random assortment of abilities and interests.
Over the weeks, the sessions grew ever more awkward. My suggestion of starting a pen-pal system with students from my old high school in New Zealand was greeted with silence. Hiroshi was the only person to make any effort at all, and I was relieved that he was not losing his enthusiasm for English. Jun tried his best to complete the various exercises, but he was well out of his depth. The cool girls lost their dreams of pop stardom and announced that they had abandoned their music video plans.
By November, I had resorted to showing movies. My first screening was of old Monty Python clips. This was, in hindsight, an incredibly bad choice: the British comedy series did not produce a single laugh, and several scenes were greeted with horrified gasps by the nerdy girls.
The following Tuesday night I spent a painful hour at the video store, trying to find an interesting movie that had no swear words, no sex scenes, no violence, wasn’t too long (or too short) and catered for the various requests: drama, action, romance, war, and (for Jun) animation. Awakenings with Robert De Niro and Gilbert Grape with Johnny Depp were close contenders, but I figured the subject matter might upset Jun.
Most of the students had seen Stand By Me and Dead Poets Society, so I eventually settled for The War with Kevin Costner. The story centred on a poor family in the post-Vietnam period in America. The father (played by Kevin Costner) dies in a mining accident and his children have a war with neighbouring kids over a tree house. It was a drama with tame action scenes. There were no swear words, no sex scenes, little violence, and the film was a perfect length. I was overjoyed: I had finally found something the English Elective class would enjoy.
When I screened the first half of the movie the next day, the students did not share my enthusiasm. One of the nerdy girls suggested we do a cooking class the following week instead of watching the rest.
I was not sad when the elective term came to an end a few weeks later. Mr Higo asked if I wanted to take an elective class in the new year. When I politely refused, he nodded understandingly.
I had arranged with the Okis to spend the second Sunday of November riding a cable-car up a mountain in Kobe. They were to pick me up at nine in the morning and then we would drive across Osaka to Kobe port.
When the day arrived I got up early, expecting the Okis to be waiting on the doorstep. They weren’t. By nine-thirty they still hadn’t shown up. I phoned them and there was a bit of confusion for a few minutes while Mrs Oki consulted the television set and the pet cat. In the end, though, I was sternly reprimanded. Mrs Oki had apparently been waiting since dawn for me to call and say I was ready.
They arrived twenty minutes later and gave me some green oranges. Then we were off to Kobe. Kobe is north of Osaka, so I grew suspicious when we started heading due south. Mrs Oki talked constantly. Did I teach high school or junior high school? What time did I start every day? What did I eat? Was I cold?
I answered these questions for the thousandth time and tried to enjoy the view. After about an hour of travelling south I was starting to worry about where we were going. It turned out that, contrary to plans, we were going up a mountain in Wakayama, the prefecture south of Osaka.
We continued driving for another two hours and the mountain roads grew steeper and windier. Finally we arrived at a lovely place called Kôyasan, a small mountain town full of old temples and cemete
ries. Kôyasan was originally a monastic complex, established in 816 AD. Over the centuries it prospered and grew, becoming an important Buddhist centre, and a popular place for commoners to leave the cremated remains of loved ones. In the seventeenth century the town was smashed and pillaged by marauding samurais. Today, only a hundred and ten temples remain and the population is only seven thousand.
Besides its temples and enchanting cemeteries, Koyasan is well-known for its autumn colours. Mr Oki had timed our visit so we would arrive at the height of viewing season. The large maple forests had burst into colour, painting the hillsides with blazing red and gold. Gaggles of Japanese tourists bustled about, gasping as they gazed up at the multicoloured trees. The trees are able to generate the nutrients needed to maintain these dazzling colours for only a few weeks, and by December the leaves would have slowly turned a deep blood-red, crumpled and drifted to the ground.
We visited several temples, where Mrs Oki pushed me through the crowds of devout worshippers into the front row. We posed for photos beneath large trees and Mrs Oki plucked several gold leaves as a souvenir for me. As we wandered through sprawling cemeteries she questioned me relentlessly about what I wore to work, what I ate in the evenings, and how my mother was.
Mr Oki rambled away as well. During lunch, he asked our effeminate-looking waiter if he were a boy or a girl. When I choked with embarrassment, he concernedly slapped me on the back.
All in all, it was a great day.
The dinner that followed our scenic drive home was equally pleasant. After we had drunk a bottle of red wine sent by my parents and eaten a barbecue meal, I was given a fridge-full of leftover meat to take home. In order that I could recreate the meal at home later, the Okis also presented me with the electric fry-pan it had been cooked in.
7
On being Father Christmas
The crisp autumn evenings grew colder, the maple forests shed their dazzling coats, and there was now a distinct chill in the air as Japan moved into the month of December. I had completely forgotten about Christmas until a phone call home reminded me that we were only weeks away from the big day.
‘That’s it,’ I thought, ‘a Christmas party for the special team.’ And so, for the second time, a party was planned for the young minnows.
The plan was simple: play some Christmas carols on the CD player, hum along with Hiro, and play board games with identical pieces of food as prizes. I had procured Santa hats for the children, and for Mrs Hotta a pair of fluffy reindeer antlers that lit up and played ‘Jingle Bells’ when squeezed. I had also bought Father Christmas stickers for the students to take home for their families, and a disposable camera with which to capture the happy occasion.
I broke the news of the party to Hiro, Jun, Fumio and Yurika a week before. Teru-Chan was absent as she refused to come to school during winter, claiming that it was too cold for her to get out of bed. This suited me just fine, and I prayed that it would continue to snow until June.
Jun was overjoyed with the news. He clapped himself on the head and gave Mrs Hotta a high five. After a few minutes he settled down and a secretive look came over his face. Mrs Hotta asked what he was thinking about, but he refused to answer and stated adamantly that it was confidential.
I set off for the waka-ayu room the next Friday morning wearing a Santa hat and carrying a bag of treats. As I got near, I could see that the door was slightly ajar and a curious pair of eyes were peeping out at me. I peered back and the door suddenly slammed shut. Frantic footsteps could be heard inside. I could distinguish Yurika’s bright giggle, and Hiro wheezing away about something humorous.
I stepped up to the door just as Mrs Hotta opened it from the inside. She stepped out into the hallway, obstructing my view into the classroom. She blushed slightly. ‘It’s Jun. I didn’t know he’d do this. He planned it all on his own.’
Mrs Hotta seemed nervous, and reluctant to let me into the classroom. I assured her that whatever Jun had done would not be so bad, and that I would forgive him. She stepped back and opened the door. Yurika was giggling again and Hiro was smiling. Jun, however, was nowhere to be seen.
I entered the room and looked around. No Jun!
Just then, he leapt out from behind the bookshelf and yelled, ‘Merry Christmas!’
I nearly fell over laughing. Jun was dressed from head to toe as a furry reindeer, complete with tail and ears. He pranced around the room, clapping his hands and jumping up and down to jingle the bells on the end of his antlers. Everyone laughed and Jun giggled and danced. Hiro joined in and danced around as well. Fumio grinned quietly. Yurika was beside herself with joy, and kept tugging on Mrs Hotta’s sleeve to make sure that she was paying attention and not missing any of the fun.
The Christmas party and Jun’s antics had put me in a festive mood. However, this was to be severely tested the following Monday.
I had been invited to the local kindergartens to dress up as Santa and play with the children. The Board of Education had chipped in with a brand new Santa suit, especially purchased. Sadly, though, no one had thought to check the size or measurements, and I was presented with a costume five sizes too small. The trouser legs exposed a pasty white expanse of skin for five centimetres above my ankles, and the sleeves on the jacket were as tight as a tourniquet and struggled to stretch past my elbows. When I attempted to fix the fake white beard to my face, the elastic band snapped and the beard fell on the floor.
To make matters worse, I had no suitable footwear to complement the Santa suit. The gaping exposure of my lower legs meant I needed tall boots just to reach my trousers. Mr Smiles happily produced his own pair of black gumboots, but alas I could not even begin to squeeze my size 12 feet into them. The kindergarten teachers hummed and haahed, and eventually came up with the idea of wrapping black rubbish bags around my feet and legs. My level of ridiculousness increased tenfold.
Despite all this, the happy frivolity of the young minnows’ Christmas party had given me a deluded self-assurance. I felt confident that no Japanese toddler would see through my disguise, and that my white skin and blond hair would yet again earn me a warm reception and a legion of fans.
The first kindergarten on Santa’s itinerary had only eight children. I turned up on time and was rushed around by the head teacher while she gave me hurried instructions. I was to sit in a box, decorated to look like a big parcel, and wait for my cue to leap out the top and greet the excited children. I willingly obliged, and while she rounded up the children I wedged myself into the small box, where my legs immediately fell asleep.
‘After you’ve greeted the children, just tell them stories about your trip here from the North Pole,’ another teacher called encouragingly from outside my gift-wrapped cell. I started to get a tad nervous: my Japanese language skills had not yet reached the level of storyteller or stand-up comedian.
I could hear eight tiny nervous little people whispering among themselves. The kindergarten teacher knocked loudly on the top of the box. Somehow I managed to reactivate my numb legs, burst out of the roof and bellow, ‘Merry Christmas!’
One of the boys started crying and I knew I was in trouble. I tore my way free of the rest of the box, which caused all the other children to start crying, and tried a friendly ‘Oha!’ to get things back on track. The kids kept crying and everyone was terrified. The room had been deliberately darkened. Black curtains blanketed the windows and the only light came from flickering candles, which made me look like an enormous ogre with seven hideous shadows.
I was ushered to my chair and told to tell the children a story. In my stilted Japanese, I told a rousing tale of my trip by super jet over Europe, helicopter over China, and sled from Hiroshima. From there it was on to question-and-answer time, and when one of the girls asked where I had come from, I nearly started crying too.
I repeated my story, and then another child asked the same question again. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, one of the boys asked what my real name was. All the child
ren then stood up and peformed an orchestral rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’, with the small boy on the end still sobbing and weeping and squeaking as he gasped into his recorder.
Once the eight terrified little people had shakily completed their Christmas carol, they rattled off a shambles of a puppet show and we all ate cake. I finally managed to break the ice by talking about Pokémon and video games. The kids stopped crying and became my best friends in the blink of an eye. Finally, they waved me off and I was driven back to the Junior High School to recover from my traumatic experience.
My festive visit to the town’s other kindergarten took place the following day. I turned up in an anxious, sweaty state, expecting the worst. This time, however, things went a lot more smoothly and there were no tears or traumatised toddlers. The ‘leaping out of a gift-wrapped shoebox’ idea had been scrapped, and instead I danced on to a brightly lit stage in a conga line of kindergarten teachers dressed as reindeers.
The thirty children screamed, this time in joy, and rushed on to the stage to slap and kick Santa’s shins. I tried to calm them with a few Ohas and Merry Christmases, but alas a game of stamping on Santa’s comical rubbish-bag shoes had captured everyone’s attention. Groups of small boys were performing devious tag-team routines of racing up to me, kicking my shins, slapping my bottom, stamping on my feet, and then trying to pull my pants down. Someone had stolen my fake beard, and I clung to my trousers and Santa hat as wave upon wave of Japanese preschoolers assaulted me.
The kindergarten teachers eventually managed to drag the hyperactive audience back to their seats, and someone kindly retrieved my facial hair. I launched straight into my now carefully rehearsed ‘rocket sled from the North Pole’ story and waited for an enthusiastic response.
Under the Osakan Sun Page 10