Under the Osakan Sun

by Hamish Beaton

  I started adding the team names to the scoreboard, and was about to get the game underway when Mr Matsuno, who had been sitting silently in the corner, meekly raised his hand and in a quiet stuttering voice asked, ‘Please excuse me for a minute, Mr Hamish.’

  Before I could turn to respond, Mr Matsuno had leapt to his feet, and with an insane gleam in his eye thrown a chair across the classroom.

  Everyone gasped.

  Mr Matsuno rounded on the students, his face purple and his hands twitching. ‘And what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled.

  Everyone gasped again and a few students laughed. Then, in a flash, Mr Matsuno bounded across the room, kicked over a desk and sent another chair sailing into the wall. He towered over the student who had suggested the team name ‘Sexy something or other’.

  At a complete loss as to how to deal with the situation, I quietly started picking up the scattered classroom furniture and spilled stationery. I was desperately praying that Mr Matsuno didn’t start killing anyone.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing!’ Mr Matsuno thundered again.

  Some of the students politely protested that they had just thought up team names as they had been instructed. This seemed to put the brakes on Mr Matsuno’s brain implosion for a few seconds, but he soon started ranting and raving about how the team names were no good whatsoever. ‘Who on earth came up with ‘???’? This is completely absurd. This is a crap name.’

  I cringed. The name had been suggested by the quietest boy in the class. He seldom spoke, and this maniacal attack would no doubt emotionally cripple him from speaking again in the future.

  After he had exhausted his tirade of grievances, Mr Matsuno bowed to me and returned to his seat in the corner. I was left to try and continue the word game with a group of shell-shocked thirteen-year-olds. I did my best and the remainder of the class went relatively smoothly. However, I was constantly checking over my shoulder in case Mr Matsuno took objection to something and decided to throw some more chairs.

  The bell rang and Mr Matsuno stormed from the room. Some of the girls started giggling and some of the cheekier boys re-enacted my alarmed reaction to Mr Matsuno’s outburst. I chuckled as they performed slow-motion replays of my horrified facial expressions and skilful chair-dodging moves, which had apparently looked like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix.

  I raced after the girls and tried to dissuade them from spreading this episode around the school grapevine, but I realised this was a hopeless request. Sure enough, by the time I made it to the staffroom, news of Mr Matsuno’s meltdown had reached the ears of the 2-D homeroom teacher. She raced in and began lecturing Mr Matsuno loudly about how he needed to get better control of his temper. Mr Terada had also heard the details of the chair-throwing and was less than impressed. He waded into the fray.

  Everyone else watched in wide-eyed amazement, and I retreated to the relative solitude of the computer terminal.

  Fortunately, I would not have to deal with Mr Matsuno and his mental issues for too much longer: Mr Higo informed me that he would be working as a substitute teacher only until the school year ended in March. He was to be replaced the following term by a full-time, mentally sound teacher.

  The spring vacation could not come quickly enough. Only two weeks of working with Mr Matsuno remained. My concentration and interest in school affairs was, by this stage, somewhat lacking. During the past month Blake, Andy, Matt and I had been secretly planning a three-week holiday in Laos and Vietnam for the spring vacation. I had long ago started sowing the seeds of my cover story with the Board of Education. Yet again I would be spending the vacation studying Japanese in the Tondabayashi town library.

  There were no tearful farewells on Mr Matsuno’s last day in Kanan Junior High School. He seemed relieved that his harrowing encounter with a scary white foreigner was at an end.

  15

  English wars

  After an enjoyable holiday in Laos and Vietnam, cruising up the Mekong River, hiking in the hills and staying in mud-floor huts, I returned to Japan. There was just one problem: I was suffering from severe sunburn and losing skin at a serpent-like rate. Every time I stood up, large deposits floated incriminatingly on to surrounding surfaces.

  My face was fortunately not burnt, but my back and shoulders looked as though I had been hit by some form of nuclear weapon. My condition soon became an embarrassment in the classroom. As I was studiously helping a second-grade girl correct spelling mistakes in her holiday home-work assignment, I pointed at her page and several large flakes of skin wafted out of my shirtsleeve and settled delicately on her pencil case. I looked at the ceiling and mumbled something about a shoddy paint job before quickly walking away.

  Fortunately it was the start of the new school year, and the line-up of new teachers and pint-sized first-graders distracted attention from my wizened skin. No one thought to ask how I had become so badly sunburnt while studying Japanese for three weeks at the town library.

  Five new teachers were busy setting up their belongings on their new desks in the staffroom. Mr Ishitani, the new first-grade social studies teacher, had a curiously long face, and lips that curled up above his gums when he smiled. A fluffy mop of hair teetering on the top of his head dwarfed his round John Lennon glasses.

  Mrs Takeuchi, the new second-grade maths teacher, had a shrill voice and gave the impression of being very strict. Ms Amano was a young, attractive PE teacher straight out of teachers’ college. She was a past pupil of Kanan Junior High and lived within walking distance of the school.

  Mr Doi was still mysteriously missing in action, and his desk was being temporarily used by a young teachers’ college graduate who, Mr Higo informed me, would be employed only until Mr Doi returned.

  And finally, a brand new English teacher, Mrs Nakazato, was busy arranging her textbooks and dictionaries. I eyed her suspiciously: the balance of good and bad English teachers was once again going to change, but in which direction? Mr Higo and Mr Hioki were also taking an interest. The new teacher had an air of determination and stubbornness. Mr Higo seemed thoughtful. Our eyes met and he frowned.

  Mrs Nakazato’s stubbornness and sense of self-importance soon became apparent. In her late forties, Mrs Nakazato was older than both Mr Higo and Mr Hioki. She was, therefore, the senior English teacher in the school, and she used this sudden rush of power to appoint herself the new head of the Kanan Junior High School English department.

  I was unsure what this meant. I soon realised, however, that Mrs Nakazato had an empire to build and a school to conquer. Her first decision was to make sweeping changes to the English teaching structure – with one exception: Mr Hioki was to be left alone to continue teaching his mindless, repetitive lessons to his students from the previous year. These children were now in the second grade. They had all grown slightly taller, but seemed intellectually stunted, with little or no imagination. Mrs Nakazato seemed aware of the damage that a year with Mr Hioki had done to them, but did not intend to change things for the better.

  Instead, her reformist sights were set firmly on Mr Higo. Mr Higo had been scheduled to continue working as the third-grade English teacher. He and I had been looking forward to picking up the pieces after the departure of Mrs Takaoka and Mr Matsuno. I had been teaching the third-grade students for nearly two years, and enjoyed their company. They were a mature, enthusiastic, intelligent group who would respond well to my classes and Mr Higo’s games and humour.

  Mrs Nakazato was, however, reluctant to teach only the new batch of first-graders. Acting in her self-appointed role as head English teacher, she decided to split the first- and third-grade students between herself and Mr Higo. This meant that Mr Higo would now teach only three of the five third-grade classes, while Mrs Nakazato would teach the remaining two.

  At the same time, Mrs Nakazato would teach three first-grade classes, with Mr Higo teaching the other two – the ones whose students, according to reports from their elementary schools, were likely to be r
ebellious and naughty.

  Furthermore, Mrs Nakazato announced that she would be responsible for planning the curriculums and lesson plans not only for her classes, but for Mr Higo’s as well. It seemed that Mr Higo’s age and junior rank were counting against him. Without sufficient teaching experience, he was unable to question or dispute Mrs Nakazato’s decisions.

  The new school year was now forebodingly uncertain. The comedic freedom that Mr Higo and I had been enjoying for nearly two years was in jeopardy.

  Mrs Nakazato’s first lesson plan was a fine example of things to come. Mr Higo and I cringed through the first planning meeting of the year, as Mrs Nakazato refused to listen to our opinions and suggestions and steadfastly ignored my advice that several of her English texts were ridden with mistakes.

  ‘No,’ she scolded. ‘We will use my English script, Mr Hamish. I used this many times at my previous schools. There were no problems.’

  Mr Higo flinched.

  ‘But it’s not correct English,’ I said softly. ‘We don’t speak like this. I can write a more natural script if you’d like.’

  Mrs Nakazato looked angry. ‘No! It’s too late, I have already prepared the worksheet. It’s too late to make changes to the script.’

  ‘I’d like to play a game at the end of the class,’ Mr Higo piped up.

  ‘Hmm, a game. What game did you have in mind?’

  Mr Higo and I looked at each other. Perhaps Mrs Nakazato was not totally inflexible.

  Mr Higo quickly explained our ‘sentence row race game’, which involved rows of students racing against each other to create English sentences. Mr Higo and I had used this successfully several times in the past two years, and it had proved a good way to introduce new students to the humour of our classes.

  Mrs Nakazato frowned. ‘No! I do not like that game. We will play Battleship. I have already prepared the game boards – it is too late to change.’

  I blinked in confusion as I read Mrs Nakazato’s Battleship rule book. Everything seemed to be completely wrong.

  ‘Umm,’ I began slowly, ‘I thought the idea of Battleship was to bomb the other person’s boats.’

  Mrs Nakazato glared at me.

  ‘It says here that the idea of the game is to call out the coordinates of your own boats and be the first person to destroy your own fleet.’

  Mrs Nakazato looked back at me blankly. ‘So?’

  ‘Isn’t that pointless if you can see the location of your own boats? Isn’t it kind of easy to bomb them?’

  ‘Aha!’ she retorted. ‘That is where you are wrong. The students do not ‘bomb’ their own boats, they ‘check’ them. I do not like the concept of ‘bombing’ things. The students can ‘check’ their own boats by drawing stars or hearts on them instead.’

  I was astonished. Mr Higo was speechless.

  ‘But the students will already know where their own boats are,’ I pleaded. ‘They drew them on their page themselves. The boats are sitting right in front of them. The universally accepted version of Battleship involves the players trying to guess where their opponents’ boats are hidden. It’s no fun if you simply ‘check’ your own boats.’

  Mrs Nakazato looked thoughtful. ‘No,’ she said at length, ‘it’s too late now. I have already prepared the game boards.’

  I gave up. Mrs Nakazato had won. Her illogical argument was too much for me. Mr Higo and I withdrew to our respective desks. The new school year was going to be hard work.

  Mrs Nakazato’s first lesson proved predictably terrible. I cringed my way through her nonsensical English script and hated myself for inflicting it on my favourite students.

  Hamish: I am messy. I don’t like cleaning.

  Mrs Nakazato: I want you to clean your room.

  Hamish: I am sleepy. I am tired.

  Mrs Nakazato: I want you to sleep much.

  The purpose of this was to teach the students how to give instructions. I shook my head in shame every time I realised that I was now responsible for teaching impressionable adolescents that ‘I want you to sleep much’ was acceptable English.

  I was equally disappointed with myself for trying to force my students to play a namby-pamby, love-heart version of Battleship. Fortunately, though, the solid foundations laid by Mrs Takaoka allowed the students to withstand Mrs Nakazato’s nonsensical script, and even emboldened them to question her version of the game.

  ‘Excuse me, teacher,’ called a nerdy bespectacled boy. ‘Why are we bombing our own ships? Won’t we lose if we bomb our own ships?’

  Mrs Nakazato’s face reddened. ‘No. You are not bombing ships. You must check them. You can draw love hearts on your ships.’

  The nerdy boy frowned. A rebellious boy sneered. ‘What a dumb game.’

  Everyone laughed. Mrs Nakazato’s face turned purple. ‘It is too late to change. Please continue.’

  ‘But I’ve already finished,’ the nerdy boy replied. ‘I can see where my own boats are. I’ve already coloured them in.’

  ‘Then start again and play another round,’ Mrs Nakazato snapped.

  ‘Can we play with the normal rules in the second round?’ the boy asked hopefully.

  Mrs Nakazato’s jaw locked. I could feel the tension radiating off her. To admit her mistake now would expose her flawed rules and refusal to listen to my advice.

  ‘Please, teacher, can we use the normal rules?’ Several other students chorused. Everyone was looking at Mrs Nakazato hopefully. ‘All right then,’ she snapped. ‘Use the other rules.’

  She looked away angrily, muttered about needing to get something from the staffroom and stormed out of the room, leaving me to supervise the first round of real Battleship.

  Mr Higo chortled when I recounted the events. ‘I think the game is very bad,’ he said, ‘very, very wrong. We will use the normal rules in our class. Also, I feel very sorry for you having to say her English script. Shall we cut it from our class?’

  I nodded emphatically.

  ‘Good,’ he laughed. ‘Shall we do one of our comedy scripts? I think we should impersonate another teacher in our script. Who shall we impersonate?’

  We scratched our heads thoughtfully. I looked at Mr Higo. We smiled.

  Battle lines may have been drawn in the mainstream English classes, but a new ray of hope was dawning in the young minnows’ stream.

  I had all but given up on Hiro, Yurika and Teru-Chan and decided that they were unable to learn or retain any new material. Mr Doi’s absence had been a huge relief. Not only was I now free from perverted conversation in the staffroom, I was also able to roll up to the young minnows’ room with no lesson plan or teaching material. By mid April, I had played Snakes and Ladders with them at least a hundred times.

  The minnows’ short memory spans meant that I could recycle the same game week after week without any complaints. Sadly, though, my hundredth round of Snakes and Ladders was more than I could humanly take and my brain refused to play ever again.

  For the sake of my sanity, it was time to try something new. I decided to teach the minnows how to play cards. I reasoned that a few games of Snap or Last Card would help while away our time together.

  The first game of Snap received a mixed reaction. Hiro’s interest in English class flickered back to life and he sat rigidly to attention, on the lookout for numerical pairs or matching coloured cards.

  Yurika’s chirpiness had never abated, and she was as enthusiastic as ever. Her limited eyesight, however, levelled the playing field somewhat, and Hiro was now able to take part in an activity without being soundly beaten, or shown up by Yurika’s superior intellect.

  Teru-Chan, meanwhile, regarded the game suspiciously and refused to take part.

  Yurika, Hiro and I played a competitive first round, which I allowed Hiro to win. He leapt to his feet, and for the first time since Jun Fujita’s departure he started dancing and chuckling to himself. After a few giddy gyrations, he returned to his seat and announced that he was ready for another round.

&nbs
p; Yurika loudly demanded that she wanted to play again as well. She seemed bewildered at not having been able to beat Hiro. I started shuffling the cards slowly. I needed to drag this out to use up as much class time as possible before the bell rang.

  ‘Mr Hame, I want to play.’

  I nearly dropped the cards. Teru-Chan had spoken. This was, in fact, the first time Teru-Chan had ever spoken to me.

  ‘Why sure,’ I stammered, and dealt her a hand. ‘Do you understand the rules?’ Teru-Chan looked at me and slowly nodded her head.

  The game started.

  ‘Snap!’

  Hiro had found a pair. He chuckled merrily to himself.

  ‘Snap!’

  Yurika had spotted a matching colour.

  ‘Snap!’

  Everyone paused.

  Teru-Chan was on her feet. She had mashed her large round hand down on a pair of unmatching cards.

  Hiro and Yurika looked at me for clarification.

  I was frozen with uncertainty. Teru-Chan stood scowling, ready to claim her cards. To let her win a pile of unmatching cards would not be fair on Hiro and Yurika. At the same time though, depriving Teru-Chan of her spoils could result in my being stabbed in the head with the paper scissors.

  ‘Umm … Teru-Chan, I’m sorry but those cards don’t match.’

  Teru-Chan glared at me.

  ‘He’s right!’ Yurika said shrilly. ‘You need matching numbers or colours. You’ve got an eight of spades and a four of hearts. They don’t match.’

  Teru-Chan eyed me menacingly. I looked at her hands. She was currently unarmed.

  ‘Hmphh, all right’ she said finally, and sat back down.

  Play resumed.

  Hiro was on a roll and his pile of cards was increasing steadily.

  ‘Snap!’

  Teru-Chan was on her feet again, scowling suspiciously. ‘It’s a pair,’ she proclaimed. I smiled: this time Teru-Chan was right. ‘Yes, it is a pair, Teru-Chan,’ I said. ‘Well done.’ For the first time ever, Teru-Chan smiled. She clutched the cards to her roly-poly body and sat down.