Gokiburi, Blattodea, the Cockroach

Whilst living in Leeds, I decided that the epitome of the nasty scuttling insect was the Silverfish.



The nastiest thing about these characters (apart from the story that they lay eggs in your eyes) is the way they move - an uncomfortable medium between scuttling and shimmying, their silvery backs catching the light and being icky.



Cockroaches occupied a fairly esoteric wing of the Creepy Crawlies section of my brain, so I never considered the blighters to be real enough to worry about. Then I came to Japan, hearing stories about a definite Cockroach season. It started in May with tiny little things, but as the outside temperature rises...in some films before you actually see the monster, you get a shadowy glimpse of the thing, hinting ominously at its size. I had such a moment when I looked out of my window and was heard to remark "What the hell is that climbing up next doors wall?!" Then a couple of nights ago, I met the Daddy (or maybe it was the Mummy) - Christ alive, these buggers can move. Cockroaches have a bizarre jittery way of walking, akin to the Benny Hill sketch (read, body of work) where he`s chasing a crowd of women - in of itself not a pleasant sight. Cockroaches are distinguishable from Benny Hill only by their inquisitive antennae, by far the creepiest part of the things.

Lest it be thought that I am living in squalor, Cockraoches get every-buggering-where in Japan. They prefer warmer climes and are omnivorous, so anything goes in Gokiburi land. There`s lots of myths surrounding Cockroaches - like most insects, they`re scrupulously clean - however, because of their pretty indiscriminate eating patterns (a kindred spirit, I feel) they are likely to harbour any nasty diseases being passed around. Another classic is that, in the event of an absolute nuclear holocaust, they`d be the only creatures left alive. This is one of those stories, completely unverifiable. No real research has been done into the suggestion, and the aforementioned apoclayptic conditions haven`t occured anywhere, so general opinion states that in the event of absolute nuclear holocaust, they`d be the last to die, due to cells being most vulnerable to radiation as they split, which Cockroaches only do when they`re moulting.

In Lyall Watsons` "Supernature", he describes an experiment where one Cockroach was beheaded and another had its legs removed and the two were connected to each other, via an intricate system of tubes & the like, and they essentially ended up functioning as a single organism. A fascinating and adaptable creature. The bastards can fly as well.

The names have been omitted to protect the partially responsible (and to cover my arse)

Every teenager in Japan can ask “How are you” and answer “I`m fine thankyou, and you?” Except those at this one school...the funny thing is, when I was there two months ago, they could. They could even say they liked something other than baseball. The first class that meets my impossibly cheerful “Good morning, how are you?” with row upon row of befuddled faces could almost be let slide (it was Monday after all). The second is a bit more serious. The third makes me wonder what the Japanese English teachers have been doing for the past two months.

This was going to be a passionately vitriolic entry about bad teachers and my horror that they`re placed in charge of young minds...since its inception, I`ve climbed down from my high horse somewhat, particularly after fulfilling my burning desire to take the reins from a certain unnamed teacher, and finding myself faced with a mob of sulky unmotivated teenagers. Experiencing just how difficult it can be, I suddenly felt slightly bad about the venom with which I`ve described him in the past, but he`s still a crap teacher. The same sulky teenagers are putty in the hands of another teacher at that school.

With my sails bereft of the winds of fury, my pontificating deflates like a farting balloon...I worked out a few weeks ago that if a teacher "fails" a student, then they have also quite literally failed as a teacher, but the teachers aren`t completely responsible, and you can`t blame society`s ills on children. It`s all too bleak, I`ve only been an assistant language teacher for two months, this is a rough school and I don`t want to preach...if you fancy a laugh after this malignant dwarf of an entry, then these suicidal rabbits (taken from my mate Ben`s website, but he nicked it from somebody else) should raise a black chuckle or two.

Enkai

A large social gathering, usually with colleagues that, if it was a ride at a theme park, would carry the warning "Caution! You WILL get drunk".

One could almost be forgiven for thinking that the Japanese were an inhumanly formal and militaristic people ­until one went out drinking with them. There`s still elements of ritual & etiquette to an enkai - I was going to save this for the third entry on Japanese etiquette (the one with no reference to language whatsoever), but since it comes up now...food appears to be an accompaniment to drink. You take it from communal plates with the other end of your chopsticks, but on the two enkai I`ve been to, I`ve been the only one to bother with this and as a result, become a hyper polite performing monkey. I know it`s not a myth concocted by a mischievous sprite because when I do it, people tend to go "Oooooooo". I`m sure many an obaasan and ojisan would be delighted at my table manners. But an enkai is mostly about drinking, the entree on Saturday being a bottle of beer each.

I really like this - everybody pours everybody elses drink for them. If later on you happen to run out and fancy some more, just pour some beer into another persons glass & they`ll be sure to return the favour. Nobody drinks until the Kampai (toast) is called. When it was called on Saturday, there was a palpable release of tension, and the evening began in earnest.

I saw a side to everyone that I never dreamed possible (except for Nakamoto sensei. I always knew she was barking mad) - even the Koucho & Kyoto senseis (Principal & Vice Principal), usually uncompromising pillars of dignity and procedure became the red-faced, slightly sweaty beer monster who is everybodys friend. The Koucho sensei was hopping around all the tables, being provided with chopsticks, food and alcohol by the lesser teachers who wanted to make a good impression - many things remind me of comedy. I couldn`t help thinking of Mel Brooks in A Brief History of the World part 1, constantly saying "It`s good to be King". When he finally reached my table, he turned to me and said "Eigo wa dame da" (roughly, "It`s impossible for me to speak English") to which I naturally responded "Nihongo wa dame da". We cackled drunkenly, clinked our glasses of sake and left it at that. The Kyoto sensei, Yamada sensei (the first two syllables of his name mean "mountain" and by thunder he lives up to it) is a colossal man with an even bigger voice, who surprised me enormously when he started speaking Spanish, running through a list of the Kyoto senseis in Kawasaki, saying each one was "mi amigo".

Saturdays enkai marked the end of the school chorus competition - that itself was an interesting experience (for the first hour and a half). Everybody sang, not just the music geeks, as every class was competing against each other, whilst Yoshimizu sensei frantically took notes and chose the winner. Back to the enkai...everybody made a speech, including me, but that only consisted of "seto wa subarashii deshita!" (the students were brilliant!), and me trying to express the rest of my feelings about the event through mime, a little dance and no doubt very excited and rather slurred English. The Home Room teachers of the classes that won prozes had to speak in "humble speech", which apparently is hard enough even when you`re sober. Which nobody was.

Suddenly, a very senior teacher stood up to give his speech, and everybody clapped their hands together and bowed their heads, as if in prayer. I followed suit, thinking it to be a solemn moment. Not so. They were in fact making fun of said teacher because he is slightly round, relentlessly cheerful, has no hair and therefore looks like a Buddha.

The night eventually descended into Karaoke, as was to be expected. With other pressing engagements, I only sang one song, my view of the lyrics to Lady Madonna being temporarily obstructed playfully by a drunken Buddha...I would very much like to have seen the Kyoto sensei sing...ah well, the summer holidays are only a month away, heh-heh-heh...

Homonyms & jokes

Homonyms are words that sound the same, but mean different things, so in the joke (adapted for the Japanese listener)
`Two Sumo Wrestlers in an Izakaya, one says "you`re round", the other says "so are you, you fat bastard"`
the words "your/you`re" and "round" are homonyms. I thrive on that sort of thing. During the week of training in Asakusa I probably took too much pleasure in asking the Americans present if they wanted to bum a fag.

My private student told me a joke (that is quite old, and doesn`t really make anyone laugh) that requires a bit of folkloric delving...

...the story goes that one day a poor man rescued a crane from a trap. Whe he got home, he discovered a beautiful woman waiting for him. Eventually they got married and one day she said to him
"I`m going into the other room to make some clothes. Don`t come in whilst I`m there."
"OK dear" he said, but of course he went in, and he saw the crane (his wife) that he rescued from the trap. The crane flew away, but left him the means (and this probably varies from teller to teller) to become extremely rich.

I`ve heard variations of this story in the west. Here, the Christian sense of immorality being punished is, to an extent, absent except in the joke form (I find that pretty interesting).

In the joke version, he rescues a heron from a trap. On the story goes, and when he finally opens up THAT room, he discovers that the heron has stolen his few possessions. The word in Japanese for "heron" can mean "cheat" - he cheated his wife, she cheated him. Not exactly funny, but there`s a certain poetry to it.

I`ve been trying to collect Japanese jokes. This one comes from Hashirayama sensei at Rinko.

`Once upon a time, there was an old man and his wife. One day, the old man died, so his wife had him put in a coffin which she kept in the house. After a few months, she decided she wanted to see her husband again, so she opened the coffin lid, but discovered that he wasn`t there.`

More? No, that`s it. The "humour" comes from a way of serving takoyaki (octopus in balls of batter. They sometimes come in a little box, and occasionally when you remove the lid, you find takoyaki stuck to it...now, I have no room to criticise on this particular area, but that`s just not funny.

I had a lovely sunday at another ALT`S house (Matt from New Mexico - obsessed with Chilli & fantasy fiction. I like him), where we watched "Not the Nine o`clock News" on my laptop as it can play British DVD`S. Humour depends on culture, so I had a great time explaining to his Japanese wife, Tomoko, what Mel Smith meant by "we should cut off their goolies" (now there`s a word I`ve not heard for a few years). This went the other way after we watched a Japanese comedy show that has been running since the sixties and Tomoko had to explain most of the jokes.

Sho-ten is a variation of Rakugo theatre. Rakugo is traditional Japanese sit-down comedy that involves storytelling. The narrator plays all the characters with a variety of voices and facial expressions. He`s given a towel and a fan which serve as props with which to tell the story - the fan can be a pair of chopsticks, or the towel a manuscript...anyway, Sho-ten has seven constant contestants, the heads of the big Rakugo schools. The Grand Master (who looked too much like BingCrosby than is comfortable) sits in the middle, and it`s the job of the the chap on his left to take him down a peg or two. Everybody made fun of the guy on the far left as he was the mere head student of one teacher who couldn`t represent his school due to a long illness. They all sit on cushions and there`s a cushion dispenser who gives them more if they really make him laugh. The Grand Master was sitting on about six of the things. Sho-ten is improvised, so there`s a Games Master who gives them a base to start from. here it turns into "Have I got News for you" - one such base was a speech from the Minister of Ecology, who remarked that "something" was a waste of time. This led the contestants to say things like
"It`s a waste of time to say "It`s a waste of time"in English"
or
"It`s a waste of time, it`s a waste of time, it`s a waste of time, it`s a waste of time..."

Those were the only two jokes I spotted. I was pleased with myself after I ventured into my local Izakaya to celebrate getting paid (woo-hoo!) and I caught a joke. I got chatting to a man (he couldn`t have been much more than fifty) and I was trying to wax lyrical about how I think kanji are really beautiful. I asked him to draw his kanji for me, and he wrote "Ojisan" which means "grandad".

I`ve wittered enough. In closing, here`s a Rakugo story.

`One day, an antiquarian was out looking for a bargain. He saw an old man in a market stall, feeding a cat from a priceless Korean plum bowl.
"He can`t appreciate the value of that bowl if he`s feeding a cat from it!" thought the antiquarian spotting his chance. "Excuse me" he said to the old man "I am utterly captivated by your cat, and I would like to buy it."
"I don`t know about that" said the old man "you see, my wife died some months ago, and she left me in charge of this cat. It reminds me of her. I couldn`t possibly part with it."
"I`m prepared to pay three gold pieces for it." continued the antiquarian.
Three gold pieces?!" gasped the old man. "That`s a princely sum for a cat...OK, you can have it for three gold pieces."
Going in for the kill, the antiquarian said
"Since I`m taking the cat, why don`t you give me the bowl as well so it can have something familiar to eat out of?"
"I don`t know about that" said the old man. "You see, with this bowl, I get to sell a cat for three gold pieces."

Maybe I was looking too hard for a funny Japanese joke, but that made me laugh out loud.

Arigato gozaim-arse - Japanese etiquette part 2

I didn`t want to talk about language in this entry, but I`ve just noticed in my dictionary that the negative form of "desu" (be), "ja arimasen", is considered informal. There is a politer version, "de wa arimasen", but in retrospect I`ve never heard a Japanese person say even that. In my experience, they`re more likely to run linguistic circles around trying to re-define a thing, rather than say "it isn`t" or "no" outright. This idea was only fed after I asked Yoshimizu sensei, the music teacher at Kyomachi, if they had a spare trumpet so I could play in the band. My Japanese is limited, but I know she said something along the lines of "Well Chris, you see, the thing is, we have three trumpets at Kyomachi music department, and three trumpet players, and..." and on it went, beyond my understanding. Thankfully, clocking my gradually furrowing brow, Ishibashi sensei intervened with his formidable command of English and gave me the shorter version. Since then I`ve been listening out for Japanese people saying "no" - can`t say I`ve ever heard of it. As a result, I`ve discovered a glaring pronunciation error on my part. Whilst trying to say "no thank you" (iie kekko desu), I`ve been saying "ie koko desu", each "i" and "k" acting as an individual syllable. The "o" is frankly inexcusable. This will explain some of the confused looks I`ve been getting in supermarkets.
"Would you care for a reward card?"
"My house is here."
"?"

Something else I`ve noticed, particularly when teaching the little monkeys at Rinko is that many of the boys try to get me to say words in Japanese that are, and I can tell this just by the looks on their faces, a bit on the rude side. Obviously when the lesson`s over I humour them - their faces light up as I perplexedly fumble around this potential hand grenade of polite society. This week, curiosity got the better of me, and I asked Asanuma sensei to define what they were trying to get me to say - "Azasu". Apparently, it`s an abbreviated form of "arigato gozaimasu" (thankyou very much). So, there`s a bunch of teenage boys cackling in the way that only teenage boys can over the hilarious taboo of the resident English speaker saying a slightly less polite form of thankyou. I love it.