A day at shogakko (primary school) over here can sometimes unearth the real way foreigners are seen in japan. You get started at everywhere you go here if you have shiny white skin and plate eyes but youre dealt with the utmost politeness and care so I mostly feel quite lionized which is never anything to complain about. In fact yesterday I was picked up by my fab friend Keiko from my doorstep, bought ice cream and cake for, taken to play with her lovely dog and kids for a few hours, given help on my Japanese and a gorgeus meal before being thanked profusely for my “precious time.” Don't mention it luv...
However as I sit with aching limbs, sunburnt skin and a half ripped ear lobe I cant help that the extreme niceness and and sheer respect for personal space is something that must be distilled into the Japanese after the age of eight. For today, after spending a majority of the day with the new first year teeny students, the barriers are down. What Japanese people really want to do is climb on you, touch your hair and skin whilst upholding an unblinking stare, draw pictures of poo and willies on your back with chalk (very alan partridge) show you their lunch whilst theyre still chewing on it, cry when youre not giving them enough attention and try to poke you in the arsehole…oh and rip your earring out of course, but well get to that later. This was all done in the friendliest ways of course and I actually thoroughly enjoyed lt all...almost all. The first time I taught the little kids I felt like an absolute plonker and couldn’t bring myself to get into “heads shoulders knees and fucking toes” (a song that probably surpasses any karaoke number in singing frequention. And I go to karaoke here at least twice a week.) But now im an absolute mentalist when placed in front of a primary class (and sometimes high school sadly) anything to get em into it eh? ...that or I'm just a complete exhibitionist.
Sometimes I think I was programmed for this teaching malarchy although its more likely that I just relish in any situation where im the centre of attention and allowed to be bossy and silly. and make people play games.
But back to the experienced at hand. Usually at shogakko I get latched onto by one or if im lucky a few little girls who want to hold my hand all day and generally be my new super best friend. Usually it’s a really grubby kid with about three teeth and a funny eye. However today it was a little boy who was super cute but also super little bastard-usually my favourite type of student although after getting my boobs squeezed (accompanied by the customary hooting noise) a willy drawn on my back and, yes, the earing incident I was beginning to tire of little ryu. Especially seenas he insisted in holding my hand when I was trying to play football with the older kids at playtime. (when I got the sunburn. Spring is officially here in Japan) Anyway the painful incident happened like this, during a "color touch" game (i shout a colour in english and the kids have to touch it in the room, que lots of shouting and violence. great) Ryu points to my earrings which were yellow.
Him: goldo!
Me: No. Yellow! This is Gold. (pointing to pin)
Demon Child: Goldo! GOLDO!(jumps up and grabs earring. blood splatters. at least i'm earning my yen with vitriol.)
I realised that all kids really want is someone to talk to/at. They love their propher teachers but theyre always busy and they bollock them whenever they get rowdy. So they love having someone with no real responsibilities to piss around with all day (enter the JET!) and even though I didn’t understand some of what they were on about all of the time the fact that I was willing to try seemed to mean a lot to them. However days like this when im forced to speak Japanese as much as I can really help my learning. In fact I got a cheer today from one of my classes everytime I could translate a bit of my self introduction in to Japanese. Who needs valium when you’ve got children eh.
I must say that when i think back to my primary school days what springs to mind is potatoe printing and being embarrased for accidently calling the teacher "mum" (we've all done it.) I certainly never made a visiting foreigner bleed. And they say the British are the yobs...
