Get Used to It!

My time as a teacher in Japan only stretches another fifteen days. I’ve broken protocol and started telling my students that I’ll be leaving. Neither my wife nor our coworker supports this. I guess they’re rip-the-bandage-off-at-once kind of people. Responses vary, and I’m beginning to think I should’ve just pulled a Houdini in two weeks.   

Most of the students only ask about the new teacher. “Boy or girl?” “Is she pretty?” “How old are they?” Most agreed a female teacher would greatly improve their current predicament. One group of seven year old boys, possibly resentful they were going to have to learn how to terrorize a new teacher effectively, spent the class period drawing piles of smiling poop on the board. Neither the promise of candy or threats in a foreign tongue could deter this behavior. Two of my adult classes stole my thunder by actually quitting the class moments before I was going to break the news. “Sorry, Joe. Last class.” I tried to explain that I was leaving too and that they didn’t need to apologize but they just bowed and made their exit while I tried not to feel abandoned.  

Not all responses were bad though. Two thirteen year old boys who refuse to speak English unless I let them play basketball cheered me up. Haruto asked me how many more classes we’d have together and when I told him it was only three.  He repeated “Oh no! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!” on loop for the next three minutes. That’s the most English I’ve ever heard him say, and it hit me right in the feelz. Takumi, not as prone to bizarre and emotional outbreaks said nothing, only smiled. Haruto called him careless (We’d been studying adjectives but I didn’t have the heart to correct him) but Takumi only dug through a notebook. He found what he was looking for, looked me straight in the eyes and told me, “Good friends live on in the heart.”

I did my best not to blubber like a grandmother in front of two boys only interested in throwing a deflated rubber ball in a dented metal can.

But the reaction that touched me the most was from the first person I told. I let slip that I was leaving because Akira informed me he was going to be opening a Japanese style steak house. As in a place that only seats six people, and he will personally prepare every bite of food for his diners. He wants to open in November, he just needs a location. My mouth watering I confessed that I wouldn’t get to try his steak because I was leaving in a month for America. He frowned at me and reached for his dictionary. After thumbing around he said, “I got used to you.”

What a compliment. But there’s a lot in those words. Maybe it means I’ve adapted to life in Japan that such a simple statement could mean so much. But I guess that’s the truth of life. We only grow accustomed to the little things that make us comfortable. Coffee, how people say hello, all the little stuff you never notice unless you have to go without.

I had got used to life here, and damnit Japan, I mean it.

Bromance on Ontake

Mt. Ontake recently erupted and still smolders.

We climbed a volcano close enough to Mt. Ontake to see the smoke rise from the recently erupted volcanic sister. As the tour bus rounded a bend in the road and the plume of smoke appeared, the passengers all gasped and shamelessly snapped pictures. I was sitting next to Raquel and a seat over from the other half of a budding bromance. Had I known that the proposal would lead to undressing and bathing with fifty other Jpanese men, I might not have accepted the offer to climb Mt. Norikura. But I didn’t know where this bromance was going to take me, so away we went.  

I am no stranger to the bromance. I’ve had them start in high school classrooms from shared chuckles or in a bus when a bearded man noticed I was reading his favorite book. My most recent bromance began at work when a coworker mentioned he had nine pets at home. I simply had to know more! I typically think of bromances as two men try to feel eachother out to see if there’s more than just sparks and if a true relationship can be kindled. Sometimes a bromance blossoms into something longlasting, but what happened with Mr. Tomodachi was something different. It was all over so fast, and I have nothing to show for it but memories.

After agreeing to climb the mountain together (We had already forgotten about our wives) we ate a bowl of noodles to build up our strength. Tomodachi-san and I both ate are soup much too fast and were forced to make small talk and giggle while our wives finished their meal.

We set off after that, Tomodachi-san plowing ahead and me trying to keep up. We’d wait for the women ever so often, I’d snap pictures, the women would catch up and with a cry of ‘daijobu!’ Tomodachi-san and I would set off again.

The bottom part of the trail up Norikura is a breeze. It’s all gently rising switchbacks that take hikers past fields of shrunken pine bushes and snow hiding from the end of summer in the shadows of boulders. Tomodachi-san told me he’d once bicycled up from the very bottom of Norikura, the part of the journey where we’d rode the bus. Needless to say, I was impressed.

The trail grew steeper and became little more than a pair of guide ropes framing volcanic gravel and boulders in a jagged line towards the peak. Tomodachi-san never slowed; he only paused to wait for his wife now and then. He told me he was sixty-three and I simply couldn’t believe that he still looked so young.

But you have no gray hair! I exclaimed

He smiled, tickled that I’d noticed.

We reached the peak and snapped pictures of Mt. Ontake on the horizon. We were a little unnerved watching a recently erupted volcano while we stood on its sister, so we headed back down.

We stopped only to have a snack once the trail levelled out. While we ate Raquel spotted a stoat and Tomodachi-san’s wife saw a magnificent bird that only lives in those mountains, but Tomodachi-san and I only had eyes for eachother. 

Back on the bus, Tomodachi-san asked if we’d like to go to an onsen together. I had been looking for an excuse to go to a traditional Japanese bath, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. What better way to cement a friendship than getting naked together? Raquel was less enthused, but still agreed that at least we’d have genuine Japanese people with us, and there was less of a chance we’d get thrown out for our tattoos.

At the onsen we separated to go to the respective gendered pools. I shucked off my clothes, and Tomodachi-san led me to the showers. I found a stool and a showerhead amongst dozens of other naked men who were all eagerly soaping their pits and rinsing their balls. They all scrubbed with unbridled enthusiasm. It’s taboo to bring dirt into the spring-fed baths, and they’re serious about it. Scrubbed clean, we headed outside for a hot sulfurous bath.

A pool in the crater of Mt. Norikura. Onsen are spring-fed
pools heated by the volcanoes everywhere in Japan.

“Atsui! Atsui!” Tomodachi-san said as he sunk into the steaming water. We soaked in the bath as naked Japanese men gossiped around us. I don’t speak much Japanese and Tomodachi-san didn’t speak much English, so we just sat in silence, enjoying the fall colors and each other’s company. An older patron rose from the pool as we entered. His balls dangled so low I could see them from behind.

After a few minutes I understood why so many men were getting up, shamelessly stretching and moving to other pools. The water temperature and mineral composition of each pool was different. We were in one of the hottest, and it was filled with white mucous-like flecks that made it look like egg drop soup. We ambled over to another pool that was cooler and looked more like ocean water. It was there that Tomodachi-san asked me who my best friend in Takayama.  

I told him it was Kensei-san, the most badass bartender in all of Japan. Tomodachi-san didn’t know him though. He revealed that he knew my boss Iwamaya-san, and seemed relieved that he wouldn’t have to share me.

“Friends?” he asked me, and touched my shoulder.

Friends, I agreed and clapped him on the back.

We finished our soak and headed to the waiting room to meet our forgotten wives. They weren’t there yet, so we sat down and waited.

I went to get tea and returned to find Tomodachi-san laying down, staring up at the ceiling. I laid down too, relaxed by the mineral springs and the warm light coming from the rafters of the hotel.

“Joe-san?” Tomodachi-san asked, and I rolled over to find him staring at me, his head propped up on his arm, like a tween at a sleepover ready to reveal her big crush.

“Today, a secret?” he asked, and put two fingers to his lips to ask for silence. “Iwayama-san” he said, and shook his head no. I was confused, but hadn’t been planning on revealing my intimidate day in the mountains to my boss anyway, so I agreed.

Our wives returned, Tomodachi-san swore them to silence as well, and we parted ways. Though I have his phone number, I can’t imagine actually calling him. But maybe that’ll change the next time I need some fresh air and a good soak.

Joe Darris Mitchell lives in Takayama, Japan with his darling wife who’s his actual best friend in town. If you enjoyed the homoerotic vibe of this piece, you might enjoy grunting with gaijin, if you want more about the natural splendor of Japan, why not find out the insects of Japan.

Notes on Teaching in Japan

I think teaching English is a lot of Westerners’ ticket into Japan. We’re inherently qualified, we feel confident in our abilities to speak our own language, and understanding Japanese is sort of a disadvantage because it allows the students to speak Japanese and not English (much like living in Takayama, a tourist town, allows me to speak English and not learn any Japanese). The few English speakers that I’ve met either teach English, or started out teaching English and then changed professions once they obtained a work visa.

I was a teacher in the States, and while I’m definitely not one of those holier-than-though teachers who think children are little miracles and the guiding light of our future, I do enjoy teaching the little bastards. I learned from my mentor, Jorgan, that teaching is a lot of fun, and that turning a roomful of animals into (somewhat) civilized human beings can be a very rewarding process. Don’t get me wrong, if my novel goes platinum I’d quit as soon as the school year’s over (speaking of which you can get it on your ereader at smashwords) but I don’t mind teaching, and can’t think of a way I’d rather pay the bills. So I think I’m a little different than the average English teacher, because I saw how things were done in the States. And believe me, there are more than a few differences between teaching in the States and teaching in Japan.

An American I met here summed it up nicely: “Japan and America are backwards.”

It’s true in a lot of ways. In Japan you drive on the opposite side of the road, vegetable gardens in your front yard is normal, sushi is cheap, and hamburgers are expensive. On the train, elderly people actually stand up so kids can sit down. In the States, I can’t count the times I’ve seen adults blithely ignore an elderly person on the bus while they yammer away on their phone. Men don’t even hold doors for women anymore. Some do, guys trying to get laid and pastors, but I think manners are generally thrown out the window when college starts.

That’s the biggest difference between Japan and the United States. In Japan, adults are very polite, and the kids are rude. In the United States, children are expected to be very well behaved, and the adults get a free pass. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked with some real terrors, but in general the kids in the States are expected to be seen and not heard. Getting school clothes dirty is a frowned upon, as is running around a classroom screaming “Ancho! Ancho!” with your hands clasped together and ramming them up your teacher’s ass-crack.

That’s all OK in Japan. The playgrounds have mud pits, where the children are encouraged to either roll mud into spheres (with their hands!) or dig trenches and generally make a mess.  “Ancho” is a real thing, and while its frowned upon, most of the teachers seem to think its endearing, like a kid yelling out the correct answer without raising his hand. In the States, if I high fived a student, there was a fear of legal repercussions, I probably could have been hung if a child’s hand found its way between my cheeks. Here, I’m expected to pick the kids up, twirl them around, endlessly rub their heads and let them crawl on me like a jungle gym.

The first day in the classroom was beyond enlightening. My boss finished his lesson (a nice euphemism for dancing around and chanting in English for 30 minutes) and left the room to go help with lunch. All of a sudden a 5 year old Japanese boy came running out of the bathroom butt-naked. As in nothing. No shirt. No underwear. He wasn’t even wearing socks. He started shaking his little wiener for the class to see and to my horror they all began to strip. Boys and girls just dropped trow and let it all hang out. Within a minute I was surrounded by a 30 naked Japanese children.

What was going to happen when my boss, or even worse, their actual teacher came back? My life in Japanese prison flashed before my eyes. Would I be confined to a wicker cage, or forced to kneel on pointed tiles as they laid stone blocks upon my thighs? Would someone stick bamboo shoots under my fingernails or did that task now belong to a robot?

 

My boss chose that moment to return. I clutched my passport and looked for the exits. I was on the second floor, but maybe I could shimmy down some bamboo. No such luck. I was trapped. Goodbye Japan, hello hari-kari.

“Today’s a splash day, would you help them get dressed if they ask?”

He turned and left without batting an eye.

Oh. Duh. They just had to change clothes. They’re just a bunch of naked kids, so what? They all paid more attention to my gold toenail polish than to each other’s naked butts. And rightly so. We’re all the same after all, especially at that age. After a little thought (and a couple of beers) it seems like a more natural view of nudity than we have in the United States.

I’ve been in the same position in Texas, a roomful of kids had to change into swimsuits to go splash around outside, but it was a much more frightening experience. The first grade teacher ushered out all the girls while she eyed me like mother hen eyes a fox. It was just us boys, but not one of them hurried to change. Instead they all scurried to the corners of the classroom to change clothes in shame. Is it really a good thing for a six year to have issues with his body image?

It’s not like there’s people naked on the streets in Japan. Again, I think Japanese adults look more put together and professional than American adults. I’ve never seen anyone in their pajamas at the grocery store here, something that’s commonplace in Austin.

There’s a shift in Junior High, when kids start to go through puberty I guess. My junior high students are very serious about school, and always tell me how tired they are from hours of school, extracurricular activities and the endless English classes (Japanese students are required to take English grammar tests that I’m sure I would fail). They don’t climb on me, or threaten me with anchos and they would never change clothes in public.

But the kids get to act like kids. They catch bugs, jump in puddles, and smear their teachers with all sorts of goop.

I think it’s impossible to go through life always being well behaved. Manners and customs have their place, but I think we all need to rebel against them to appreciate why they exist at all. It’s part of life, we have to exercise the animal in us, so we know when it’s time to shape up and act civilized, damn it.

I like that the kids in Japan get to be the animals. After all, they don’t know any better, they’re kids. They have plenty of time to mature, and they do. They grow from little ancho-ing banshees into incredibly polite adults, and isn’t that better than wearing pajamas at the grocery store?

Joe Darris currently lives in Japan with his darling wife. If you enjoyed this story, please share with your friends on your favorite social media!