I am typing this from my desk at Suzurandai-Nishi Senior High School where I shall be doing the actual job part of our paid vacation in Japan. Ho Ho Ho. Seems to be a pretty amazing school from I’ve seen, very progressive and with absolutely fantastic facilities. They have an enormous two storey gym with seperate rooms on the ground floor for different clubs and societies. I wandered around a bit today and watched the dudes whacking each other with sticks while yelling “Hai!!!” in the Kendo room. I’m pretty sure you could just film that and you’ve got a winning funniest home video entry right there. With their armour and 3-sizes-too-big uniforms they look like a bunch of space monsters in training.

There’s also a 25 meter swimming pool at the pool which I haven’t had the chance to test out yet, but which I fully intend to. I was going to give a go today but I was kind of put off by the Japanese students with perfect golden tans and rippling abs running up and down the edge looking like models for some kind of Japanese magazine with a funny title. I don’t think I’m quite ready to expose my flabby white belly to the world yet. No need for the students to laugh at me any more than absolutely necessary.

All the teachers here are fantastic, very friendly and helpful and they’re making the change pretty easy on us. My predecessor has also been an absolute gem, leaving tonnes of resources and materials for me to use as well as written instructions on just about everything. In fact about the only she hasn’t left me instructions for are the answering machine, which is entirely in Japanese. I pressed all the buttons and all I could get the damn thing to do was replay a message from my Go-between inviting Mara to a festival with some very proactive screaming going on in the background. This message would play seemingly at the whim of the machine, sometimes I’d press the same button twice and nothing would happen, then I’d press it a third time and I’d get the message. Then I’d press what looked very much to be the delete button and it would play the same message. Again. And Again. Without stopping. Note to self: Learn Japanese.

The first couple of days here have been pretty mental trying to get the admin type of stuff out of the way. Gaijin Forms, Bank Forms, Telephone Forms, Tax Forms, Japan is a country of forms. For one of the most technologically advanced societies in the world, they are extremely backward in some regards. For example the other day I went to the bank to change a traveler’s cheque and I was told that they did not change Australian traveller’s cheques at that particular bank. After a rapid exchange of Japanese between Maki and the teller they decided that yes, they could exhance a cheque. The tellers held a hurried conference in which no less that six people huddled over the desk and pointed at stuff. I was then issued with two forms I had to fill out, including my home phone number (which i didn’t even have), gave them my passport, which they then returned to the huddle and began to dance around. The entire process took about 20 minutes and involved seven people, in any other country it would have taken the best part of 40 seconds for a single person. They were all wearing cute uniforms though, so I guess that kind of makes up for it.

On that note, Japan seem to be a country where they’ve taken to inventing jobs just for the sake of it. I suppose with so many people, it must be hard to keep unemployment down, but some of the jobs you see people doing is flat out ridiculous. For example, there was a guy in the carpark stationed next to the payment machines that would tell you in Japanese what the buttons did and then press them for you. There were three buttons on the machine. The parking was charged at a flat rate. The ticket had instructions on it. Go figure.

I think I lucked out pretty well on the other ALT as well. Dave is from London and is an excellent guy, very laid back and who can speak just as little Japanese as I can. He seems pretty committed and I think we’re going to have a great year together. In the same apartment there are two other ALTs, Lorna and Wendy. Lorna is another brit who reminds me very much of my friend Helen from Uni. Tall and funny and very british with a real individual sense of style.

Wendy is a hyper-apologetic Canadian who doesn’t drink, has a boyfriend who works the nightshift in tech support who is allergic to alcohol and whos best friend is a mormon. Now there’s a recipe for fun and excitement if ever I heard one. She’s a wonderful person but already she seems to be isolating herself from the group. The final ALT in Suzurandai is Neil. He’s even taller than I am and again, very british. Actually, given that there’s supposed to be one more UK ALT coming to stay before he pulled out and they haven’t yet picked a replacement it seems the apartment block is turning into a bit of a British enclave. Actually, Lorna and Neil rocked up at my place last night at seven with a couple of six-packs and after going to get Wendy and Dave we sat around until about 11 drinking and talking. Something tells me it is going to be a good year.

My apartment is pretty awesome. Very small by Australian standards but I think it’s palatial for a Japanese one, especially given how much rent we pay. There are two bedrooms, a lounge room and kitchen and a bathroom. It’s pretty decked out as well and I’m rapidly making it look more like home. There’s a lot of sliding doors, which means it’s quite easy to alter the layout. The problem is, all the door frames are about half my height so I really have to duck around in there. I really like it though, and think once I’ve got everything sorted out it will be a great place to call home. The bad news is it is in a block of teacher’s apartments, and the room directly above me is one of the English teachers at the school. Making a good first impression is probably a good idea.

Right, I might go watch some more Kendo. Baka Gaijin? Hai!

Posted in Japan on Friday August 8, 2003.

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