a sadness

Last I joined Gunch again at his local - Machan's Okonomiyaki shop. When we arrived there were two customers, rather dapper looking old men in suits who were, of course, 67 (Gunch likes to tell me the age of everybody he knows, especially if they are sixty seven). Gunch had brought with him a huge bag of what looked like unopened pistachios. As he passed huge handfuls over to Machan's wife, he told me quietly and proudly that the two dapper customers used to be pro baseball players. To me this made them seem extra dapper. I had had the good sense to bring some South African tourist brochures with me this time and the baseball players poured over them paying particular interest to The Kruger Park. Pictures of lions being watched by tourists are always a winner.

Whereas before Gunch and I had shared an okonomiyaki, this time I had one to myself, Gunch being more interested in Sake. I wolfed it down unaware that it was not going to be the only thing I was presented with. I was subsequently presented with a pile of persimmons and the nuts I had thought were pistachios but weren't anything of the sort - Machan had heated them in a hot pan with salt and oil and showed me how to crack the papery shell to reveal an oily green kernel that tasted somewhere between a mielie and a peanut. When I declined beer (my stomach now fully distended and groaning) I was plied with umechu, a sweet plum wine served over ice.

Gunch drank steadily and when it was time to leave I was glad that we were headed in the same direction because he seemed at risk of toppling over. We must have made an odd pair shuffiling through the autumn evening towards the station; a gaijin girl in her new white coat pushing a bicycle and a sixty seven year old man fumbling his coat pockets for his cigarettes. Gunch has never smoked in front of me before but tonight he seemed not to care, he puffed away telling me stories about Mihara - how he had watched the elaborate construction of the shinkansen, how he new every nook and cranny of the town, his favourite bits and bits that had been destroyed by progressing industries. A few blocks before we parted ways (he was going to stay with his 92 year old father who lives not far from the station) Gunch told me that he might not be at Mihara high school next year. Why not I asked, shocked. He mumbled about not being welcome at the school, too old he said and also mentioned that he was not very well. Seeing him standing there in the dark, a bit sozzled and coughing up his 20 maybe 30 a day habit I was dreadfully sad, bur not surprised. I said "what will I do without you?" and he laughed and shrugged. Then we went our separate ways into the night, him probably unaware of how seriously I meant my question.

Its not that I hate my school. But Gunch certainly is the the best thing about it. My days would be much more grey, my japanese would plummet and my intake of experiences would taper off without his instruction and advice. Also I remember Nana, the lady that worked for my family my entire life, till I was seventeen saying that once you retire you begin to die. With nothing to do and no bus or train to catch first thing in the morning, you lose your focus and life beings to slip through your fingers. I fear this would happen to Gunch. He still has so much to teach the students, to teach me! Its selfish, but I need him. I dont want him to go away.

So I hope it was just the booze talking, but I fear it wasnt. I can picture all too clearly the principal hatching a plan to give this wonderful old man the boot. What Gunch's revelation has done is make me work harder for our lessons. Whereas before they were a certainty I now see them as a precious thing that like world oil, is running out.

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postcards

I have been teaching the second years how to write letters and postcards. As an exercise they had to write a postcard to me that they could drop in a cardboard postbox outside the Teacher's room. The advanced English class had to imagine themselves in 2010, writing to me just after the world cup (in which Japan had made the final but been narrowly defeated). The basic English class had to write to me telling em about their hobbies and daily activities (apparently what separates the advanced and not-so-good is their ability to imagine in a second language - an interesting thought).

Even though it was work for marks, I still got a kick receiving a tonne of mail this week. I felt like a total celebrity. These are two of the best bits of news I got form the students, the first one being an advanced learner imagining 2010 and the second being a basic learner...

Dear Jemma
How are you?
I am the best baseball player in Japan these days. And I got married.
Love Tatsuya

Dear Jemma
Today I broke my shoulder.
Love Nagata

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white coat

I just bought a white coat. I think this might have been a stupid idea. Its beautiful yes, a double breasted trench coat that fits like a dream and it was on sale for 25% of its original price. Fitting into clothes here just gives me such a kick; when I put it on I think I 'oohed' audibly. Its really so very very attractive. I can picture it with a scarf and beret. Plus I do need a coat - its getting mighty chilly here. Still all this does not change the fact that its white. Off white. Lands End might call it stone. And its dry clean only.

Have I matured enough to live in a white coat? Can I not spill soup on it or get it stuck in the spokes of my bicycle? Will I be at the dry cleaners every week with some new stain thus negating its low low price?

What a conundrum. I'll keep you posted.

The Spider's Thread

A few weeks ago Gunch witnessed me trying valiantly to teach Keisuke The Lion King, and thought I deserved a taste of my own kusuri. Since, he has been having me learn ( with the intention of reciting) a famous Japanese story called 'Kumo no Ito' - The Spider's Thread. Well, it started out as just a bit of fun, he would read to me and have me repeat the onomatopoeia and easy stuff. I didnt realise things were going to get serious...

Last week was when things took a turn for the worse when, during our lesson, Gunch produced a 'simplified' copy for me. to read. out loud!! Kanji and all!! If you look at the picture above you will have some indication of the Herculean nature of this. We battled through it with me growing ever frustrated and him getting so excited not because I was making any headway but because he so loves the story and the nuances of the words and the satisfaction of translating. He's a dedicated thinker, a real teacher. He would come every day with an updated glossary of new verbs or adjectives or a story that explained a certain turn of phrase. I was in agony because I didn't understand a bloody thing and I wasn't retaining a word he said. The harder I tried, the less successful I became. And my brave face just made it worse because any glimpse of enthusiasm on my part just fuelled him into a greater frenzy of explanation and research. Reading the folio over time became harder, not easier because he was scribbling all over my it with pencil, referencing meaning and pronunciation - obscuring the words I couldn't read with even more words I couldn't read!!

I was feeling guilty and angry, Jesus, did he honestly think I was capable of learning the goddam thing! It was all his fault. It was all my fault. He wouldn't give up and I couldn't give up. It felt to me like this project could be the end of our strange and delicate friendship. To make matters worse he would always absentmindedly end up going home with my pencil.

Today he arrived at my desk with a fresh new copy of the folio that he had reprinted - free from scribbles. He expected that I, like him, had been working on the story all weekend. Handing me the new copy benevolently he asked me to read. I cursed myself for having been so rude about his pencil scribbles.. Without them I had to remember pronunciation all by myself. Now, I was sure, I would be exposed for the revolting fraud I am, I had done NO work at all. He would be hurt and I would be ashamed...grimly I began reading.

Much to our combined suprise and delight, I did it!! Sure, I butchered the thing, but I got through it and even remembered a dozen or so kanjii without prompting!! It was a glorious endorsement of my capability to learn the taal. Somehow, his lessons had managed to get stuff to stick. He knew what he was doing all right. I was so proud of myself and so grateful I teared up. Most of all I was so happy to have pleased my teacher. Its motivated me to make him even happier so I just spent the afternoon working on The Spider's Thread...when I should have been making lesson plans.

I still have a long way to go with the story and Japanese in general, 99 percent I'd say. But I had thought I was nowhere.

Actually I'm one percent of the way there! I hope Gunch will never suspect how resentful I was of him last week and that one day he will have some idea of how grateful I am.

the archival and the incidental

Sorry about the no-writey.

I got my re-contracting papers on friday last week. It was quite a wake-up call. Coz I'm having marvellous fun but this is, I suspect, in part owed to the fact that I believe time to be suspended. While I'm here whooping it up, all you loved ones are in little glass bottles, your faces frozen in the expressions I last remember. Getting the re-contracting papers (and celebrating my three month in Japan anniversary today - hip hip hooray) is time, rudely mentioning to me that it is marching by.

Time moving on should be no problem, or at least no worry, being as it is such an inevitable and irreversible phenomenon. But it worries me here because it feels like I'm not doing anything with it! I'm not learning new things or making new memories (I know this sounds like utter rubbish but bear with me on my anniversary). If I look back through the weeks the only things that spring immediately to mind are sitting at home on the internet, sitting at my desk resenting my co-workers, sitting on trains, sitting in line at the bank. Now tell me I'm being ridiculous. Doing stuff? Im not - I just sitting!! So the sitting is what comes to mind at first, if you say then, but what about the onsen, or Hiroshima or the bookshop I'll go 'jajajaja...and that!'. So its true (or not true - depending what side you are on), I do do stuff.

But then why do I remember the not-doing, not the doing? Maybe my brain has taken the real experiences further away into my memory - currently unavailable - for extra special preparation before they are filed. They are being fired to be extra strong and durable because they are going to be used a lot in times to come- hauled out for anyone with an unfortunate ten minutes spent with me sitting on a train or in a queue at the bank. They have to be properly preserved. Which means at present I'm left with the dross, and as readers of my blog - so are you; right now we only have the cheap memories which in two weeks time will be tatters.

One thing I am wanting share with ya'll is that I have seen at least a dozen students in Japan with grey hair. Not a hair here and there, all my students have that; no I'm talking a dozen full heads silver. The kids, most often boys, can't be older than sixteen. Amazing hey?