Cute Has Lost ALL Meaning

The fact that I am in Japan has presented me with the hope that my (Japanese – not English – that is already disappearing as I feel the English section of my brain begin to atrophize, atrophistic? Shit. See.) vocabulary level will improve, perhaps, from that of a 2 year-old infant to that of maybe a 10 year old sassy school boy with any luck at all. However it is challenge when the vocabulary of high school students consists mainly of the words “kawaiiiiiiii” (cute) and “sugoiiiiiiii” (AWESOME!!!!111).

I met four of my students today – all girls. After braving through the narrow roads of Niihama on my mini-convertible-red-collapsible bike for my Japanese lesson about 30 minutes away I had to head back to school. There I was told that I owed the school MORE money for various things like my personalized stamp (which I would have willingly fashioned myself if it meant saving 30 bucks. For a stamp. We all know I like stamps, but c’mon now), electricity, health insurance, and my soul for the next year. Oddly enough it seems as though I am paying THEM to work here and not the other way around. Such is the backwardness that is Japan.

After they had held me upside down and rigorously shaken out all my pockets to make sure that I had given them all I had, they let me go back up to the gloriously air conditioned staff room where I jetted for the fossilized piece of machinery that they call a laptop. After sitting there for a while I had someone come up to me from behind and got the sense that they wanted to start a conversation.

Now at this point some description becomes necessary. I haven’t bothered starting to bring a change of clothes around with me at all times, despite the fact that it actually might be a wise idea; I just can’t quite get myself to care that much. After biking from my Japanese lesson I was left a sopping mess, pretty much soaked in my own perspiration looking as though I had just emerged from a dip in the pool. That whole lie about girls glistening and not sweating is a bloody lie in Japan. The back of my shirt was drenched, my hair was all over the place and in Japan where presentation is supposedly everything I surely should not have been allowed to have left my house. Disgrace. Shame. Kill yourself now.

The second I turned around to say hello I was greeted by a student who will be in my “Oral Communications (heh)” class with a loud GASP “KAWAIIIII!!!”

This word has truly lost ALL meaning.

Kawaii should be saved for things that are actually cute in Japan. Things like Pikachu and miniature prizes that are found in candy boxes that have no real use and will probably end up being recycled in one of the numerous stringently labeled recycle bins found every 25 miles.

All the same, of course it was flattering and a better reaction than, “WAAAAAAA” or the pitter patter of fleeing feet. At orientation earlier this week we had been told over and over again to simply engage our students in any sort of possible conversation in an attempt to trick them into thinking English is fun. Get to know them. Be a “people person” and all that. Coming from New York where you walk with your eyes fixed fast in front of you, nose held high and ignore people you don’t know, and some that you do, I have to put myself in an entirely different frame of mind.

Three girls were leaving an office and walking down the hall when they caught sight of me. Curious, they would stop and turn around every so often as they walked down the hall. It is a rather nice feeling that people are more than willing to talk to you if you make the effort. However I fear that once I return back to New York, if this custom stays with me I will be facing all sorts of conundrums, unwanted visitors and sketchy encounters. It was also a good opportunity to see what kind of English they understood, if any at all. I got their names, had a brief chat and yet another opportunity for the little man in my brain to call and retrieve the English meaning for the word ‘kawaii’ over and over again. Maybe they were trying to inflate my ego, but they should really know I have no control over their grades.

Today was also spent attempting to remedy the tragedy that is my cell phone. Before coming to Japan I had a vision of what my Japanese cellphone/keitai would look like. I’d be able to use it carry around mp3s, take amazing quality holographic pictures, make toast and maybe even a phone call or two. In my imagination it was also a size that would be suitable for a Lilliputian. Sadly none of these things will ever come true.

I found the store and ventured inside prepared to use my crap vocabulary and bat my eyelids in order to try to get a bilingual phone if it absolutely came down to that. I find it bizarre that a country can spend so much money setting up elaborate arcades and pachinko machines and yet it can’t do something as simple as take a cell phone number from one phone and transfer it to another one, one that I can understand and won’t make me want to chuck it in the toilet every other day.

I was told that it was impossible and I’d have to buy another phone, another plan and pay for two cell phones for the next six months. The spoiled child in me longed to just say “ DO it, DO it” but the rational part realizes this is a stupid thing to do. The phone guy was nice about it and did what he could to help me so I can’t be too riled up at him.

And no news from Japan would be complete without a weather report. Last night I experienced my first thunderstorm in Japan. After coming out from hiding under my kitchen table fearing that it was the beginning of a tsunami, I managed to take a look outside from the balcony. Thunder reverberates off the mountains making the storm sound much more threatening than it actually is. Lightning would light up my entire window and while it rained pretty hard I don’t think it was for all that long. Most of the evening that was not spent under the kitchen table in fear was spent praying that the storm would clear up before morning, as biking anywhere in this kind of weather is a talent I don’t possess. I see numerous little 70-year-old spry ladies balancing confidently on their bikes, one hand carrying an umbrella while the other steers with ease. I have only just relearned how to make left hand turns on a bike, I can’t possibly manage a bike in the rain, nor do I have the appropriate rain gear. These are the kinds of questions they should ask you at the JET interview: “Can you ride a bike?”

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Published:
8.17.06 / 5pm
Category:
classroom antics, what i call life, culture