Contradictory Feedback And A “Sexy Boy”

“Excuse me. We have a meeting. If you’re not doing anything…”

OH NO. I’m sure my face fell. Was this woman going to ask me to attend this snore-fest of a meeting, or to make some sort of speech on internationalization and to grossly exaggerate the joys of being stared at with vacuous looks as I lie through gritted teeth about how exciting relative pronouns are?

My mind races for plausible excuses.

She proceeded. “… if you’re not doing anything… could you please leave?”

What? You WANT me to leave? A mild feeling of insult crept over me and, as is the contradictory nature of humans, all of a sudden I found myself wanting to stay.

I packed up my things and shuffled home after a day of bizarre classes full of contradictions.

One of my JTEs had come up with a fun little lesson to introduce New York to her class. I had never met these kids before so this would be our ‘intro’ lesson. She had maps and travel information from the web that were in both Japanese and English. I thought it was a pretty good idea.

That was, until we did it.

Japanese students have completely mastered the art of staring blankly, their faces mildly coated with a bit of disgust, a touch of indifference and a mammoth amount of boredom. I was convinced they were not taking in anything at all. As several of them nodded off into the sweet state of unconsciousness, all the while still clutching their mechanical pencils to maintain the illusion of being studious and alive, I began to feel that perhaps they were not paying as much attention as they ought to have been.

We plodded on. At one point I opened the class up to questions about New York. The class sat in dead silence for a minute or so with me looking around impatiently and then this one boy with a crew cut in the back who had been mumbling snide comments since the beginning of class finally asked (in Japanese) how old I was.

I tend to hedge around this issue in class for one main reason: I’m not that much older than them. While this could be a good thing (we can, like, go shopping together, and braid each other’s hair and talk about boys), in some cases if they find out I’m rather young I’m simply not going to have any control over the class: “She’s twenty-one. PAH. If I round up, I’m twenty-one for Christ’s sake.”

I shot back in Japanese, “Well, what do you think?”
To which he replied, “Sixteen.”

Ouch.

I then asked him how old he was. My JTE translated his response: “It’s rude to ask a person’s age.”

My eyes narrowed. I normally like smartasses but there was something in his demeanor that was downright obnoxious not to mention rude.

“Well then, if it’s rude then why do Japanese people always ask foreigners their age as soon as they set a toenail into this strange little country?” This is a question which, I know, has fruitlessly been asked again and again. There is no real concrete answer for it but I wanted him to realize what a hypocrite he was being.

He paused for a second, looked thoughtful and then said smugly, “My policy.”

Oh, well then. If it’s your policy.

He was giving me attitude and I thought we were going to have a bit of an incident in class namely my bludgeoning him to death with a book. Instead I took the Japanese card out of my back pocket, smiled at him and changed the subject.

At the end of the lesson the students were asked to write a message to me and to respond to the question, “If you could study abroad where would you go and why?”

I was expecting things along the lines of: Are all Americans this dull? Please come again. I quite enjoyed my nap. Or, perhaps just a mess of papers dampened with little puddles of drool.

Instead, I got these:

One kid invites me to go to Universal Studios Japan: “LETS GO TO USJ!” she yells at me.

The Smartass Policy kid had actually filled up the entire paper, which astounded me. He can’t be bothered to ask me my age in English, yet he can recall and write from memory in perfect English several stanzas from a song: Cannot get no sleep tonight. It’s all because of you… etc. etc. At least I’m assuming it was a song, else no wonder he was hoping I was sixteen. I find out his name is also Takayoshi but he goes by the American name “James.” As he handed me the paper he told me he liked my perfume and asked what it was. I told him and he responded with a primitive pounding of chest and “ME SEXY BOY.” Now I don’t know if this was a declaration of his own opinion of himself, or whether that is the scent of his liking, no doubt endorsed by Britney Spears.

Another kid writes a somewhat ominous sounding message, “You WILL go to Tokyo.”

One kid wrote that he enjoyed the class. My old friend the past-tense-form-of-the-verb-enjoy! I nearly cried with happiness.

A monstrously huge cup of coffee decorated another paper with the words, “Coffee is good.” Yes, I suppose it is. This boy then proceeded to list every single imaginable country on his list of travel destinations. It was as if he had opened an atlas and written whatever his eyes happened to fall on – Croatia, Austria, Brazil, Bosnia, Greenland. This was all in Japanese though – so even if he was just being a smartass he helped me practice my katakana and thoroughly learn the particle ka.

One kid who obviously is playing up to the stereotypes of the world writes simply, “susi.”

Keitais (cellphones), much like the Internet, have massacred the writing skills of adolescents. I got several papers that looked as though they had been typed on a keitai – simply peppered with smileys, hearts, sweating faces, bubbled exclamation points, music notes and the like.

One student wrote, “Cute : )” under Message to Nikki.
Under the study abroad inquiry she had drawn a small icon if the Statue of Liberty with the phrase “lol” next to it. Well, I know who the Internet junkie in the class is.

A number of students felt inclined to make personal judgments about me. Now I’m not going to complain because for the most part they feel the need to feed my ego, causing my superego and id to become smaller and smaller in order to balance things out, but I have to wonder about this constant trend of commenting so freely on a foreigner’s appearance.

I transport myself back to my days at high school or even junior high school. Suppose a foreign exchange teacher came from Italy to my class. The teacher instructs the students to write him a letter in response to his class. I totally ignore any information that was presented about the Victor Emmanuel Monument and the times of Hadrian and write, “My, your feet are small. You have very long eyelashes. They are rather feminine. You have big beautiful eyes not unlike Bambi. You smell of smoke. I’d like your hair if only it wasn’t a mullet. But, in general you’re overall aesthetically pleasing. Sure, you’ll do. I love you.” Would this fly?

Several even professed their undying love. Now while it’s flattering to think that in fifty minutes I can convince someone to love me, I find it somewhat improbable. No wonder the abortion rate in this country is so high.

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Published:
11.17.06 / 6pm
Category:
classroom antics, amusing incidents