Milwaukeeians Take On The Technical Boys. sweet, glad it’s someone else for a change.

They had been the talk of the past two months. Every time I arrived at the technical high school, one of the English teachers would rush over to me to give me a new tidbit of information gathered on the four foreign students who were venturing all the way from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to the Love Princess, Japan. One week it was gossip of one girl who had been denied a visa. The next week it was checking to see if certain English tongue twisters were appropriate or not. The intrigue was never ending.

Their visit is short and fleeting, only about ten days. I arrive on the last day of their stay. An assembly is to be held to bid the three girls and a boy a hearty bon voyage and undoubtedly to thank them for their ‘hard work.’

The gymnasium is full of row upon row of boys sitting on the floor. Some wear crisp blue button up shirts. Others don white polo shirts. In either case the shirt is messily untucked in the back. Each boy’s dark slacks are nearly half way down his ass, the belt lounging somewhere in the middle, clearly not doing its job. Some are sitting cross-legged on the floor looking attentive, but the vast majority are slightly more comfortably positioned about ready to settle in for a bit of a kip.

“STAND,” bellows a disembodied voice from the front.

The boys all grudgingly stand.

“SIT!!!!” bellows the same mysterious voice.

The boys plop back down as though they are marionettes released from their strings.

Several school announcements are made and then the matter of the alien children from Milwaukee arises.

The whole school talks about them for a while and then finally, the four students are paraded in. They are released from their holding cell where they have been kept waiting and file past the two gymnasium doors until they enter and walk towards the stage. The girls are wearing shorts that Japanese girls only ever wear out if they are complimented with fuck-me-go-go-stilletto shoes and a gargantuan amount of make-up. They are comfortably attired in casual, normal, American summer-wear, but compared to the drab heavily coordinated colors of the Japanese students and staff, they stand out immensely. The boys all crane their necks to get a better look, and then, satisfied that the foreigners have not changed much in appearance and don’t look like the Britney Spears or Brad Pitt icons they had expected, slouch back down. This is better than the earlier behavior that has been described to me by one teacher, as apparently a good portion of the students took to jumping under their desks and hiding when the Milkwaukee navitives joined their classes.

Five folding chairs have been placed on the stage, equally spaced out and awaiting foreign bottoms. The students’ teacher progresses to the podium and after a deep breath makes a simple speech in Japanese thanking the school for its hospitality and stating her determination to keep up with Japanese.

The four students then each take turns at the mike.

One girl starts out with a promising and heavily accented “Arigatou gozaimasu,” but then quickly switches back into English. “Thank you guys for being, like, so nice, and, like, I want to stay, but, yeah, I can’t, so, okay, bye.” And quickly runs back to her seat.

The one boy stands up and begins:

“Uhmmm.”

It’s at this VERY moment that it dawns on me I have been in Japan for an extremely long time. Long enough to have this “UHM” bother me, despite the fact I’m sure I do it as well.

This “UHMMM” is just wrong. There will be no “UHMMMS” in Japan. Where are the “Anoooos” and the “eeeetoos.”

“UHM”?!? “UHMMM”?!?

The boys do not look impressed or at all interested. I suspect they, too, were not comfortable with the “UHM.” They might as well be in one of my classes.

The very impromptu speeches finally come to an end; the students are shuffled back off the stage, line up and bow. A staff member makes a short speech pleading the foreign students not to forget everyone back in Niihama. Remember the good times. More fragmented bowing on the part of the Americans vs. completely synchronized Japanese inclines.

Then, just as quickly as they were shuffled in, the foreign beasts are shuffled out, the spectacle is over, and school business continues as the supervising student committee begins a slide show depicting the derelict condition of the computers in school whilst reminding the students, “hey, let’s not stick octopus balls in the floppy drives anymore, eh guys?”

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Published:
7.4.07 / 1pm
Category:
amusing incidents, what i call life, culture