Here we go again...up next, those wonderful students from Spain!
On a discussion about drugs, one student was talking about hallucinogens, and then said that you got them "only with Muslims."
I cocked my ear. "With what?"
She repeated herself, and then I realized that she had said mushrooms.
On another occasion, a high-spirited Spaniard went out on the school activity - paintball. At the end of the game, with no more ammunition, he came running off the course up to one of our teachers. "I didn't get hit!! And I have no balls!!"
Lastly, the same student was trying to keep his fellow Spaniard in the class from overhearing him. Mixing up his vocabulary, he said, "No listening. Put your fingers in your eyes."
Ouch. Class dismissed.
Three years later, this is still the most commented entry of all the blogs that I have written. This is for you, Little Sister (you know who you are!).
As you can tell, my time in Japan had a huge impact on my life, which is why so many of my blog entries are devoted to it. I have been asked by many - friends and students alike - about what it felt like to leave after spending over one year in Japan. I think that I can now say, that for anyone who has dared to dream, or has simply had a short taste of life in a country other than their own, the experience of leaving often comes with great sadness and a feeling of unfinished business.
Every Friday there is a consistent pattern at the school that I teach at. It is the day that students finish their individual terms, so Fridays are always final days. I call it "Farewell Photo Friday." A few students go to different schools or look for work, but most head back to their homelands. There are always lots of tears mixed in with the hugs and seemingly endless camera flashes. Of course, those who stay a little longer after leaving our school eventually have to return home as well.
And in almost every case, there is a sense of "I'm not ready to leave yet."
I know this because I have walked in those shoes. I have experienced those feelings. And this brings me to the most profound piece of email wisdom that I received in 2006. For those of you returning home to your country, please read my story. I hope that it holds true for you, too.
LEAVING JAPAN
It was during the month of April 2006, and I was experiencing an emotional roller-coaster, as the idea of leaving Japan after 15 months gave me incredible sadness. I had met some wonderful friends, and Japan had become my adopted country, so it was with great reluctance that I tendered my resignation from Nova on April 28th.
However, a thoughtful piece of prose came in an email from a former co-worker of mine back in Canada, and the message gave me great encouragement and allowed me to focus on what I had accomplished in Japan, rather than what I was leaving. Below is the message, in its entirety except for editting for context.
Today I was taking portraits of my students for my school's marketing department. There were about 10 students, and one by one they went up to the wall, smiled for the camera, and went for lunch.
One Korean student in line must have been eager to leave, as she had already put on her jacket. However, she wasn't sure what would be best for the photo shoot, so she went up to my colleague to ask whether or not she should keep her coat on. However, this was what she said:
"Should I take my clothes off for the picture?"
Glad that she asked.
Class dismissed.
And here we go with another round of TFTC...a great way to kick off the new year!
One morning, one of my students came in with a new hairstyle. Wanting to give her a simple compliment, I said, "Your hair looks really nice today."
She smiled, but her friend looked up at me and mischievously quipped, "Today?"
On another occasion, I was teaching my class the use of irregular plural nouns, and the word ox was used as an example. Instead of focussing on the plural form, the students got caught up in the vocabulary.
"What is ox?" asked one student.
"Sure," I added, picking up on the topic. "What is an ox?"
The petite Taiwanese student across the room tapped at her electronic dictionary, and after a few short seconds, supplied the two-worded definition:
"Stupid person."
Class dismissed.
As much as I enjoy watching ice hockey, I would hate to play it. Too many guys out there want to think that they are the next incarnation of Wayne Gretzky or Sidney Crosby, but are more like Eric Lindros - a bull on skates. Even in recreational leagues, there are too many opportunities for serious "accidents" to occur, and at high speed, anything can happen. As a goaltender, I can't take that risk. I have a job that relies on me. I have a family to be part of.
That's why I stick to my Canadian roots and enjoy a good game of floor hockey. I don't have to worry about some guy on skates who's high on testosterone to come crashing into me. All the game without the high speed and overadrenalized danger. It's enough for me.
Ah, dear Katty, how we have missed you. But we certainly have not forgotten you at all.
It's been a year since we last saw our friend from Japan, but her presence still echoes loudly in our home. My wife May and I often reflect on the fond memories of Katty's two visits last year, and more often than not, we end up rolling on the floor laughing.
One story that should have been written long ago was of the time that we were returning from a short weekend camping trip with Katty. She was having a snooze in the back seat, and as we drove along the highway past some farmland, we were assaulted by the pungent smell of...uh, farmland. Up until that point, we had all been fairly quiet, when Katty cried out, "Kusai!"
No translation needed here, I thought. Deciding to give her the reason for the smell, I simply said, "Fertilizer."
Katty was silent for a moment. Then she asked, "What's that?"
My wife then decided that it was her turn, and tried to make it as simple as possible. "Poo."
Katty was silent for a moment again, so May thought that her answer had satisfied our friend. Not quite.
"Whose poo?"
I looked at May and said, "YOU answer that one!!!"
Wow, time really does fly as one gets older. I can't believe that it has been over five months since I last did a blog entry, and even longer since I wrote TFTC. Well, to make up for lost time, I have a few great quotes from the past little while. Just as a little warning, some of these stories are rated a bit PG, but they are great examples of life in the classroom.
A couple weeks ago, I went out for coffee with one of my former students. I'll call her "Tami." I taught her back in November 2006, and after two months at the school, she struck out on her own on her working holiday visa and got a job at a cafe. She was there up until a few weeks ago, as she prepared to return to Japan. In the sixteen months since she had left our school, her use of English had grown exponentially, and there was no lack of fluency in her. Most stunning was her knowledge of vocabulary, in particular, idioms.
Well, on this day, she met up with me at the school, and as we stepped out the front door, I noticed several of our current students watching us as we left. I gave Tami an apologetic look. "They probably think that you're my wife."
"Nah," she replied. "You're my sugar daddy."
I bought her a Tim Horton's ice cap to fulfil that statement!
On another day, some of the students in my Fluency class were congratulating one student on his recent steady relationship. While the students were giving their best wishes, I playfully threw in a sarcastic remark: "My condolences."
Of course, all the students wanted to know what it meant, so I explained the use of sarcasm, and that the comment was used in a humourous way to say, "I feel sorry for you" when someone enters a difficult situation. Now, the student whom he was dating was in another of my classes, so I knew her well, and I quickly emphasized that in truth, she was a very nice girl and I wished them well. But I wanted to use the opportunity to introduce a point in English.
Another student understood it too well. Taking a cue from Disney Pixar's Ratatouille, he added, "Welcome to hell!"
Uh, yeah.
Sometimes great quotes don't just come from the students, but teachers. We know all too well about mangling the English language and using the wrong words. Our director had to step out one day to an appointment with a physiotherapist, and when someone asked where she was, another teacher replied, "She went to see her philanthropist."
Yes, she went to check on her charities...
On another occasion, one of my students showed me why her English has been steadily improving...she has a good memory. One day, she revealed to me that she was anemic, and I suggested that maybe she didn't have enough iron in her blood, and that was probably why she was so tired.
Fast forward one week, and I was in class, but had a bit of a headache. The student looked up at me, and in a perfect monotone, said, "Maybe you don't have enough iron in your blood."
But the winner of this post comes from one of my favourite Korean students. "JJ" and I were talking over lunch one day about her internship at a bank, and how one day there was a party for the workers in a location quite far from the bank, so she went to one of her co-workers, a young man (this is important!), to ask for a lift to the party. However, JJ still hasn't got her sentence subjects, verbs, and objects in the right pattern. Instead of asking, "Could you give me a ride?", this was how it came out:
"Could you ride me?"
Class dismissed.
The anticipation that usually comes with the Christmas and New Years holidays was particularly high for me this year. In December, at different times, my wife "May" and I were privileged to have had three of my former students from Japan come to stay with us. Though the weather varied from dry cold to soaking rain, this trio of winter visitors added warmth and liveliness to our holiday season.
Our previous two visitors from Japan were my wife's former students in Hyogo, so I was the stranger to them. In this case, all three guests were students of mine, and May was meeting them for the first time. But in each case, the chemistry worked and my wife and I had a wonderful time with this friendly trio.
The first two visitors were students at my school last summer. The tall, willowy and genki "Ali" was my student for one month, and her return trip came in mid-December. She had a busy five-day stay with us, and though she spent much of it with other friends in town, it was enough time to spend a few evenings chatting and for her to make sushi for us one night. As an intermediate English student, her presence at our home made for a good language exchange, as her English practice reflected my efforts at Japanese. Ali's happy personality made for some lighthearted evenings, and she set the tone for the others to come.
Ten days after Ali went back to Japan, the petite, gentle-spirited and soft-spoken "Yulia" stayed with us the weekend before Christmas. Though she stayed for only three nights, she made an indelible impression on us. Because she and May were almost the same age, it was neat to watch them interact, as their perspectives and tastes were very similar to one another.
We took her ice skating at the local rink one afternoon, and although she hadn't skated in a long time, she showed no signs of forgetting the technique. In fact, I would argue that she was even a bit better than I was. Her backward skating was very good, indeed.
Later that afternoon, we also took her to the nearby Costco, where she got to see the huge warehouse-retailer up close for the first time. She bought a jumbo pack of hot chocolate for souvenirs, and also was impressed with the collection of Christmas turkeys!
She left us with a delightful collection of Japanese green tea, a Hello Kitty ornament for our Christmas tree, and plenty of memories.
After Christmas, I was reunited with a face that I hadn't seen for nearly two years. "Mandy" was a high school senior when I first met her at my Nova branch in Osaka in late summer 2005, and I last saw her just before she departed for university in Beppu, Kyushu, the following February. I had only taught her once or twice at Nova, but we always said hello in the hallways whenever we saw each other. In the time that followed, we maintained a steady email friendship that continued after I moved back to Canada and she moved to the southern U.S. on a university exchange program. Mandy didn't want to spend her winter break amongst the cacti in the desert, so she went on a trip to a few cities, with Vancouver as her final stop. It was also her only stop in Canada, her first time to the Great White North.
During the nine days that she was here, I took her around to different sites in Vancouver. Most notable were Metrotown shopping centre, Robson Street, North Vancouver, and Gastown. When May joined us for a few days, we went up Burnaby Mountain, where the higher altitude meant about six inches of snow on the ground. Mandy was thrilled with her first experience in Canadian snow! Afterward, we relaxed with a coffee and snack at that great Canadian icon, Tim Horton's.
May and I had a great time with her. Mandy's spoken English and listening comprehension were fabulous, most notable being the fact that she did not need subtitles when watching movies.
Speaking of movies, another of Mandy's outstanding features was that she was a HUGE patron of the arts. During her time, we watched almost a dozen DVD movies. Along with her penchant for video, we will probably remember her for her happy humming of musical tunes in our house...and everywhere else!
Thank you so much for visiting, ladies. We were very happy to have been your hosts, and we hope to see you again. Hayaku kaerimasu! Itsu demo kite kudasai!
The vocabulary game of Taboo is great for conjuring up all sorts of funny descriptions. It's the game where you work in teams, and each team's player has a word that he or she must make his team say, but without using any of the TABOO words for clues. For example, the word is truck, but the forbidden words are car, pickup, semi, and dump, so the player must find other ways to circumlocute around these to get his teammates to say "truck."
Many of my students are very imaginative with their clues. Once, the word was mouse, and the taboo words were cheese, hole, rat and trap. The student simply said "Mickey..." and her team nailed it. Another time, the word was Japan, and the forbidden words were sushi, kimono, geisha, sumo, and samurai. The student pointed at a Japanese teammate and said "You are from..."
Great job. But one incident today left everyone on the floor laughing.
It was "Tony," a confident Korean, who had to make his team say idea. He looked at the forbidden words, then pointed to his head and said, "I have no..."
Three of his teammates, in perfect sync, yelled out "IDEA!!"
A split-second behind, his other teammate, petite "Sasha" from Japan, blurted out "Brain?!"
Class dismissed.
As you can tell, my time in Japan had a huge impact on my life, which is why so many of my blog entries are devoted to it. I have been asked by many - friends and students alike - about what it felt like to leave after spending over one year in Japan. I think that I can now say, that for anyone who has dared to dream, or has simply had a short taste of life in a country other than their own, the experience of leaving often comes with great sadness and a feeling of unfinished business.
Every Friday there is a consistent pattern at the school that I teach at. It is the day that students finish their individual terms, so Fridays are always final days. I call it "Farewell Photo Friday." A few students go to different schools or look for work, but most head back to their homelands. There are always lots of tears mixed in with the hugs and seemingly endless camera flashes.
And in almost every case, there is a sense of "I'm not ready to leave yet."
I know this because I have walked in those shoes. I have experienced those feelings. And this brings me to the most profound piece of email wisdom that I received in 2006. For those of you returning home to your country, please read my story. I hope that it holds true for you, too.
LEAVING JAPAN
It was during the month of April 2006, and I was experiencing an emotional roller-coaster, as the idea of leaving Japan after 15 months gave me incredible sadness. I had met some wonderful friends, and Japan had become my adopted country, so it was with great reluctance that I tendered my resignation from Nova on April 28th.
However, a thoughtful piece of prose came in an email from a former co-worker of mine back in Canada, and the message gave me great encouragement and allowed me to focus on what I had accomplished in Japan, rather than what I was leaving. Below is the message, in its entirety except for editting for context.
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