Quick update

This is gonna be really short, but I felt for all of those who cared how I did on that test I had to get 100% on or else face immediate death—bad news, I didn’t get a 100%. In fact, she wrote “zannen” at the top of it, which means “regrettable” or “disappointing”. I hope she was kidding because I got a 98% on the test, by far my best effort of the year. My friend Johannes got a 99% and my other friend Miha got a 98.5%. I think the teacher was legitimately disappointed that no one got 100%.

four very quick subway stories.

1) A few weeks ago there was a guy hunched over on the train in the morning when I got on, but I didn’t think anything of it because most people sleep on the train, especially in the morning. But suddenly three station attendants rush into our car, and start asking if the guy is okay. He keeps saying “yeah, I’m fine” but they don’t leave him alone. Finally he looks up and he’s covered in BLOOD. Since I saw it around his stomach first, I thought he got stabbed or something, but then I followed all the way up to his face and realized he just had a really bad bloody nose.

2) Riding back from school there was a very tired old man sitting next to me on the subway. His glasses were hanging half off his face, and he looked ridiculous. A few minutes later, when he shifted a little in his sleep, his glasses fell on the floor. Now I was looking at them, debating if I should wake this guy up to give him his glasses, but then realizing that if he was drunk, like I assumed he was, he may get angry with me. There was a balding salary man sitting across from me and when we made eye contact, he kind of looked at the glasses, as if to say “pick up those glasses for that old man.” But I looked back at him with my eyes and said, “I don’t want to talk to this guy if he wakes up because he might start talking really fast and I wont understand him”. The business man replied with his eyes, “Just pick ‘em up, you’re right there.” And at that point I looked away, ending our telepathic conversation. I remember thinking it would be so easy, but I really felt uncomfortable “interfering” with the sleeping, drunk old man—I kept imagining he would get angry with me.

Well, just then the old man managed to step on his own glasses and break them. Now I felt bad because his glasses were broken in two pieces, and I could have prevented it. He was still out cold by the time I was at my stop. As I got up to leave, the business man also got up to leave and bend down and picked up the broken glasses. He then gently woke the old man up and gave them to him. The old man thanked him, and spoke very politely and I immediately regretted not helping when I had the chance. There are many ways to thank a person in Japanese and the old man’s reply was along the lines of “I’m sorry for unconvincing you, thank you.”

3) The other day during after just getting on the train, there was some commotion behind me so I turned around to watch. I saw a man in his 40’s trying to pull an elderly man onto the train, while the elderly man grasped tightly to the first guy’s coat. I thought he was trying to pull the guy on the train so they wouldn’t miss it, like a parent pulls a child before the doors close, but then I realized they were both red in the face. The younger guy yelled something that sounded like “I’m not negotiating/consulting” and the older man pulled him back off the train onto the platform. Everyone was watching at this point and they started shoving each other. The old man was grabbing the other guy’s collar and they began yelling in that really cool Japanese style that foreigners have no chance at understanding. They managed to separate themselves before the doors closed, with the younger man remaining on the train and the older man on the platform. It was a pretty exciting way to start my day.

4) Finally, this is the shortest story but it happened yesterday. I man sat down next to a pretty woman on the train and they immediately started talking, so I’m assuming they were probably friends or something even though they got on the train at different stops. They were laughing and giggling, and as the man was getting ready to get off the train, the both started bowing while still seated. They’re bowing back and forth, towards each other, and as the man stands in front of the sitting woman, she gives one more HUGE bow and as she returns to her up right position, she smacks the back of her head against the window of the train. Now it didn’t look painful at all—but it was funny. She started laughing, the guy started laughing, and it was pretty much Japan in a nutshell—these people are polite to the point they do bodily harm.

I love riding the trains, even if they’re cramped, hot, and I ride them forever. I’m really gonna miss it.

Class Pic

Last day of class before break. Guess which one is the loud American. 

January 10th

It’s been a really long time since I wrote anything because my parents came, and I figured they were the primary readers so they already knew what was going on. Anyway, here are a few things that happened from the past couple of weeks.

Before vacation, I complained that we were going to have a test on the SATURDAY when we got back from break. This was terrible for several reasons, including the thought of having a test looming over the whole break, and the fact that there is no school on Sundays AND there was a national holiday that Monday. So, if we didn’t have the test, we wouldn’t have to worry about it until Tuesday.

Anyway this made our class crazy thinking about wasting our break, so right before we went off for winter vacation, a girl in my class asked the teacher to move the test to that Tuesday and gave all the reasons I listed above. Our teacher actually agreed. I couldn’t believe it. But then, right before class, the teacher tells us that we all must get 100% on the test because she was so nice to us by moving it. We all gather out things to leave and laugh off her ridiculous request “Hahaha. Yeah, merry Christmas, 100%, right. Sure thing. . .” If I was to get over a 90% on one of these stupid tests I’d be thrilled. I don’t think anyone in the class has ever gotten 100%, even the really good students.

So when I meet back on Saturday class following break, she reminds us we don’t have a test on that day because we were all going to get 100% on Tuesday. I remember turning to the student behind me and commenting how her joke wasn’t funny anymore. We honestly thought there was no way she could actually expect us to score 100% on one of her tests. Then about half way through class, the teacher goes “I’ve got it.” And we are all wondering what she’s talking about. Then she says “if you don’t get 100% on the test, you have to copy an entire reading section by hand for a lesson we haven’t done yet.” I was absolutely floored that she was serious. It would probably take close to an hour to copy something like that. Needless to say, I think all of us will be copying the book sometime next week. (I actually think this was my best test so far, we haven’t gotten it back yet, but I know I made a few mistakes. I’ll give an update when I get it back.)

On a completely unrelated note, this same teacher told us that our goal for speaking Japanese is to get rid of our foreign accents to the point where we could be spies like “James Bond”. She said this three times in one day, and it struck me as a very humorous statement. She said if we got good enough to be a spy, we could mingle with our targets and they’ll never have any clue we aren’t native speakers. What finally killed her idea was the kid from Belgium, who raised his hand and said “I’m a 6 foot tall, white guy with blond hair. I think Japanese people will know I’m not really Japanese.” As we’re all laughing, I’ll give the teacher credit for thinking of a response on the fly—“You could be a spy on the phone!”

This same teacher then told us about a week later, that while it’s good to speak with little or no accent, we should be careful. She says lots of times when students have very good pronunciation but aren’t yet fluent, the teachers expect these students to use the honorific language because they sound fluent, but because they don’t use it, the teachers just assume the students are being rude. That’s just lovely—if I speak without an accent people with think I’m a jackass because I haven’t mastered a polite way to say “I have a question. . .” So it looks like my choices are being James Bond, or not having the teacher’s think I’m rude. Japan is amazing.

(I just put the picture up of my class. you can see one student holding a beer. It was the last day of class before break so someone brought beer for everyone. It was cool.)