Teaching in Japan - Jessica’s Diary January
January Diary 2007... With Somebody Who Loves Me
Jessica Hartridge worked at Cactus Language for two years as our Creative Designer. Jessica has always been fascinated by Japanese culture and left Cactus in August to spend a year teaching in Japan. Here are her initial impressions of Japan and teaching...
January has whipped by like a cool breeze. My boyfriend, Nick has been visiting and he has been Kumejima’s ideal tourist.
When I was originally accepted onto the Jet programme we both planned to move to Japan. We thought he could get work as a bar man, a chef or something. When I found out I was placed in Okinawa I thought the US military presence would make it even easier. It wasn’t until I actually got here I realised that this was a bit naïve. I know some Jet’s whose partners have moved out with them, but the Japanese are still quite conservative about living together unless you’re married and we weren’t going to tie the knot for this reason.
So Nick came out for January and has proved that Kumejima is not just a slow life resort. He’s taken part in every sport activity going including a football and basketball tournament. He’s also been out farming the sugar cane fields, taken up karate and made good drinking pals out of the local fire brigade. I too have found myself caught up in all this activity on top of the hectic timetable at school.
The third and final year of Junior High have had their Senior High entrance exams to prepare for this month and I feel sorry for the little angels as it’s no walk in the park. I’ve been helping a group of girls practice for an English interview as they were hoping to go to a prestigious school on the Okinawa mainland. These girls all passed, thank God, but some students failed, even for the notoriously bad local Senior High school which I find really unfair. They have to sit another exam in March – talk about making them sweat!
One prize princess gave me a poster of Johnny Depp for helping her. She’s a real star. The first day I met her I felt uncomfortable because she had a tube coming out of her nose which was attached to an oxygen bag that she wheeled around. For some strange reason I remember thinking the apparatus was too old for Japan and that she should have something super futuristic to help. I always thought of Japan as being ahead with technology and the sight of this girl having to wheel around her lungs looked far too dangerous and fragile for me to cope with.
My teacher told me that she has always had a problem with her lungs but she was getting stronger. You’d expect this handicap to make her shy and withdrawn but I think she’s my strongest student. She has an obvious physical difference to the other kids and I think this has helped her to think even more like an individual and probably encouraged her to learn a foreign language to be around more different people. Apparently she’s my number one fan. She doesn’t like sports, for obvious reasons, but she plays the piano and wants to be a translator. She also seems to be best friends with one of the most influential girls in the class who I will name Emi for now.
At the beginning, Emi spent the entire lesson staring at me with the eyes of death. The other kids stared but her look really unnerved me as it was full of confrontation. One day I made a mental note to challenge Emi’s stare rather than avoid it. It felt like I was going back to school to stand up to a bully. When I met her gaze, I made it through those few tiny seconds like crossing a sea of burning hot coals. Just when it got really uncomfortable something clicked and the spell was broken. Now she has gone completely the opposite way and looks at me with adoration and I secretly feel like I’ve journeyed to the abyss and survived to tell the tale.
It was both Nick and my birthdays this month and for each we went out to drink with friends whom I never knew I had. What I mean is I knew these people and socialized with them a few times but it never occurred to me that they’d go to such trouble for a stranger’s birthday. We had drinks, karaoke and a great big birthday cake at midnight (this was on two separate nights, not a joint party!) My belter of a tune for karaoke was by the Chili Peppers. I tried unsuccessfully with Whitney Houston’s “I Want to Dance with Somebody” but I guess the Peppers is more my style due to my daily fag intake.
On top of this we’ve had Nabe parties; everyone sits around a hot pot and chucks meat and veg. into a sweet or spicy stock. It’s a really nice way to eat with friends as everyone goes at their own pace and eating can last the whole night long with added beer and aormori. Having Nick there made it easier to talk to everyone and it actually felt like a close group of friends sitting down to enjoy themselves. After a couple of drinks everyone forgot that we spoke two different languages and we talked and laughed using alcohol and gestures as the main translation tools. I can’t say enough how kind and generous people here really are. Nick said they were the kindest bunch of people he’s ever met.
I want to tell so much more about this month but I won’t because it will take forever. I will quickly add that we spent Christmas and New Year in Hong Kong and that it’s a wicked city and we had an amazing time there. Most of the time was spent staying at friends and they certainly knew the best places to go for partying, sightseeing and shopping. Their friends were also great fun to party with and I had such a great time it will make you hate me if I tell you more so I’ll just say that Hong Kong is ultra cool and I want to return when I have lots of money!
