Teaching in Japan :: Jessica's Diary, March '07  


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.

March Diary 2007....

Shark Attack!

I can’t tell you the way I feel because the way I feel is oh so new to me. It takes me back to sitting on that deserted beach when I first arrived and felt like I’d just fallen into a scene from ‘The Time Bandits’. I’m still in a different world, or the beginning or end of the world. I feel if the world were to blow up tomorrow then Kumejima would still be standing.

My dad came to Okinawa this month and re-attached me to the physical reality of the wide blue yonder outside these islands. I keep in virtual contact with friends and family, and speak to my family every week on the phone, but when I actually saw dad only then did he become real once more. I’ve heard different philosophical views of reality only existing inside your head; so life is only real where you are at each specific moment. Up until now I’ve been desperately trying to keep up with the latest music and fashion trends in the UK. My best friend wrote to say it was all a load of empty mass-marketed Indie rock dolls rinsing rock for all it was worth. I can now see the bad side of the UK Indy rock trend too; every Tom, Dick and Harry squeezing and regurgitating every shred of individual style to make as much money as possible, to reach the unobtainable level of fame and wealth, only to find that once they’ve made it to the top there’s no where to sit down and relax.

From the other side of the world however you can appreciate some of the cultural values that are portrayed the UK music that’s flooding out today; I’ve been loving Jamie T’s new album, he reminds me just how colourful and inventive us Brit’s are with our language. I’m still proud of the UK music scene and enjoy having a very large pick of UK songs in karaoke bars across Japan, however now I don’t feel the need to know what Pete Doherty’s up to (he’s married Kate, my life is over) and I’m relatively happy with my music selection, except I need to find out more about Japanese music. I’m also amazed how long you can go on wearing a top or skirt here with out feeling like you’re walking in the gutter. I will always look for new inspiration with music and fashion but these days I’m not as patriarchal.

I was really concerned about my dad coming to Japan because I couldn’t meet him at the airport and he would have to look after himself for two days in Naha, 100k away from where I was teaching. He was due to arrive right in the middle of the school’s closing ceremonies and I wasn’t even going to ask to take holiday at this important time, this was the last time I’d see these kids as my students. Recently I had noticed a little hostility towards me in two of the three staff rooms I teach at every week, and these kids had been making my days worthwhile. I have just discovered (or probably re-discovered) that I am infact only the second JET for my local board of education to employ which makes me understand why I have encountered a bit more confusion then expected. The rules are still pretty much unwritten for both of us. True, Okinawa mainland is full of military and their families, teachers and the like but it’s like meeting lots of people at a party and then inviting them back to your house; you never really know what you’re letting yourself in for and you could end up with a sink full of sick, an empty fridge or a lot worse!

Getting back to my father though. A girl who worked at the Kumejima bank (there’s only the one) had recently got the promotion she’d been working towards and had just moved back to her family home in Naha. Sayaka is a good friend and I’d like to think we have a mutually beneficial friendship; she has a tenacious desire to speak English and I am like an adult baby who has the exhausting task of living in a place where everyone gets it, except me. Sayaka’s helped me with countless essential tasks such as booking hotels to sending money home, to translating food labels, all in English and savoring every single word that is passed between us.

I had originally planned to ask Sayaka to meet my father at Naha airport and then take him to his hotel since he hadn’t yet asked how to say ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’ in Japanese which was slightly alarming. Instead, she offered to take him out for dinner to a friend of the family’s Izakaya on the night after his arrival, which was even more kind as I couldn’t picture dad deciphering the kanji menus and I know he would rather starve then eat at McDonald’s. When he actually got here I realized he would have muddled through, but in the end, Sayaka met him, took him to his hotel, took him out for a meal with her mum the following night, and then the day after that, her mum took him to a castle and a park where he sat and experienced the famous Japanese tea ceremony which I haven’t even done yet! Dad was amazed at their kindness and when I arrived in Naha and we went out with Sayaka’s family once more, even the restaurant owner greeted dad with kindness and gave us all a big plate of strawberries and cream and the exclusive Okinawan delicacy of Tofu fermented in Aormori.

I am still very conscious of being a gaijin in Okinawa, particularly because of the military presence. I had thought it incredibly unfair of America to keep a base on Okinawa years after the islands had been handed back to Japan and the Okinawans had asked them to leave. Dad had learnt more about Okinawa’s brutal history in seven days than I had in seven months, and to get his history fix and thus understand more about the place where his daughter was living, I was employed to drive him from the North to the South of the mainland to visit the various places of historical interest. We both got our way as I wanted to visit the aquarium in the north, having attempted to get there before on a bus. He particularly wanted to visit The Peace Memorial Park in the south. It was the first time I’d be driving on an expressway, let alone on an expressway in a foreign country. I completed the two days stint by nearly crashing only a couple of times; once reversing out of a car space (I always seem to forget about the car parked next to me) and once when I switched lanes at dusk in rush hour. We had satellite navigation but only got it to work on the first leg of the journey, after that dad was in charge of directions and there was only a few f-ings and blindings, amazingly only on my part.

The Memorial Park and aquarium were really interesting. Both were really well designed, architecturally and well set out interiorly. The aquarium was one of the biggest in the world apparently, with huge whales swimming in tanks that you could walk under and around. Inside the tank was a careful selection of whales, sharks, fish, turtles, shellfish and plants. We saw sharks nestled into each other, lying fast asleep on the floor in some caves; you could almost mistake them for cute friendly dolphins. I’d never imagined that sharks went into caves to go to sleep on the floor, I always thought of them endlessly searching for the Californian girl who just slipped off her boat or a fisherman who was leaning a little too far in to pick up his catch. It was amazing to see these deadly predators snuggled into each other in the land of nod.

I also learnt a lot at the Memorial Park as it was not an option to visit without going to the museum. Dad wasn’t looking forward to the aquarium, with captive, sad and bored fish, and I wasn’t looking forward to the museum, with stuffy, smelly rooms, but we were both proved wrong. Infact the museum actually reminded me of ‘Sensation’ a temporary art exhibition on contemporary art at the Saatchi gallery in London. Information about the history of Okinawa was given in many interesting ways through photos, media, sculpture and authentic pieces. We had an audio guide in English to help us through the space which was not so much separate rooms for different events as a continual timeline of the events leading up to and after the South Pacific War. As I listened to the guide, a soft voice of an American woman, I wondered if the Japanese and English audio guides were exactly the same or if each gave slightly biased account, depending on the language and the listener’s nationality. I learnt that it was in fact the Japanese who were the most brutal to the Okinawans, forcing them to fight, or killing them if they heard them speak in the Okinawa dialect, fearing they were spies. I learnt that the American’s tried to spare as many civilian lives as possible and that this task was made difficult by the Japanese soldiers deliberately hiding in the same caves as the locals, to eat their food or kill them, before the American’s got to them. The Japanese told the Okinawan’s that the American’s would rape and torture them. The Okinawan’s found themselves living on what was described as hell on earth.

It felt strange walking around the museum as a gaijin as dad and I were the only ones in there at that time. I was careful to register the expressions on the other visitors faces, luckily dad had a beard so I wasn’t paranoid in thinking they mistook us for military. At the beginning I think they looked at us with slight irritation but as the audio story unfolded we relaxed and I could see that people were happy to see us there learning about such an important part of history. Later, Sayaka’s mother explained that today, although the Yanks take up too much of the land, they are a vital part of the economy. Dad said if Okinawa had been left alone, today it could be similar to Hong Kong or Taiwan… I’m not sure about this since the British also took Honkers, but they did give it back, and in a very good state of condition too.

Economy aside, I think Kumejima is fantastic in an unspoilt way. For instance, there are all these programmes designed for rich, bored western people to volunteer their time and money to poor, suffering countries. The volunteer people are sick of the empty lives that money can create and want to experience a bit of simple life because deep down they probably long for the basic human values that seem to have been forgotten in their new super modern society. I have come to think that volunteer programmes are great for all concerned and are a vital bridge in grass roots communication between the increasing gap of the rich and poor. If you are lucky enough to get the chance to experience a different culture by actually getting into social fabric instead of running over it, then you just might find how much more happiness and contentment a ‘deprived’ country’s people actually has. I’m know I’m actually going off on one because Okinawa is extremely far from being as poor as places in Africa or China, but when I first arrived here, compared to SE England, I felt like I’d moved to the third world. In a way what I’m actually doing in JET is similar to one of those paid volunteer programmes, except they pay me to be here. I feel very lucky and want to bring happiness to my students and neighbours. I’ve escaped Big Brother, Hello magazine and ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire?’ and for that I am eternally grateful.

I’ve been staying in Kumejima practically every weekend to socialize with people here, instead of going to Naha to get my fix of the crowds, shops, music and nightclubs. I’ve been teaching people a very important card game called ‘Shithead’. This is a game that has brought hours of fun to my friends and family, a game I learnt in my partially misspent youth and a game that has crossed oceans, age and social classes alike. I played it with my dad, Laila and a guy originally from Australia, who was here on holiday and later, I was very pleased to have a Brazilian, New Zealander, Japanese and Brit (me) all sat round my tiny table until gone 5am playing cards and generally having a good laugh. This is the same table that I’ve spent many a lonely weekend evening sat at; one leg up on the table as I have no sofa, cigarette and drink for company. It felt great to entertain people at my house for a change.

In Japan, the school year finishes in March and the students have two weeks holiday. Being a teacher here does not mean a steady job; teachers rotate around public schools, generally every three years and at this time of year there are many leaving parties. This is not nice for teachers with families. My JTE has a husband who works in the Mario Kart School and a daughter attending nursery school. They found out they would be relocated to Naha this year. That meant packing up their home and moving Marina, the little girl out of her school. My JTE said Marina was very sad to leave Kumejima. It must be a really hard life to lead; either they create a steady home and at some stage have to travel miles to work each day, or they move every three years… I’m not completely aware of the system but that’s what I gathered from their situation. The teacher’s apartments are pretty much empty now; I hope to get some new neighbours in soon.

The students and teachers were very sad to see each other leave. Some were off to the local senior high school, some to Naha or the Okinawa mainland. When you spend so much time at work, 8am – 8pm on average, then play sports together and socialize with each other on the weekend, it’s no wonder there were lots of tears and a whole lot of pomp and ceremony. At first I couldn’t understand it and strained my brain trying to think back to my leaving junior high. I was able to attend two of the three junior highs where I teach and each had beautifully handcrafted origami birds flying over the students’ heads onto the stage where there was a large mosaic backdrop of rainbows, hands releasing doves and generally images of entering a bright new future. When the ceremony had finished all the parents, younger students and teachers formed a tunnel and threw confetti over the graduates who followed their proud homeroom teacher out in crocodile file. For the Mario Kart School, this was the last time it would see such grandeur as it was closing after 60 years of fun and learning. I joined the teachers and students to walk the 26K around Kume Island, all together for one last time. I managed the walk in about four and a half hours. It was bank holiday and the walk began at 8:30am but I couldn’t have thought of a better place to be.

In short, this year is the first retirement year for the baby-boomers of sixty years ago. Japan is bracing itself for the effect it will have on the country which is experiencing a similar decline in birthrate as the UK. This month, there have been lots of programmes about looking after the aged on TV.

Laila and I have also found two new beaches in Kume. One next to the airport and the other close to the ferry port. There’s a gap in the reef of the second and apparently you sometimes see sharks. One of the elementary school English songs is about a shark attack and it’s probably the most popular of them all as it’s got a really funny beat and dance to match. It’s quite abstract to think these kids will grow up with distant memories of associating English and shark attacks, a bit like when I learnt French and ‘Frere Jaques’. In the aquarium one of the displays was a huge skin of a Great White; a Carcaridon Carcarius (I love this Latin name and was so proud of knowing such a word at the age of twelve when I used to spend days in a row watching Jaws with my crew.) The shark on display was caught just off the coast of one of the Okinawan islands, and it was massive. I don’t fancy starring in my own shark documentary just yet!