A is for Anal

I knew, before I arrived in Japan, that Japanese culture is more rigid and exact than what I'm used to in America, and extremely more so than life in the Czech Republic. But I had no idea quite how anal things are.

For example, at the company I work for, we have to punch in and punch out with time cards. Which caught me off-guard initially, simply because we are not paid by the hour. But what struck me as bordering on the rediculous, we are asked to fill out a sheet of paper explaining why we're late. On spec, that's understandable, because if someone is 10, 15, or 30 minutes late, that affects preparation and arriving on time for lessons.

But, we're asked to fill out a sheet if we punch in at 9:31, and our time is 9:30. Even in situations when you arrive in the office at 9:25, but spend 6 minutes putting bags down and talking to coworkers (even if the conversation is work-related). Even in situations when, as you reach for your timecard, the clock reads 9:30, but in the 5 seconds it takes to grab the card and put it in the machine, the clock ticks one more minute. An explanation is required.

Imagine a morning where you have to go to the bathroom. Badly. I mean really badly. I'm talking about painfully trying, with all your might, to prevent making a mess in your pants badly. You arrive at work at 9:28. You head right to the bathroom to prevent any undue embarrassment, and relieve all outstanding pressure in your lower abdomen. Walking out of the bathroom, you see the clock is now 9:32. An explanation is required.

I have been very tempted to write something along the lines of "I had the runs" (in part because I know no one in the office - outside of the one other American there - speaks good enough English to understand that). Instead, when I've been handed the forms (by coworkers, not by the boss), I've said thank you and turned and dropped them in the garbage can. I've been hoping for my boss to say something to me, as I'm not going to explain one-minute (5 second) lateness until prompted to by a higher power. That conversation finally happened two nights ago.

I calmly explained why I think the 1-minute late form-filling out is rediculous, and listed several examples where it's just plain silly. My boss, who is very down-to-earth and very open to discussing issues like these, explained that when she asked people to come in at 9:30, she said that we should arrive at 9:25 and begin working at 9:30. It made me think of Office Space - "If you want me to wear 37 pieces of flair, like your pretty-boy Brian over there, then why don't you make the minimum 37 pieces of flair?"
I mentioned how I felt it was disrespectful to us as employees, as it demonstrates a lack of trust that we will get our work done in a professional manner, and in a way that evenly distributed work amongst all employees. I explained how the issue of utmost import is that the students receive a good education. Second to that is the reputation of STE to clients (parents, teachers, schools with which we contract). Being one minute late does not affect any of those things. In addition, we don't get "extra credit" for punching in 2 minutes early, or staying 7 minutes late. On days when I punch in 1 minute late, and punch out 14 minutes after my designated end time, I still have to explain why I short-changed the company.

But as I said, my boss is really cool, and thankfully she agreed that I don't have to fill out those forms for being 1 or 2 minutes late.

The other biggest thing I have found is that people (and not just at the company I work for) are universally anal about is cleaning. For example, my company has a woman come and clean the entire office (including all classrooms) every weekday morning (around 11am). However, at the end of the day on Friday, we have to clean every room. Because of the tornado of havoc wreaked by 3 classes Friday afternoon. Oh, and there are separate colored rags for tables, desks and walls. Be sure not to mix one with the other. That's sacrilege. Different sponges for washing dishes and "washing" the sink. And don't think about using either one of those sponges to wipe down the counter. Different rags are required for that.
We have to sweep outside the building, even if there is nothing to sweep. Even if it rained the night before, and any incidental debris (tiny pebbles, specks of sand) were washed away. Gotta sweep.
I'll let you figure out which of the pictures below are pre-sweep, and which post-sweep.


However, the most absurd cleaning request I've heard of came to a coworker of mine from a very unhappy administrator at an elementary school where we teach. The administrator was horrified that the room my coworker taught in was left in total disarray. When pressed for specifics, she was told that when tips of pencils break off, they have to be picked up off the ground and thrown away. Now, that's a bit of a tall order when you're just trying to take care of your own pencil tips (those suckers can really fly!). I've posted before on how wild some of the kids are. Trying to catch where all their broken pencil tips end up - and trying to get them - is like trying to grab every bee in a hive by its wings. And I am forced to ask - doesn't the (military-like) routine of cleaning take care of the very few half-centimeter pencil tips lying around?

I've been told I'm in one of the more anal-retentive sections in Japan when it comes to trash. In America, we have a couple forms of trash, and most of those are optional. Usually optional recycling breaks out papers and cans and bottles. In Shiga Prefecture, we have to separate trash in the following categories: burnable trash, plastics (which have to be washed before being thrown out), aluminum cans, PET bottles (basically water / soda bottles, which, yes ARE plastic), glass, and small appliances. There is quite the calendar designating when each of these is to be picked up.


This is from a New York Times article the other day:
"[Japan], after all, is a country that has been obsessed with perfection. Tokyo’s sprawling subway and train networks run like clockwork, accurate to the minute. Television factories assign workers with rags to wipe down every new set, lest a Japanese consumer find a single fingerprint and return it. In supermarkets, many apples and melons are individually wrapped in protective plastic foam."

It's been more than two months, and I still find myself snickering and shaking my head in disbelief whenever I wash the styrofoam packaging used to wrap chicken, and then throwing the clean foam into the trash.

The Ohmi Multicultural Festival

I went to a multi-cultural festival this past weekend.

There was a typhoon approaching, which turned away a lot of the crowd. Which meant those of us who remained did not have to fight lines for international food or seats for the international dance exhibition.

I walked past a booth that smelled great, and looked very different from any food I've seen in months. It was the German booth. The beer-battered ribs they were selling were nothing short of fantastic. The guys working the booth were really cool - I asked them if they were German themselves.


The dancing exhibition was not bad. There were girls who came out and performed some flamenco dancing, followed by some traditional Japanese dancing, and lastly, "American" dancing (read: hiphop), in "traditional American clothes."


But the best sign of the day - better than the "I (heart) sexy" and "Imaginate" t-shirts - was the sign on this food booth.


The booth selling cooked men was a couple further down... (btw, that's an A that's smushed in between the T and I in TIWAN)

...but on the flip side

I made two kids cry this week.

Not because I was angry nor because they had misbehaved or required any sort of discipline. Not even because of anything I said.

I entered this one school, a pre-school, and I peered my head around the corner. One little boy, aged 3, looked at me for about 3 seconds with The Stare and then immediately started bawling. Inconsolable. All before I said, "Good morning!" or I moved an inch. After a few minutes of being held by one of the Japanese teachers, his wails quieted to a wimper, and he eventually gathered the courage to look at me again. He did, and began wailing again.

The other student who cried because of me is also 3. She was playing on a computer we have set up for kids to use before and after lessons, and was all excited when my Japanese co-teacher walked in the room and announced it was time for class. Then she saw me, and gripped onto the table with all her might. Her mom was there, and was trying to console her. All this girl did was shake her head repeatedly. When her mom finally broke her death grip on the table and held her in her arms, the girl clutched to her mother's neck with a look of desperation and terror in her eyes.
The girl eventually joined the class, puffy-eyed and all, and for the entire 45-minute session, stared me down as if I had broken her favorite toy.

I guess a smiling 6-foot American with curly hair is terrifying.

Teaching (?)

So I haven't mentioned much about my work. I teach young children - the youngest is 3, the oldest around 11.

Teaching children is a far cry from what I was doing last year in Prague. In Prague, I was teaching. I explained concepts. I introduced vocabulary. I had conversations. I was interacting with adults.

My work now is more of daycare, babysitting, and disciplining little kids who have not been taught boundaries at home. I don't get it - Japanese adults are very reserved, very polite, very respectful. The kids, however, are anything but. They're loud, selfish, unaware of others, disrespectful, and dangerously wild.

One of their favorite activities is kancho, which, put quite simply, is putting their fingers up someone else's ass. No joke. Recently, they've also taken to reaching into my pockets and pulling out whatever they can.

It's not all bad, of course. Sometimes I have a ton of fun with the students - playing with them, tickling them, doing "magic" tricks (what's that behind your ear? and how'd the eraser get into my pocket?). They're easy to amuse when it's play-time. But when I actually want to teach them something (you know, do my job), they yell, shout, scream, cry, run around, and generally act without boundaries.

But being six feet tall, and being able to palm their heads, can have its advantages.

For instance - a couple days ago I was teaching by myself. 95% of the time I team-teach with a Japanese teacher. However, once a month I teach by myself for most of my classes, on a so-called "Native Day." This past Friday was a Native Day.
This one 7-year old - who is normally pretty reserved - was angry that he lost at a game, so he shouted at the top of his lungs. I turned to him, and said, knowing full well that he can't understand me, "That crap doesn't work with me. You can't yell. It won't get you anywhere. And don't forget that you're a little runt and I could kick the crap out of you if I really wanted."
And although no one understood the words that I said, everyone in the class immediately became real quiet and attentive. Ahhhhh.

Engrish

I've been waiting to have enough juice to post on this topic, but it appears there is a never-ending litany of material. So suffice it to say that I'm sure this is the first post of many on this topic, that being the English language, and its (mis)use in Japan.

Now, I want to preface this all by saying that my Japanese is awful, and I am not standing on a soapbox and saying that everyone here must speak perfect English. Definitely not. But I feel it's worth sharing some of the more amusing oddities of the English language which I have encountered.

There's the strangely worded things, like a restaurant advertising itself as a "a place for happy and healthy sushi." What, exactly, is happy sushi?


There's the English with strong sexual connotations (anyone who kept up with the Prague Blog know of the "When I'm bored, I like to play with myself" story).


What I'm finding most peculiar is when, where, and why some places use English instead of Japanese. I have seen menus with the English word MENU written on top, and then the rest in Japanese (no English subtitles, or any other form translation available). Stores will advertise in English, and have no one who can follow up said advertisement.
For example, this store not only has no English books, but also no one inside who speaks or understands English either.


Also, there are many globally-known Japanese companies. Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Toyota, Sony, to name a few. What I find interesting is that more often than not, I see those companies' logos accompanied by their name in English, not Japanese. Sometimes I see Mitsubishi in Japanese, but that's usually as a subtitle to the English. (smaller font, lower standing on the page or advertisement).


When asking some Japanese coworkers as to why, the most common response has been "Japanese people have this fascination with English." Maybe that explains the "We Are Gaijin" tee-shirt I saw on a Japanese woman last week.... and then again, maybe not.

So when I got a letter from my mom yesterday morning, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at the "DO NOT BEND" written on the envelope. I mean, of course, the mailman does not understand English, but then again, how did the letter arrive at my door if the address is written in English?


For lots more amusement, check out Engrish.com.

Bandwidth Issues

So clearly what we did last month to fix hitting our bandwidth limit did not work. We will try other things. Fortunately, it only affects us for a couple days at the end of each month. It is still annoying, and so we will do what we can to prevent that from happening at the end of this month.

But for now, Jimbomania is back online.

I changed the name of the brog slightly, to make it a bit more Japanese. Tetsu is a noun, as is otoko, so to change them to their adjective forms, a "no" is needed at the end of each of them. And since the Japanese don't really ever pronounce multiple consonants in a row, "brog" becomes "buroggu" when pronounced by locals.

Real updates to come soon...