Friday 28 December 2007

Cambodia

I'm in Cambodia.

There are plenty of monks cut in perfect orange saffron robes, sheltering under dusty brollies.

Chippie is fun to travel with- he has enterprise written all over him. Last night we drank fresh cold draft beer like I hadn't yet here, in the Hotel Royal, masquerading as young rich things when it wasn't strictly necessary, but fun nonetheless.

Duk Tuk travelling is grimy and glorious.

I'm thinking of getting a quick close shave, that if I come to trust a Khmer with a knife to my throat.

I'm reading Rilke from Mike leisurely, slowly, repetitively. I started it at Ueno station and how far that seems from South East Asia and all the hotch potch and dirt and happy smiling faces and display.

Wednesday 19 December 2007

Shorts

Sometimes they find a way- yesterday a student tried to say bald without knowing bald and came out with 'See you hair!' instead.

Entertaining

enjambment is a presumptuous business.

Tuesday 18 December 2007

Shorts

You know your car is getting on a bit when...

...you go to put the key in the ignition and it instead finds another crack to enter in the plastic casing around the wheel.

Monday 17 December 2007

Yoyogi Koen Gingko tree fall, Justin and Hiroshi in Buusa, Carols outside Tully's

 
 
 
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Shorts

I was in the toilet the other day and it was one of those awkward moments when one of the teachers who hardly passes any words at al with me came in.

A while back at an Enkai (drinking party) he suddenly started speaking to me in careful, accurate English, and told me his brother lives in London and that he himself has travelled all over the world. Back at work after that, it was back to notmuchings at all and Ohaaayoooos in the morning and that's about it.

So I was a little surprised when he asked what I would be doing at Christmas. I told him Cambodia. He got excited, and told me he was there in September, Angkor Wat is fantastic.

Shorts

You know you've been away for a while when....

you get sent some money and you don't recognise it's English at first.

Sunday 16 December 2007

Shorts

I've been experimenting with purple lately and, so far, I'm quite pleased with the results.

Shorts

They had run out of Men's size Santa trousers when I went so it was Boys size felt 100 yen Santa trousers I wore when I had a face-off in J's bar. It was with a High School Hip hop kid (it was Hip hop night). The trousers reached down to my shins, no further. They went up to just about my waist, and they had holes in them from being over-stretched. The High School kid wore a Granny Smith green beanie and matching hoodie. His girlfriend, who I'd been chatting to (BEFORE I knew her age) at the bar was in an equivalent Stars and Stripes blue get-up. Turns out our green meanie wasn't best chuffed with me and his lady hip hopper chatting, hence the ensuing face-off. He blew smoke in my face and squared up an inch or so away. I couldn't help chuckling in his face at the thought of a tight-fitted Santa and a fresh-faced, green clad, Japanese Hip hopper.

Shorts

I said to a teacher at an Elementary School I was going to Cambodia for Christmas and New Years. She got excited. She told another teacher, the Kyoto Sensei (that's deputy head). Without looking up from his computer he said, simply, 'Naze?!' (that's 'Why?!').

Tuesday 4 December 2007

It's Very Formal

Last week me and a mate, Roger, were asked to MC for the Recitation Contest, in which our students also happened to be taking part.

Leading up to the contests, ALTs (that's 'Assistant Language Teachers') work pretty hard with the chosen students, perfecting accents, those tricky r and l and th sounds, gestures, manner, we even try and tease a smile out of them now and then. It's a busy time of year, so you snatch at time when you can- early in the morning when the heaters have barely been turned on or way after school has finished when the dark has long since descended.

So Rog and I had a certain amount invested in the Contest. The winner goes on to Regionals, the winner of which makes the Prefectural or somesuch, there's a progression anyhow, the end of which is Nationals, meeting the Royal Family and dining with them razzmattazz and BigDeal written all over it and my you must be flavour of the month if you get that far. Except my mate Ian, who was subjected to a horribly calculated kind of bullying by a member of his English Department following just such a success. But that's another story, and one I probably shouldn't tell here at all, or so we are Warned.

Rog and I were uncertain over a few of the contestants' names- boy or girl? Mr or Ms? Isn't a bit formal, I ventured to one of the organisers, isn't it a bit formal? They're just kids after all....

'Oh no', came the reply, 'It's very formal', she said, 'Very formal'.

It just so happened she belonged to the same school as the bully. In fact, that school were the organisers of the Recitation Contest this year. Formal they wanted, so formal we tried. I'd even bothered to wear a suit on the day, albeit coupled with my novelty Union Jack socks- and that just about sums up the formality of the following Recitation contest. Shallow. At best.

The judges, the guests, everyone seemed to be working to a completely different script. Barely had we uttered something than one of the teachers from said school would say, from the other side of the room, 'Er, actually, no..' and we'd freeze, everyone would freeze, the poor students got even more nervous and the course of things would be set to rights.

But the most farcical moment came precisely half way through. The First Grade students had finished. The break had finished. Everyone was settling back into their seats. The teacher from the other side of room started gesticulating to us, across the students (sat between us). It looked like he wanted me and Rog to change our seat. Both of us were a bit bemused (why would we need to change our seats??), but change our seats we did, awkwardly stepping around one another, pushing our papers and things across the table as we did.

'No no...' the teacher started, and finally we both realised who it was he wanted to change seats. The students. Of course. Now it was the Second Grade kids go, it seemed perfectly obvious they should sit in the front rows. Perfectly obvious.