Left in Front

Laying in a sleeping bag on my living room floor at 11:32 P.M. on Friday night, starting a blog entry.

My life is duke-esque wild.

It’s been busy week, with a busy one including a trip to Sapporo coming up, so trying to give my body some recoup time tonight.

Considering I had Monday off I guess it’s fairly weak of me to say I’ve had an anything other than entirely easy week.  Tuesday night after hosting Chris and Ayla for dinner, I even fell asleep around 8:30.  I did end up waking up around 5:30 Wednesday, which is why my last entry strangely comes at an AM hour besides those near midnight.

Work on hump day was delightful as always at Hamatyu.  It is my biggest school, all three grades have at least 30 students, and they’re are all good sorts.  There are essentially no discipline issues, and my biggest problem this week was a third grader in the first row whom was more interested in popping the rather large pimple on his forehead than repeating after me as we read through the day’s story.

Can’t say I blame him, neither the story nor my reading of it inspired me much either.

Impeccably copying the human body.

Trying as ever to promote internationalization, I gave a speech to the third graders about the next day’s American Thanksgiving holiday.  I skipped detailing the “Canadian” version.  My oratorial skills are second only to B-Rock, thus when the students were asked the extremely difficult question,

“What was the subject of Charlie’s speech?”

Keep in mind, I repeated Thanksgiving at least once every other sentence, and had written it on the board behind me …

A bright student who previously claimed to have Rare Air balling skills, shot his hand straight up first, with not just a confident look in his eyes, but one of absolute certainty of victory, a la General Maximus Decimus Meridius staring down those fat dudes in the animal masks, and when called upon, shouted out to the heavens,

“Halloween!”

After lunch had a nice exchange with one of my fellow teachers, as we exchanged mix CD’s.  My mix focused around Radiohead and Wilco taking brief tours through hip hop and jazz, while his included contributions from:

• Ellegarden
• locofrank
• Good 4 Nothing
• 10 - Feet
• A name in Katakana I can neither understand, nor write on my keyboard.

I’ve been through it once, but going to need a few listens before I give my officially critique.  Either way, the originality of the Japanese band names put to shame countless American bands who are supposed to be fluent in the language.

Regardless of the whether each of us likes the other’s music, the symbolism of the exchange and willingness of both parties to peer into the abyss of a foreign unknown culture felt swell, considering its kind of what I left home to do.

Of course my original dreams were a little beyond CD exchanges, but if I don’t make baby steps, I won’t move at all.

Around 17:30 that day along with my co-workers we performed our day ending ritual: washing the day’s coffee and green tea cups.  It’s a perfectly efficient operation.  One person soaps, one washes and the third dries.  I’d estimate our time per cup at 5 seconds, max.

Daring to interrupt the zen-like silence of the meditation, I asked my co-workers their plans for the evening.  We quickly made plans for drinks at six, at a local watering hole named: Yakko.

We ordered far, far more food than was responsible, ranging from chicken on sticks to hot korean beef veins to sugared-fried egg, which was heart-attackingly served with sides of radish and mayo.  Being on the judo team also paid dividends, as I discovered the store owner’s daughter was a member.  He liked me, and gave us a free delicious sashimi order with about eight different options, including I believe shrimp brains.  After dropping one delicious and expensive piece on the bench next to me, I was shocked to hear Hosokawa say “一、二、三” as I picked it up to eat.  The three second rule is true in the far East, too.

Conversation started on gas that evening, and i was overjoyed to discover I will soon be paying around $150/month.  At the restaurant, for whatever reason, food was on the brain, and I asked my buddies about some of the Japanese delicacies I’d yet to try.

• Kobe Beef - Apparently can cost around $500 in Sapporo.  Been aged for a decade I think I remember hearing.
• Fugu - Also available in Sapporo, $80 a pop, and hopefully not suicidal.
• Whale - …

"I'll make him an offer he can't refuse."

I was happy to try something I’d really never dreamed of eating before, but honestly was not impressed.  Didn’t not like it, but if I’m going to be pissing off some of my countryman for eating something, it should at least be tasty.  Really didn’t taste like much of anything or even have an unusual texture.

Next stop was at “Cure,” also known by day as the “Cohe Shop.”  The bar’s owner is sadly leaving for Asahikawa, so the next night was to be the bar’s last.  I just found out the news that night, and was honestly not handling it well.

They even named a drink after me.  The “Charlie Float” consisted off freshly brewed coffee poured over ice, then topped off with two scoops of vanilla ice cream, whip cream and with liquid sugar mixed in.  Afterwards you are either ready to do anything or pass out from a toxic sugar high spiked with a caffeine overdose.

Closed out Wednesday night with some karaoke.  I kept it pretty tame.  My first song wasn’t memorable enough for me to now recall it, then did my #1 hit Sweet Home Alabama, before closing with a horrible, horrible rendition of Bounce on request.

Thursday at Shimatyu I gave a simpler Thanksgiving speech, and the girl listening understood it well enough.  Focused more on the key aspect of the holiday, that “everyone comes home, and a rare thing these days.”  Not trying to brag or sound tough - I have nothing to brag about and am not tough - but, I haven’t really experienced too much homesickness since coming.

I think that is partially to do with the fact I am sort of home now in the sense I’ve lived in Japan for six years already, but, anyway, been fine overall.  Yet, I didn’t expect it, but when I made talked about loved ones coming back together for the holiday, I felt a real pang in my heart, and true sadness about all my family and friends I’ll be missing back home.

Was refreshing in a sense.  One of the nice things about going away is you realize what truly matters to you about your life back home.  So family’s important to me.  Check.

Good money was being paid to me, though, so I continued with the lesson without crying.  Helped that I got positive reaction from my fellow teacher and the student on the first decent worksheet I’ve created.

At that afternoon’s afternoon recess club for elementary schoolers, I was kanchoed.  Didn’t know how to react to the child then, or what to say know.  I was particularly aggressive in taking the soccer ball away from the seven year old for the next few minutes of our game for clearly unrelated reasons.

Following Judo and Taiko practice, I headed out to celebrate the official last night of “Cure.”

I’d missed the first party there, but caught up with them at the afterparty.  It was held at Hamaton’s top Karaoke spot, with a price discount in honor of the occasion: all you can drink/eat for $20.

Small spot, but place was packed to the brim.  Everyone was in a happy mood, despite the fatality in a sense of the celebration.  Booze probably helped.

Shortly after arriving one of the higher-ups-in-the-Taiko-club yelled at me with perhaps a touch too much seriousness - again the booze - that my beard was

“very bad!”

I calmly responded that no, in fact it was fine with everyone else and all my working colleagues.  He remained unconvinced,

“You [and/or your beard] is skibe”

Skibe is Japanese for lewd.  I said that was not true, and began to think perhaps he didn’t appreciate me making fun of him earlier in the night for skipping practice to drink, when he added

“Japanese children no like.”

Calling me a pervert is one thing, but leave the kids out of it.  In the same even tone I responded with the question,

“Do you teach Japanese children?”

Soon the discussion ended, and we moved on.  Not that the verbal jousting wasn’t fun anyway.   Shortly later he moved to sit at my end of the table and we had a merry evening as this picture of him and Chris can attest,

Later conversation included the title of this post.  Was said with affection.  He commented I perhaps should mix my whiskey with water - Japanese style, as it was very bad otherwise.  I declined, saying “maybe tomorrow, I die.”  To, which he replied with the title, he wanted me to be with my family.  Considering it was thanksgiving, I really appreciated the sentiment.

Food highlight was what Chris dubbed “Ass-pan.”  As in, bread that had been sitting unbeknownst in a plastic bag under the bum of the person whose seat he took, for some time.  Seeing it later on the table, the star of the evening told me it was delicious, and as such I obliged her and tried, despite Chris’s giggling.

My workday Thursday also included the second installment of the comic-book-via-fax being penned about me:

Enacted the ice cream scene described above Friday.  Small snafu came when some students colored the sundae part of a strawberry sundae pink and the ice cream brown, but I let it slide.  As usual, the famous artist taught a brilliant class.

Sasaki Junko-San

Afternoon was spent at the Hamatonbetsu elementary school.  Picture of me drinking was still up, to my chagrin.  In class had a poor-man’s “Dead Poets Society” in reverse moment as I stood and jumped off a desk to deliver with authority the final line to the English play I read for the students.

At Judo tonight had a rather dirty moment, with one of those same students.  Though I knew better, been too lazy to clip my toenails for a bit.  As such, whilst wrestling a girl who I’d hours earlier been teaching how to pronounce “Giant Turnip” - the name of the play - I cut her foot with one of my toenails.  I then had to take a break to clip.  She was a good sport though, kept fighting with a smile and a “daijoubu.”

Off to bed for my volleyball game in the morning.  I’ll leave with some shots of the little corner of happiness no longer to be,

No more Wednesday nights drinking a few hours past midnight, then waking up at 5:45 that same morning for zazen.  Sad.

Écrit près Charles Jeffrey Danoff
danoff dot charles at gmail dot com
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