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Today was my first day at my new elementary school. It was also my first time to interact with the students. It is summer vacation now but there were kids in school because today is the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. A perfect day, apparently, for the new American teacher to introduce himself.

It stated out good. I arrived early and played with the younger students who where thrilled to see a brand new face. One student showed his approval by punching me in the crotch. Then he smiled, obviously satisfied, and gave me a hug. I played with the kids for about 20 minutes before the high energy of the kids combined with the lack of air conditioning (or really any ventilation) made me retreat to the teachers room. The kids kept calling me to come back, wanting to spend more time with their new teacher. As I said it was a good start.

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Learning English is an uphill battle. All Japanese are required to study English in Jr. high School and high school (if they choose to go to high school). Many will continue to study English beyond this compulsory period. There is a flourishing industry for English learning books, videos, CDs, software and countless other things. Yet despite all of this Japan has a very low rate of English acquisition. How could this be? That is a big question and one I will not tackle in this post. What I will talk about is the fact English is very popular in Japan even if it is not used correctly.

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On a very rainy Sunday evening at around 7:00pm I was hit by a car while crossing the street on my bicycle. I had a green light and by the time I realized this car wasn’t planning to stop, it was too late. I braced myself for the impact and tried to make sure I went over the hood rather than under the car, which probably would have killed me.

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Last week my school had a “goodbye party” for the teachers who are leaving my school. Whenever there is an event of any significance someone will plan a drinking party. Drinking parties are a vital part of Japanese co-worker relations and I was happy to be part of one.

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I pulled this off of my old website. I wrote it more than 4 years ago. Reading it now I see that my writing skills were not so great back then (probably not now either) so I apologize for that. Most of the spelling errors have been corrected. I visited this area of Nagasaki a few days before September 11th, 2001 and I posted this story 2 weeks later. It was a very emotional time for me. I was far away from home, just getting bits and pieces of news. Knowing my family was OK for the time being but not knowing when planes would be flying again or how safe my home was. The following is what I had posted:

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No one likes lectures. Ok, some kids like lectures. And some kids like homework. Some kids even like reminding teacher they forgot to give homework. They also apparently like having their heads pushed into toilets. But I digress..

In America, students find many ways to ignore teachers and make use of this time. They will doodle in notebooks, hide read a paperback concealed in a textbook, Pass notes, or my personal favorite, simply daydream. Most kids do it and most will eventually get caught doing it but the ratio is low.

Japanese kids on the other hand are the most unabashed, masters at wasting time. And since the rules are so lax, they have almost no chance of being punished for it. The worst that will happen is that a timid teacher in a small voice will ask them to stop. This is the public schools of course; in a private school these students could face worse penalties.

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