Elementary School: Cuteness Overload

Today was quite the day. While running into school in the rain, my umbrella broke. Thinking I'd fix it later, I left it by the door and went inside for the morning meeting. When I came out again to go to an elementary visit, someone had already cleared and disposed of my broken umbrella pieces. Oh those Japanese and their intense work ethic.

Little did I know that, not only was I in for a rain-soaked day, I was also in for a delightfully emotional one.

As part of my job, I work at my junior high school half-time and visit elementary schools the other half. This has been one of my favourite aspects of my work setup, as trips to elementary schools always give me more than a few things to smile about. One particularly memorable visit included teaching a grade one class how to count from 1-10. Four tiny children, accompanied by their teacher, picked me up from the staff room and shyly walked me to the gym where the class was to be held. The kids watched me, curious and wide-eyed, then ran ahead to alert their peers to my approach. As I neared the gym, I could hear a growing din, made up of about fifty squeaky voices, cheering and shouting and emitting whatever sort of noise their excitement prompted. When I finally walked through the door, the room erupted. I felt like I was at concert, where I was the main act these wild fans had been waiting for.

Strange as the sensation was, it was one of the most amusing things I've seen in Japan, watching them shake and bounce and wave their arms and reach out to touch mine in uncontrollable excitement. I started by introducing myself and showing them a few pictures from Canada. Every single photo brought a deafening chorus of "iiiiiiiiiii naaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!" (wow!! awesome!!!!!.) and a round of applause. By the end they were no longer uttering recognizable words, but simply a round of unintelligible, excited noise.

Being one of four ALTs in Yokote who regularly does elementary visits, and having current and past ALTs with names like Katie, Kathie, KK, Connie, Kahlila and MacKenzie (notice a "/k/" pattern?), it's not often that the kids don't confuse me with one of the other elementary ALTs. So it was especially touching to visit the same school a few weeks later, and have the grade one students not only recognize me but remember me by the correct name. Much hand-holding, arm-stroking and jumping up and down ensued (from the kids, of course).

Another time, at a different school, I found myself playing Fruit Basket with some third graders. Usually the kids all race to sit down and don't want to be the last one standing, but this particular class was full of spotlight-loving clowns. By the end of the game, none of the kids wanted to sit down - they would slowly meander around the circle, dramatically gesturing to offer the chairs to their friends while they tried so hard to be the last one standing. At one point, one boy was dancing his way through the hubbub, another was twirling round and round and round, and yet another was purely running in circles waiting for all the other chairs to be taken. That was by far my most exciting and hilarious game of Fruit Basket yet.

One more recent adorable memory was teaching a grade two class about different kinds of fruit. The kids simply could not contain their excitement. Every time I showed them a picture and tried to get them to repeat the word, the teacher had to step in and quiet them down so they could hear me in the first place. Kids were bouncing and rolling around on the floor and flailing their arms in glee. One girl started crawling around my feet in a circle, looking up at me with huge puppy-dog eyes and, I swear, panting.

Impossible to get a clear photo because they just couldn't stop moving!

This brings me back to today. It was my last visit to one of my favourite elementary schools. The kids there are energetic, fun, and extremely sweet. I usually wander around during lunch break chatting to the students until one group of first graders or another whisks me off to play oni (a version of tag), or clusters around me for high fives and arm-strokes (seriously, it's like they have this need to touch people, and just don't know how to handle it). One time a little girl would not stop stroking my hand, saying it was "kawaii" (cute).

I've always enjoyed the grade five class at this particular school, as the kids love just about any activity we do and the teacher routinely asks for my input and creative game ideas, something that most of the schools don't do - I often just get a lesson plan the day before, and show up. Today was my last day, so we played one of their favourite games I had introduced to them, and at the end of class the teacher explained to them that I would be going back to Canada, and asked me to share a few words with them. I gave them each a Canada pencil as a present, and they all went crazy. Then a few students stood up to share their reflections about English class. Hearing them say that they hadn't known much English before, but now they remembered a lot, was pretty awesome to hear.

After the lesson, the teacher returned to the staff room to tell me that the students enjoyed the lesson.
"But, children...they say they don't use pencil..."
"Ohhh..." I remembered that the kids often use mechanical pencils; perhaps I gave them a useless gift?
"They say...very special, very important gift...they don't use...they keep, forever."
Here's where I started to tear up. After I composed myself, a few of the students came to the staff room to personally deliver their reflection cards for me to sign. They told me (in Japanese) not to forget them, and that they had always enjoyed English class.

Spitting image.

I began to read their reflection cards, which were full of comments about how much fun they had had, how they had learned a lot of English and been able to remember many things during our lessons, hoping we would meet again someday, and wishing me good luck back in Canada. Again, it was hard not to cry.

roughly translated: "I look forward to seeing Katie sensei again someday. Thank you very much."

"After her year of studying at college, I want the English teacher to come back again."

During lunch, a teacher made an announcement that it was my last day, and later several kids asked me why I was going back to Canada. One of the fifth grade girls asked to take a picture with me. Of course, a bunch of others jumped into the photo as soon as they saw it was happening.

Photo-bombed by a flying peace sign

I left school with soggy shoes, a damp schoolbag and no umbrella, but having had one of my most memorable days in a long time.

From the classroom, lunchroom and halls

My students crack me up daily. They are honestly the best part of my days, weeks, and life here.

For one thing, they are endlessly creative in their translations to English.  "Japanese speedy-speak" for "Japanese tongue twisters", "my foot was shocking" to describe how their feet fell asleep in Buddhist temple meditation, and "playing human watching" to describe the act of people-watching.

Sometimes it's just passing comments.

(at an elementary school)
me: How are you??
little boy: I'm CANDY!!!

(junior high - supposed to find a way to ask a teacher what they did on spring vacation)
"Do you spring vacation?"
(teacher relates the proper question to him) "What did you do on your spring vacation?"
"Yes I am!!"

(conversation in the hall with one of my junior high boys, who has clearly met me many times before)
"Hello!".
"Hello."
"Uhhhh...nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too."
"I am...nice body!!!"
"oh."

I had a boy hand in a written assignment that said he got drunk on the bus on the class trip...but my teacher told me the Japanese sometimes translate the same word for "drunk" as "sick". That was an interesting one to figure out.

Sometimes they get creative with names.

Sometimes they mishear my English - today, instead of "at the end of April", they got "endless April", which they thought was hilarious. Everything in that class became "endless" - "endless April", "endless worksheet" (or something) and finally the classic "I am endless boy!"

One day at lunch one of my third-years decided it would be a good idea to make his regular milk into strawberry milk by mashing up his strawberry inside the carton. He enlisted his friends' help by asking for scissors so he could cut a hole in the top, which turned out to be a bit too small. Instead of fixing it he just set to work poking at the berry with his straw, attempting to squish it into his drink. During this process he squirted milk onto his school uniform. Panic ensued. His friend calmed the chaos by whipping something out of his pocket and saying reassuringly (in Japanese), "don't worry, I have tissues!!" I turned to the girls next to me and asked what they thought of the whole project.
"Crazy, crazy, crazy!"
"No. It's good idea."
"He's crazy. Crazy boy."
"No I'm not. I'm great!"


Later, to himself:
"I'm great!"


Later still:
"I'm strawberry."

How are you?

I hadn't realized how much I rely on this one tiny bit of English as a way of easing into conversations: "how are you?"

As I'm slowly acquiring some Japanese, I remain at a loss as to what phrase to use in place of this while conversing with Japanese acquaintances. "O genki desu ka?" essentially means "you are well?", and is the closest equivalent that I am aware of. As far as I can tell, though, this is not exceedingly common, especially in casual conversation. I have only heard it used a couple of times, and once quite jokingly with students who were causing some mild mayhem.

I could be wrong, or there could be something quite simple that I've been missing all along and just haven't learned yet. But in the absence of such knowledge, I wonder why it might be that we ALWAYS follow our greetings with an inquiry as to the other's wellbeing, and why this doesn't seem to be the case in Japan.

I wonder...are personal feelings a less common conversational topic? More private than public? People seem to avoid discussing how they really feel about things, instead remarking on the state of situations and how they have affected other people and things. In my observations this seems to be the case, but I write this with a bit of hesitancy about making an easy blanket statement about the entire culture. I'm still sorting my way through everything, and quite possibly have just missed these kinds of subtleties. However, maybe there is more of a reservation about inward, personal matters than I'm used to.

On the other hand, though the surroundings I have grown up in seem to value being emotionally open (in some ways), we very rarely answer the question "how are you?" truthfully. Possibly with those closest to us, but usually it's an automatic "Good; you?"

This is one reason I find the "greetings" at the start of English classes in Japan so interesting and yet not quite natural.
"How are you?"
"I'm fine/sleepy/tired/hungry/hot/cold/happy, and you?"

Hm. I don't think I've ever responded to that question by elaborating on my body temperature.