Classroom Nonsense
When the Japanese school year starts every April, I have another opportunity to meet a new groups of freshman students. It’s fun to meet freshmen. They’re nervous and excited. They’re meeting the foreign teacher for the first time and don’t know what to expect. I quickly put them at ease when they learn that I can speak Japanese, that I know a lot about them, their school and their schoolwork. If they have questions and concerns, they can tell me in Japanese and I can satisfy them. No worries. English class is Super Happy Fun Time.
First, I greet them. Then, I confirm their seating with the seating plan I have. If I haven’t been given a seating plan, then my first order of business is to make one. It’s my first chance to speak to them individually.
After that, I have to introduce myself and then ask if they have questions. Sometimes they do have questions, sometimes not. They used to have many more questions when I was younger. But now that I’m older they react to me and treat me differently than they did in the old days.
My self-introduction has changed over time. It used to be long and detailed. I provided truthful information that satisfied most of the interrogative pronouns, but overwhelmed them with information. Over time, I’ve edited and pared down my self-introduction.
My quickest, briefest introduction is to point my finger to my face and say in a comic voice, “This is me!” It’s a joke from a Season 3 episode of the American sitcom M*A*S*H called “Officer of the Day,” delivered by actor Richard Lee-Sung.
These days, what’s more important to me is a good story. So, I mix up truth and fiction for the kids, and they seem to like the show. The classroom is a performance space more than a temple to the Truth. This isn’t the place for Truth. If it’s truth you want, there’s a library down the hall, and there are churches you can attend. Or not.
We pretend to try to teach children that honesty is moral and appropriate, and yet some of the most celebrated (and successful) people in our societies are professional liars: novelists, actors, politicians, and preachers.
The classroom is a performance space, not a sanctuary. This isn’t the place for Truth.
First of all, I tell them that I’m 109 years old. If they try to trick me and ask me when my birthday is I’ve already done the calculation and say I was born in 1913, during the Taisho Period (1912 - 1926). (Since I know Japanese history better than they do at this stage, this fib gives me a chance to introduce all the periods of modern Japanese history - the Meiji Period 1867 - 1912, the Taisho Period, the Showa Period, 1926 – 1989, the Heisei Period, 1989 – 2019, and now the Reiwa Period.) I alter my imaginary birthdate accordingly each year, to maintain the 109-year story. I tell them that my birthday is Smarch 32 (a 13th month), and that only Canada has a thirteenth month called “Smarch.” It’s a Homer Simpson joke I like to repeat.
I tell them that when I was a boy, I had a pet dog that could say “I love you” in English. It’s another Homer Simpson joke. Then I imitate Homer Simpson’s voice to demonstrate the dog speaking.
When students ask about my age, I know they are fishing to learn if I’m older or younger than their own parents. The fact is that I’m older than their parents, but I don’t see why I need to confirm it to them. When I originally came to Japan and high school girls asked me my age, I knew they had two things in mind. 1) they wanted to know where I was in relation to their own parents, and 2) because I was much younger in those days, they wanted to know if I fell within the scope of their sexual radar, or not.
If students ask me why I have Band-Aids on three fingers of my right hand, I tell them that in Junior High School I had a bad accident and cut those fingers off. They were reattached with surgery, leaving scars that the Band-Aids are hiding.
I tell them that I have three pets (which is true: a white cat, a black cat and a brown rabbit). Then I tell them my pets’ names: the white cat’s name is White Cat; the black cat’s name is Black Cat; and the brown rabbit’s name is Brown Cat. None of that’s true, but watching their reactions is fun.
Why did I come to Japan? I’ve got a lot of made-up answers to that. The one I use the most is to say that I ran away from serious girl trouble, and so I sought to get as far away from my hometown as possible without getting close to it again from the opposite direction. Therefore, I could have gone as far as South Africa, which is the real diametrically opposite place on the globe from Guelph, Ontario. But I discovered that Japan is a good place to live - a land of the living (quoting the Egyptian excavator Sallah, played by actor John Rhys-Davies in the 1981 movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, describing the virtues of Cairo) - so here I settled.
If they ask me how I met my wife, I tell them that she attacked me in a supermarket. I have a convincing tale to describe it.
I tell them I don’t like thunder, that I’m afraid of it, and I have an interesting story ready to explain it. Meh.
I tell them that I wear a beard to hide a scar given to me by a former girlfriend. My story is that a girl accidently cut my chin with a glass fake diamond ring and that I needed stitches. Therefore, I sport a beard to hide it. I make it sound like a violent attack while reassuring them that it was an accident.
My favorite color is black. I wear it all the time so that students think I wear the same clothes every day. I do not. I change my clothes every day, but everything is always black. But I insist that my favorite color is yellow and that I only wear black as a camouflage device. Because I’m hiding.
If they want to know my favorite food, I invariably say chicken.
School is my workplace. I have to be there for long hours, so it’s important for me to keep myself entertained. My first rule of work is that I have to enjoy myself.