"Teaching" in Japan: From Tennis to Drinking Parties

Around 4 o’clock on Thursday, I changed into tennis clothes and awkwardly made my way to the tennis courts. I waited for the girls’ team to find me as every other sports team strolled past and stared at my legs, bare for the first time at school. Many of the students stopped to chat, often double-checking their English with each other before speaking to me. I would a whisper behind me (Do you play tennis?) before a student would approach me from the front and say nervously, but clearly, “Do you play tennis?” “Only a little,” I would repeat, and smile.

I was already a little nervous because the whole school was watching my every move. That morning, two people had seen me with a tennis racket. An hour later, the entire teachers’ room knew I was going to play tennis that afternoon. Now as I sat waiting for the girls to rescue me, every student stared at me in my un-professional sports gear. I knew I stuck out like a sore thumb (which I often forget in this country) but I still felt unworthy of all the positive attention I got all the time. One group of girls stopped just to stare at my legs. “You’re so white!” one of them said. “It’s so beautiful!” Those are two phrases I’d never hear together in the States. I was huddled in a ball, because the wind was rather chilly, but I felt like I had hung myself up for display. Where were the tennis girls?

Finally the girls found me and took me to the courts. They politely struggled with their English while I struggled with my Japanese. Imitation was the best action in this case. I followed them and copied what I saw…and soon we were warming up at the net. I was a little stiff and out of practice, but I felt myself slipping back into something I loved in high school: practicing with your teammates. No competition, no killer instincts, just the simple joy of working together to hit the ball. I felt the endorphins kick in and I was really happy. At one point the guys’ soccer team ran past, and a boy called out, “Lauren, I love you!!” I was so surprised by this that I immediately burst into laughter. In fact I was so shocked to even hear the phrase “I love you” in Japan that I couldn’t quit laughing. I don’t know why, but the personal expression used in such an impersonal situation was so foreign, but so close to home at the same time. It was strange.

All the girls were very sweet and patient and I hit with quite a few of them, rotating out so as not to disrupt their usual routine too much. We practiced for about 2 hours and I think my ability level was pretty much on par with theirs. I wasn’t necessarily making anyone a better player, but I definitely wasn’t bringing them down, either. There are no lights on the courts so we stopped when it got dark. I followed suit as we gathered in a circle. There was some incomprehensible Japanese and then we all said “thank you” and bowed in unison. More incomprehensible Japanese and my name stood out in the middle. The coach can’t speak much English so the students translated, “We enjoyed playing with you and are looking forward to next time. Monday at 4 o’clock.” Whoa! Did I just join the tennis team? But still it made me happy, and I smiled. The exercise was fun and good for me. I decided I would talk to the coach later, when I had a better translator, and see if I could join the team every Monday and Thursday. On other days I had tea ceremony club and English club…and on Fridays, I am just plain ready to go home.

The next day was field trip day (yay!) and since I’m a full-time teacher, I got to go for free (YAY!). I rode the bus with my supervisor and her 9th-grade homeroom class to Hakone. We went to a large lake with a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji, and I was psyched because this was what I wanted to see in Japan – lakes and mountains. The most beautiful places on earth, tied with Japanese gardens.

The ride up the mountain was smooth and warm, so it was hard not to fall asleep. When all 8 buses of 400 students got to the lake, we swarmed through the tourist shop and eventually landed on a large boat for a scenic ride. I think I had my picture taken with every student on board. I was so pissed that I had forgotten my camera. The weather was beautiful and there were many red Shinto shrines at the water’s edge. Mt. Fuji stood majestically with clouds gathered at its base – making it look absolutely huge. Eventually the boat reached the “hiking” trail, which was a wide, paved path through the woods. The hills were pretty decent but it was cool under the trees, and we reached the destination about 40 minutes later. My back was sore from playing tennis so the walk felt good.

Then the teachers gathered in the soba shop for a quiet lunch while the students ate bento boxes outside. The soba shop smelled of –what else—soba, and something else strange and unidentifiable. The atmosphere was beautiful, incredibly Japanese and minimalist, with large circular windows that made me feel like I was in a piece of artwork. The round windows were slightly unsettling. I was either in a Japanese DaVinci painting, or below deck on a large ship.

I ordered cold soba with mushrooms and pasted yams. The mushrooms were strange and the yam paste had no apparent flavor but a really weird texture. I didn’t like it at all, but I tried to suck down the noodles anyway. (I do like soba.) A teacher asked me if I was okay, and my “Mmm-hmm!” reply sounded so tight and high-pitched that they all knew I was lying. They laughed, and I continued to slurp the soba. When someone produced huge purple grapes I was grateful for the familiar food. But the grapes turned out to be unlike grapes I had tasted before. The skin was very dark purple, almost bitter, and it dried out your mouth the same way a red wine might. Tannins, I guess? Underneath the leathery skin, the grapes smelled and tasted like ripe flowers. They were the biggest and most delicious grapes I’d ever eaten.

On the bus ride back down the mountain, my supervisor and I fell asleep. When I woke up at the high school, I was groggy and felt the beginning of a sinus headache. The teachers were supposed to party at a sushi place that night, but I didn’t want to go. The awkwardness at lunch seemed like enough cultural stimulation for one day. I tried to assess how bad I felt, and whether or not I could really get out of going…but I knew I couldn’t. I was tired, dirty from hiking, and I wanted to be alone, but I went to the party anyway.

When I arrived at the small, hole-in-the-wall sushi place, I was surprised to find one of the cleanest and most beautiful Japanese dining rooms I’ve seen yet. The dining space was one room on the 2nd floor, with one large table. (The kitchen was an even smaller room on the 1st floor. So we teachers were the only customers.) I put my things against the wall and waited to be told where to sit (I read somewhere that sitting first is extremely rude, and that there is always a seat of honor that should be declined many times before you actually accept it…) Anyway, I was surprised because this time there was no seat of honor. The table was set with numbered chopsticks, and each teacher drew a straw to determine his place was at the table. As a left-hander I was happy to be at the end of the table, but I was surrounded by teachers who couldn’t speak English. Great. Not much talking for Lauren tonight, I thought. That was fine by me, because I was tired. I looked around the room, admiring the beautiful flower arrangements and scrolls on the walls, and then I studied the strange appetizer at my place. Unidentifiable raw fish, something that looked like crab salad, grilled tuna, little fish with eyeballs and all parts still included, whole raw shrimp, a giant slug/snail thing still left in its shell (to be extracted with a toothpick), and the one “safe” dish: a tiny saucer of soy sauce.

When everybody got to the table, the waitress loaded us with bottles of Asahi beer and everyone poured drinks for everyone else (you never pour your own drink; it’s rude. Instead, you wait for someone to fill your glass. Then you turn around and refill theirs. So everybody has a full glass of alcohol for pretty much the entire meal, because everyone is pouring and pouring when they’re not pulling raw slug-things out of shells.)

After a toast the meal began rather quietly, and I was surprised by how tame the drinking party seemed. At first I didn’t like the food, and it made me uncomfortable. The crab salad was okay, and the tuna was good, but I didn’t touch the snail thing. The whole fish with eyeballs were soaked in a tasty sauce, so I ate those, but I was still eating whole fish with eyeballs, and it made me a little queasy. I was also nervous because I was chasing everything I ate with the beer, to wash down weird tastes, which meant my glass was continuously refilled…and I knew my alcohol tolerance was extremely low, because I was hungry. Next they brought us dishes of sushi. I grabbed something I thought was salmon, which I like, but the flesh was held together by membranes that I had to chew and chew and chew. Then I saw some raw white fish. Good, I thought. Plain white fish – this is safe. But I quickly realized that what I had eagerly popped into my mouth was not fish, but squid. Again, I chewed and chewed and chewed. I wanted to spit it out but I had nothing to spit it into. And besides that, everyone would see me doing it. I chewed some more. My saliva turned the rubbery squid into a nauseatingly mealy piece of flesh. I chewed some more. A teacher asked me a question and I answered him with squid in my mouth. Still chewing. Finally, unable to take it any longer, I moved the squid to the back of my mouth and swallowed it whole. I quickly threw back the rest of my beer, to get a different taste in my mouth. Someone refilled my glass.

The beginning of the night was rough. But surprisingly, each course got better and better. By the end of the night I decided the meal was absolutely delicious, one of the best I’ve had in Japan. I had daikon, salmon eggs, cooked lobster, grilled white fish stuffed with egg, raw tuna rolls, cucumber rolls, cooked spinach, some of the most delicious, tender meat I’ve ever eaten in my life, and one more really interesting dish: the waitress lit small fires at each of our places, then placed little teapots on top of the fires. I asked someone if it was tea and they all laughed. “English teacher!” they yelled. “English teacher, come explain this to Lauren!” An English teacher, who I like very much, came over and explained that it was like a soup, “made with a very, very expensive mushroom. We Japanese love this mushroom fragrance, so it is very expensive.” As if to say, “You’re lucky to get a taste of this.” He showed me how to pour the soup into a little saucer and drink it straight from the dish. “Then, when you finish the soup,” he said, “you open up the teapot and eat the mushrooms.” I poured the light yellow, oily soup and waited a bit for it too cool. When I drew the saucer to my lips all eyes turned to me in anticipation. Oh man, I hope it’s good, I thought, not wanting to disappoint anyone.
It was delicious. “Mmm!” I said, almost involuntarily. Then the silence turned to laughter and talking, and they were happy I was enjoying myself. When I drank all the soup I opened teapot but found more than mushrooms: some pieces of chicken, some shrimp, and some spinach – all delicious. There was also a small egg that came from some kind of bird, but not a hen. I skipped the egg and moved on to something else delicious.

I was also surprised by how much I enjoyed the time with the teachers. We all got louder and louder as the evening went on. Everyone was laughing. I realized I knew more Japanese than I thought, and they made huge efforts to speak more English. They were absolutely thrilled I liked the food, and they laughed when I refused to eat the snail. Every now and then a teacher would come sit at my end of the table just to talk with me and watch me eat. They were stunned to learn that I like sake more than beer, and they were shocked that I like cold sake. I don’t know what the big deal was but they were so excited that they stopped the beer orders so we could all drink sake. It tasted delicious, especially with the food. The teachers’ kindness continues to amaze me. To give you an idea, at one point someone looked directly at me and rattled off Japanese. I looked to an English teacher for help. The first guy repeated himself, and then the English teacher said, “Ahh, yes, you are very popular. Everybody here likes you.” I blushed and muttered something I can’t remember. Then later (this one tops the cake) another teacher said, “Oh, you are a strong drinker!” What! Okay, now we know they’re lying. J

At one point, a man began to hum an old American tune and he was thrilled when I joined him. He didn’t know the words, so when I started singing the whole table got quiet to listen to me. “Old Susanna, now don’t you cry for me…for I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee…” Who knows where they heard this song, but they were really excited I knew it. Then, a teacher said my name sounded like the Rawhide song. Remember, Japanese often confuse Ls and Rs. So when he said “Lauren,” it came out sounding like “Rollin’.” And he started singing, “Rollin’ rollin’ rollin,’ keep them doggies rollin’, rawhide!” I cracked up.

The whole dinner lasted about two hours, which was perfect for me. It ended on a good note, before anyone got too tired or too drunk, and everyone was happy. I felt so satisfied and I was so glad I went. I scolded myself for trying to get out of the party. This comeraderie and socializing with coworkers was a duty, and part of my job description – almost as important as teaching classes. I reminded myself that I was lucky and quite privileged to be a part of it all—shame on me for wanting to avoid it!

I never felt such a level of acceptance, or like I was part of a group, when I was in France. I don’t feel Japanese, but I never expected to feel Japanese. I am a foreigner, but I am still overwhelmed by the generosity and kindness of these people. If you show an appreciation for their world, they are willing to take you in. And that makes me really lucky.