Life of Why

Combing through my notebook, I stumbled on a piece that I wrote about interviewing at Nichibei English Service, back in my days working as a part-time sofa cover. I present it now as a look back at what a noob I was those many months ago. Let's enjoy, won't us?

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I continue to sweat through my only suit as I turn in my chair to stare out the floor-to-ceiling window that looms 26 stories above Osaka's Kita Ward. The city is usually described to Westerners as ugly, industrial, metallic, boring -- at best, these epithets are followed by a "but" and something uninspired about history or culture. I wonder: am I the only hakujin in this vast office building packed to the gills with salarymen, kimono-clad old women, jewelry stored, coffee shops? How many gaijin are there in the hundreds of squatting concrete monstrosities in my line of sight? How many of them are unemployed, too?

I turn back to face the tiny classroom I've been waiting in for nearly an hour. The whole room is done up in a monochromatic rainbow, but the effect is less Men in Black and more modernistic community college: gray carpet, gray plastic desks, whiteboard, white acoustical tile, eggshell wallpaper, black-and-white photocopied fliers stapled to gray felt message boards. The room seems set up for two dozen students, but conditions are cramped; I had to shove one of the desks forward to accommodate my modest gut, crushing the row of chairs in front of me as I did so. At 5'10, I am clearly uncomfortably big for this room.

Staring up at me from the cramped table (my legs press uncomfortably against its black metal underbelly) is my application for Nichibei English Services that I was given by the secretary who showed me in when I arrived at 1:10, a full 20 minutes before my interview was scheduled. In my ignorance, I had politely introduced myself to her and offered her a copy of my resume, grinning like a fiend to seem as genki as possible. Now, 40 minutes after my interview was due to begin, I can't stop my mind from lingering over the bursts of feminine laughter that periodically echo in under the door.

"No, no, he seriously said 'Good morning, I am English teacher, appointment interview have!"

"Ha ha, really?"

"Yes! And he wouldn't stop smiling for some reason! I think he thought I was in charge!"

"Tell us again about how sweaty his suit was!"

I sigh deeply, in the process blowing a few drops of sweat onto the application. The hideous cyclopean blank under the final unanswered question glares up at me: "Why did you come to Japan?"

I glance at the clock. 2:15.

It seemed a fair question, on the surface. No teaching certification, no work visa, little knowledge of Japanese (say, on par with David Sedaris's French), two degrees in an unusably academic discipline...why the hell did I come to Japan?

I had certainly been asked this question, this accursed, stinking, raging motherfucker of a question before: by parents, by friends, by teachers, by all the acquaintances and random strangers my mother had told for some reason. Usually I was able to pass off a joke or a bullshit answer, something ranging from "Why not?" to "I've always had a fascination with the elegance and and complexity of Japanese culture" to "Well, I like the food, ha ha!", each of which contains some kernel of truth, but is still beautifully meaningless.

Still, there always seemed to be something suspicious or evilly prying about the question (feelings only intensified when seeing it in print on a job application). I mean, hey, why the hell do you do what you do? Huh? Why do your work your job? To pay the bills, right? TO advance your career? To try to eke out a little happiness in this thoroughly fucked-up world? Boredom, maybe? Fuck you!

Then again, I had been asked the big "why" question during my interview at Pizza Hut the summer before flying to Osaka...maybe Nichibei English Service just wants a bullshit answer, too. Maybe they'll be as relieved as the Pizza Hut RM was to hear something stupid like, "Well, I've always loved eating here, ha ha!"

2:25. I keep spotting a silhouette through the narrow papered-over window in the door. Eyes glazing over, sweat painting my brand-new Hanes undershirt yellow, I can swear that someone is checking to see if I'm finished yet. The door stays closed.

OK, then, why the hell did I come to Japan? Other than "the food" and similar hoo-ha, there are two real reasons, neither of which would be interesting or even acceptable to a prospective employer.

The first reason is simple, or at least comprehensible: love. My wife and I had discussed coming to Japan for years. We gleefully filled out one application form after another for the JET Program, a Japanese governmental program that imports hundreds of smelly foreign barbarians every year -- most of them fresh out of college, with zero teaching experience or Japanese ability -- to serve as Assistant Language Teachers in public schools. Essays written, letters of recommendation forwarded, we passed our final year at Truman State University cheerfully planning our futures. JET Program to Peace Corps to MATESOL, maybe? Or JET to Fulbright to PhD?

(...Oh god, it just hit me. Truman State University? Could I have picked as worse alma mater for finding a job in Japan? I strongly consider doctoring my photocopied diplomas to something less offensive, like, say, "Al Gore State University.")

The sympathy poured in from all corners, most of all my own. "Gee, I was sure you'd be a lock!" "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear it!" "How is it that you didn't get in, even with your teaching experience and Japanese?" Like, I know. I immolated myself in self-pity for hours before bothering to congratulate Jenn, behavior for which I'm still extremely ashamed. We were married two months later, and we dropped our visa applications in the mail a week after that. I am legally a "spouse," as far as the Japanese government is concerned.

2:31. Still haven't been escorted out of the building and exposed as a fraud. The "food" answer grows ever more tempting.

I begin: "I came to Japan because"

No college-boy tricks here. No double-spacing or margin-fudging. No typographical acrobatics, no obfuscation or unfounded generalizations or meaningless jargon -- you're not in Kansas anymore.

The second reason I came to Japan, and really, the lesser of the two, was a very provable if idle interest in the country. At 9 years old, I took an after-school course that taught me to count to 99 and to appreciate mochi. At 18, I tried my damnedest to like anime. At 19, I cultivated a short-lived interest in Japanese folk tales. Hell, I took six Japanese language courses and one culture course. Can't they just read my resume instead of having me fill out this ridiculous form?

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Anticlimactic, I know, but as it happens, I never finished this piece. Now, a year and a half later, I find myself almost totally unable to recreate that mindset. I can enter strange restaurants without fear. I've applied for dozens more jobs and I've been working for 14 months. I've moved and opened two bank accounts. I have Japanese friends. All I can offer to finish this story, for now at least, is resolve the two big questions:

1. While I can't remember exactly what answer I finally gave, it was something uninspired that might as well have been copied from the first paragraph of a travel guide to Japan, something about a synthesis of traditional culture and progress. Pffffft.

2. I got the job. Go figure.

Happy New Year and all that. Here's to another year of confusion, be it awkward, joyous, drunken, or all three!

The Other Land Where Palm Trees Sway

Merry Christmas, everyone! HIT IT.

Christmas Comes to Osaka

This is what I did last night (click to play, double-click to make it bigger):



Please ignore the out-of-tune cello playing. We'll be Stateside from December 17th, so if you're around the KC or StL areas for the next few weeks, give us a shout! Oh, and Merry Christmas.

Happy Chaka Khan!

Happy Hanukkah, everyone! I trust your Hanukkah season has been going well, full of plenty of festivity, all the traditional Hanukkah songs and decorating and parties and TV specials? How was your Hanukkah shopping? Boy, the malls sure get crowded with shoppers looking for last-minute Hanukkah gifts around now, huh?

In an effort to bring multiculturalism and novel international experiences to the children of Osaka (instead of my usual grin-and-wait-out-the-clock strategy), last Wednesday I planned and executed a Hanukkah lesson plan for Free School, our two-hour after-school program for first through fourth graders. And when it comes to fostering multiculturalism, I think I can say with some confidence that it was at least as successful as Pirate Day or Water Cycle Day! Honestly, it warmed my heart in a way that I didn't think Hanukkah was capable of.

"Don't be a schmendrick," I urged Kaito when he was teasing his sister. And you know what? He stopped.

While planning this lesson, I didn't give much thought to my status as half-Jewish. I guess I never have, really. I've always considered it sort of a membership card, entitlement to bust out Yiddish words or get offended by anti-Semitism or feel entitled to cook some good old fashioned Jew Food, but only as long as there isn't anyone more actually Jewish in the room. That's about it, though; I've been the most Jewish person in the room for the bulk of the last few years mainly because of my recent choice of rooms in decidedly Goy neighborhoods (Kirksville and Japan). As I recently wrote in a story I've been working on, I was Kirksville's only Jew in the same way that Bill Clinton was called the first black president. I'm Jew enough for the food but not the god, for the dreidel but not the synagogue, for the paranoia but not the guilt, for a half-hearted Hanukkah right next to the Christmas tree. In fact, I was unaware until I happened to look it up that Free School Hanukkah Day was being held on the actual first night of Hanukkah.

And you know something? I never really liked Hanukkah that much. It could be that I'm just a bit biased since Christmas was the main winter holiday celebrated at my house, but there just didn't seem to be much to Hanukkah. No Hanukkah TV specials, only the one Hanukkah song in English, and ultimately a pretty lame miracle. Which fit well in with our minimalist celebration, actually: spin the dreidel, eat some latkes, light the menorah, then forget about it and go watch TV. I feel pretty bad for the Jewish kids for whom Hanukkah has to compete with their friends' Christmas. And I'm not the only one who feels this way, it seems.

Anyway, the reason I bring all of this up is that I didn't really give a lot of thought to planning out our Hanukkah activities. The English Team considers any Free School that ends to be a successful Free School, so I put about as much care into the Hanukkah celebration as I did Pirate Day; make a dreidel you can stick on a pencil, play Hanukkah Hangman or something, have them color pictures about the story of Hanukkah and read something aloud, maybe let them light a candle, boom, done, two hours finished and I'm on the bus home. Usually the kids are pretty rowdy, occasionally disparaging of our choice of lesson plans, but as long as they make at least a passable attempt at doing the work, it's good enough for me.

But to my amazement, something happened that I can only describe as a Hanukkah miracle. The kids quietly did their coloring and rehearsed their sentences with gusto. When we dimmed the lights and had them come up to recite the story of Hanukkah and light the menorah, they were positively spellbound, and when all 8 candles were lit, the "HAPPY HANUKKAH!" they shouted brought a tear to my eye. Then, since we can't leave candles burning all night in Star Class, we instituted the new tradition of circling the table and blowing the candles out on the count of three. All 14 students quietly sat in a big circle and played dreidel without cheating, without crying, and without punching one another. When we gave them each a doughnut ("HANUKKAH DOUGHNUT, PLEASE!"), they all clapped their hands together and shouted "Mazel tov!" before eating.

"Are you getting verklempt?" my partner asked me when I started to get a little misty. I was. I had had the best Hanukkah ever. And I walked away with a new appreciation for my people's (well, half of my people's) traditions and a brand new stereotype: Japanese people fucking love dreidel.

And now, for your enlightenment, the story of Hanukkah, uncolored but festive nonetheless. Written by Harry Althoff, illustrated by Google Image Search, performed by the Harumidai Kindergarten Wednesday Free School Program. Try to imagine a small Japanese child reading these lines (or, if possible, find a small Japanese child to read it to you).

Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday in December.

On Hanukkah, we play games and give presents.


A long time ago, a bad king took away the Jewish temple.


There was a very bad war, and the Jewish people won!


When they got back to the temple, there was no more oil for candles!


But the candles burned for 8 days! It was a miracle!


On Hanukkah, we light 8 candles. It's called the Festival of Lights.

Let's enjoy Hanukkah!