Roof Off-Tearing

From the Raku Three's concert last Saturday night. Our audience, though small, was enthusiastic, and I think we played better than we ever had before. Apologies for the feedback in the second and third numbers; we couldn't get the mike quite right again after our guest vocalist finished her songs. Enjoy!

Owe My Soul to the [Redacted]

Hard to believe it, but it's been an entire year since I first started working at the kindergarten. There have been times where I've thought that I could be perfectly happy doing this job for my whole life -- these would be the times where I'm getting hugged by my favorite students and getting adorable photos or pictures from them, as seen in the last post -- and then there are the times where I can't shake the urge to just bolt out of the room and announce my resignation. That's mostly just during meetings, though. Something that's been rather trying the last few weeks has been that the school has come down with a bad case of the Meetings. Morale meetings, attitude meetings, posture meetings, weekend meetings, evening meetings, meetings about other meetings. Plenty of time to sit and think about what all this was like last year.

I think one of the major differences between last year and this year is that a year ago I was still fresh from unemployment. A reason to be awake and wearing my suit? Yes please! All the general suckiness and bowing and pretending-to-give-a-shit was easy because it was novel. It was crazy, it was vaguely demeaning, but hell, it was an interesting cultural experience, right? Something I'd never done before! Now, though, after a year of seeing the same kind of ritualistic offering of one's body and soul to the company, it wore a bit thin.

As with last year, I'm not at liberty to divulge much of the meeting's contents; in fact, there was a warning by the principle that we need to discover who keeps leaking sensitive information about our Mission Plan and such to the parents, as they apparently shouldn't know this stuff. So, here are a few juicy tidbits of kindergarten intel that I'm assuming is not classified. This is the real, hand-to-Buddha educational philosophy of Enchou-Sensei, our beloved principal, as revealed to us over the course of the meeting and the pre-meeting meetings. Behold, the fuel in the kindergarten machine!

1. Japanese children are for shit these days. They can't stand very hot or cold temperatures, probably because they're always being coddled with heating and air conditioning. And they can only pay attention for a few minutes!
2. They're also really weak because they keep eating so much meat and wheat-based products.
   
3. Japan being a wealthy country, everyone only thinks of themselves and not of others, especially in Osaka.
4. The solution is for educators to teach their students to have good hearts, even emphasizing moral enlightenment over teaching ability.
5. As such, the foundation of our education is to make sure our students feel that they are loved and to teach them to show that love to others.
6. Love is expressed in proper posture and bowing. THE END.

In addition -- and I do hope that I'm not divulging any sensitive company information here -- did you realize that if you don't eat meat, your poop will be gold-colored? This was a fairly major point in our principal's yearly talks, and we heard it repeated a number of times (it came as something of a surprise to my vegetarian co-worker and me, too). To unpack this concept as it relates to the kindergarten: Japan as a culture is meant to eat rice and vegetables -> meat is more popular now, but it's not as healthy -> meat contains what we need to have a competitive, fighting spirit -> obviously we shouldn't give up meat altogether, but still, hey, gold poop.

Metchya Kawaii

Just a few pictures of what exactly I do all day and the gratitude I get for it in the form of...well, fan letters. The cute is definitely one of the perks of working in a kindergarten. Also: wuv.

A card from one of my favorite students (of course I have favorite students), Shintarou. It reads "Shintarou arigatou." When pressed, he told me that I'm the bigger face on the left. The resemblance is uncanny, no?

Shintarou again, plus his little sister, who also attends the kindergarten and also has professional-level eyebrows. On the reverse side of this new year's card (1 of 2 that I got from kids last year):

Translated: "Harry-sensei." I guess I do stick my tongue out a lot, huh?

The other New Year's card I received, this from one of my other favorites. Note the curly portrait of moi in the bottom left, plus the excellent handwriting of her name. I can only guess at the context of the picture.

A Valentine's Day card from one of my...less motivated students, Nene. She's 10. Also, she kind of sucks. This card really represents her interest in English beautifully.

Kid's Box, my group of 3 and 4 year olds from Panda class. Man, that book brought the house down.

Not sure what I'm doing here, but I keep getting kids' portraits of me in which I seem to have my arms raised. So whatever it is, I think I do it a lot.

A gift from Yasuhara-sensei, and a lovely one at that. My name was spelled "Hurry" originally, but that was easily fixed with a Sharpie.

And a card I got just the other day from my favorite girl with a lazy eye. I couldn't make any sense of the picture, nor could I get her to confirm or deny anything other than it was supposed to be me. Jenn, however, helped me realize that I am, in fact, raising my arms. Surprise! The inscription is my favorite phrase in Japanese: "Harry-sensei daisuki." D'aww.

Happy Blogiversary!

I'm sure you don't need us to point this out considering how closely you've been following these matters, but this is actually the 100th post on "Amazing Tales of the Gaijin Patrol!" And to think that only a year and a half ago this blog was little more than a glint in our collective desire for attention. Wow.

In tried-and-true blogditions, according to the Blogmandments that inform our blogposition, without which the blog blog bloggity blog. Or is it? Anyway, please enjoy this best-of compilation of some of our greatest moments of the past 18-odd months. Think of this as the clip show of blogs (and remember, clip shows are already the olive loaf of television).

Remember that time we came to Japan and it was really weird? (doodley-doo, doodley-doo, doodley-doo)

Or how about that other thing? Ha ha, that was great.

And let's not forget this. Now that's what I call a sticky situation!

And of course, mummies in the basement.

Can you believe it's only been six hundred and five days? Just look at all the progress we've made since being embarrassed to go to a restaurant or throw away our garbage in the proper receptacles! Maids are still f¥¥¥ed up, of course.

Here's to another hundred posts!

To Paraphrase a T-Rex: "I Want to Plug My Band. Please Allow Me."

Sorry it's been so quiet 'round these parts lately...I promise, it's not because we've all been turned into Godzillas or superheroes over here. Things have been groovy enough, in fact, that a funky-ass concert is just about to break out:


I do, in fact, have plenty to say about many topics of interest. So, as a preview for the upcoming weeks of "Amazing Tales of the Gaijin Patrol," be sure to look forward to hearing about...

• * A trip to Beppu, the Las Vegas of Japan! Except instead of a desert, it's boiling pits of molten sulfur, and instead of gambling, it's taking baths!

• * A look back at a year of teaching kindergarten and having meetings.

• * An unflinching look at how information flows in the Internet Age and how it affects popular perceptions. With...video game jokes, probably.

• * Kit Kats!

• * And more!

See you at the show on Saturday! Like the man said, "Free concerts and your ass will follow." Or something.