Truly, nothing tests the strength of a marriage more than filling out forms together. In fact, five out of every three divorces are the result of filling out tax forms, mostly stemming from arguments about calculation errors.
Alas, one cannot make a living on eikaiwa work. And the faint buzz of life's obligations from behind the horizon has become a furious, stinging miasma of hornets. It's time to go home.
And I'm taking the best part of Japan with me: her.
Not that that's easy, or anything. Over the past weekend we spend dozens of hours pouring over a fat stack of forms, assuring the US government that yes, we are actually married and, no, Mrs. Merican has no intention of overthrowing the capitalist dogs in Washington in a bloody coup and, yes, Aloysius is my real middle name.
And as I sat there across the table, gazing at her through the column of haze ebbing free from her Hello Kitty coffee mug, every bit as beautiful and enchanting as the day I first laid eyes on her, I looked into her eyes. Weary with sleep deprivation and yet a perfect, placid hazel, sparkling with youth and beauty and hope. I longed for the next step in our lifelong adventure together, hopping across the ocean and starting anew--a golden treasure of new experiences glistening on the horizon if only she'd just put the papers in the right order and no, no honey, sign and date it right there. No, today's date, no toda- look, I'll do it.
And the next night, we were whisked away aboard the night bus to the US Embassy in Tokyo.
I've heard it said that Asian people's sweat doesn't smell. The reason for this being some biological thing and evolution or something and they believe in fairies and so now their sweat glands do or don't secrete some chemical. I have since discovered that, in spite of the compelling scientific evidence I just presented, this isn't true. Or if it is true, I have no idea which Asian country's people they're referring to, because that bus smelled like a locker room full of hundreds of sentient elephant scrotums.
The US Embassy itself was... actually not that bad. On our previous trip to obtain some papers necessary for an international marriage, we ran into a fat, blond Nick Burns. But this time, the people working the desk at the visa department weren't just civil--they were actually nice. So for all of you Americans who are wondering why government employees in the US are such assholes, it's because the good ones are all get the hell out of there as fast as possible.
So now, we play the waiting game. In two weeks, we'll know if we've been approved for the next step in the visa process, which includes proving you have $60,000 cash in assets available in the US (I don't), proving you're healthy (we'll see), and proving you have a clean criminal record of in Japan (depends on your definition, I suppose).
Either way, I'm glad it's over. Just one last hurdle between now and an August return to the land of 89 cent Big Gulps. The tension of the past weekend is only more potential energy for the imminent summer blast.
And in accordance with the forms we just filed with the embassy, I am obligated to clarify that the "blast" in question was used only as a figure of speech and is not, nor has it ever been, indicative of the actions of a violent political agenda.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
One for the ages
Robots. Playing. Baseball.
There is not one part of that mental image that does not rule.
At the risk of being self-indulgent (perhaps even mindlessly so), I beg the forgiveness of anyone who doesn't like my video game articles to bear with me for this last one for the month of March. My last article left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Base Wars is a humble game with a simple promise and a fantastic premise: in the future, baseball will kick impossible amounts of ass. Not only will we have, as a fanbase, evolved past the point where impossibly proportioned athletes using steroids typically reserved for the agricultural sector phases us, they will no longer even interest us. Instead, machine has replaced man on the baseball diamond, bringing with it an impressive arsenal of guns, swords, and rocket-fists.
There is not one part of that mental image that does not rule.
At the risk of being self-indulgent (perhaps even mindlessly so), I beg the forgiveness of anyone who doesn't like my video game articles to bear with me for this last one for the month of March. My last article left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Base Wars is a humble game with a simple promise and a fantastic premise: in the future, baseball will kick impossible amounts of ass. Not only will we have, as a fanbase, evolved past the point where impossibly proportioned athletes using steroids typically reserved for the agricultural sector phases us, they will no longer even interest us. Instead, machine has replaced man on the baseball diamond, bringing with it an impressive arsenal of guns, swords, and rocket-fists.
Featured: a macabre parody of humanity warped by science. Also featured: a picture of an NES game
Base Wars' gameplay is fairly simple, which is why it works so well. It's just regular baseball, except better in every measurable way. The rules for strike-outs, force-outs, and pop-outs remain unchanged--but everything in between is where the brilliance lies. Once the ball is in play, the hitting team's robot(s) run the bases. If they beat the throw to a base, they're safe, and the game continues. But if the runners get greedy, then things start getting interesting.
If a runner is tagged, the action leaves the overhead view of the stadium and enters a side-view of the runner and tagging player doing battle. From here, the game quits being a baseball sim and more accurately resembles Street Fighter; it's nothing more complex than a no-holds-barred brawl to the finish. If the runner wins, he gets to keep advancing the bases and the ball is knocked free from the tagging player's hands. If the tagging player wins, the runner is out.
To keep things fair and the scores under three digits, Konami implemented a clever gameplay mechanic: the more narrowly a runner beats a throw, the more health it has available in the battle. A photo-finish at the base means the runner has 100% of its health meter filled at the start, while a brazen attempt at base-stealing where the throw has the runner beat by a mile results in a fight where the runner has a paltry amount of energy supply, whereas the tagging player always has a robust 100% of their health. Basically, the defender always has the advantage.
Left: a close play at third base. Right: the blue team signaled steal with a megaphone
Even more brilliant is that when a robot's total HP has been depleted, they are destroyed utterly in a fiery maelstrom. Lose three robots this way, lose the game. So let's say your team is up to bat, down by 12 in the top of the 9th. You know the opposing team's second baseman has only 120 or so HP left and you've already destroyed two of their robots. Do you try to win the game with sound fundamental baseball and solid base-running and hope to hold onto the lead through the bottom of the ninth? Or do you try to fuck that last robot up and win by default?
Of course you try to blow that fucker up! This ain't Tony LaRussa nickel-and-dime baseball, kids!
"Blow that fucker up" is definitely more the Ozzie Guillen school of management
All of that would make a solid game, but it actually gets even better with pennant mode, where you can earn money to customize your robots with better pitching arms for more ball control and faster throw speed, more powerful weapons, shoulder upgrades for more powerful batting, better legs for faster base running, and regenerating body armor to get your health back in battle.
You'd think RPG elements in a sporting game would be two great tastes that don't taste great together, like mustard and crab-apples. In fact, they're more like Oreo cookies and Bigfoot pepperoni pizza. Independently, they're amazing, but when one is nestled delicately just under the cheesy surface of the other, it's pure magic.
I know some other sports games have tried including RPG elements to varied degrees of success--NBA Hang Time's create-a-character feature allowed players to create a shitterrible rookie and watch his ass get walked over for the entire season before finally accumulating enough stat points to be marginally better than Tyues Edney.
Finally a chance to make my white-boy dream of three assists in the same game to Patrick Ewing a reality!
Depending on whether you consider WWE games to be fighting or sports games, the create-a-wrestler mode for those games is disappointing in the same way. What 16-year-old wrestling fan wouldn't love the chance to watch his virtual alter-ego job a dozen times to Essa Rios before finally getting the stats to maybe one day contend against D-Lo Brown for the European Title?
Behold: your mid-card hell. And If you got that joke, will you be my friend?
Base Wars actually handles this pretty well by putting you in charge of the entire roster and actually allowing even an ill-equipped team the ability to compete by simply having a good eye and fast reflexes at the plate. Rack up a couple victories and you're well on your way to having the funds to be a competitive team.
Of course, I'm not going to say this game is perfect. For example, the higher-end weapons are straight-up broken. If you hit someone with the first shot of an automatic weapon you can just hold the button down until they drop and they won't have a chance to retaliate or even move out of the way. Also, you do damage to players by hitting them with a pitch, so you can hit the entire roster over and over with fastballs and win without ever having to take the field.
But for a game made in '91, it's better than any other baseball sim I've ever played. Some people think about baseball to lose an uncomfortable erection, but thinking about Base Wars actually makes mine worse.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
You're doing it all wrong!
If you've been following this blog with any regularity, you know that I'm gay for vidya games (in a strictly platonic sense). And with good reason! In addition to being the thing I spent my time doing before I learned how to jerk off, it has since become the thing I spend my time doing while I'm rehydrating after jerking off.
Yes, gaming has been very good to me. For twenty years, it has been a source of entertainment, a creative outlet, and, as a writer, a source of inspiration. It has also been a near-constant source of frustration.
I've already mentioned the game that turned me hardcore, as well as the game that was an obsession for about ten years of my life. But there was another major milestone in gaming for me that came 'twixt those two: the first major letdown. To paraphrase one of my favorite gaming vloggers, growing up there were Mario kids, Zelda kids, Sonic kids, etc. Me? I was a Mega Man kid. With the release of the neo-retro Mega Man 10 upon us, now seems as fitting a time as any to take a look back on one of the downs in the roller-coaster ride of the Mega Man franchise.
I still remember popping my first Mega Man cartridge into my NES upon returning home from the local video store as a kid. Mega Man 2. I didn't know what to make of the stage select screen--and even less of Mega Man being hurt from jumping on enemies since, after all, Mario seemed to handle it okay--but I remember picking Heat Man's stage first, because fire was rad. Of course, I only got to the part with the disappearing and re-appearing blocks. Pattern recognition at five years of age? Shit, what was I, Rain Man?
Whoa, was that a combination movie reference and robot master joke? That's fuckin' meta.
Wait, how much was it, again?
Yes, gaming has been very good to me. For twenty years, it has been a source of entertainment, a creative outlet, and, as a writer, a source of inspiration. It has also been a near-constant source of frustration.
I've already mentioned the game that turned me hardcore, as well as the game that was an obsession for about ten years of my life. But there was another major milestone in gaming for me that came 'twixt those two: the first major letdown. To paraphrase one of my favorite gaming vloggers, growing up there were Mario kids, Zelda kids, Sonic kids, etc. Me? I was a Mega Man kid. With the release of the neo-retro Mega Man 10 upon us, now seems as fitting a time as any to take a look back on one of the downs in the roller-coaster ride of the Mega Man franchise.
I still remember popping my first Mega Man cartridge into my NES upon returning home from the local video store as a kid. Mega Man 2. I didn't know what to make of the stage select screen--and even less of Mega Man being hurt from jumping on enemies since, after all, Mario seemed to handle it okay--but I remember picking Heat Man's stage first, because fire was rad. Of course, I only got to the part with the disappearing and re-appearing blocks. Pattern recognition at five years of age? Shit, what was I, Rain Man?
Whoa, was that a combination movie reference and robot master joke? That's fuckin' meta.
Fuck if I know where to jump next
Alas, being at the whims of a neighborhood video store meant that many of the installments to follow were not mine to enjoy. Especially since video games were Christmas Presents Only. But when Mega Man 6 hit, I knew it had to be mine. So I did what any enterprising young man would do when a new must-have title came out in his favorite franchise and the rental place didn't carry it: I begged for it.
And I didn't get it.
So instead, I earned it. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
Wait, how much was it, again?
Ah, that was the other wonderful thing about cartridge-based games. See, what most people don't know about those little rectangular gems is that they weren't all created equal. Different games had different amounts of on-board ROM, depending on the size of the game. Bigger game = more ROM required = more expensive game. If you were gaming like a Rockefeller, then some games even had their own built-in sound chips, which jacked the price up even higher.
Consistent price-points are a relatively new innovation in console gaming, partially due to the standardization of media.
For whatever reason, I had about $25 stashed away already. My allowance was set at a static $2 a week. Provided I kept the cat, India's, litter-box clean. And clean it was kept. Probably cleaner than it had ever been since we first got . In fact, India owed about 8 weeks of being able to duke comfortably to Nintendo Power's 12-page spread of Mega Man 6. That's some serious butterfly effect shit. See what I did there?
Speaking of which, my spelling got better. Yeah, anyone who thinks video games are bad for kids' grades has clearly never seen a kid whose video game purchasing power was riding on the success of his weekly spelling test. But with an additional $1 riding on a perfect score on that week's spelling test, academics never seemed more important. Hell, I owe the ability to spell "existence" to Mega Man 6.
Finally, the day came. I had accrued the necessary $55 MSRP to purchase the blue bomber's latest installment and begged my dad to take me to the Toys 'R Us to pick it up.
And whoa nelly... what a mistake.
The rule of Mega Man games: the less of a spaz the protagonist appears to be on the cover, the shittier the game will be.
Where to even fucking begin?
Ah, how about with the very first screen you see:
Why!? Why do your pubes look exactly like your beard?
So, the story is that there's a robot shaft-lubing tournament that needs Mega Man's immediate attention or some shit, sponsored by Mr. X that goes horribly awry. What?! You mean it's not Dr. Wily? Just like it wasn't Dr. Wily in Mega Man 4? Get that shit out of here. That "its not dr willy this time we promise o wait a sec sorry ya it is" shit was novel the first time, but pulling it again is just insulting our intelligence. Insulting our intelligence? That seems like a great segue into my next point!
wat
Jesus, what a train-wreck. I mean, Christ just look at Mega Man's face. He's like, get me out of this ass-fiesta.
Let's go down the list, shall we--in the suggested order of taking on the bosses, no less.
Flame Man: Yeah, an oil-themed stage complete with a turban-wearing boss master. Nice, Capcom. Real sweet.
Blizzard Man: It looks like you spray-painted Toad Man blue and slapped a couple skis on him and called it a day. Yeah, we all loved fighting Toad Man so much we were just dying to have him in another game. Hey, maybe we can fight Top Man again too?
Blizzard Man: It looks like you spray-painted Toad Man blue and slapped a couple skis on him and called it a day. Yeah, we all loved fighting Toad Man so much we were just dying to have him in another game. Hey, maybe we can fight Top Man again too?
Plant Man: "Hey I have an idea for a robot master!" "What's that?" "How about Skull Man again, but this time let's make him an even uglier sack of shit!" "Genius! Let's take lunch... say, what're you eating today?" "Dicks. You?" "Same."
Tomahawk Man: Thank you, Capcom, for somehow topping your previous atrocity against the Native Americans.
What, was naming your robot master Red Man too subtle?
Yamato Man: He shoots his spearhead at you and then has to go and get it. Thank you, Capcom, for finally combining adrenaline-pumping BC-era weapon technology with the excitement of picking things up off the ground!
Knight Man: Okay, I'm not going to lie, Knight Man is pretty cool. Good job with this one, Capcom. Except wait, Capcom didn't even fucking design him. Knight man was drawn and designed by a fucking Canadian who won a Nintendo Power contest. Holy shit, fucking Canada can make better robot masters than the company who invented the series?
Centaur Man: Ugh...
This is your fault, Capcom.
Wind Man: I liked him better the first time, when he was called Air Man. Although I can't hate on Capcom too much for this one, since it was also designed by a "winner" of the Nintendo Power contest.
What of the gameplay, though? Shitty robot masters can be forgiven if the challenge is solid.
Did you see that prissy little jetpack Little Red Robo Hood is sporting in the cover? Remember Rush, Mega Man's robo-dog friend from Mega Man 3 onward? That's him. Yeah, Mega Man disassembled his canine friends and wore him like a muffler. Any of you fur-is-murder pantywaists have your priorities in the wrong fucking place. This thing massacred any semblance of challenge this $55 disappointment simulator had left. You get that thing like three stages in. And suddenly, Mega Man's gimpy arms-out dork-hop puts the entire cast of NBA Jam to shame.
What's worse, the level design seems to be an afterthought. Remember those really tense moments in previous Mega Man games that were made all the more memorable thanks to ingenious enemy placement and painstaking attention to detail? The grueling endurance runs through Snake Man's stage, the environmental slogs through the unrelenting quicksand pits of Pharaoh Man's stage, fighting the torrential rain in Toad Man's stage, the breathless leaps of faith in the intermittent spells of pitch-blackness in Bright Man's stage? Hell, you could teach an entire course on level design with nothing more than Mega Man 2.
In Mega Man 6, level design is that thing you fly over in your jetpack.
Sure, you could just not use the jetpack and experience all the levels have to offer: very, very little. The environments are stale, the enemies are the same shit you've seen in every other installment, and the only semblance of creativity comes in the form of four of the bosses having "true" or "fake" versions in their stages. Beat the "true" one and you get one of four necessary parts to get this piece of heavy-duty ordinance:
Seriously, fuck you, Capcom
I'm not kidding.
That's your reward. That smirking cuntgobbler is your bonus for backtracking through the shitshow of level design Capcom decided to gurgle into the toilet bowl that was the Mega Man 6 cartridge.
Ladies and gentlemen, I beat this game in less than two days. I played it for a couple of hours the night I got it and finished it the next morning before breakfast. I would have felt less violated if my parents had taken my $55 to the bank, converted it to quarters, and taken turns shoving rolls of them up my rectum in front of my Sunday school class.
Months of scrimping and saving, working my ass to the bone to get those 20 words memorized, assailing my sinuses with the putridity of evergreen scent and cat shit, listening to the ice cream truck driving by, its siren song taunting me with promises of frosty delights unfulfilled. For what? A night and a morning with a phoned-in cakewalk of a game.
You know what this thing was? A formality. A final Mega Man installment on a dying console to cash in on the last of the NEStards who hadn't cried enough to get a shiny new SNES. It was a slap in the face of everyone who expected even a shred of the quality of Mega Man X--a game released on the SNES two months earlier--to be preserved in our aging console.
I fucking learned spelling for this game. This game made me study spelling. Spelling. You know what's awesome to learn about when you're nine years old? Dinosaurs. Volcanoes. Fighter Jets. And I sat in the corner grinding away to learn how to spell "excessive." I'll tell you what's excessive: the amount of shit Capcom put a nine-year-old through to buy their half-assed excuse for a Mega Man game. I wish I could unlearn all of that spelling shit straight out of existance.
Ah, that's better.
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Early Morning Commute Survival Guide for Foreigners (or: Train, Train 走って行け)
If there's one thing I learned from my previous employment experience, it's that you should never trust people from English-speaking countries that aren't America. If there's two things I learned, it's that you should never trust British or Australian people (America's dandruff, that is to say, Canadians, are iffy), and that the morning commute in Big City, Japan is the kind of land war MacArthur could only have conjured in his darkest nightmares. Like my previous post in this instructional series, this post seeks to inform the uninitiated on the finer points of daily life in Japan.
Congratulations on finding a job in Japan, and welcome to the Land of the Rising Sun! You've just stepped off the plane, ready to start life anew! Customs was a breeze, and you made sure to impress the officer with your mastery of the language. Domo arigatou gozaimasu, indeed!
Walking out into the concourse, you are struck again, for the first time, at the enormity of it all. As I believe Aladdin and Jasmine once described it: "an entirely new environment--luminescent, reflective, and awesome."
You are momentarily humbled at the whirl of new sights, sounds, people, and experiences. Making a quick note of things to see, foods to try, and places to go, you glide on adventurous feet through your new surroundings. Your journey begins today.
But first, it would be nice to get to your hotel and drop off your things. Then, unencumbered by the shackles of a life half-remembered in the excitement, you could fully partake of the wellspring of new experiences.
Arriving at the station, you quickly remember that your hotel is located in Nishi-Arai, and all at once, you lament your decision not to buy a Japanese phrasebook. Fortunately for you, virtually all major train and subway stations contain destinations and instructions printed in English, easily readable for the unwashed masses. Unfortunately for you, virtually all major train and subway stations contain destinations and instructions printed in English. Baffled, but only for a moment, you think back to that kickass blog you read the night before the trip to help you with this exact problem you're having.
Chuckling to yourself at the serendipity of it all, you remember that in order to find your station, all you need to do is say "西新井駅に行きたい。何線を使いますか。"
To which the nice station attendant will likely respond: "五番線です。"
In anticipation of your trip, please practice the question out loud now; repetition begets retention!
You cleared the first obstacle with the elegance of Asada Mao pirouetting a triple lutz (unlike her, you get the gold for your efforts). Emboldened by your triumph, you drag your luggage behind you to the platform and await your chariot, an entire day of green tea and onsens awaits--your reward for taking the red-eye.
And then, this happens:
Congratulations on finding a job in Japan, and welcome to the Land of the Rising Sun! You've just stepped off the plane, ready to start life anew! Customs was a breeze, and you made sure to impress the officer with your mastery of the language. Domo arigatou gozaimasu, indeed!
Walking out into the concourse, you are struck again, for the first time, at the enormity of it all. As I believe Aladdin and Jasmine once described it: "an entirely new environment--luminescent, reflective, and awesome."
You are momentarily humbled at the whirl of new sights, sounds, people, and experiences. Making a quick note of things to see, foods to try, and places to go, you glide on adventurous feet through your new surroundings. Your journey begins today.
But first, it would be nice to get to your hotel and drop off your things. Then, unencumbered by the shackles of a life half-remembered in the excitement, you could fully partake of the wellspring of new experiences.
Arriving at the station, you quickly remember that your hotel is located in Nishi-Arai, and all at once, you lament your decision not to buy a Japanese phrasebook. Fortunately for you, virtually all major train and subway stations contain destinations and instructions printed in English, easily readable for the unwashed masses. Unfortunately for you, virtually all major train and subway stations contain destinations and instructions printed in English. Baffled, but only for a moment, you think back to that kickass blog you read the night before the trip to help you with this exact problem you're having.
Chuckling to yourself at the serendipity of it all, you remember that in order to find your station, all you need to do is say "西新井駅に行きたい。何線を使いますか。"
To which the nice station attendant will likely respond: "五番線です。"
In anticipation of your trip, please practice the question out loud now; repetition begets retention!
You cleared the first obstacle with the elegance of Asada Mao pirouetting a triple lutz (unlike her, you get the gold for your efforts). Emboldened by your triumph, you drag your luggage behind you to the platform and await your chariot, an entire day of green tea and onsens awaits--your reward for taking the red-eye.
And then, this happens:
Pictured: a crowded subway train. Not pictured: human dignity
Your first instinct injects ice-water into your veins. Fear. But don't worry, they're not ninjas.
You enjoy a moment's relief before the zen-pond of your Western placidity is again disturbed by a barrage of Japanese cultural pebbles. Suddenly, your mind recalls Seinfeld: "who are these people?"
These are the men and women who build this country from the ground up. You are shoulder-to-shoulder with the Japanese industrial giants. They're like regular industrial giants, but they have to shop for condoms in the novelty section when traveling abroad. You may also notice a couple of white guys laying across the train seats face-down in a pool of their own vomit and recently accumulated yakuza debts. These are Australians.
Not to worry, though! As a foreigner with dozens of pounds of luggage, you will no doubt be recognized as a someone in a hurry, with places to go and people to see. Naturally, you should hop into the shortest line possible. While others pack tightly into a miserably hot or cold sardine can--depending on the season--relax knowing that you and your precious cargo will travel with elbow-room worthy of the emperor. Why, you ask?
I'm reasonably certain the Chinese characters translate to "really busy people and"
Behold the wide-eyed (well... figuratively) and gap-jawed stares as you board the ladies' car, defying all cultural expectations of Western ignorance. You are the man.
Take this opportunity to revel in something uniquely Japanese: the courtesy! Notice how all the passengers on this train seem to shrink and shy away from you, affording you and your lode ample space. Not that you need it, after all!
Westerners often ask how Japanese women stay so slim.
Actually, we ask a lot of dick questions
The answer is simple: a healthy lifestyle! And that starts with standing on the train. Sure, look around, there plenty of seats available! These seats, for instance!
Sit back and enjoy the punctuality of Japanese mass transit in style. Try to avoid the stares of the other commuters. They're not used to seeing a lot of foreigners. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. Take the time to unwind and ruminate on all you've already seen of Japan, and what you still hope to discover.
Like, why are Japanese people so short?
Thursday, March 4, 2010
All I needed to know, I learned in kindergarten (from a couple of sociopaths)
I make a lot of jokes and exaggerate a lot for comedic effect in my blog, but I swear everything that follows is true. Names have been changed to protect the Merican (from being sued).
Prior to moving to Osaka, I spent my time hunting the elusive foreigner-friendly job. Having never applied for a "real" job outside of Japan, I have absolutely no basis for comparison, but there are a great many tools for the ex-pat job-hunter in Japan. There are a couple websites to facilitate the search, though the sheer volume of competition for a single position (sometimes up to 300 applicants) can be a bit offputting.
I got a few interviews from a couple of different places, but there was one that captured my attention as an educator: an interview with an international preschool/kindergarten. Finally! The chance to follow my calling and do something I've always wanted to do: make money.
The interview was held at the school. I showed up at the prescribed date and time just behind some Australian dude. We had a chance to chat prior to the interview and he told me that he, like myself, had just gotten married. And, unlike mine, his wife was pregnant. It became quite clear to me that a lot was riding on this interview for both of us, and it was my duty to make sure that his child would be born in a barn.
While waiting for the interview to start, the other interviewee and I sat back and watched a lesson being taught by an Australian dude named "Keith." The other foreign teacher at the school, "Derrick," walked by and gave us interviewees the slightest recognition in the form of a passing "hello."
The kids were smart. Really smart. As in, learning-math-in-a-second-language smart. And I'm not saying that just because they're Japanese. These kids seemed to have a hard work ethic and seemed to, even at three years of age, have an almost preternatural understanding of math. Okay, yeah, they were Japanese. But they were also really, really cute and sweet. Unlike the little hellbastards I had been teaching at my last job, these kids seemed to actually want to be there and learn something. It was almost like they had loving parents that actually cared about them or something.
Then I remembered that I wasn't in downtown Tokyo and realized that actually, yes, that was the case.
The interview was short. Very short, actually. If I were a smarter person, I probably would have noticed that it was too short. It was almost as if they just picked the first guy they interviewed...
Days later, I got the call telling me that I got the job.
"Finally!" I thought to myself. "My hard work and sacrifice has paid off and I got exactly what I wanted: a steady source of income, a fun job, and some guy I just met's newborn is going to be drinking puddle water instead of baby formula!"
And then, the first day came.
The school was at the other end of a two hour commute, meaning I had to get up at 6AM every morning and be in bed by 11:30PM every night. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make, and rarely have I ever been able to say that. Christ, I couldn't get up at 10AM for doctor's visits prior to surgery on my toe. I was barely able to peel the covers off at 9AM to go pick up my wife's engagement ring, and made damn sure she thanked me for it afterward, and on many occasions since. But for these kids, I was willing to do it.
Like most, these kids were shy in front of their new teacher. Fortunately, Keith was still going to be around for the next week-and-a-half, and I was just going to be observing for the first couple of days. Enough time to get a handle on things and get to know the kids before the passing of the dry-erase marker. Everything seemed to be going well during morning playtime until...
"Pass me the ball Hayato, you fucking faggot."
Um... that was Derrick. And did he just call a two-year-old a "fucking faggot?" I dismissed it as the senior foreign teacher having a bad morning until Keith joined us.
"Morning, you little shits. So Merican, this is Sayako. She can be a real cunt sometimes. He's Ikuto, but we call him Ikutard because he's a bit of a fucking idiot. That's Ryu over there. That's Mari, she's always fucking drunk. Here, check this out: Mari, come over here!"
A four-year-old girl ambled toward us, wide-eyed and looking like a pixie with a smirk permanently etched across her petite face, staring up at her teacher.
"How many beers did you have last night?" Keith said, brandishing a shit-eating grin.
"Um..."
"How many beers did you drink?"
"Five."
"And how many shots did you take?"
"Five."
"Alright, get lost."
I watched in silent horror as these kids as young as 18 months endured this withering volley of verbal abuse until the first lesson. And through the first lesson. And through lunch.
"Keith-teacher? I need to go to the bathroom." said Maki, one of Keith's students.
Keith didn't miss a beat before snapping back at her. "Are you going tell me every tiny detail of your life? Are you breathing right now? Hm? Go to the bathroom."
The boss' mother was an assistant at school, and not much better. Other than chain-smoking around the children, she changed diapers, helped feed the youngest kids, and screamed at them for not eating quickly enough. I later learned that she also locked kids in the bathroom and turned off the lights when they behaved "badly."
Again, let me restate that these were the sweetest, nicest, smartest kids I've ever had the pleasure of working in my fifteen years of teaching both professionally and as a volunteer both in the US and Japan.
"Can I get a tissue?" said my new favorite kid, Megumi.
"No, but you can shut up" said Derrick instinctively.
That one stung. Megumi looked up at her teacher, tiny lips trembling and sunk in front of him, shoulders down. English wasn't her first language, but she had enough exposure to the language to speak it quite well for a three-year-old. She knew what that meant. Derrick had a good laugh as he related his misfortune of having a kid understand his latest verbal barrage to Keith a few minutes later.
There's no need to list absolutely everything that happened. Simply stating that a hailstorm of silent rage bombarded the kids throughout the day, often with either of the two foreign teachers antagonizing the kids to the verge of tears... or straight into them. The most outstanding example was when, during the after-school playtime, was running a game of Uno. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and the after-school games had been running smoothly. Right up until Hayato won.
"You lose, Hayato," said Keith.
Hayato looked up at Keith, bewildered.
"You didn't say 'uno,' that means you lose."
"But..."
"Did you say Uno? No, you didn't. You lose," said Keith, continuing an entirely uncalled-for tirade.
Confusion turned to a brief flash of anger and then defeat as tears began to well up in the child's eyes as he slumped forward, clutching his face in his tiny quaking hands.
"Okay, okay, fine. You win. You win, Hayato! Okay? Why are you acting like such a baby? You win. Even though everyone I've ever played with knows you lose if you don't say 'uno.'"
Crisis averted. And so ended day one.
Day two was more of the same. Verbal and emotional attacks on fragile kids that made the mother in "A Child Called It" look like Maude Flanders. It was difficult keeping my cool Keith and Derrick told tales of parents threatening to pull their kids from the school and of the boss cutting pay for the foreign teachers and telling them that the school was in financial trouble the day before buying a 32" plasma TV for his mom to watch all day in the teacher's lounge.
All while a three-year-old girl worked on a puzzle right in front of us. After her mom picked her up, I turned to Keith.
"Mark my words, one of these days, one of those kids is going to say 'fuck' and you're going to have to answer for it," I said, half-jokingly.
"Nah," said Keith. "They seem to know what it means, but they don't ever repeat it. It's like they know it's bad and they shouldn't say it."
Great, I thought. A bunch of kindergartners have more sense than my co-workers.
It would have been an amazing comedic callback if it were actually funny when Kanako, a four-year-old girl said "faggot" during a game of memory later that day.
But the last straw came at the very end of the second day, as Derrick and I sat in the kids room during after-school playtime. Ryu darted out of a child-sized plastic playhouse to grab something that Derrick had stolen from him and dropped on the ground. As Ryu turned to crawl back into the playhouse, he smacked his noggin against the door-frame.
I had never heard Derrick laugh so hard.
Keith came into the room a few seconds later and I couldn't believe what he asked.
"What happened? Did he hurt himself?"
Derrick nodded, still chuckling a bit, and Keith joined him.
Clearly, this was not the first time this happened.
I went home that night defeated, hurt, and exhausted.. My dance card was filled with tending to crying children after these two dicks fed off of each other's misanthropy. I had spent the entirety of day two running damage control as these two assholes ran wild like wolves in a chicken coop.
Or like sociopaths in a kindergarten.
I went home that night and spilled the story to my wife and father-in-law. They both said I should quit, but I thought that, since I had just another four or five months until graduate school started in the States, I could hang in there for that long. By the next morning, I had had a change of heart.
Waking up again at 6AM, I awoke and trudged downstairs. I brushed my teeth and mulled over the events of the past 48 hours.
It was altogether too much.
Terrible pay, long commute, constant verbal and emotional abuse to the children, six-day weeks, and barely any time left in the day to spend with my wife. It didn't add up. I couldn't do this for four more months. I couldn't do it for another day. As I walked to the station, I stopped and considered if this is really a system I wanted any part of. They weren't willing to clean up their act when parents started complaining, so the definitely wouldn't listen to some guy who had just been there 2 days.
I hovered in indecision in the cold morning air just a second longer before, turning my back sharply from the station, I walked back home and sent my letter of resignation.
I'm really sorry that this installment wasn't funny. In fact, it was a huge downer. If anyone read through all that, I'm sure you're probably waiting for the punchline. Unfortunately, for this story, there is none. But for your grit and determination displayed in hanging in there to the end, here's a picture of Japanese Rob Schneider.
Prior to moving to Osaka, I spent my time hunting the elusive foreigner-friendly job. Having never applied for a "real" job outside of Japan, I have absolutely no basis for comparison, but there are a great many tools for the ex-pat job-hunter in Japan. There are a couple websites to facilitate the search, though the sheer volume of competition for a single position (sometimes up to 300 applicants) can be a bit offputting.
I got a few interviews from a couple of different places, but there was one that captured my attention as an educator: an interview with an international preschool/kindergarten. Finally! The chance to follow my calling and do something I've always wanted to do: make money.
The interview was held at the school. I showed up at the prescribed date and time just behind some Australian dude. We had a chance to chat prior to the interview and he told me that he, like myself, had just gotten married. And, unlike mine, his wife was pregnant. It became quite clear to me that a lot was riding on this interview for both of us, and it was my duty to make sure that his child would be born in a barn.
While waiting for the interview to start, the other interviewee and I sat back and watched a lesson being taught by an Australian dude named "Keith." The other foreign teacher at the school, "Derrick," walked by and gave us interviewees the slightest recognition in the form of a passing "hello."
The kids were smart. Really smart. As in, learning-math-in-a-second-language smart. And I'm not saying that just because they're Japanese. These kids seemed to have a hard work ethic and seemed to, even at three years of age, have an almost preternatural understanding of math. Okay, yeah, they were Japanese. But they were also really, really cute and sweet. Unlike the little hellbastards I had been teaching at my last job, these kids seemed to actually want to be there and learn something. It was almost like they had loving parents that actually cared about them or something.
Then I remembered that I wasn't in downtown Tokyo and realized that actually, yes, that was the case.
The interview was short. Very short, actually. If I were a smarter person, I probably would have noticed that it was too short. It was almost as if they just picked the first guy they interviewed...
Days later, I got the call telling me that I got the job.
"Finally!" I thought to myself. "My hard work and sacrifice has paid off and I got exactly what I wanted: a steady source of income, a fun job, and some guy I just met's newborn is going to be drinking puddle water instead of baby formula!"
And then, the first day came.
The school was at the other end of a two hour commute, meaning I had to get up at 6AM every morning and be in bed by 11:30PM every night. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make, and rarely have I ever been able to say that. Christ, I couldn't get up at 10AM for doctor's visits prior to surgery on my toe. I was barely able to peel the covers off at 9AM to go pick up my wife's engagement ring, and made damn sure she thanked me for it afterward, and on many occasions since. But for these kids, I was willing to do it.
Like most, these kids were shy in front of their new teacher. Fortunately, Keith was still going to be around for the next week-and-a-half, and I was just going to be observing for the first couple of days. Enough time to get a handle on things and get to know the kids before the passing of the dry-erase marker. Everything seemed to be going well during morning playtime until...
"Pass me the ball Hayato, you fucking faggot."
Um... that was Derrick. And did he just call a two-year-old a "fucking faggot?" I dismissed it as the senior foreign teacher having a bad morning until Keith joined us.
"Morning, you little shits. So Merican, this is Sayako. She can be a real cunt sometimes. He's Ikuto, but we call him Ikutard because he's a bit of a fucking idiot. That's Ryu over there. That's Mari, she's always fucking drunk. Here, check this out: Mari, come over here!"
A four-year-old girl ambled toward us, wide-eyed and looking like a pixie with a smirk permanently etched across her petite face, staring up at her teacher.
"How many beers did you have last night?" Keith said, brandishing a shit-eating grin.
"Um..."
"How many beers did you drink?"
"Five."
"And how many shots did you take?"
"Five."
"Alright, get lost."
I watched in silent horror as these kids as young as 18 months endured this withering volley of verbal abuse until the first lesson. And through the first lesson. And through lunch.
"Keith-teacher? I need to go to the bathroom." said Maki, one of Keith's students.
Keith didn't miss a beat before snapping back at her. "Are you going tell me every tiny detail of your life? Are you breathing right now? Hm? Go to the bathroom."
The boss' mother was an assistant at school, and not much better. Other than chain-smoking around the children, she changed diapers, helped feed the youngest kids, and screamed at them for not eating quickly enough. I later learned that she also locked kids in the bathroom and turned off the lights when they behaved "badly."
Again, let me restate that these were the sweetest, nicest, smartest kids I've ever had the pleasure of working in my fifteen years of teaching both professionally and as a volunteer both in the US and Japan.
"Can I get a tissue?" said my new favorite kid, Megumi.
"No, but you can shut up" said Derrick instinctively.
That one stung. Megumi looked up at her teacher, tiny lips trembling and sunk in front of him, shoulders down. English wasn't her first language, but she had enough exposure to the language to speak it quite well for a three-year-old. She knew what that meant. Derrick had a good laugh as he related his misfortune of having a kid understand his latest verbal barrage to Keith a few minutes later.
There's no need to list absolutely everything that happened. Simply stating that a hailstorm of silent rage bombarded the kids throughout the day, often with either of the two foreign teachers antagonizing the kids to the verge of tears... or straight into them. The most outstanding example was when, during the after-school playtime, was running a game of Uno. Everyone seemed to be having a good time and the after-school games had been running smoothly. Right up until Hayato won.
"You lose, Hayato," said Keith.
Hayato looked up at Keith, bewildered.
"You didn't say 'uno,' that means you lose."
"But..."
"Did you say Uno? No, you didn't. You lose," said Keith, continuing an entirely uncalled-for tirade.
Confusion turned to a brief flash of anger and then defeat as tears began to well up in the child's eyes as he slumped forward, clutching his face in his tiny quaking hands.
"Okay, okay, fine. You win. You win, Hayato! Okay? Why are you acting like such a baby? You win. Even though everyone I've ever played with knows you lose if you don't say 'uno.'"
Crisis averted. And so ended day one.
Day two was more of the same. Verbal and emotional attacks on fragile kids that made the mother in "A Child Called It" look like Maude Flanders. It was difficult keeping my cool Keith and Derrick told tales of parents threatening to pull their kids from the school and of the boss cutting pay for the foreign teachers and telling them that the school was in financial trouble the day before buying a 32" plasma TV for his mom to watch all day in the teacher's lounge.
All while a three-year-old girl worked on a puzzle right in front of us. After her mom picked her up, I turned to Keith.
"Mark my words, one of these days, one of those kids is going to say 'fuck' and you're going to have to answer for it," I said, half-jokingly.
"Nah," said Keith. "They seem to know what it means, but they don't ever repeat it. It's like they know it's bad and they shouldn't say it."
Great, I thought. A bunch of kindergartners have more sense than my co-workers.
It would have been an amazing comedic callback if it were actually funny when Kanako, a four-year-old girl said "faggot" during a game of memory later that day.
But the last straw came at the very end of the second day, as Derrick and I sat in the kids room during after-school playtime. Ryu darted out of a child-sized plastic playhouse to grab something that Derrick had stolen from him and dropped on the ground. As Ryu turned to crawl back into the playhouse, he smacked his noggin against the door-frame.
I had never heard Derrick laugh so hard.
Keith came into the room a few seconds later and I couldn't believe what he asked.
"What happened? Did he hurt himself?"
Derrick nodded, still chuckling a bit, and Keith joined him.
Clearly, this was not the first time this happened.
I went home that night defeated, hurt, and exhausted.. My dance card was filled with tending to crying children after these two dicks fed off of each other's misanthropy. I had spent the entirety of day two running damage control as these two assholes ran wild like wolves in a chicken coop.
Or like sociopaths in a kindergarten.
I went home that night and spilled the story to my wife and father-in-law. They both said I should quit, but I thought that, since I had just another four or five months until graduate school started in the States, I could hang in there for that long. By the next morning, I had had a change of heart.
Waking up again at 6AM, I awoke and trudged downstairs. I brushed my teeth and mulled over the events of the past 48 hours.
It was altogether too much.
Terrible pay, long commute, constant verbal and emotional abuse to the children, six-day weeks, and barely any time left in the day to spend with my wife. It didn't add up. I couldn't do this for four more months. I couldn't do it for another day. As I walked to the station, I stopped and considered if this is really a system I wanted any part of. They weren't willing to clean up their act when parents started complaining, so the definitely wouldn't listen to some guy who had just been there 2 days.
I hovered in indecision in the cold morning air just a second longer before, turning my back sharply from the station, I walked back home and sent my letter of resignation.
I'm really sorry that this installment wasn't funny. In fact, it was a huge downer. If anyone read through all that, I'm sure you're probably waiting for the punchline. Unfortunately, for this story, there is none. But for your grit and determination displayed in hanging in there to the end, here's a picture of Japanese Rob Schneider.
Japanese Rob Schneider says: "I'm only marginally more funny than child abuse!"
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
I (don't) like to move it move it
I moved to Osaka last weekend.
Doing so was a labor of love born of a bitter dispassion for everything the eikaiwa circuit still offered (nothing) and a desire to get away for a fresh start. That, and there's only so long one can force themselves to live under the world's only tap-dancing sumo wrestler.
Great act, though.
Life in transition is a difficult one, as is coming to terms with the fact that all of one's worldly possessions can fit in five cardboard boxes with ample room left over for the missus' delicates (protip: stockings and boxers make a great substitute for bubble wrap in a pinch).
The first hurdle of the move was getting everything packed up and ready for the movers, and holy shit, let me tell you something: non-union employees in Japan haul fucking ass to get the job done. Seriously. From ringing the doorbell to the moving truck turning down the road and vanishing from sight, the whole packing and moving job took a total of 40 minutes. We took the cheap two-week delivery option and until yesterday when we finally got our stuff back I was seriously starting to think we got robbed. These guys were good.
But, rather than doing what experts generally agree sane people do, the nice possible burglars came and took our boxed stuff away almost a full week before our departure. Suddenly we had a roof over our heads and running water, but nothing else. It was like being bizarro-homeless. There we sat in a mostly-empty apartment, save for a couple of boxes of personal effects yet to be mailed to the US. And no clean underwear. I'm not fucking joking. We were seriously packing up a coffee maker or something and ran out of bubble wrap and tissue paper and thought "oh, hey, Merican, why not just pack your boxers in here? They're soft and spunk mostly comes out in the wash anyway, it'll be perfect!"
It was perfect. The coffee maker arrived perfectly intact yesterday. And I spent nearly two weeks feeling like the disgusting pig I am, gasping big, womanly sobs as I tried to scrub the lingering residue of swamp-ass off of me every night in the shower.
The final preparation came last Saturday, when, running on approximately zero hours and zero minutes of sleep, we put the last of the clothes and hot sauce into our remaining suitcases, bags, backpacks, and any other container we could carry and brought them with us in a courageous re-enactment of the Bataan Death March to the bus terminal some 40 minutes away.
If you've ever been to Japan, you know that, for some Japanese people, being in the same room or train car as a foreigner is kind of oogy. That's cool. I came to terms with that a long, long time ago. A homogeneous society on an island nation, with perhaps not the happiest collective racial memory of guys who look like me... I get it. I'm sensitive to that fact, and with a little bit of awareness, developed skin thick enough that the staring no longer gets to me.
But when the train doors opened at my station and I prepared to board, dragging two suitcases behind me, a bag slung over one arm and a backpack on my shoulder... well, Biblical lepers were regarded with less disdain. Seriously, it was like the '89 cootie outbreak in Ms. Wood's class all over again.
That night, as we relinquished our burdens to the bus station staff and clambered aboard, we sighed contentedly, knowing that, for a while at least, the work was done. We found our seats and settled in, nestling knee-deep in bags of going-away presents and summer clothes.
It was a moment of transcendence. Our earthly burdens suddenly lifted, and, reclining back in our seats, we closed our eyes and locked fingers. United in our struggles and in our moments of victory, we prepared for our well-earned respite.
Or she did, anyway. Some dumb motherfucker kept kicking my seat all night.
(Next: Everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten... from a couple of sociopaths)
Doing so was a labor of love born of a bitter dispassion for everything the eikaiwa circuit still offered (nothing) and a desire to get away for a fresh start. That, and there's only so long one can force themselves to live under the world's only tap-dancing sumo wrestler.
Great act, though.
Life in transition is a difficult one, as is coming to terms with the fact that all of one's worldly possessions can fit in five cardboard boxes with ample room left over for the missus' delicates (protip: stockings and boxers make a great substitute for bubble wrap in a pinch).
The first hurdle of the move was getting everything packed up and ready for the movers, and holy shit, let me tell you something: non-union employees in Japan haul fucking ass to get the job done. Seriously. From ringing the doorbell to the moving truck turning down the road and vanishing from sight, the whole packing and moving job took a total of 40 minutes. We took the cheap two-week delivery option and until yesterday when we finally got our stuff back I was seriously starting to think we got robbed. These guys were good.
But, rather than doing what experts generally agree sane people do, the nice possible burglars came and took our boxed stuff away almost a full week before our departure. Suddenly we had a roof over our heads and running water, but nothing else. It was like being bizarro-homeless. There we sat in a mostly-empty apartment, save for a couple of boxes of personal effects yet to be mailed to the US. And no clean underwear. I'm not fucking joking. We were seriously packing up a coffee maker or something and ran out of bubble wrap and tissue paper and thought "oh, hey, Merican, why not just pack your boxers in here? They're soft and spunk mostly comes out in the wash anyway, it'll be perfect!"
It was perfect. The coffee maker arrived perfectly intact yesterday. And I spent nearly two weeks feeling like the disgusting pig I am, gasping big, womanly sobs as I tried to scrub the lingering residue of swamp-ass off of me every night in the shower.
The final preparation came last Saturday, when, running on approximately zero hours and zero minutes of sleep, we put the last of the clothes and hot sauce into our remaining suitcases, bags, backpacks, and any other container we could carry and brought them with us in a courageous re-enactment of the Bataan Death March to the bus terminal some 40 minutes away.
If you've ever been to Japan, you know that, for some Japanese people, being in the same room or train car as a foreigner is kind of oogy. That's cool. I came to terms with that a long, long time ago. A homogeneous society on an island nation, with perhaps not the happiest collective racial memory of guys who look like me... I get it. I'm sensitive to that fact, and with a little bit of awareness, developed skin thick enough that the staring no longer gets to me.
But when the train doors opened at my station and I prepared to board, dragging two suitcases behind me, a bag slung over one arm and a backpack on my shoulder... well, Biblical lepers were regarded with less disdain. Seriously, it was like the '89 cootie outbreak in Ms. Wood's class all over again.
That night, as we relinquished our burdens to the bus station staff and clambered aboard, we sighed contentedly, knowing that, for a while at least, the work was done. We found our seats and settled in, nestling knee-deep in bags of going-away presents and summer clothes.
It was a moment of transcendence. Our earthly burdens suddenly lifted, and, reclining back in our seats, we closed our eyes and locked fingers. United in our struggles and in our moments of victory, we prepared for our well-earned respite.
Or she did, anyway. Some dumb motherfucker kept kicking my seat all night.
(Next: Everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten... from a couple of sociopaths)
Updates incoming!
Apologies for the lateness between posts. I recently moved from Tokyo to Osaka, and things have been absolutely insane. Literally.
As in, I have a great story to tell about the world's worst child care center run by viciously bi-polar twenty-somethings and a criminally negligent chain-smoker with a sarlacc between her legs. Get ready for that one sometime in the next 48 hours, along with a trip report on the ups, downs, and withdrawal symptoms of moving in the 'Pan.
Stay tuned!
As in, I have a great story to tell about the world's worst child care center run by viciously bi-polar twenty-somethings and a criminally negligent chain-smoker with a sarlacc between her legs. Get ready for that one sometime in the next 48 hours, along with a trip report on the ups, downs, and withdrawal symptoms of moving in the 'Pan.
Stay tuned!
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