I just participated in what, I think, was a teacher evaluation. It was of a Sensei I’ll call Gonzo Sensei (because her name sounds a lot like Gonzo) who I like very much. She is a very fluent speaker of English and has a hint of an Arkansas/English accent, but probably the best pronunciation and vocabulary in the school. The other English teachers called this a ‘model lesson’, but when I asked K Sensei what we were doing she said ‘watching so we can talk about it later’. I’m not sure if that talk with be positive or negative, but as it will be held in Japanese I will probably never know.
What happened was this: all of the English teachers trooped into the room and sat on tiny first-grader chairs in the back of the classroom with their backs to a chalkboard. The class had forty Japanese students. The lesson was titled ‘Styles of Communication’ and they were translating an article (from English to Japanese) that basically tried to explain why Americans have a hard time knowing what Japanese people mean. It explains that silence is highly valued in Japan, and from birth mothers set up a pattern of silent, intuitive communication with their children. On the other hand, Americans can’t stop talking. We point out peole’s faults, critique them in public, express our wishes and needs. The Japanese have a complicated system of pauses and soft grunts that cover the gamit of all these emotions. No one directly says ‘I don’t like your skirt.’ Instead they make a comment like ‘what an interesting choice of dress’ and based on their tone of voice, body language, and the other meanings of the word ‘interesting’ derived from the Chinese character, the listener is supposed to figure out never to wear the skirt again. I, on the other hand, smile dumbly and say, ‘why thank you’. You can see why when east meets west some things really does get lost in the translation.
We were in the middle of the article, when Gonzo Sensei read the sentence: ‘[this] can cause tremendous problems for Americans, who discover to their frustration that ‘yes’ often means ‘no,’ but cannot figure out when.‘ Larin and I were nodding along, elbowing each other like students when Gonzo Sensei asked, ‘Kendra Sensei, have you ever had an experience with this?’ A couple thoughts sprang to mind. I had asked, only a few days before, if my sister, Jazlyn, could come to English Camp in the spring (a 2-day camp for first-year English students) if she decides to visit Japan. The response I got was pretty typical. The two teachers I asked both said ‘yes’ right away, but then by the end of the conversation that enthusiastic response had petered down to ‘most likely’ and now, a few days later, I haven’t heard so much as a peep. Part of me wants to take that as a good sign, but I know these tricky Japanese and I’m afraid that a few days before camp, when my sister is already in Japan, they will pull me aside and say ‘Kendra Sensei, would it be all right if your sister did not come?’ and I can’t say ‘all right? of course it will not be all right! She’s already in Japan for crying out loud.’ The correct response will be, ‘okay, but…’ and then I subtly agree, but lay out my reasons with a lot of ‘if it’s okay’ and ‘excuse the inconvenience’.
Before we even came to Japan I had a small confusion over what apartment Johnathan and I were to share. We both got emails from our schools saying ‘You will be pleased to know that you and your wife/husband can life together in our apartment.’ We were quite pleased to have a choice, and once we made it my supervisor sent me a few emails starting with ‘if it’s not too inconvenient can you please move into the apartment our school has for you?’ Could you please meant: you darn well better. It took 36 hours of phone calls from the program coordinator’s office to my school principal to the vice-principal to my supervisor and back up through the line to me, waiting in Montana, for it to be worked out.
But here is the example I gave in class. A few weeks ago, while the students were practicing for Sports Day (a grand track meet/culture festival combination) I brought out a bag of dried mango to have as a snack while we watched the students run 20-person three-legged races. As is expected I offered pieces to everyone around me, saying, politely, dozo (please, take some). Three teachers took a piece and all of them made mmmmmm…noises as we savored the sweet flavor. The New Zealand exchange student, Nick, was sitting next to me, and between the two of us we finished off my bag. He’s a seventeen year-old-boy made to go from 7am to 1pm without eating, and I could see the lust in his eyes when I brought out the snack. Then T Sensei, the head of the English teachers, came to sit next to me. I offered him my last piece. Although it is basically an insult to refuse food offered to you he shook his head no. Okay, I said, happy to have the last piece to myself. Or, more likely, I would have given it to Nick, who couldn’t have wanted it more if it had had pictures of naked ladies on it.
‘I regret to tell you,’ T Sensei said, ‘That you should not eat while the students are practicing.’
I looked behind me at the row of teachers trying to quickly swallow their mango pieces. One teacher shoved it in his mouth and, I guess, swallowed it whole. The rest of them looked at the ground or at the students sweating, trying to do traditional dances to a taiko drum in ninety-degree weather. None of them looked at me.
‘Why?’ I asked.
He held up a hand in the air, gesturing toward the students. ‘If they cannot eat then we should not. They are to do what we do.’
I slid my little plastic bag into my pocket and sunk down in my chair.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘no one told me.’ I wanted to point an accusatory finger at the row of teachers behind me. They were like the masterminds of a prank who then let their younger brother take the heat.
I thought I was being polite, offering it to the teachers around me, although I realize now they may have been trying to tell me (in their intuitive, subtle, Japanese way) through their body language that I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Then I went ahead and played the part of the goofy, smiling, annoyingly friendly American who keeps insisting ‘No, really, you must socially disgrace yourself. Please, let me help you.’
I finished my story in class and the students whipped their heads around to the front. ‘That was an interesting example,’ Gonzo Sensei said. ‘Thank you.’
It was only after class, when T Sensei tracked me down in the hallway on my way to get lunch that I realized singling him out in my example may have been another dried fruit-like debacle.
To my surprise he said, ‘Thank you for giving the example.’
‘Was it okay?’ I asked.
He looked at the floor for awhile and smiled at my feet. I curled my toes. ‘Yes,’ he said, finally.
‘I meant it as a compliment,’ I rushed on, in the non-silent way I learned to express my feelings, ‘I appreciate it when you tell me these things,’ I finished lamely. T Sensei smiled at me.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘If it’s not too inconvenient…do you have a moment?’
‘Of course,’ I said. I prepared myself for effusive compliements or a subtle lesson on Japanese etiquette.
Instead, just like an American, T Sensei said, ‘You embarassed me,’ turned his back and walked back to the teacher’s room.
‘Welcome to my world, T Sensei,’ I said to myself.
The Kyushu Chronicles 