First Offense

I didn't think it would happen, but I have been seriously offended/hurt by the culturally influenced actions of Japanese people. It's not a big deal, really, but it did hurt.

There's an English recitation contest coming up in late October for the middle school students. My understanding is that, as the neighborhood native English speaker, I'm supposed to help the students practice for it. No problem. As long as I know when they're going to practice.

This is where the offended part comes in. The two English teachers met with the students and discussed with each other when they should practice. They decided on after school and during recess. They then discussed whether or not to tell me about the practice. There's a Japanese word that approximately means "shy in regards to imposing on someone's time". Basically, they chose not to tell me about the practice because they thought I would be too busy to help.

AAAAAAHRRRRGH!@)(UTWHih  Let me just say, that I am definitely not too busy. Maybe they've failed to notice my habit of doing origami at school, a general result of boredom from not knowing what to do. Both teachers are always so busy, and it's my job to help them, but even when I ask them, they only give me small pieces of information about what they're doing or what I can help with. Because I don't speak Japanese yet, I'm almost entirely dependent on what they tell me.

Secondly, I was really looking forward to helping the students with the speech contest. I had been thinking of verbal warm-ups, pronunciation quirks, and general fun ways to make speaking English a little more entertaining. I even asked Yanase sensei when they would be practicing, and only managed to get unintelligible non-answers from her.

So for them to deliberately not tell me when practice would be really hurt me. It's basically the one project/activity where I have the highest authority. I even feel a little bit possessive about this. I want the kids to do well and have fun while they do it. And to find out that the teachers weren't even going to give me the chance to help out.... OMFG!!!! It hurts! It feels like they're preventing me from doing a good job, preventing me from doing something that I want to do and that I'm supposed to do. At least give me a chance! I felt so helpless and useless and offended and unnecessary and unwanted.

How did I find out about all of this? I accidentally walked in on one of the practice sessions. That felt like betrayal. Like a weird English class love affair. It was during recess, too. I could've been told about this! I don't have anything to do during recess (and I refuse to sit in the office - that's boring)!

This whole incident made me really sad. It's the first time I've felt so sharply the effects of not speaking the language. It hit home how truly helpless I am. Maybe I just need to get up in people's faces a little more, but that's not really me nor is it very Japanese. I think for now I will settle with making it abundantly clear to the teachers how I feel about this.