Day Four: High School Part One

Public speaking has become the bane of my existence.

Especially public speaking in another language.

Today I went to school and introduced myself to the entire staff of the high school using a memorized paragraph in Japanese. Then, I took the same paragraph and introduced myself to my new class, 1-1. I found that uttering the final line and bowing gave the impression that my speech was done, and they would clap without the prompting sometimes necessary in presentations back home. (Ex: “Sooo…yeah.” “The end.” “Um. I’m done.” And the famous, *Walks back to seat* “Oh, that’s it”.)

At first, everyone seemed a little wary of me, but they got over it and soon I had a cluster of girls around my desk. The boys kept to themselves more, but one gave me a Kit Kat as a welcome. He came by himself, although I’m pretty sure that wasn't his original intent. I watched as he walked slowly up to me with a couple of friends, but as he got closer, they began to fall back and edge their way back to the windows. It was kind of funny when he turned around, realized his friends weren't with him, and visibly panicked, but it was too late to turn back by that point. At any rate, it was very sweet of him.

The first class of the day was math. I opened my notebook and decided to just copy whatever was written on the board and hope for the best. The teacher came in, the lesson began, and I put my plan into action. Everything was running smoothly until the teacher gave us questions to do ourselves. I wrote them down with everyone else and then just stared at them. That was roughly when I felt the teacher come up in front of me and look down at what I was doing. Not knowing what else to do, I winged it, guessing at what the numbers and signs would be based off of his previous examples. I call this: “Serina’s System- For When You Just Don’t Know What Else To Do”. When I was done, I looked up at him. He nodded and smiled in approval, probably thinking what a brilliant foreign student I was. He even had me read out my answer to the class. Sadly, this impression likely didn't last long. The next set of questions didn't work with my system, and I just stared blankly when he tried to explain it to me. After all, he was explaining in Japanese, and the problem was quite literally that he was speaking in a foreign language. Eventually, he gave up.

Fun facts about Japanese High Schools: They have ten minute breaks between every class, and every one of those classes is only fifty minutes. The teachers move around for the most part (unless P.E. or music), not the students. There are six classes every day. On an unrelated note, the desks have hooks on the side for your bag. I feel this is very handy.

This brings me to the next class I had: Music. And by music, they mean singing. This was a very fun class, mostly because everyone actually sang. We moved classrooms for this one, to a room with a piano. The first few songs were in Japanese, so I just hummed along occasionally singing a word or two. The next couple of songs were English songs, and English songs I knew well at that (White Christmas and Edelweiss). The teacher had me read out the lyrics for the class. Each time, they clapped when I was done. I've noticed that there seems to be a lot of clapping involved in school.

Following Music, I had Biology. Having been given no prior instructions, I vowed to just copy whatever was written on the board. This proved difficult, as everything was obviously written in Japanese. If it had been English, it probably wouldn't have taken that long, but Japanese took forever. My system worked as follows: Okay, line, line, loopy-thing, and circle. Number one and number two, line over those, little dash-thing. Is that another dash or just a dot of chalk? Better write it down just in case. Oi! Boy in front of me! Trying to board-copy here!
At some point during this mental rant, I realized I really needed to pee. That was when my thoughts began to follow a pattern more like this: No! Don’t write another sentence! Geez, I really need to pee. I wonder if I have to ask in Japanese. Move your head, boy-in-front-of-me! I haven’t decided if I’m going to pee yet, I still need to see the board! Okay, line, dash, dash, t-shape. Does that look like water to you? Was the bathroom near this classroom? I can’t remember. Oh look, boy-in-front-of-me looks like his head is missing. No, focus. Line, circle, thing that looks like a b…

The final class before lunch was English. I’d been anticipating an easy time, but what ended up happening was I was called up to the front of the room and requested to answer questions from the class. Even though this is something I would usually loathe, most of my focus was on not peeing myself as I stood before everyone. And it’s hard to concentrate when you’re worried that the slightest movement will dislodge the liquid waste inside you. I probably stood there answering questions for nearly twenty minutes before the teacher let me go back to my seat and the class was instructed to read the book.

Lunch came after English. Earlier, one of the girls had asked if I would eat lunch with them, and I’d said yes, so the majority of the girls in the class pushed the desks into a rough circle shape and we all sat down. After I ate, I answered more questions from the other girls. They’d discovered that a decent form of communication was using a translator on their phones and reading or showing the questions to me. Often, the translations came through weird and I’d still only have a loose idea of what they were asking, but I made it work. Some of the questions included:

“How tall are you?” How the heck should I know? Five foot eight or something.

“What is your favorite food?” I hadn't really thought about it. Please stop staring at me. Okay, okay! Um, chocolate. Oh. Japanese food? Uh, let me think… Rice?

“Who is in your family?” This is not a question I’m normally asked. But I can answer it.

“How old are you?” Oo, oo! I know this one in Japanese!

“What brought you to Japan?” Good question. I can answer that too, but I really wish you wouldn't all cluster around my desk like that. And why are the four of you looking nervous? You have strength in numbers!

“How is it that you like about Japan?” I literally have no idea what you just said. No, showing me the question will not make me understand it. It’s not that your pronunciation is off; the question just doesn't make sense.

I also got to finally use the bathroom. They had crouch-toilets, which was interesting. When I got back, I was immediately requested to be in multiple photos on various girls’ phones. I managed to get a few taken with my camera as well, although the number there is nothing compared to the number of shots I was in that day. Despite my intense fascination with the building looking just like in anime, I didn't actually get any pictures of the building by itself, but you can see the elements in the back of a few of the photos, such as the sliding classroom doors.

There were two classes after lunch. Japanese went much like biology: Line, line, dash, line. Hey, boy-in-front-of-me-has-anime-hair! How did I miss that before? Oh right, I thought my bladder was going to explode. Dude. Seriously. Focus.

But P.E. was very interesting. Looking at the schedule, I saw that P.E. that day was Japanese folk dancing. I was quite sure that was the sort of dance that had partners. Awkward. Very awkward. When we arrived in the gym, we organized ourselves into two circles with girls in the outer circle and boys (with a few girls mixed in due to number inequality) in the inner circle. When I saw this, I hoped that maybe- just maybe- this meant we’d be doing some sort of jig circle. My hopes were crushed however when everyone started pairing up with the person in front of them and holding hands. I copied what the others were doing and the dancing began. Now, let’s get something straight, I really can’t dance. At all. We also switched partners every- well, let’s call it a round, and the whole thing had my head spinning. Eventually, we finished the dance that everyone seemed to know, and began on the dances that everyone didn't know. And that was where it got fun. The music would start, and the room would become a confused flurry of what could be called dance as we all tried to sort out the moves we’d just been shown. I was laughing and apologizing along with just about every other person in the place. It was hands down the best P.E. class I've had since elementary school. Seriously, I can barely remember the last time P.E. was fun, and I've never found dancing in P.E. fun. I would gladly take another P.E. class there again.

After school, I joined the brass band club for the afternoon. As some of you may know from anime, clubs are very popular in Japanese high schools, and about 75% of the student population is in at least one club. I joined a room of other flute players, and partway through my time there, one of the girls came up to me and asked if I’d like to play a song with her. I agreed, and we played through a few songs together before I figured I had to go. The same girl led me back down to the office where I’d left my shoes. I can honestly conclude that the students in Japan are some of the friendliest, sweetest people you will ever meet.

The day came to an end with me calling Otosan and him coming to pick me up. I felt bad about it, but I couldn't remember the way, and frankly, I was scared to try.