Hello. Good evening.
I am writing this fourth post. It’s not what I imagined I would be writing about.
How these blog entries take shape.. it seems that they are mainly born out of amusement. At least this one definitely is. Amusement and, suffering.
You might think I am talking about the marathon. I’m sure you want to hear about that. And that is an important part of this post, because you need it help understand “The Fall.” As I’ve titled this post, in my life, in the span of ten days, there has been a rise and fall, and they are both related to my physical state.
First, I’ll tell you about the marathon. Did I die? Did I bleed? Cry? Run the entire time? The last one is correct. Surprisingly, the marathon (I shouldn’t really call it that, it wasn’t a marathon, it was 30 km, I’m going to just refer to it as the marathon, although I could also refer to it at the Charrenji Taikai, meaning “Challenge Tournament/Event”, which is what it is called at Ozu High). That was an incredibly long paragraphed insertion.. I’ll start a new sentence. Sorry this is kind of time wasting, but I have to say that I now find that I have an abundance of time of my hands, due to “The Fall.” And I’m having a lot of fun writing that. Unlike the bowl story, I will actually tell you about this, in this very post. So let’s continue.
The “marathon” was fine. Fun. Enjoyable. Not death. Actually, hardly even any suffering. I think this is largely attributable to the fact that I started the race with the first year girls, and specifically, my English club girls, who are all first years. This was much better for me, and my survival, than if I had started with, say, the first year boys, or the athletes, and I was asked if I wanted to join the athlete group, which I thought about for as short as it’s possible to think about something, without not thinking about it at all, and said, “No.” This is because the first year girls, and especially my English club girls, except for Kanochan, are not fast. They were actually far below average, in terms of their finishing times. So in the beginning, which may have been a treacherous time, for an overly excited first time marathon runner, I was shepherded, perhaps protected against my own untrained and incorrect instincts, which would have been, if I had been with the athletes or even the first year boys, to try and keep pace with some of them, and sacrifice a lot of energy, that would have left me coming up empty before the finish.
So the first year girls were slow, and essentially the opposite scenario happened, which was that I went quite slowly in the beginning, and gradually increased speed, until I found myself burning through my abundance of energy at the end, finishing in a sprint with another first year boy, Takemura kun who I think humored me by letting me somewhat close to him, and then ultimately asserting dominance and dusting me at the end.
Highlights from the marathon..
Japanese people have a flexible and useful word – ganbaru. 頑張る This is a fundamental word in the world of the Japanese. This is a very important word. This word is I’m sure used millions of times a day every day in Japan. What does it mean? Ganbaru is flexible, and for that reason it is a little hard to directly translate it. Here are some of the meanings that I’ve just taken from my trusty favorite dictionary: to persevere; to persist; to keep at it; to hang on; to hold out; to do one’s best. To me, these definitions don’t quite capture the feeling of it, because there are many times when someone will say Ganbatte, or ganbattekudasai, which is a command, or a “please ganbaru” when you might wonder why they’re saying it, as you don’t really feel like you need to be told to persevere, or hang in there, because you’re not currently struggling. Maybe what I’m trying to get at is it’s used pretty casually, but it also can have power behind it, and it just depends on the situation. Maybe the Japanese like this word so much because they are a people of persistence, and I do think that they feel like the answer to many of life’s difficulties is to persevere, and never give up (I learned recently of the Japanese proverb, fall seven times and get up eight). This feeling is embodied in other words that the Japanese favor, such as the phrases shouganai, and shikataganai, which means “it can’t be helped” and “there’s nothing we can do about it.” But I am thinking of one of my friends, who feels that Japanese people are sometimes too quick to use these words, who said, when she was told “shouganai” she was thinking, “But yes! Yes, it can be helped!” And it could be that this mindset leads to one putting up with more than they are truly able to bear, or feeling that they do not have the power to change their own circumstances, when they may. And while I’m on this, I’m also thinking about a theme, or an ideology, I’m not entirely sure what you call a thing like this, that came up often in my book, Japanese Fairy Tales. This theme is that of obligation, and I’m thinking specifically of two of the tales. In one, the obligation is towards the neighbor, and in the other, it is towards the step-mom, but in both cases the level of obligation is the same, and it is essentially that one should respect whom they are obliged to, whether the parent, or the neighbor, or perhaps a member of the royal family, and bear all injustices, and oblige all whims and desires, no matter how absurd or unreasonable, willingly and without complaint. In one of the stories, the main character has a special dog, a very good boy, who finds him some gold, and his neighbor wants to borrow the dog and find some gold too, but the dog just finds some buried trash, and the neighbor gets angry and kills the dog, and the main character is just like, “Oh, my dog!” And he’s very sad, but there’s no anger towards the neighbor, who actually killed his dog. And several such things happen, where the neighbor wrongs the main character, and the main character never blames the neighbor, and continues to oblige him because he is, after all, his neighbor, and so he must. And then the main character is rewarded in the end, and the scumbag neighbor gets his just-desserts. In the other story as well, the main character shows unyielding obligation and is rewarded in the end. I’m not sure how old these stories are but they’re quite old, so this is an aspect of the culture that has deep roots, and is probably why Japanese people may put up with more than they maybe should put up with, at times.
That was a tangent, and is not necessary at all for what I wanted to tell you about the marathon – all you really needed to know was that Japanese people have translated Ganbaru into English as “fight.” Which is funny, because that means in all the situations where they want to use ganbaru, but they also want to speak English, they will say “Fight.” And I think that most Japanese people (by now) know that this is a little strange, or at least funny, but they’re not sure what to say instead, and also it generally gets the point across, and so they say, “Fight.” As an example, I may be sitting at my desk in the morning, and a teacher will say to me (at least in the early days when they knew that I generally understood almost no Japanese) “How many classes do you have today?” And I’ll say, “3.” Or 2. Or whatever. Doesn’t matter. Then, they’ll say, “Fight.” And that’s funny, right. Especially when my class schedule for the day consists entirely of playing English Jeopardy. I’m like.. Hase sensei, do you know what I’m doing today? I’m actually playing games all day. I am almost ashamed to say that I am doing nothing close to fighting today. And I say ashamed because these other teachers are not playing games all day, which is also rare for me, but there is no doubt that my workload is significantly lighter than theirs. So.. Japanese people say “Fight.” When they want to say ganbaru, and if they themselves are ganbaruing (ganbatteiru) they will say, “Fighting!” How is this related to the marathon?
As the native English speaker, it is my duty to expose the students to as much English as I can. For this reason, and because it was also very fun, I shouted at the other students, in the first half of the race, when they would pass me, or in the second half, when I would pass them, were things like – “You can do it!” or “Go go go!” or “Yes, great job, keep it up!” Stock motivational boosters like this. And what I would generally get in response was, “Fighting!” Or, “Ok!!” Or, “Bikkuri!” Which is what the students would say when I would stealthily jog up on them and then shout a stock motivational phrase in passing. (in this case it means, “Surprised!!”) As I got increasingly tired, I just decided to adopt what all the Japanese are using, and which is the shortest and easiest stock motivational booster, and that is “Fight!” Although for the larger groups of guys I would generally unleash my whole set of stock phrases. Anyways, I was just starting to unleash my stock motivational phrases, to maybe the three hundredth group of the day a group of four or five boys, and immediately one of them cuts me off and shouts, louder than any other student had responded that day, “NEVER GIVE UP!!!” I was simultaneously impressed and shocked. After so many of the same responses, it just didn’t see something like that coming. This is one of the joys of being an English teacher in Japan. There are times like this where you’re hit with some English that’s totally unexpected, that leaves you wondering, how do you know this? Why do you know this? Where did you learn this? And for me, in this moment in particular.. How did I manage to leave this out of my set of stock motivational phrases? So, from this moment on, which was probably for the last third of the marathon, I said only one thing – “Never give up!”
There are two other sources that come to mind when I think of entertaining English in Japan. One of those is from advertisements, products, T-Shirts, things like this. I can and should write an entire post about this. You could have a whole blog dedicated to this and I’m sure it’s out there. I have many pictures saved of such English. There were two large posters of a pretty lady I saw just a few weeks ago when driving, on the side of Pachinko parlor (a type of gambling establishment that is extremely popular in Japan – they are not arcades but they look like arcades and have tricked me several times, until I was given this bit of advice from a friend, “If it’s big, shiny, and looks like fun, it’s a Pachinko parlor.”) These posters were simply pictures of the pretty lady, with text at the bottom, and the text said, on the first poster, “It’s Nice season. What shall do now?” And on the second, “Let’s stay healthy today!” Which is interesting considering there are not many hobbies you could choose that would be more corrosive to your health than Pachinko.
Perhaps the greatest of the events that made their impression on me during the course of this marathon was one not actually related to running. It was unexpected, small, yellow, and delicious. It was a banana.
It won’t take long to explain this. (Every time I’ve ever written words such as that I have had to go back and delete them.) But really, this was a short and simple problem. I ran two thirds of the race with a partner in crime, Miss Iwamoto (or, translating that English, Origin of the Rock). Origin of the Rock was the only one to survive, or rather the only one that was willing to subject herself to matching my speed, out of the original group of first year girls that I started with. Origin of the Rock was about half my height, and was a good running partner, because she was from Ozu, and from a part that I knew nothing about, being kind of really in the boonies, and as we ran the course, she gave me little bits of knowledge about the neighborhoods, and their names, and local attractions or points of interest. I was glad to have her company, although I was really worried about her for most of this, wondering if she was really overexerting herself in trying to keep pace with me, and I would constantly ask her, are you alright, and she would say, “Daijyoubu, daijyoubu,” (I’m good, I’m good). Finally, when we came to the last major hill, and this baby was steep, she was not daijyoubu, and I did end up leaving her, which was sad for a brief moment, but I came to run, and run I would. But, before that, we had run a good deal of the marathon already, maybe we were around the halfway point, and we came up to a large rest stop. There were several of these stops along the way, manned by teachers, parents, and soccer players who were too valuable to risk being injured. (Ozu High School is one of the strongest soccer schools in Kumamoto – several of the players are from big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, there are probably over 100 students on the team (it’s run like a small army), there is a wall of signed jerseys and cleats by professional players that graduated from Ozu, I know at least one Ozu graduate went to play in the World Cup in 2008, all of these have had some impact on my decision to stay out of the Ozu soccer club) I was told there would be bananas along the way, and I was looking forward to it, to recharge my batteries, although I didn’t need it as much as I thought I would have before I started, because most of the girls running in the marathon had brought treats, and would give them to me, or swap them with each other, throughout the race, which was very wholesome, seeing these girls stop and swap their various candies and crackers with each other (“Do you want a caramel?” “Have some gummies!” “Ooh, you brought oranges? So smart!!”) So we come to this stop, Iwamoto and I, and we have a rest, and I get my banana, and she gets hers, and I promptly devour mine, and she does not promptly devour hers. And we’re hung out there for a bit, gotten a drink, had a rest, and I ask if she’s ready to go, and she says yes, and she still hasn’t eaten her banana. And so I think, ok, she’s saving it for later, provisional banana, got it. And we get started and I say, hey, I can hold that for you if you’d like, since she’s just running with it in her hand, and she already has a fanny pack, so I thought, why not. So from here, on we’re running, running, maybe a few kilometers pass, and at first I don’t mind, but as we go, I realize, I’m starting to get tired of holding this banana. When we get to the next small stop, we have another drink, and I say to her, hey, do you want to eat your banana now? And at this stop there are also bananas, so I’m thinking, this was kind of a waste of energy, carrying this. So I ask her if she wants to eat her banana, and she looks at me and shakes her head. “No,” she says. “It’s a present for you!” And I’m like.. what the hell is this! You’re telling me I carried this banana, all this way, for your sake, and now you’re giving it to me? This was certainly a twist. Did she panic when they were handing out bananas and took one without wanting it? Was her plan to give it to me the entire time? Did she ever have a plan for it at all? I don’t and didn’t have the answer to these questions and I don’t and didn’t need them – I just needed to figure out what I would do with this banana.
I couldn’t eat it – I was full off of the first banana, and off of the various treats I had received from these treat giving high school girls. I didn’t want to risk cramping or being uncomfortably full. My next thought was to set it with the other bananas. It was a perfectly good banana, entirely edible, and just slightly, maybe greatly, heated, from having been clutched by a jogger for thirty or so minutes. I wanted to just place it on the table of this next rest station, with all the other bananas, but there was a problem. The bananas were all set out in row on a table, and were being watched, by a flock of mothers, and there was no way for me to discreetly set it down without a high probability of it being noticed. And Japanese people are picky about their cleanliness, and their fruits, and with the shadow of corona ever-looming in the background, I just couldn’t bring myself to put that banana on the table. I also couldn’t bring myself to throw it away, because it was, after all, a perfectly good banana. I thought about flinging it into the woods, and decided against that too – and so, it appeared, that I was now stuck with this banana, and for the foreseeable future, until I either decided to eat it, or finished the race with it. With this realization solidifying in my mind, and the banana warming in my hand, Iwamoto and I returned to our marathon.
As we’re running, we’re starting to pass many students, who had started before us, but had since gotten too tired, and were now walking it. The students had a variety of strategies in the running the race. My favorite was the strategy adopted by two of my English club girls, one of them being Chinatsu, meaning “1000 summers,” who I call Hamachi, a type of fish. At our first English club meeting, I was getting to know the girls, and was having them do self-introductions, and asking random questions. I asked 1000 Summers what pet she would have, if she could have any animal as a pet, and she said, “A penguin.” And I said, “What would you name it?” And she said, “Ha-ma-chi.” And I said, “How much?” And she said, “Hamachi.” And her friends are giggling. And I thought, alright, I don’t get it, it’s a strange name, must be some kind of inside joke.. and I write down “Wants to have a penguin named How Much,” in my little notebook. Because you see, what I thought this girl was saying to me was “How Much”, pronounced in the way that Japanese will pronounce English when not trying to model correct pronunciation, ハーマッチ, but what she was actually saying to me, was actual Japanese, はまち, which is a fish. So I wrote down, “How Much,” and another girl sees this and she says, “No, no. Not how much, はまち!”
So that is Hamachi. She has actually since left the English club, for some inferior club that I can’t remember, I think soft tennis (it was months before I knew what this actually was, it’s tennis with a softer ball played on dirt courts). Her English club friend that she was running with, I call Green Peas, because her name is Saya, and saiyaendo means green peas. It’s not all that creative, my nicknames never are, but she likes it, I’m pretty sure. Anyways, Hamachi, Green Peas, and another friend, had adopted something of a HIIT style strategy. HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training, which is where you perform a high volume of work for a short period of time, and then rest, and then repeat. They would “sprint” (really just a quickened jog) for an indefinite period, walk, and then sprint again. This did not strike me as a winning strategy for 30 km run, but I didn’t question it, and who knows, maybe it was only phase one of their plan. I don’t know what the other phases were, as I didn’t see them, as I left them behind in the very early stages, but I don’t think they finished too long after me, so they didn’t do that bad. But this HIIT style was especially entertaining for me, because I when first ran up to them they were walking, and I shouted my stock motivational phrases, and they immediately entered into their high intensity state. This only lasted for fifteen or twenty seconds, when then they would resume their walk, and when Iwamoto and I had caught up to them, jogging at our constant pace, I would shout the stock motivational phrases again, and they would enter into another round of high intensity running. This continued for three or four rounds, with Iwamoto and I never changing speed, with them ending in a final sustained burst, and then giving up and falling behind us.
Why I’m even talking about this – student’s strategies, starting off with the banana in my hand, right. Iwamoto and I depart from the checkpoint, banana in hand (my hand), and we’re starting to now pass students who had started off strong, and had since burned out. And these kiddos still had a long way to go. As we pass them, I shout my stock motivational phrases (I guess I should just abbreviate it, SMP). Some of these students are holding their bananas, nourishment for the long journey ahead. As we pass one boy, he sees I’m holding a banana, and he holds up his banana, in solidarity, and says to me, “Yes banana!” We pass another two boys, who seem particularly winded, and I slow down and I ask them how they’re doing, and the one boy is sweating and out of breath, and he says repeatedly to me, “Sugoi, Americajin, sugoi. Sasuga, Americajin.” Which we can translate to, “Incredible, American, incredible. Just as I expected from an American.” Sasuga is a word that you use as like a “Just as I expected” but in a positive way, maybe more like, “I wouldn’t have expected anything less.” So, I’m not sure where or how he formed his image of the average American, but in that moment, to him I must have been living up to it. And I was glad that he had this image of us, and not another, that some others may hold, which is that a large proportion of us are large and in charge (obese). We’re working our way through this procession, overcoming the stragglers, passing a few checkpoints, and we come up to a fork in the road, and lo’ and behold, standing at the corner is my tantosha (supervisor, caretaker, guardian angel) Goto sensei. And in this situation, I would put her into the category of guardian angel, because as soon as I saw her I knew I had found the answer to my banana problem. As we jogged by, without breaking stride, I moved over to her, said, “A gift for you!” And put the banana snugly into her hands. There was no opportunity for questioning, no time for resistance – the banana was in her hands and out of mine in the blink of an eye. As I handed it to her, it struck me just how hot it had become. I think she said thank you, but Iwamoto and I were already making our escape by then. And so, the present had been passed on, and in this way I was relieved of my banana problem.
The bananas were an intimate part of the race. A group of girls, in their finishing dash, came through, triumphantly holding up their hands, and in their hands were bananas. One of the girls had four, I believe, two in each hand, and was holding them up in celebration, like she had just returned from a long and arduous quest in search of the special yellow fruit, and returning to her people victorious.
Goto sensei said to me, this Thursday, “That banana that you gave me became banana bread.” I was happy to hear this. She said something about how hot it was after I had given it to her, and she couldn’t eat it that way. I told her that I was very grateful for her, and she told me that several students after me tried to do the same thing, but she already had one banana, and didn’t need any more. This is a lived embodiment of “early bird gets the worm”, or in this case, “early marathon runner gets to hand their unwanted banana to unsuspecting supervisor.”
Well friends, I have a confession to make. I seem to be getting into a bad habit of doing this, which is to say I’m going to tell you about something, and then not telling you about it. I do not want you to think that I’m not a man of my word. The reason why I do this is because I want to do these things justice, and I’m not always sure how that justice will be done. I’m saying this now so that you are not too disappointed with me when I tell you that I am not going to be able to tell you about “The Fall” tonight. We just don’t have the time. Or the energy. On my part. And I want to do it justice. Of course, it goes without saying that I won’t be telling the bowl story either, and I wonder if I should even stop talking about the bowl story, and just move on, and I have to say I’m somewhat in agreement with you over that, but at this point, I’m in too deep, and I’m going to tell it to you, someday, when all of the other things have been said. But, I have told you about the Triumph, at least, which was the running of the 30 kilometers, with minimal pain and suffering, and that must be enough for this post #4!
Until #五。。Fight!
Update: (Like the picture? This is my favorite plant ever right now. I saw this in a garden in my neighborhood. It’s called 鶏頭、keitou, or silver cock’s comb. The first time I laid eyes on it I audibly gasped.)
HAKUMUSU 