I was flirting with a real estate agent while she showed us a flat. I lied to her (for absolutely no good reason) about going to a job interview when in fact we were going to another real estate agent to look at a flat. Turns out, the guy took us to the exact same house, where the old woman there told him the girl took us earlier, at which point he proceeded to call her and tell her the story.

I can never go back.

Nonetheless, Tokyo continues to offer its unique brand of the quirky and random, and I thought we’d share some of the wisdom this city so far has given us.  Most of this wisdom has come in the form of signs and advertisements, giving us guidance, helpful advice, and food for thought. 

This message is clearly intended to preserve the peace and cleanliness of the subways.  No warning that such excessive drunkenness – a spilled beer, a stray shoe, a leg hanging awkwardly over the armrest – is self-destructive and detrimental health.  The briefcase, unceremoniously serving as a pillow, also suggests that the passed-out gentleman went straight from work to the bars.  Clearly, he should have thought of the other passengers, especially the poor man turned away in empathetic shame, and gone straight home to drink himself into oblivion.  Usually we say “When in Rome…” but I think in this case we should exercise a little more judgment before obeying the subway sign…

This one is more or less agreeable – who shouldn’t…do! more safety…?!?  The message sounds great – perhaps a candidate motto for 2009 for some people – but what on earth does it mean?  And what kind of safety should we do?  The young smiling girl certainly doesn’t offer any clues, nor does the disorienting corridor of insistent messages.  Are those lockers?  It’s quite mysterious, but we think this is a message we should all heed…

And finally, one of my personal favorites, overlooking a main strip in Shibuya, an imposing reminder to us all…

Once again, this is a message we can all get on board with.  But why is there a massive picture of a gorgeous woman?  She doesn’t quite seem sad or stern, and at first, we’re not really sure what she has to do with stopping STD’s.  Also, there’s no direct mention of a *method* for stopping STD’s – birth control, condoms, abstinence, regular testing?  Then, at the bottom, we find the sponsoring company, Soft On Demand.  As it turns out, it’s a pornography company, and you can scan the QR code on the bottom left to visit their website and order yourself some DVD’s.  Absolutely brilliant – once I pieced the implied message together, I found myself astounded that I haven’t seen this argument before.  So you rambunctious young adults, next time you feel like putting public health at risk by giving into your sexual urges, do the right thing – order pornography.  You and your partner, should s/he actually exist, will benefit from reduced exposure to dangerous STD’s.  [Soft On Demand is a staunch supporter of safe, do-it-yourself methods of dealing with your desires.  Note: clearly, no STD’s were possibly transmitted in the production of these films.] 

Well Tokyo, thanks for these helpful pieces of advice.  We’ll be sure to share some more precious wisdom from the strange signs all around Tokyo.

Before I tell you what it is, a little disclosure: I did not have to bear half the shame that Matt did. First, there were only three of my students on this trip– the rest coming from Matt’s less advanced cohort– so I was already at an advantage. Second, the two biggest instigators were Ms. 100%, and the groups patriarch-of-a-supervisor, were both a part of Matt’s class. So stepping into my classroom on Monday was already easier.

I waited for the class to arrive that day with absolute stoicism. The surest way, I thought, to precipitate embarrassment would be to look embarrassed. I had nothing to be ashamed of. Maybe that wasn’t true, but I had to believe anyway or I would lose before the fighting began. So as I waited, I heard amidst the Vietnamese chatter the words “100%” and heard riotous laughter. This was it for me, I was done. But no, I can’t show fear. Students can sense it.

Throughout the class things got gradually worse. Isolated murmuring and giggles turned into Vietnamese chatter. Vietnamese chatter became Vietnamese conversation. Laughter spread indefatigably around the room until it was finally break time– my last refuge. Taking a long drink of water the answer finally dawned on me. I might know how to get out of this one.

Holding back my shame, I restarted class ten minutes later and began the conversation simply: “You all speak English so well, why are you speaking in Vietnamese?” That was it, a nugget of flattery so perfectly aimed at their hearts it distracted them from their mockery. They denied it, dutifully. “No, I’m serious. My job here is to allow you to speak, not so much for you to improve your English, but become more confident about the fact that you speak it so well.”

And that’s the secret. From then on, the room lightened up, and English replaced Vietnamese. Concentrated stares replaced laughter. And for me, smugness replaced self pity. So here’s the moral: never underestimate flattery, a secret weapon against subversion.

All Monday, Rob and I discussed the nightmare scenarios for how class could go – laughter, mockery, disregard, unwillingness to respect a teacher they had seen both hammered and hungover barely 48 hours ago. I walked into the classroom, stood before the whiteboard, and had a sudden and powerful de ja vu. Echoing laughter when I stood there. Laughter literally in my face, bordering on mockery. Disregard when I tried to move quickly past the laughter and onto some subject completely unrelated to anything they might be thinking about as they laughed and laughed. Disrespect at my further attempts to get the class under control. It was all there, exactly as I imagined it. I had lost all esteem, and I wasn’t entirely sure what to do.

Looking back, I realized I should have just rolled with it. I should have laughed heartily at myself, asked them to tell any stories from the weekend, and then taught them some vocabulary about drinking (and recovering from drinking). After all, their reaction wasn’t malicious – they were genuinely amused. Instead, I fumbled awkwardly through the next couple classes, trying to make the room once again a place of learning English and not of laughing at the English teacher.

So the weekend came with a couple price tags, and dignified respect was definitely one of them.

As backstory, on Friday September 12, I was offered some teaching hours with Cleverlearn; on Monday, I was informed that I’d be teaching; on Tuesday, I stepped into the classroom.

I was to teach 7th grade at a local public school. The only things I’d heard so far about teaching at public schools were that I would have TA’s to “keep the children in line” and that Cleverlearn tried to keep public school teaching hours low because teachers get overwhelmed, exhausted, and/or burnt out. I kept conjuring the nightmare stories from Teach for America or remembering the public school teacher blogs I had read for my education research. Rolling eyes, screaming children, paper projectiles—in a word, pandemonium. So, I spent as long as I could carefully preparing some activities and devising interesting ways to review material in the book.

I introduced myself, speaking slowly and in simple English, in accordance with the lesson they were studying. As I continued speaking, they all started exchanging confused glances and staring at me with blank faces. I was informed by the TA – who, it turns out, is actually their regular teacher, highly qualified, trained, patient, but unfortunately not a native-english speaker – that I was talking too quickly, that they don’t understand the English I was using, that, in not so many words, all the things I was doing were over their heads. All my lesson preparations and activities just went out the window, and I was staring at 75 more minutes with this class and 90 minutes with another. Oh, and also, they’ve actually already done all the lessons in the textbook, so it won’t really work to fall back on just ‘going by the book.’
How I got through that, I still don’t know. Those first 15 minutes were utter chaos, as I slowed my speaking, raised my voice, simplified my vocabulary until I was bellowing monosyllabic commands at a classroom clearly out of control. There was a break about 45 minutes through, which really became the official time period to act the way they had already been acting. This is what they usually do during break…

Once they start swinging the pole at each other, I exit as quickly as possible – I didn’t see it, I’m not responsible, I can’t even communicate with them, and I’m totally not dealing with it.
The classes were a nightmare of embarrassment – having 30 students just ignore you – and shame – completely on the fly, I came up with the stupidest and most inane activities…I still shake my head at how much I wasted their time. The first day of teaching at public schools was unfortunately awful, and it made me so gun-shy for my later classes…

Well, when we arrive I got a somewhat stern lecture from one of my students. “Mr. Rob, I think the way you drive, you can compete with many young men in the city.” (Just like back home, the worst drivers here are teenage men with a short attention span and something to prove.) Well, after that we launched into a terrible round of horror stories about accidents. One of my students told me she had broken her leg twice, and spent 3 months in the hospital both times because of it. She said she was lucky she didn’t have a limp, because often a broken leg here will leave you with one.

After coffee, with all of my students around me, I found my bike, pulled out the kick-start and gave it a strong shove. Nothing. I gave it another. A little sputtering, then silence. I continued to do this in the Saigon heat for 30 minutes, gradually sweating more and more, while my students looked on masking their amusement with concern. They told me to go to the mechanic, which meant pushing this 300-lb. monster 2 blocks with a small contingent of my class trailing close behind.

The hour passes by very slowly while the mechanic works. My students can’t leave me now because he doesn’t speak English, even though it’s almost 10:30. If I had a tape recorder on me, I might’ve been able to learn every swear word in Vietnamese– the mechanic circled the bike shouting, occasionally pointing at some random piece of hardware and saying “everything is broken”. Great. Here I am at 10:30 at night, far from home, sitting on a tiny plastic stool, drenched in sweat, while half of my corporate students watch a mechanic swear at my motorcycle.

When the bike finally started (170.000 VND and an hour’s humiliation later), my students were reluctant to leave. I don’t think they expected me to get home actually. I took off for home scolded about my driving, terrified of long-term injuries, and humiliated by my own motorcycle. How could it be worse? Never ask.

Just before I turned into our neighborhood, as I focused on crossing the intersection, I hear a woman scream just over my left shoulder, a crash and silence. Glancing back, I see the two motorcycles locked like a knot of twisted metal, smoke, and a single person walking amidst the wreckage. I remember the scrambling police bikes shooting through the alley as I passed.

The message, as I see it: Drive more carefully, you may get seriously hurt. You can’t rely on your motorcycle to function, and even when you can, you can’t rely on anyone else on the road.

I had misgivings. First of all, they didn’t invite us, they invited Matt. We had heard that we needed to experience a Vietnamese wedding, and so when the opportunity arose, we jumped at it. I’m told that a followup email invited me, along with the rest of the group. As a rule, we don’t tend to do well in public as a group.

Travel involved not only spending a weekend with my adult students, almost all of which are older than I am, but also a 7-hour-each-way trip in a small van, meant for no more than 10 people, let alone 20+. My grip on authority in any classroom is tenuous at best, and letting my students know that I’m human is probably the surest way to disolve it altogether. We had no idea how right that would be.

Me at a Vietnamese Wedding