The ABCs
Part 1
By Tony Monbetsu
Copyright 2013 Tony Monbetsu
1
The sun woke me up like I owed it money. It yelled through the floor-length windows and made threats just vague enough to be really frightening. I groaned and rolled away, off the bed. Usually rolling off the bed's a bad idea, but not so much for me, reason being I live in Japan and I sleep on a mattress that rolls out onto the floor. The floor was made of tatami, which is rice straw if you don't know. It didn't feel great to lie on, even in my state, so I gave in to the sun's invective and got up.
Why do I live in Japan? Well, you can tell from my name that I'm not Japanese, except that I haven't told you my name yet. It's Moriarty Jackson, no relation, or Jackson Moriarty Quint if you prefer it like it says on my foreign registration card, or Jackson-san if you prefer it like most Japanese people do. My name gave people enough trouble back home, never mind here in Japan. I live in a town called Kuroyama. It means Black Mountain if you don't know, and if you'd seen how lush and dense the mountainsides get in summer you'd know the name was apt.
I got up and made a cursory effort at at cleaning up, sweeping some empty chuuhai cans from one place to another. Chuuhai is Japanese for "really weak alcohol", which explains why I had ten of the cans. Stumbling around the four rooms of my house I took a shower, had two bowls of yogurt, brushed my teeth, had a bathroom break, sat down, stood up again, and got dressed. Not necessarily in that order, and with some minor overlaps. It had been a steamy September night and it promised to be a steamy September day. Every day is hot around here in summer, and summer was feeling its impending doom and was having a grand old time living it up while it could. This day was going to be special for reasons other than the heat, but I didn't know that yet.
Oh, I forgot to say why I live in Japan. I'm an ALT, which means Assistant Language Teacher if you don't know. It says Teacher on the badge (and Assistant, and Language) but that doesn't really tell the whole story. It's one of those hybrid jobs, like singer-songwriter or author-critic. I'm an entertainer-translator-motivational speaker-babysitter-magician-singer. Sometimes I teach English, too. Anyway.
I left the house yawning. The house, which I inherited from a long line of ALTs before me, was one of a dozen identical units all lined up like a carton of eggs. Eggs are unrefrigerated in Japan, and so's my house.
"Ohayo Gozaimasu, Jackson-san," said Mr. Goro, my neighbor. That means Good Morning, Mr. Jackson if you don't know. He waved and his tie waved too. I returned the greeting with more enthusiasm than I felt. Mr. Goro did some kind of work that took place in an office, and that was about all I knew about him.
I got my mama-chari out of my shed. Mama-chari means totally sweet bicycle, if you don't know. Let me tell you about my bicycle real quick. This thing was a real machine, a solid construction of steel and aluminum with a throne fit for a king suffering hemorrhoids. The chain had an impervious plastic cover over it and there was a basket that could fit a full sack of groceries, or about ten chuuhais. A bell finished out the vehicle, something I'd never had to use and hoped I never would. The bike was brick red and weighed about as much as a pregnant golden retriever. I mounted up and rolled.
Before I could leave the housing complex there was a godawful racket from the unit next door, the one opposite Mr. Goro's. I stood astride my bike and Mr. Goro did the same.
The door to the unit banged a few times and then slid open. Steve Brown had been in Kuroyama for barely a month, and he was still having troubles with a lot of aspects of life in Japan, like sliding doors. Also clocks, apparently, as he seemed to be perpetually running late. I waved. Steve does English at Kuroyama's rather rustic high school, while I teach at three elementary schools and one junior high school.
"Good morning!" he cried, fumbling with a mind-boggling total of four different bags. "I'm late!"
"Ganbatte," I said, which means Good Luck if you don't know. Steve went flapping down the street with his bags. A pair of dragonflies were investigating his door, which he had left open. I closed it for him and went on my way.
The sun was fat in the sky but that's mostly because it comes up way too early here; it was still only seven o'clock. I rode my mama-chari through rice paddies that waved in still heat. The grasshoppers were already tuning up for their daily concert and the frogs were grudgingly giving up the stage. Kuroyama does have a little town area with restaurants and apartments and even a minor shopping center, but mostly what it has is a lot of rice paddies. Kuroyama is self-reportedly famous for sembe, which means rice crackers if you don't know. I'm not so sure about the sembe, but there's certainly plenty of bad apples.
I rode my bike the bumpy mile to the konbini that grew out of the fields like an unlikely toadstool. Konbini means convenience store if you don't know, and convenient is what they are, with late hours and all the canned drinks, instant dinners and chuuhais a single guy ever could want. I can cook, of course, but sometimes you just want a brace of slimy grey soba noodles on a hot summer night, you know? Soba noodles means, well, noodles. Of the soba variety.
I locked up my bike at the konbini. This was as unnecessary as locking my house, but I always did both. Better safe than sorry. I went into the konbini- the hours are unbelievable- and bought a Pepsi Nex King of Zero, which is a zero-calorie cola if you don't know, and the only one worth drinking as far as I'm concerned. I stood outside in the rising heat and drank my second breakfast and waited for Uchisoto-Sensei. I predicted he'd be there at 7:25. He was there at 7:24 and a half.
Uchisoto-Sensei is the sixth-year teacher at Kami-Kuroyama Elementary School, which is where I was going that morning, same as every Tuesday. Kami-Kuroyama means "God of Black Mountain", and it's the smallest school in town as well as the furthest away. We had this arrangement where I'd meet Uchisoto-Sensei at the convenience store every Tuesday morning and he'd drive me to the school in his baby-blue Vitz. There was little chance of his forgetting the arrangement, because Uchisoto-Sensei bought cigarettes there every morning. Sensei means teacher, by the way, if you don't know. To the kids I'm Jackson-Sensei.
I greeted Uchisoto-Sensei and got into his car. "Hot day, isn't it?" he said, in Japanese. "Sou desune," I responded, which means "I'm agreeing with whatever you're saying." It's one of the most useful things you can know in Japan, I've found. That was the extent of our conversation as we drove to the school. Driving to Kami-Kuroyama- Kamisho, the teachers call it for short- entailed driving at two opposing mountain ridges until they came together like continental plates and sprouted an amazing forest in the pass between them. We drove up into this pass and through the forest, which seemed deep and primal but in reality stretched less than a mile. We came out the other side and descended down towards the village of Kami-Kuroyama, which made the main part of the Kuroyama look like Tokyo. The drive took about twenty minutes. I tried to count the cigarettes that Uchisoto-Sensei smoked in the car and lost track at about seven.
We pulled into the school as kids were arriving in twos and threes. Japanese kids walk to school, which is why Kamisho stands in such a remote spot- the local kids can't walk to the bigger schools. Why anybody would choose to live out there I couldn't say, although I have to admit the little valley is beautiful. Kami-Kuroyama had no konbini, though, which in Japan was tantamount to saying that it didn't have electricity or the invention of the wheel.
Dragonflies danced all around the school as we went in. Kamisho had about three dozen students aged six to twelve, and I knew all of them. Only the fifth and sixth years were required to study English, but at small schools like Kamisho the younger kids learned it too. I liked that about it.
I went inside with Uchisoto-Sensei and a bunch of kids greeted us, him in Japanes
e and me in English. Good kids. I took off my tennis shoes and put on my other pair of tennis shoes. A tiny little second grader came up to my knee and said, "Jackson-Sensei! Flyswatter!" Flyswatter was a game the kids loved. It involved hitting various vocabulary items with giant flyswatters. The flyswatters were really huge, and looked like some kind of gag. Anybody who's spent time in rural Japan, though, would tell you that the things are a necessity.
"Not today, Kenta," I said, and patted the second year on the head. Kenta's enthusiasm was not at all damaged by my answer and he ran off to go share this important news with his classmates.
I went to the teacher's office to drown myself in coffee. On a hot day when the light in the rice paddies got thick and syrupy you had to get your hot coffee in before the mercury hit ninety or you were doomed to a slow afternoon of melting torpor. Some people drank cold coffee from a can but I was never one of them; cultural adaptation only goes so far. Greetings bounced around the room like ping-pong balls.
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