Saint Patrick's Day

This past Saturday some of the Irish JETs in the area organized a Saint Patrick’s Day celebration in Nagoya city. It’s a little bit early, but the Irish ambassador was in the area, so they decided to do the celebration when he was there.

I had heard about it through the grapevine and decided to go and check it out. Although I have a car, whenever I go into Nagoya city I always take the train to avoid Nagoya city traffic.

Unlike Ajimu, there is actually a train station in my town now. But it doesn't run very frequently. It is just a little local train that runs once an hour to Ogaki city, and then from Ogaki I can take the Japan Railway train anywhere I want.

Since I never figured out the train schedule, I just drop into the train station randomly and hope I won’t have to wait long for the next train. I stopped off at a convenience store along the way to buy a notepad in case I had a lot of time to kill.

As I walked toward the station, I saw two girls sitting on the station steps. They saw me and became very excited, giggling to each other and waving at me. I was congratulating myself on how popular I was with the ladies, until I got a little bit closer and realized they were my students.

They weren't dressed in their school uniforms, which was one reason I didn't recognize them from a distance. Although I could see that their faces still looked very young when I got up close, they were (as 15 year old girls sometimes do) trying every trick they knew to make them look older; fashionable clothing, lots of make up, etc.

I must have just missed the previous train, because I had to wait a whole hour before the next train came. I passed the time by talking to my students, but I began to feel a little uneasy as other people were walking by the station, especially the way my students were dressed. I wished I had a sign around my neck that said, “I actually do know them from school. I’m not some guy who usually tries and picks up 15 year old girls dressed like this.”

To that end I tried to keep the conversation focused on school. I asked them if they were studying a lot this weekend, but they said that since they were graduating next week, they were through studying. One was going to a high school in Ogaki the following year; the other one was going to work in a bakery. High School is not mandatory education in Japan, and students who have low test scores will often get a job right out of junior high instead of going on to High School. It’s one of the sad things about Japan. So much of your future is already decided by the time you hit 15.

They were playing on their cell phones the whole time they were talking to me, mostly e-mailing friends I think. I would have thought it slightly rude if I had not been in Japan for so long and become accustomed to it. At one point they asked me what my mail address was for my cell phone.

I hesitated while I wondered weather it was appropriate in Japan for teachers to exchange cell phone mail addresses with students. My experience seemed to indicate that it was, as I had known teachers (both in Ajimu and here in Gifu) who talked to their students often by cell phone. It always had seemed a little sketchy to me, but maybe it was all innocent enough. And if it was innocent, than perhaps by acting like it was inappropriate I would put an idea into the heads of the students that hadn't been there before, and thus alter the dynamics of the relationship.

So I gave them my cell phone address. After all it was just my e-mail address, it wasn't actually my telephone number. If things got inappropriate I could always just ignore the e-mails.

But I soon began to think it had been a mistake. One of the girls took a call on her cell phone, and excitedly said to her friend, “Yeah, we’re still at the train station. And you’ll never guess who is here with us. And he actually taught us his mail address.”

People were still coming and going. Another student came in on her bike to chat. “Joel gave us his address,” one of the girls bragged.
“He did not.”
“Yes he did.”
“No way. He did not.”
“He did too. Look, here it is.”
Definitely a bad idea, I thought to myself.

I began to envy my students. Here I was going all the way to Nagoya to meet friends, and they had all their friends right next to them. If they wanted to meet a friend all they had to do was go across they street. Whenever they went outside or went to the train station they saw their friends, and they were always meeting up and talking.

Of course since I was a new arrival in the town it would be unreasonable to expect I would have the same social network as the locals. But because I went to private schools, even when I was a junior high school student I never had the experience of living close to my classmates. I think the Japanese tradition of community schools is why Japanese people have life long bonds with the people they went to junior high school with, and I have lost touch with every single person I went to junior high school with.

One of the girls took a call on her cell phone, and started shouting at whoever was on the other end of the line. I had the awkward feeling of listening into someone else’s argument, until I realized they were talking about me.

“He is too here! … Yes he is! … And he taught me his cell phone address. … No I’m not lying! … I am not!”

Pretty soon the phone was shoved in my face. “Here say something in English,” the girl said.
I backed away. “No, I think I’ll pass,” I said, not wanting to get involved.

“It’s my sister. She doesn't believe you’re here. Say something in English to her.” I took the phone and said hello into it, then handed it back. “See,” she yelled into the phone. Apparently the sister was not convinced, because the argument continued and I was soon asked to say something else. “How much longer until the train comes again?” I asked.

Eventually the train did come. I said good-bye to my students at Ogaki station and headed into Nagoya. By the time I got to the celebrations, the parade had already started, but I went and caught up with them.

For some reason I had expected the parade to be composed of all Irish people, but I guess the Irish community in Japan isn't that large, so the majority of marchers in the parade were Japanese people dressed up in green uniforms and wearing Irish flags. It seemed a little surreal, but I guess as the saying goes, everyone’s Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day.
…Um, even though it wasn't technically Saint Patrick’s Day yet.

Even among the non-Japanese people, a fair amount of the Caucasians in the parade were other Americans like myself. So the actual Irish people took great effort to point themselves out. “This is Andy,” someone said to me. “He’s actually Irish.”

Despite the fact that Andy’s accent left little doubt he was in fact Irish, I played along with the joke. “What, actually Irish? You mean like from Ireland? Not descended from Irish people, but actually Irish?”

Andy didn't seem to get it. “Of course I’m Irish, why does everyone keep asking that? In the town I live in here in Japan, I’m the only Irish person in my town I am. I’m so Irish I had me own parade in my town, that’s how Irish I am.”

I met the person who had invited me to the parade and apologized to her. “I really met to come earlier, but I had to wait an hour for the train to come in my town.” She was sympathetic, and I added, “and the worst part was I had to wait with my students.”

She seemed confused. “I actually like spending time with my students. Don’t you?”
I mumbled some reply and changed the subject.

After the parade, the festivities turned into bar hopping. We were given a map of all the participating bars, and the challenge was to make it to each bar, and have a drink at each.

I went to the first couple bars, but I’m not much of a drinker, and besides I sometimes feel a little lost in the crowd. I began thinking of all the other things I usually do in Nagoya…English book stores, internet cafes…And made some excuse and ducked out.

Almost immediately I began to feel guilty for being anti-social. I spend a lot of time alone in Japan, always wishing I was with friends. And then when I do get together with a bunch of people, sometimes I can’t wait to get away. It seems like I’m always wishing I was doing something other than what I'm doing at the moment.

I wandered around the streets of Nagoya for a while. I went into the English bookstore, looked around, and then went back out onto the street. I was getting weird looks from everyone everywhere I went, more so than usual. Then I remembered I still had an Irish flag painted on my face. I went into the bathroom to wash it off. It didn't completely come off, leaving a bit of a smudged blur on my cheek.

True to form, I soon found myself wishing I was in a group again, and called up my friends to see which bar they were at. They gave me the name, but I didn't know where it was. Japan’s streets are famous for being confusing, and I knew it would be almost impossible to find the bar with out aid, but I gave it my best shot anyway. I wandered through the club district of Nagoya for a couple hours, ignoring the calls of hawkers trying to get me into this or that club. Eventually I decided even if I did find the bar my friends would have long moved on anyway. Besides, because I had to change trains at Ogaki, I couldn't stay out too late or I’d miss the last train back to my town. So I called it a night and headed back.