Talking about the Weather

Of all the e-mails I get from back home, you would be surprised how much of it deals with the weather. Of course I’m grateful for any correspondence at all, but I do have to admit I’m not all that interested in what the weather is like back home.

I guess talking about the weather is like talking about one’s own physical ailments. It seems infinitely fascinating to the person discussing it, but not so much to any of the people listening.

So I hope I’ll be excused if I go on a bit about the weather here in Japan. To me it seems like the most fascinating subject anyone could wish to hear about.

I don’t know if anyone caught Harrison’s comment on a previous post, but, as he indicates, it is another hot summer in Japan. (Reference Mike’s blog as well).

Ajimu, where I lived for 3 years, was one of the hottest places I’ve ever been to. When I got this job, I was somewhat relieved to be moving up North where I thought the summers might be slightly cooler. Instead, everyone in Ajimu said to me, “Going up to Gifu, huh? It’s going to be really hot there.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “It’s further North. It’s got to be cooler, right?”

In the end I just concluded the people around me where a bunch of country hicks and didn’t know anything about hot and cold. Then I arrived in Gifu, and the people here said the same thing. Apparently Gifu is one of the hottest places in Japan. It is further North, but it is one of the few prefectures in Japan that is land locked. Meaning, with no access to the ocean, the humidity for which Japan is famous for is even worse in Gifu. And, like my dad always says, “it’s not the heat but the humidity that gets you.”

But I don’t mean to get into get into a pissing contest about who lives in the hottest place. I lived enough summers in Michigan to know summer can be hot and miserable back home as well. The big problem in Japan is that we still have school for most of the summer. Summer vacation is only for the month of August.

I know there are some people who would like to see school go year round back in America as well but, let me tell you I am seriously questioning the wisdom of this philosophy. Unless someone pays for air conditioners.

It is really too hot to study. I walk into a classroom and the smell of sweat and body odor is overpowering. Students try to take notes, but the sweat from their arms causes their ink to blur on the page, and the paper to stick to their skin. And whenever I lean over to help a student on a problem my own sweat drips off my nose and onto their paper.

Everyone feels to hot and tired to move. I want nothing more than to just flop down in my chair in the teacher’s room. However as paid employees, we teachers we don’t have much of a choice. But the students just fall asleep in their chairs and absolutely refuse to do any activities. I tried to do a game yesterday that involved the students moving around the classroom and talking to each other, but I could not get them out of their seats.

Because of the humidity the sweat does not evaporate but stays sticking to your skin. My hair is always plastered down on my forehead causing a rash of acne like it does every summer in Japan. I’ve already gotten a buzz hair cut like I do every summer, but the acne persists.

“Where did all your hair go?” someone asked me last night.

“It’s too hot for hair,” I answered.

“It’s too hot for clothes,” someone else said.

“Actually the board of education is still considering that proposal of mine,” I joked. “But they let me get the hair cut.”