I Cross The Line Again

A few months ago I posted: “I Get In Trouble For Talking About Samson Too Much During Cleaning Time.” A couple of you e-mailed to say you liked the story and thought it was pretty cute.

This story is kind of similar, but you might not find it so cute.

Anyone, or any foreigner at least, who has taught at a Japanese high school or junior high school can vouch that there are two popular ways that the boys like to interact with the local foreigner.

One is to teach the foreigner all sorts of dirty Japanese words, and try and get the foreigner to repeat them.

The other way is to use their limited English to ask the foreigner embarrassing questions.

Based on the experiences of the other Assistant English Teachers that I’ve talked to, this seems to be something that is true all over Japan in every junior high and high school. It is something that the female foreigners have to deal with just as much as the male foreigners (in fact often it’s worse for the female foreigners). The Japanese teachers are notorious for turning a blind eye to it. (No doubt partly due to the fact that Japanese people aren’t as shy about sex as we in the West are, but it still seems unprofessional to me).

For my part, questions about the size of my penis are pretty frequent, as well as some sort of variation on “Did you play sex last night?”

There are various ways to deal with this, and over the 5 years I’ve been in Japan I’ve pretty much tried all of them. One is just to pretend you didn’t understand, and send the student running back to his dictionary to make sure he got all the words right. This is only a temporary solution for the more persistent students, who will try and rephrase themselves until they get an answer.

Another tactic is to just give a straight foreword honest answer. “Last night? No, I can honestly say I didn’t have sex last night.” Again, this is usually temporary, because invariably follow up questions will ensue. “This month? This past year?”

One response is just to refuse to answer, or claim it as personal. But then the students really have one over you because they know they’ve made you feel uncomfortable.

Recently I’ve taken to responding, “Yes I did. With your mother.”

Now of course this is the oldest joke in the world, but it seems to have a bit of renewed currency in Japan. Also there is a delay due to the language barrier that makes it even funnier.

The students usually don’t understand at first, and simply repeat it to themselves as they huddle into a group trying to figure it out. “Wissu youa moda? Wissu youa moda?” And then finally some kid near the back will yell out, “Omae no Okasan no koto” (He’s talking about your mother). And then will come the sound of them chuckling in a “I can’t believe the teacher just said that. He really showed us” kind of way.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “That is absolutely appalling. I can’t believe you say that. That is so unprofessional.”
And you’re right. I probably shouldn’t be saying that and I guess it is pretty unprofessional. But the way I look at it, what’s really unprofessional is for the Japanese teachers to let the kids get away with harassing the foreigner like that in the first place. And it’s the only way I can stay one up on the kids.

Anyway, the other day, I was in class, and the students were supposed to be taking notes and I was going around answering questions, and one boy asked me, Did you play sex last night,” and I answered him as usual, and then as I walked away I could hear the students going into the usual huddle to figure out what I meant, and eventually heard the usual laughter.

The problem is that for 9 out of 10 kids that response shuts them right up, but there’s always that 10th kid who gets real excited and wants to continue the repartee. Even when the Japanese teacher was trying to lecture, he was laughing and shouting out, “Really? Really? Should I call you father then?” I tried to discreetly indicate to him to be quiet and listen to the lecture.

After class he came up to me and tried to continue the conversation. He even tried to get the Japanese teacher to translate for him. “Joel Sensei said he has sex with my mother.”

“I’m sure Joel Sensei didn’t say that,” she answered.

“Yes he did.”

“No he didn’t. You must have heard him wrong.”

At which point he just stood there with a puzzled look on his face. I tried to look around the room innocently. Then, after the Japanese teacher left, I pointed at his chest and said, “Gotcha!” and then walked out of the classroom.

Link of the Day
The news on Monday that an Austrian court has sentenced crackpot British historian David Irving to three years' imprisonment for having denied the Holocaust seventeen years ago should have alarmed free speech advocates -- particularly at a time when Muslim fundamentalists are being lectured as to the freedom of expression that should be afforded cartoonists. In the event, however, a lack of noticeable outcry has exposed a longstanding double standard in the West about who is entitled to free speech and why.