Taken by the Wind » Teaching English in Japan

Travel Videos from Around the Web

Reannon Muth — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 23:19:46 +0000

The following are some of my favorite travel-inspired video clips. I’m sorry they’re so small! I have no idea how to make them bigger… Enjoy. : )

The English Teachers Series

This is the first episode in a series that centers around English teachers in Japan.

I love the Neville character. He reminds me a lot of someone I used to work with in Tokyo who belonged to this weird, cult-like sect of Buddhism and who would spend part of each of class teaching his students karate moves.

You can visit the show’s website for future episodes or for character sketches and a plot synopsis. I can’t wait to see where they go with this.

Where the Hell is Matt?

Matt was once just another unemployed backpacker in SE Asia until one day…Well, I’ll let him tell you.

Here’s an exert from the ‘About Matt’ page on his blog, Where The Hell is Matt?

“A few months into his trip, a travel buddy gave Matt an idea. They were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said “Hey, why don’t you stand over there and do that dance. I’ll record it.” He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It’s actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly. Anyway, this turned out to be a very good idea.

A couple years later, someone found the video online and passed it to someone else, who passed it to someone else, and so on. Now Matt is quasi-famous as “That guy who dances on the internet. No, not that guy. The other one. No, not him either. I’ll send you the link. It’s funny.”

The response to the first video brought Matt to the attention of the nice people at Stride gum. They asked Matt if he’d be interested in taking another trip around the world to make a new video. Matt asked if they’d be paying for it. They said yes. Matt thought this sounded like another very good idea.”

Pretty awesome story, huh?

“Life on a Cruise Ship” – A Rap

You probably won’t appreciate this video if you haven’t worked for a cruise line before. But if you’re interested in giving ship-life a shot, this will give you a good idea of how small the crew cabins are and what it looks like below deck.

A Comedian Jokes about the Hazards of Air Travel

You can tell this video is pre-911 because he jokes about an era when there were still curtains separating coach from first class and there was still free in-flight food services.

Prague’s Kafka International Named Most Alienating Airport

Favorite line from a customer service agent: “If there is a problem, fill out complaint form and put it in an envelope addressed to the hospital…in which you were born.”

One-Year-Old Snow-Boarder

Okay, so this one doesn’t have much to do with travel, other than it relates the theory that the way to raise brave, risk-taking children is to start ‘em while they’re young.

Dating When You’re A Broad: It Ain’t Easy!

Reannon Muth — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 20:08:03 +0000

A Couple in the Dark by Carlo Nicora

I don’t write about my dating life on this blog much (or at all, really). When you write about your life on the Internet, you gotta draw the line somewhere and I guess that line for me is discussing details of Relationships Past, Present or Future. I think it’s important to respect people’s privacy, which is why I don’t write about my friends or family much either (other than the occasional, casual mention). That, and most people I know aren’t as comfortable sharing their lives with faceless strangers from the Internet.

Fair enough. Sometimes I’m not even sure I’m comfortable with it, especially when I’m applying for jobs and some of my most personal thoughts and feelings are only a Google-search away from a prospective employer’s eyes. It’s an odd feeling to walk into a job interview and wonder if the manager seated before you has read about that time you set off the fire alarm in the shower or the time James Franco almost fell in love with you. It’s situations like that that make me wonder if I’d be better off blogging anonymously.

Especially when I get concerned phone calls from my parents that begin with: “I read your blog today…about how you got into a fight with the photocopy machine again….” And end with: “Reannon, are you sure you’re okay?”

Recently I broke my vow of silence though and submitted a piece to Vagabondish about how tough it was being single in Tokyo. I actually wrote the piece over a year ago, while I was still living in Japan and submitted it to a few Japan-based magazines and webzines and was told (and I quote) “We get pitched this idea too often.” While it was reassuring to know that I wasn’t the only one who found the dating prospects in Japan to be well, limited to say the least, it was also perplexing. If there were other women writing about how they had trouble finding a date in Tokyo, why wasn’t anyone publishing anything about it?

Well, if you were like I was a year ago, a single girl in Japan suffering through both Valentine’s Day (and the equally offensive White Day) with only your boyfriend pillow for company, well you can rest assured that at least there were – and still are – others suffering along side you.

Like one of my favorite bloggers, Sarah Marchildon of The Hollywood North Report, for example. She writes about her dating pitfalls in Japan far better than I ever could (they’re equal parts hilarious and depressing) and provides details that I’d be far too embarrassed to have splashed on the Internet. I’m grateful that she had the courage to include them. My favorite posts of hers were Man Hunt and Man Hunt: Part II.

And then there’s my article: No Sex in the City: What it’s like to be Female and Foreign in Japan.

It’s ironic that some of the qualities that make it possible for western women to move to a foreign country by themselves to begin with (their strength and independence, for instance) are the same qualities that damn them to lives of celibacy once they get there. My male friends have claimed that I’m stereotyping men everywhere with this theory, so you’ll have to let me know what you think. But it’s my opinion that the reason women have trouble dating (locals and foreigners alike) while abroad is that men (in general) are intimidated and threatened by women who are independent and emotionally strong enough to pack up and ship off half way across the world alone.

I could be wrong (and I seriously hope I am, because being right would mean that I’m never going to find a boyfriend ever again) but this article about which sports men find sexiest, certainly suggests that I could be onto something. According to a poll of 6,000 people, which was conducted by Sam Murphy and Richard Wiseman (a fitness expert and a professor from the UK), men ranked aerobics, pilates, ‘going to the gym’ and running as the sexiest female sports. Women, on the other hand, found rock-climbing to be the physical activity they found most attractive on men (an activity that unlike ‘going to the gym’ is an actual sport). Professor Wiseman’s theory for the difference in gender-preferences was this:

“Women’s choices appear to reflect the type of psychological qualities that they find attractive – such as bravery and a willingness to take on challenges – whilst men are more shallow, looking for a woman who is physically fit but not challenging their ego by being overly strong.”

So brave men who read this blog, what do you think? Do you find women who live (or have lived) abroad ‘challenging to your ego’ or is this all a bunch of feminist BS?

Are Japanese and American Children Really all that Different?

Reannon Muth — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:39:00 +0000

I spent all of last week shuttling back and forth between my old job teaching (mostly North American) pre-schoolers at an International school, and my new job, teaching ESL at a Japanese after school preschool program. The whole experience was exhausting (imagine working for nine hours straight, all of your students under the age of six) but the experience got me thinking.

Are Japanese and American three-year-olds really all that different?

My Japanese boss believes that answer is a definite ‘no’. She believes all children are basically the same, especially at the preschool age.

My ESL teacher friends have all sounded in with a resounding “Hell yes”. As more than one friend put it “Japanese kids are really, really weird.”

Here are some of my observations from the last few days.

Five Differences Between Japanese and American Children

* Japanese children tend to ‘shut-down’ when they’re upset. I’ve noticed that if a Japanese child is either angry, sad, bored or just doesn’t want to do something, he or she will give you this blank, expressionless ‘poker face’ look (that is, if they look at you at all). They won’t acknowledge they’ve heard you and won’t even respond when you tap them on the shoulder or say their name. It’s perplexing because you’re left try to surmise why it is they’re upset, (or if that’s even the case). I used to think that it was because they couldn’t articulate their feelings in English, but I’ve watched them do the same thing with the Japanese staff. The Japanese teachers will usually try to joke around in order to coax a smile out of them, or else cuddle them and heap lots of praise and encouragement.
My reaction is to assume it’s an attention seeking behavior and ignore it, but maybe I’m wrong?

American children do this too and might say things like: “I’m not talking to you!” and then go sit in the corner and pointedly ignore you, but it usually doesn’t last more than a minute or two. I find with American children, it’s fairly easy to discern what they’re feeling, mostly because they won’t hesitate in telling you. Or it’ll be written all over their expressive little faces. But then, perhaps someone not familiar with American children wouldn’t say that it’s easy.

* Japanese kids are used to being ‘man-handled’. I’ve observed this happening a lot, especially when mother’s drop their children off at school. If the child is in a bad mood and doesn’t want to go, he won’t say a word but will instead, just sit on the floor and refuse to budge. No screaming. No crying. No tears. Just the silent treatment and the ‘poker face’. It’s uncomfortable to watch, because the mom (embarrassed), will whisper and speak softly in the child’s ear, pleading and trying to gently pull him into a standing position, but to no avail. After about five minutes, she’ll pick him up and carry / drag / yank / pull / push the motionless child into the room. He’ll then silently walk back out of the classroom and drop like a dead weight onto the hallway floor and the whole process will start all over again.

When teaching, I’ve found that I can quite easily maneuver a child around by gently pushing him or her in the direction I want her to go. Or if I want a misbehaving child to sit, I can simply pick them up and place them in a chair. This isn’t true with American children. If you try to coax a child into a line by pulling them by the hand, for example, he or she will likely shout: “I can do it by myself!”

* Japanese children are fiercely competitive…from a very young age! They seek adults approval and are perfectionists. They won’t offer an answer to a question unless they are sure that it’s the correct one. This makes games hard to play at times, because the children are hesitant to just ‘take a wild guess’, which is often necessary for a game to work properly. It’s interesting because even though they’re competitive, it’s usually only with themselves. Every time we play a game and a child is struggling with an answer, another student (even someone from the opposing team, will whisper the answer in the child’s ear. It’s sweet and adorable but I’ve got to wonder: Why? Does it have to do with the whole group culture orientation, (“I help you, you help me”?) Or is it that they can’t stand to see one of their classmates uncomfortable or embarrassed?

American children, on the other hand, have no problem volunteering an answer, and won’t hesitate to shout out an answer, oftentimes when the teacher hasn’t even asked for one. For the most part, they’re a lot more uninhibited and more willing to take risks. I guess that can be attributed to the American educational concept that “there are no wrong answers”. They also have an ‘every man for himself’ attitude towards games and will be quick to shout out “Hey, he cheated!” or “That’s not fair! You helped him!”

* Japanese children need ‘genki’teachers! It’s funny, because when I first started working at the international school, one of my boss’s criticisms was that I was ‘too energetic’. “Speaking in a loud, overly-excited voice, just adds to the chaos and will make the children more rowdy and disruptive. Speak in a normal, quiet, soft tone of voice and they will calm down and listen to you.” This is more or less what I was told, and it really worked. At the Japanese school, however, my boss told me that I need to be more ‘genki’ (excited, energetic and expressive). At first, I balked at the idea. I follow the philosophy that if you plan an interesting, fun lesson, you shouldn’t have to work hard to encourage the children to participate. They’ll naturally want to join in because it’s fun. But I think that because Japanese children are quieter and more timid than American or Western children, they need an energetic teacher to ‘show’ them how to have fun.

* Japanese children love silly, physical humor! That’s another reason why the ‘Genki teacher’ thing seems to go over well. Children love it when the teacher ‘accidentally’ trips over a chair or messes up the words to a song. One of the best teaching tricks to use with Japanese children, is to intentionally get an answer wrong and have them correct you. They never seem to grow tired of this and will gleefully shout out: “Noooo! That’s wrong!” ‘High Fives’, sound effects, funny drawings on the board…these all go over amazingly well in the Japanese classroom.

American children aren’t so quick to buy into it, however. If a teacher ‘accidentally’ dropped his flashcards in front of a class of pre-school American students, for example, they’d more than likely roll their eyes in annoyance.

My boss pointed out that perhaps a lot of my observations have less to do with the fact that my students are Japanese and more to do with the fact that they’re non-native English speakers and in an ESL setting.

What do you think?

She’s a Super Freak

Reannon Muth — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 03:01:00 +0000

'A Not Unsual Tokyo Subway Scene' by Aurelio.Asian.

Two months ago, a mentally-unstable man that I met on the train in Saitama, took one look at me and announced in a loud, prophetic voice: “You are too young to be in Japan.”

Once I got over the shock of being addressed in this manner (in English!) I laughed it off, saying “Buddy, I’m a quarter of a century old!” And most days, that’s exactly how I feel; old and incredibly jaded.

But then there are other days (like today) where I feel like I’m just an insecure kid playing pretend at being this competent and capable adult. I feel like I’m at the emotional level of a 14-year -ld and that 14-ear-old is horrified at the thought that she alone is responsible for making so many important life choices. Right now, she’s staring numbly at the the myriad of flight itineraries looming on the screen before her and saying, “You want me to do WHAT? Make a decision that could potentially ruin my life? Shouldn’t you be asking a grown-up this? Why don’t you just call the guidance counselor?”

Japan seems to have a funny way of bringing that painfully self-conscious, frightened teenager out in me.

I think it’s because I feel like I’m being judged here for not conforming and for not being perfect, or even close to it. There are just so many unspoken rules. Don’t eat while walking, don’t put on makeup on the train, don’t speak what’s on your mind, don’t jaywalk, (even when it’s 3am and there isn’t a car in sight).

Everything must be done the correct way, the proper way, “the Japanese Way”. There’s a proper way to write, a proper way to hold your chopsticks, a proper way sip tea and stand in line. There’s a proper way to clean, eat, cook, arrange flowers, take a bath and even walk.

It’s like high school all over again. If your behavior doesn’t fit in with what “all the cool kids doing” you’re an ostracized freak of nature. And sometimes I feel like the biggest freak of them all.

I’m especially conscious of this fact when I’m running late to work, which happens, like, every day. I’ll be tearing down the sidewalk towards the train station, bumping into people and bicycles and construction workers as they all travel in neatly ordered rows, like giant schools of fish, all completely in sync. Then I’ll reach the station, a sweaty, disheveled mess, only to find that I’ve once again misplaced my train pass. So I’ll dump out the contents of my bag onto the ground in front of the turnstile and bouncy balls, pieces of chalk, 50 dollars worth of coins and tiny animal magnets will scatter everywhere. People will slow down to watch as I frantically search for that tiny plastic card and I’ll feel the magnitude of their negative, critical thoughts which radiate off of them, like, “Ha. What’s that girl doing? What a Frrrreeeeaaak.”

Then I’ll get on the train and I’ll get these side-long glances. Quick, yet assessing. And I’ll do an appearance check: How do I look from a Japanese person’s perspective? And I’ll notice the mis-matched socks, the white-out and glue stains on my black pants, and the scuffed shoes with the holes in the souls which are taped up with masking tape.

And then I’ll look around at the other women, dressed in perfectly pressed designer label suits with faces made-up like runway models, and every exquisitely highlighted strand of hair neatly styled into place. And I’m reminded once again of just how much I don’t belong here.

My friends insist that this is all in my head. That if people do look at me, it’s only out of a passing curiosity. They aren’t critiquing or criticizing me. While they’re probably right, this feeling of self-consciousness, of not measuring up to their standards, is a hard one shake. Especially when most days I feel like a mildly-retarded illiterate with a permanent seat on the “short bus”.

Take today, for example. I got into a dramatic, drawn-out, hysterical cat fight with a photo-copy machine. It stubornly refused to cut me any slack for not being able to read kanji. So I cursed it out, pushing all of it’s buttons until it completely shut down and refused to talk to me.

I felt guilty afterwards so I tried to reach some sort of mutual compromise. I brought out my

kanji book and spent the next hour peering over the little screen and carefully counting each of the microscopic, intersecting lines that made up each Chinese character. I then patiently scanned the index of my kanji book, searching for something that even slightly resembled one of the scribble-scrabble hieroglyphics on the screen, but had no such luck.

I cried, cursing the evil bastards who decided to make the copy machine gaijin-proof and the Chinese person responsible for bringing his impossibly difficult written language to this island in the first place.

Later, the owner of the cram school gave me the polite, Japanese version of “What the Hell did you do to my copy machine?” And like a 14-year- old caught cutting gym class, I mumbled, red-faced: “Um. Well. You see…There were a bunch of buttons…and the Kanji…Well.”

As I type this, I’m sitting in my icebox of an apartment, shivering in a coat, gloves, ski hat and scarf, because I can’t figure out how to work the heater. My roommate has gone AWOL and I’ve tried to google the kanji character for ‘heat’, ‘heater’ and ‘hot’ but can’t find anything that matches the symbols on the remote.

I explained some of these frustrations to my mom the other day over the phone. “Reannon, why do you continually do this to yourself?” was her exasperated response. “Why do you have to make your life so hard?”

Hmm…good question. I have no idea. I just consulted the 14-year-old on that but she just rolled her eyes and said that my mom doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Teacher Barbie

Reannon Muth — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:39:00 +0000

I tend to treat my private lessons with my Japanese teacher like therapy sessions. I’ll tell her about how one of my student’s is abusing me. I’ll show her the bite marks and the bruises and share horror stories involving chalk dust thrown in my eyes and markers hurled at my head.

And then I’ll tell her about the mothers and my how my hatred for them borders on an irrational, unhealthy obsession.

You see, these mother’s and I are at war. It’s total full blown psychological warfare. For their part, they loudly chat through my lessons to the point where I can’t hear myself speak or laugh when their little darlings kick me in the shins. Or they’ll stare at me with unnerving intensity, like I’m their childhood Barbie come to life, as I warble out the Old McDonald Song, pig snorts and all.

I’ll in turn curse them out in my head and complain about them to anyone who will listen and bitch about them in this blog.

These mind games are exhausting though and it’s a losing battle. Yesterday I found myself wishing I could call a truce. I wish I had a magical remote control, where I could just press a button and have everything I said be instantaneously dubbed in Japanese. Because if only we spoke the same language, I would sit them all down on the floor and over tea, have a pow wow of group therapy session. A little heart-to-heart. And this is what I would tell them:

“I respect your desire to raise your children as if they are feral dogs instead of human beings and I admire your remarkable ability to stay calm while your children hit and scream and break the copy machine in a fit of rage. However, your children belong in a zoo and not in a classroom and I would appreciate it if you would keep them in a cage at home from now. Thank you very much.”

Okay, scratch that. I’d probably say something to the effect of:

“I don’t mind that you are sitting in my lesson. Even though your child is ten years old and is perfectly capable of spending an hour out of your sight, I don’t mind. Really. But please refrain from translating everything I say into Japanese. I know that you want to show off to the other mother’s that you understand English, but well, actually you don’t. You often translate things incorrectly and it just makes my job harder. Plus, your child doesn’t need a translator. He’s smart. Give him 20 seconds and he’ll figure out why I’m handing him an eraser and pantomiming erasing the board. Trust me.”

My God, how I would have loved to shout all of this at them yesterday. Magical remote control or not, it would have felt so good.

But of course, I didn’t. I smiled, I bowed. I said nothing. As soon as the class was over, I stomped off to the vending machine, grabbed a hot can of overly- sweetened crap coffee and marched up the hill to the forest behind the school. Then I yelled at and repeatedly kicked a bamboo tree until the soul of shoe ripped open.

I’m not normally an angry person. I don’t know why these mother’s continually get under my skin and I’ve tried talking to the owner of the school about it. She was sympathetic but said that she couldn’t talk to the mothers because that would be rude and wasn’t the Japanese Way. The Japanese Way apparently, is to send a vaguely worded letter about the benefits of discipline in child-rearing.

My Japanese tutor says these mother’s are unfortunately becoming rather common place in Japan. They even have a term for it, “Monster Mothers.” Apparently, these Monster Mother’s have seen how children in the West live happy, carefree childhoods and want to create that for their own children. They know that school, the children’s’ future careers and the pressures from the strict and rigid Japanese society will eventually beat some discipline into them. So in the meantime, they let them have as much fun as possible while they still can. I can understand this sentiment. It’s bizarre but around seven or eight of age is usually when I see a marked difference in Japanese children’s behavior. It’s definitely a turning point. They go from wild and out of control hellions to sullen, soft-spoken, timid sheep. It’s sad.

But even though I can sympathize with these mothers’ situations, their behavior and the fact that I’m helpless to do anything about it, makes me want to tear my hair out in frustration.

I’ve asked other ESL teacher’s for some words of wisdom. They all have similar complaints. But the best advice they could give me was to “not care so much” and hit the bar a lot after work.

Huh.

Here’s What Teacher Barbie Looks Like on the Weekends…

http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l279/jennibug126/50387a52.jpg