Archive for February, 2008

Coach Napoleon

Published by Bob Sanchez on February 28, 2008 in Funnies. 0 Comments

Allow me to introduce my favorite member of the staff at our wonderful school. He is the boys fast-pitch softball coach, the vice chairman of the student advisement committee, and a geography teacher. In that order. Which is one of the reasons why I like him so much.

As his name suggests, he’s a small guy with a bit of a complex. He’s about 5-foot-5 with a barrel chest, dark suntanned skin, and a shaved head of black hair. His mouth is quite large for his physique, and from it comes a symphony of snide remarks, abrupt commands, and genuinely good advice.

His desk is in my row in the teachers’ office, but faces the opposite direction. Nonetheless, I can hear him drressing down students in his dirty Kochi dialect and see him openly surfing the Internet during work hours, searching for the latest and greatest softball gear or for interesting baseball news.

As a coach, he has built the most reputable softball program on the island. Good players want to play for him, and all players respect him. He makes the best use of practice time that I have seen in Japan, and that goes for all sports and all levels. He drills and teaches the players adequately and in a way not too different than the American style, yet manages to have his players run and do ridiculous amounts of sit-ups so as to keep it distinctly Japanese.

He is often on the phone setting up practice games and his team does a lot of traveling. They placed eighth in the national tournament last summer and could have advanced but for three fly balls that the center fielder (and team captain) dropped in the quarterfinal game. Coach Napoleon comes off as a hardass, no doubt, but he was fittingly empathetic toward that poor kid who will probably remember nothing else more than those awful errors.

As a ranking member of the student advisement committee, he is an unforgiving rule-monger and unleashes his wrath on any slovenly student that dares to show his face in the teachers’ office. Unfortunately, students in Japan have a right to come to school and can’t be sent home or punished very harshly, so there isn’t much that Coach Napoleon can actually do to enforce his beloved rules and the kids know it. However, for what it appears to be on its face, students bow their heads and agree with everything he says. They never talk back to him, which is more than can be said for their level of respect for the other teachers.

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A typical breakdown:

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Student: Excuse me, Coach Napoleon?

Coach Napoleon: What are you doing here? Can’t you see that I’m busy?

Student: Oh yeah, excuse me for interrupting at this busy time.

Coach Napoleon: That’s right, and don’t you ever forget the proper greeting again. Whaddya want?

Student: Um, I need you to sign this, uh, sheet that says I was absent with the, um, uh, the flu last week.

Coach Napoleon: Well, were you sick or weren’tcha? Talk like a man, dammit! None of this mumbling “uhhh, the flu” garbage.

Student: Um, sorry.

Coach Napoleon: Hopeless. When’s this thing due – after school today? As in right now? What’s the matter with you, bringing this thing to me right before it’s due?

Student: Yeah, uh, I guess it is a little late.

Coach Napoleon: Damn straight. No respect for people’s time, I tell ya. Well, I’ll sign it, but I won’t like it. You and your flu…(more muttering)…Now get out of here and stop bothering me.

Student: Thanks.

Coach Napoleon: Whoa, boy! Where’s the proper salutation?

Student: Oh, yeah. Excuse me for interrupting.

Coach Napoleon: What a mess…

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These are my favorite:

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Student: Excuse me, Coach Napoleon?

(insert same opening dialogue regarding the proper way to approach someone of higher authority)

Student: Um, I’m applying to get into XYZ College, and I was thinkin’, uh, could you, maybe, write a letter of recommendation for me?

Coach Napoleon: And what would I be raving to the college about, your lousy performance in geography class? Or the way you sleep and play cards during English?

Student: Ahhh…..well, you see, it’s due on Friday and–

Coach Napoleon: What the hell do you think I do all day, sit here and wait for requests to write letters of recommendation? Geez, that only gives me two days to try and think up lies to tell XYZ College!

Student: Well, that isn’t much time, is it?

Coach Napoleon: You’re damn tootin’ it’s not much time. And look at you! Are you going to your interview with that ratty bedhead and those pink shoelaces? Buckle your belt, son!

Student (during the vitriol): Yes…yes…yes sir…yes…

Coach Napoleon: Oh, you’re on your way. The good people at XYZ College are going to love those shoelaces. Buncha lousy, no good…(unintelligible muttering as he snatches the paper away from the ragamuffin student)

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Many students really are hopelessly sloppy and lack proper teachers’ office etiquette. Granted, the amount of respectful speech due a teacher is over and above anything Americans would expect, but these aren’t magic rules that Coach Napoleon decided to create yesterday; these kids are supposed to have been learning them for the past six years.

One sophomore girl avoids him at all costs, and she’s smart to do so. I would call her The Alien because she doesn’t resemble an earthly being, Japanese or otherwise, but I settled on Cakeface instead. She wears so much foundation that an earthquake would knock down the school before it ruined her face. She probably pays as much per month for her eyelashes as I do for ice cream. Her color lenses are this shocking, ugly brown color that wouldn’t even look good on a cat.

Coach Napoleon has a particular disdain for female students who continually break the rules about makeup, earrings, hair and eye color, and skirt length. He organizes special assemblies for the girls to harp at them and tell them that they look like clowns, and I can’t disagree with him.

Cakeface was taking an English test the upcoming weekend and her English teacher shuffled her off to me for practice for the interview portion of the test. These sessions are particularly painful for me because I am against the Japanese/Asian approach to standardized testing, which is all about results and not about knowledge. Students can robotically recite correct answers to questions in the book, but completely freeze up if I ask them what they’re doing this weekend.

Anyway, Cakeface approached my desk for the first time and shrunk back in horror as she got within a few feet. She pointed behind me to Coach Napoleon’s desk and said, “You’re right next to Coach Napoleon. Can we do the practice somewhere else?”

This was a perfect opportunity for me to whip out my Coach Napoleon impression which, to be honest, I had practiced a bit when nobody was looking.

I smirked at Cakeface and said, “What, are you afraid he’ll see you and say, ‘You, with that clown face and short skirt. You goin’ into your interview with those eyelashes and your hair piled up on your dome like that?’”

Every teacher in earshot fell over laughing hysterically, so I guess I nailed it. She grimaced and sat down to begin practice. A few minutes later, Coach Napoleon blustered into the room and stopped in his tracks when he saw Cakeface.

Unfortunately, a diatribe in the native Kochi tongue was not to be, as his mere presence was enough to get his message across to her for likely the thousandth time. He slumped into his chair and hunched over his desk, poring over some papers while Cakeface squirmed in her seat. So it went every day for the rest of the week.

I don’t feel sorry for these wayward students one bit. Coach Napoleon definitely cuts deep with his words, but what is a sixteen-year-old girl with a hiked-up skirt and painted face asking for? What will become of the boy who walks around with his ass hanging out of his pants and disheveled hair?

I haven’t disagreed with one piece of guidance that has come out of his comically oversized mouth. He does something few other teachers at the school do and something that I have been forbidden to do, even in a neutral tone, and that is teach. Guide. Shape. It’s one last chance for these kids to learn what it’s like to look and behave respectably, and I’m glad to be privy to the process from my desk across the way.

Epilogue: Cakeface passed her English test, quit school, and became a 16-year-old “lady” of the night. I don’t know the details, but I haven’t seen her at school in the new year and I saw her outside of a hostess club with outrageous hair, a more outrageously short skirt, and outrageous fishnet stockings. Even Coach Napoleon can’t save them all.

Festival of Fools

Published by Bob Sanchez on February 13, 2008 in Lessons. 0 Comments

When there’s a festival within biking distance, KCTC will often ride to it and take a breather at the festival site. The Akiba Festival happens in mid-winter every year out by the Kochi-Ehime border, about 45 miles out of the city.

Four of us left the Bike Shop early and took a direct route while a larger group of gnarly bikers took the scenic route and departed at the regular time. The snails and I reached a dam and the rabbits met us there twenty minutes later.

We crossed over the dam and took the road less traveled. The national highway continued on the opposite side of the chasm, and we tottered along a bumpy one-lane road on our side. I marveled at how peaceful the scene was and nearly forgot that we were headed for a Japanese festival, which is anything but serene.

We passed through a tunnel and BOOM there was the line of cars and tour buses. The climb began and bikes and cars alike struggled up the steep incline that showed no signs of evening out.

There was barely enough room for both bikes and cars, and tree roots caused many bottlenecks. Drivers glared and honked pointlessly as they squeezed past us. Loud noises rile me up, and there’s no quicker way to get me to explode than to ram something obvious into my ears at a high volume.

Add to this mounting frustration the double-digit grade and lack of turnouts, and you have a very unhappy Mac. I had no choice but to keep going because there was no room to stop. Dead tired and about ready to blow my stack at the idiots laying on their horns, a pile of leaves off the road finally offered sweet respite. But not before I emptied my lungs into the gorge.

I peered up the jagged rock before me and saw a parking lot, but I’ve seen enough mountain roads here to know that that was just Lot 1 of countless lots to come, each with about five parking spaces. This precarious, aggravating mountain hell was never going to end!

It finally did, and I’m not sure exactly how. Memories have been erased for my protection, I’m sure. The Bike Shops’ van was parked in Lot 58 or thereabouts, and I slowly changed into streetclothes. My hands were numb and my fingers useless. It’s something I’m coming to hate about the cold - my hands don’t work very well and when my fingers slip or miss whatever I’m aiming for and hit something else, it hurts like hell!

We were so far away from the festival that we had to bike there from the van. I put my gripes about Japanese festivals in my back pocket and rode along, feeling very naked without my helmet. We dodged pedestrians the whole way and passed two or three lines of people waiting for shuttles to take them up the mountain. The number of people, the lack of space, and the steepness of the walls of the canyon made the situation ridiculous.

We left our bikes in a drainage ditch and watched as a procession of colorfully-dressed children walked by. One boy was playing a little theme on a wooden flute and a couple of others beat drums. A man in a red demon mask followed in the back carrying what looked like a gigantic house duster. It was a yellow, 30-foot stick with a bunch of black feathers sticking out of the top, and that stick appeared to be the focal point of this festival.

We followed the kids to a large performance area that looked like it could be terraced rice fields the other 365 days of the year. Each level was PACKED with people and every third person had a camera. I don’t mean cell phones or cute little digital cameras, I mean telescopic lens, crosshares, that KASHINK!!! shutter sound, the works.

Many of these amateur photographers were so focused on their snapshots that they took a step or were pushed right over the edge of the terraces. At least half of the people in the crowd were older than 60, and everyone that took a spill before my eyes belonged to that group.

The men in demon masks started to play catch with the big yellow stick, and when one would catch it and work against the momentum, the stick bent so much that the feather duster touched people in the crowd.

The moves got trickier and one demon tried to make a diving catch of the stick only to miss and go toppling over a terrace edge and into a pile of brush. All of his weight was concentrated over his right shoulder, which popped out of the socket and caused him visible pain.

The crowd laughed. They laughed! They were entertained by this! I held back for a few seconds, thinking that perhaps it was scripted and that a demon in pain was some way to symbolically chase winter away and welcome spring.

The guy didn’t get up and started kicking his legs and pounding on the ground with his good arm. The crowd continued to roar.

That cut me off from reality. I felt like I was watching the whole thing from a theater. What would make people cram themselves into a perilous chasm stacked with shaky, unlevel terrain and laugh at someone else’s misfortune?

Few times in my life had I felt so disconnected from everything in front of me. My body was there, but I was not a part of any of it - the honking, shoving, and elbowing up the mountain. The price-gouging at the food booths. The risking of life and limb for the same photograph you could get on a postcard for 30 yen. Celebrating somebody’s agony.

Mob mentality is not unique to Japan, nor do I think what happened on the hill constituted it. However, I don’t understand why people like being a part of the crowd. I can’t comprehend what is enjoyable about doing what everybody else is doing to the point of personal discomfort and loss of principles.

The scene at this winter festival was chaos and madness. I felt sick to my stomach and wanted to escape, but freedom was not forthcoming; we would have to endure everything again on the way down the mountain.

I have never done well with crowds, but it seems especially bad for me in Japan. I recall sitting in a car in a riverbed waiting two hours to move, let alone get out, after a summer fireworks show in Fukushima. I had to physically rough some people up to escape from a huge music festival in Ibaraki last summer.

What is it about gigantic events that appeals to people? Perhaps it comes from watching hordes of people pass through the gates of Disneyland as a youngster, but I have an extreme aversion to being one of the paying suckers.

Japanese people seem to enjoy this situation by and large, although I know this kind of thing goes on at every rock concert and political demonstration across the globe. However, it’s one thing that will continue to stand between me and total understanding.