Can't get no

   I often carry out impromtu surveys in my university classes to get a quick feel on what the students are thinking. Some of these surveys are admittedly silly, but some of them can be eye-opening. 

   In the final class of the semester at Seinan, I asked my second year students how satisfied they were with the semester that was about to come to an end. On a scale of ‎1 to 10, six of the students told me they had a satisfaction level of "7", ten had a satisfaction level of only "5".

   Although I considered the students' level of satisfaction to be low at first, my friend Adi, a student of engineering at the Kyûshû Institute of Technology (KIT) wrote, "Satisfaction of 7. . . Classes must be fun there . . . Surveys here in Iizuka for technical subjects range in 0.5-1.5 out of 5."

   When I asked the kids why they weren't satisfied, many replied that they hadn't studied or had skipped too many classes.

   That got me to thinking about tuition, which is about ¥800,000 a year. Not expensive by American schools, but not cheap. The average student has 480 classes a year (13 subjects x 15 weeks x 2 semesters). The average cost of one class comes to ¥1,667. I told the students that if they were to skip one day, say 3 classes, then it was the equivalent of taking a five-thousand yen note, wiping it on their arse, and flushing it down the toilet. I think it was the first time they ever thought about it in those terms and I could read it in their faces.

   I then asked them how many of their classes they considered worthwhile. The typical answer was 3 or 4, with the remaining 8 to 10 classes being a waste of time. Why? Invariably, the blame fell on the teacher.

Hifumi, the Little Diner That Could

   When I first came to Japan I taught at a small privately run English School which only by the grace of God remains in business to this day.

   I taught five to six lessons a day, five days a week, back then and earned about ¥250,000—the minimum wage for that kind of work—minus ¥40,000-plus for rent and utilities.[1] In addition to being my employer, the feckless Mr. “Bakayama” (a nickname I coined for the man meaning “Foolish Mountain”; his real name was Nakayama) was also my landlord, like a two-bit Milton Hersey. As I was F.O.B., fresh-off-the-boat, I didn’t have to pay any income or residence taxes.

   Located in a sleepy corner of Kitakyūshū City, the neighborhood where I worked had a few restaurants and diners that were alright. There was one place that did a pretty good kara’age karii (curry and rice with fried chicken). My two co-workers “Blad” (Bradley) and “Hoka” (Geoffrey) and I would have lunch there after our “teachers meeting” every Wednesday and bitch about Bakayama.

   Lots of good memories. Blad and Hoka would return to the States the following spring and when my contract was up I moved on to Fukuoka.

   I took a job at another small English school called Bell American School. Not a bad operation and a huge improvement over Bakayama’s Little School That Barely Could. Unfortunately, I was the token gaijin (foreigner) at Bell in an office staffed with psychopathic women. (For more on this, go here.)

   I worked six days a week at the new school, but only had two to three classes a day. I also made a bit more, and with all the free time I was able to take on private lessons to supplement my income.[2]

   There were not only more restaurants near my new workplace, but they were much better than those in Kitakyūshū. What’s more, the affluent women I was now teaching were something of gourmands and delighted in taking me to new restaurants.

   I was at Bell for about four years before striking out on my own. Life continued to improve: more money, more freedom, better restaurants. I was now living in Daimyō, an area of Fukuoka City which is said to have more restaurants and bars (and hair salons) per square kilometer than anywhere else in Japan. The money and eats were very, very good.

   Before the Internet became as widely used as it is today, people would call me up to ask what restaurant I recommended, or where such-and-such bar was located. Thanks to smartphones I rarely have to perform this service now. It’s just as well because I seldom go out anymore what with my being the father of a young child (who happens to be in my lap fiddling with the keys as I try to write this).

   Since last spring I have been teaching full-time at a private women’s college.

   The conditions at the college are very good. I teach a mere two to three one-hour classes a day, four days a week, and get paid considerably more for the “work” than I did as part-time instructor with a heavier class load. (Odd, the way that works.) Where I was once a grunt in the Eikaiwa trenches nearly two decades ago I am now a low-ranking commissioned officer of sorts.

   The only drawback of the change in employment, as I have mentioned before, is the fact that the college is located in the heart of a culinary desert. The only eatery that is within a reasonable walking distance is the Hifumi Shokudō (一二三食堂, lit. One, Two, Three Diner), a miserable little place that doesn’t appear to have changed a thing since it opened sometime in the late Shōwa Period (early 80s?).

   Every thing about the place is odd.

   For one, the servings at Hifumi are huge, the kind of servings growing boys fortify themselves with. Trouble is, there isn’t a boy to be seen anywhere near the diner. Come to think of it, in the dozen times I have been to Hifumi, I have yet to see any other customers. Makes you wonder how they have been able to stay in business all this time.

   What's more, most of the time when I pop into Hifumi, I find the place abandoned. Sometimes I can hear the distant sound of a television coming from another room. (Hifumi, like so many of these diners from olden days, is on the first floor of proprietor's home.) I often have to manufacture some racket—move the table about so that it grates against the concrete floor, or throw the sliding door open with a crash—before the goblins working in the Hifumi kitchen stir to life.

   The only item on the menu that I can safely recommend is the “Service Set” (☆☆☆) which includes two chicken cutlets, salad, rice, and soup for the low, low price of ¥450 ($4.50). With such rock-bottom prices, it’s no wonder Hifumi can’t afford to remodel.

   Part of me wants to advise them on how they might bring in some of the four-thousand-odd girls attending the local school, but then Hifumi has managed to survive the two Lost Decades since the end of the Shôwa Period. Perhaps, they know what their doing.

   The Hifumi Fried Rice. ☆

   The Hifumi Omuraisu. Looks as if it's been stabbed. ☆☆

   The Hifumi Chicken Rice ☆☆

---

[1] The exchange rate at the time was about ¥130 to the dollar, so I made roughly $1,900 a month.

[2] With my salary and moonlighting, I was earning about ¥350,000 per month. The yen would rise as high as ¥80 to the dollar in a year’s time, meaning in dollar terms I was making over four grand a month. I was working half as much, yet making double.

Boys Be Ambitious!

   They say youth is wasted on the young and you need no further evidence of this than the dismal results of an impromptu poll I conducted in some of my classes recently.

   The above is a poll of 39 university sophomores, all boys, at a local national university dedicated to information technology. 28 of them were single at the time of the survey, and, well, when you take into account that the university is only about five percent girls (biologically speaking, that is), it's hard to blame the guys. While there is the occasional knock-out among the co-eds--scarce as hen's teeth, though--the vast majority of women studying at the university will not be winning any beauty contests.

   What surprised me the most was that more than a third (35.9%) had never in their 19-odd years on this planet dated. That's pretty sad.

   You'd think that the situation would be better with women studying English at the famous co-educational private university where I teach part-time, but no, the figures are equally dismal. Of the 18 freshmen girls surveyed, only three had boyfriends. Two met their sweethearts in high school; the third was introduced to hers only a few months ago by a friend. Two claimed to be "lovey-dovey" at the time of they survey.

   In this class and another freshman class there was a handful of boys, as rare a commodity as girls at the public engineering college mentioned above. Nevertheless, none of lads had a lassie they could warm themselves with in the coming months of autumn and winter.

   A year ago, I invited a Nepali student at the engineering school and now a good friend of mine named Adi to come down to Fukuoka to observe some of my classes at the private university. I had the girls ask him questions--where are you from, why are you in Japan, what is your hobby, and so on--first. Later it was Adi's turn to ask the questions. He pointed to one of the few boys among the third year English literature students and asked if he had a girlfriend. No was the answer.

   Adi came down on the guy like a ton of bricks: "Shame on you! Man, you're surrounded by women and you haven't got a girlfriend? Shame on you!"

   The boy hung his head in defeat.

   Adi was right, of course.

   Yesterday morning, I asked the three boys (English Lit. majors) in my freshman class at the private university if any of them had girlfriends. None did. When class ended, I took the boys aside and said, "You're all reasonably good-looking. I mean it. When you're surrounded by women like this, there is no reason why you shouldn't have two or three girlfriends each. Seriously. So, I'm giving you some homework: get a girl before next Monday's class."

   "Will we fail the class if we don't?"

   "No, of course not. You'll still get an A, but you'll fail in life."

   One of the services I provide these hopeless boys is to show them what women are looking for in a partner. In the above, I asked the boys what they thought girls wanted. Then, I asked the girls what they were hoping to find in a boyfriend. It's funny that so many of them said chose "kindness" but, as I told the boys, girls will run all over you if you're too kind. Be cold, distant, uninterested, aloof, and the girls will flock to you. Nothing turns a girl off more than a guy who's desperate.

   Oh, yeah, be sure to make them laugh.

   The above was a survey of about ten freshmen women studying English literature. Below is a survey of twenty freshmen girls, all English majors, who were told to choose the three most important aspects from a list they provided. "Kind", "taller than me", and "funny" were the most popular answers. I suspect that the first two garnered the most votes because they were at the top of the list. In every single one of these surveys that I have conducted over the years humor has been found to be one of the most sought after attributes in a prospective partner. 

   Make 'em laugh, and you're halfway up their leg.

   Note: sawayaka, near the bottom of the first column, means "fresh", "refreshing". I suppose it refers to someone who isn't stuffy, gloomy, or introverted. Sociable, but not overly so. Cheerful, but not gratingly optimistic.

   Good luck, lads!

Throw me a feckin' bone, will ye!

   We’d just had a three-day weekend, so I asked the kid if he had done anything fun.

   “I went out,” he replied.

   “Out?”

   “Yes.”

   “Where to?”

   “The park.”

   “You went out to a park.”

   “Yes.”

   “By yourself?”

   “No. With my friend.”

   “You went to the park with your friend?” I said. “What for? A walk?”

   “No.”

   “Then, what?”

   “Baseball.”

   “Baseball? Were you and your friend playing catch?”

   “No. We played baseball.”

   “The two of you?”

   “No.”

   “No?” The conversation was going nowhere fast. “Who else were playing with?”

   “Pardon me?” he said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. They were so clouded over with smudges I don’t know how he could possibly have seen through them.

   I asked him how many people he was playing baseball with.

   “Ten,” he answered.

   “Well that makes more sense. So you went to the park with some friends and played baseball.”

   “Yes.”

   “Friends from school here, from this university?”

   “No.”

   “Friends from high school?”

   “No.”

   “Who were you playing with, then?”

   “I don’t know.”

   “What d’ya mean you don’t know?”

   “Do they go to another university?” I asked, wondering if he had taken part in some kind of inter-collegiate game, or something.

   “Maybe.”

   “Maybe?” I gave my head a good shake, and tapped the side of it as trying to dislodge water from my ears. “Who the hell are these people you played with? Are they strangers?”

   “No.”

   “No?” C’mon, throw me a feckin’ bone! “Friends?”

   “Yes, friends.”

   “And they don’t go to school here.”

   “Yes.”

   “Yes, they do?”

   “No.”

   “No, they don’t?”

   “Yes.”

   Argh!

   “Okay, let me get this straight,” I said, taking a deep breath to keep my blood from boiling over. “You went to a park with ten of your friends to play baseball, right?”

   “Yes.”

   Progress!

   “And these friends, where did you meet them?”

   “At the park.”

   “Agh!! I mean, where did you first meet them?”

   “In kindergarten.”

   Let me tell you, teaching English in Japan can sometimes feel like dentistry.