Brief Encounter - the remake

Wherever I may be in the world I seem to have an unwanted inbuilt magnetic pull towards the elderly, infirm and downright deluded when travelling on public transport.

Nam veterans, the frothy mouthed hillbilly who decided the Santa Cruz Greyhound queue was a perfect moment to declare he has AIDS to a total stranger. The Glaswegian soothsayer’s failed attempts to convince me that Armageddon is nigh, the aged Mexican who invited us to his bachelor pad, with hammocks full of bikini clad Page 3 models and the priest who tried to convert me to the wonderful world of Christianity.

Japan is no different.

Travelling back from Shikoku, little more than the remains of a lavish mosquito banquet, I slowly edge my swollen body into a seat.

Having paid more than double the price of the outbound journey, due to inadvertently hopping aboard an “express service,” shaving a mere 25 minutes off the total journey time, I take solace from the fact that at least I’m settled in a relatively clean, cartoon theme carriage with legroom and an empty seat alongside.

This rare moment of solitude is cut short as the train guard approaches and proceeds to talk gibberish, gesturing wildly, until I can act stupid no longer and am forced to move to economy class. Struggling with my backpack down the jostly, narrow aisled carriage, custom made for tiny framed hobbit-sized Japanese people, my sores scrape against all manner of wayward objects en route. Arriving further down the train in cattle grade, puss oozing freely from my now gaping wounds, the train-guard frantically nods encouragingly for me to sit down.

Scoping the crowded carriage, I breathe a sigh of relief upon clocking a free seat a little further along, a relief fast replaced by sheer horror as I clap eyes on my travelling companion. False teeth in hand, he invites me to sit, grinning a wide and gummy grin before taking a swig of whisky from a can.

The stench of alcohol and stale fish hits me as he leans over, nudging at my elbow and breathing in my face.

Quickly I discover his base English is “No English, happy, Thank you!” which he utters repeatedly while nodding with an enormous sense of pride. Using my best Japanese I discover he is 60 years old, hails from Osaka, is unemployed and, on first impressions, is unemployable.

A short and awkward silence ensues as he sighs and giggles, evidently trying to think of a way to continue the conversation, despite this most unfortunate language barrier, until a light bulb pings in his whiskey addled head. Leaning down, he rummages in a carrier bag and resurfaces with a beige, floppy looking substance, which he hands me, displaying gnarled hands and blackened fingernails.

Not wanting to offend, I accept the mystery substance with false gratitude and he encourages me to eat.

A look of revelation washes over his face, as he pulls a fifth word from the depths of his surviving grey matter.

“Feeshh, feeeesh, feeesh," he declares, nodding and smiling contentedly at his own achievement.

Of all the English words to spring to mind, he really doesn’t need to tell me it is fish.

The smell is unbearable as I stare dubiously at the warm, greasy substance poised precariously between my fingertips. This is the point of no return so, taking the plunge, I nibble the edge as he looks on in eager anticipation.

Since coming to Japan I have made a pact with myself to eat anything and everything which is set before me. So far this has included whole fish, dead eyes and gaping mouths included, chicken backbone, tentacles, raw chicken and even chicken ovary, all of which has been surprisingly palatable.

However, this mystery fodder invokes an involuntary gag reflux. Crunchy yet greasy, the food connoisseur in me detects lard, mixed with crunched up fish bones, gelatin, and finished with a dash more lard.

One - and only one - word can describe it – inedible. Technically then I am not breaking my self-imposed food pact when the diurectic effects of the whiskey see him making a dash for the toilet, squat toilet, I hasten to add.

In his absence, I am forced to sacrifice a CD cover from a friend’s band we’d seen earlier in the day, to surreptitiously wrap the remainder of the unidentifiable snack and stow it in my handbag. Gummy returns and nothing more of it is mentioned.

An awkward silence resumes, broken only by my 60-year-old toothless train buddy’s sporadic sighs and twitches as he thinks of a way to fill it.

So I get out my exercise book to show him all the Japanese words I can say as well as my writing practice. Blinkered from the wide and varied vocabulary I have picked up in the past three months, his eyes hone straight in on “dokushin”, the word for “single,” at which he points and laughs hysterically.

Seemingly, he takes my little display as a come-on and pulls out his own notepad, pointing and making writing motions with his hands as he shouts; “adderessu, denwa bango!” meaning can I have your address and phone number.

Older, wiser and less afraid to offend than I once was, I ignore his persistence, maintaining that I don’t understand until he eventually tires and puts his book away.

For the remainder of the journey he mutters, "happy happy thank you" every so often and pats my arm with his grubby, and now possibly urine drenched hands, right on my weeping bites.

As the train pulls into Okayama, I make my getaway faster than you can say “Ellie caught leprosy from a Japanese hobo.”

Oriental Bog Blog

My bog blog

Before coming to Japan, there was a slight apprehension as to how I could possibly cope amid such a technologically advanced culture. Bearing in mind I still own a walkman, box full of cassette tapes and am incapable of navigating my way around a washing machine dial.

In reality, being dumped in the middle of the mountains on a Japanese road to nowhere, there is an over-riding ignorance to all things cyber.

For example in school last week I explained the concept of speaking to my parents over Skype. All eyes were glued as teachers and students alike looked on with awe as Ellie the Messiah, prophesised of a future not yet known to Japan-kind.

Internet modems take preference over wireless and it takes three months and five home visits to establish a connection. And my modem has an irritating and inexplicable tendency to wish me good morning at 5.30 every day, weekends and bank holidays inclusive.

They were fucking good mornings before I was rudely awakened by an overly zealous Japanese woman with a suspect helium addiction. However the situation has now been rectified by pulling the plug on these rude awakenings before retiring onto my sweat-stained futon.

A cash culture, there's no pay by card option and most machines charge the equivalent of a pint of lager to draw out my not so hard earned cash. Except for the sporadically available free machines, which close for the majority of the weekend, when the beer piggy bank is at its driest.

Despite all this, the one thing which I find completely unfathomable is the toilets.

Holes in the ground, more commonly known as “squat toilets” are a popular choice for the Japanese. Attempting to balance precariously, while weeing and wiping is a task only accomplishable by those with the stamina of an Olympic gymnast and years of target practice. And wiping front to back is an issue us western girls battle with daily.

Toilet slippers are mandatory in most indoor venues including bars, restaurants and schools.

Having made a vow to never, under any circumstances whatsoever, set foot in a pair of Crocs, I was left greatly disparaged after being forced to break this oath with a urine soaked pair of the offensive items.

Sadly it seems this diabolical choice of footwear has monopolised squatters Japan-wide and a trip to the toilet has, for me, become little more than foot rape.

At a festival back in April, a squatting virgin, slightly beer addled and kitted out in tan pleather boots, I reemerged from a trip to relieve myself with visible flashback.

Worse came for my friend Lucy who peed all over her trousers at school first thing in the morning. Forced to spend the rest of the day smelling like a Wetherspoons regular, she now removes her trousers and socks before tackling the squatter.

After a close encounter with a mosquito, my knees and ankles swelled up to catastrophic proportions, forcing me to move around like a wind up robot for more than three days. This led to nil by mouth at school after a failed attempt to squat saw me making like a dog, weeing sideways on, and almost ripping the plumbing clean off the wall in an attempt to hoist myself upright.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is a range of Western toilets making an appearance in hotels, supermarkets and the occasional school. These are far from ordinary. Mostly located next door to their poo-stained predecessors, they are a sight to behold and predominantly cause, out of nowhere, a chorus of angels to flit into my head and sing hallelujah in harmony.

Sporting heated seats, bum washes, and a “how to use” diagram of a satisfied cherub, taking full advantage of a power jet clean straight up his microscopic bumhole, pasted alongside, they are work of sheer genius.

In training week, we all had our own unique experiences with these washes. Scott, who claims to be good at pretty much everything, perfected it first time. I got the pressure and heat very wrong, burnt my backside and splashed a copious amount of water up the hotel mirror and Lucy stood up before the jet had stopped, soaking the bathroom entirely.

In one school, excitedly, a teacher came running up to me with great news of a revelation she had made since my last visit. She proceeded to lead me by the hand to a western toilet that she had stumbled upon by chance, in a happening on a par with the moment Lucy discovers the magical powers of the wardbrobe in the Chronicles of Narnia. Even better there were no wee-stained crocs lined up outside. I never thought it would make my day to be introduced to a WC.

But sometimes the Japanese do get it very wrong. I was shown to one futuristic loo, which was crammed into a room so small that it was impossible to sit down, or hover. On the verge of having an accident, I tried my best but couldn’t avoid the inevitable as wee splashed all down my thighs. Thank goodness for the inbuilt power hose.

However, there is a flaw in the design mechanism of these gifts from the heavens.

With no visible off-switch, the seats stay heated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. In summer, it can get very hot and going to the toilet is no longer a pleasant experience but more akin to walking straight into the fiery pits of hell. Especially if someone who has had a heavy night on the beer, has deposited their load before you.

Providing no insulation, the houses are made out of little more than paper, there is no central heating, people insulate their homes with bubble-wrap and winters in the mountains can see more than a metre of snow falling and settling for many weeks.

The only refuge is the heated toilet and entire families have duly been known to close the lid, pop on a table cloth and eat dinner around it.

In classrooms children and teachers sit shivering, aching and awaiting the first stages of pneumonia, followed by almost certain death.

Yet the toilets are as warm as a newborn cow.

The mind truly BOGgles. See what I did there?

Children of Japan

During my first three months teaching in Japan, a lot of lessons have been learnt.

First and foremost, elementary school children are primarily gender non-specific and have an ability to cry on demand.

I have made the mistake not once, not twice but three times of miscalculating what I thought was an equal boy-girl divide in the classroom. Splitting students into two teams, in a clever move I assumed would heighten the childish competitive streak and encourage the little dears to try harder to achieve the target language of the day.

Astonishingly in all three instances, my orders saw an overriding girl majority huddled together in comradeship in one corner of the classroom and, on one occasion, a solitary and tearful boy looking rather confused as to why he had been so brutally singled out.

I blame the bowl haircuts which, reminiscent of young lads in wartime Britain, seem to grace all heads of children aged between three and 12 living in the Japanese countryside.

One of my favourite boys, who bears an uncanny resemblance to The Simpson's Martin, if Martin was Japanese, turned up wearing a pinafore dress last week. This screwed with everything I have ever known and, after 12 weeks of talking to him about football and other such boy-based subjects, a great deal of effort was exerted on my part to mask my amazement after being confronted with this unexpected revelation.

In Japanese schools there are no losers, as I quickly found out. If a child should lose at a game there will be tears. The other students will swarm round the devastated tot and this entire sequence of events will have a detrimental effect on the remainder of my lesson. In my opinion it is a selfish act and something which, being Northern, I cannot even begin to condone.

Tears are also a daily occurrence in the playground. A game of football with the first graders was brought to an abrupt end when I accidentally missed the goal, instead kicking the ball smack bang wallop into the middle of a four-year-old boy’s (who incidentally also turned out to be a girl’s) face.

She screamed like a dying banshee.

And screamed

And screamed.

No amount of “summimasenning” could calm her inconsolable sobs until eventually I gave up trying, aborted mission and resumed the match.

A short while later I spied said child picking all manner of flowery weeds from the embankments bordering the school grounds, which she proudly presented to me at the end of lunch time. Presumably by way of apology for perforating my eardrums with her high-pitched wails.

Despite this need to harden the fuck up, the majority of elementary students are, and I hate to admit it, a lot better than me at pretty much everything. Arm wrestling an eight-year-old in the lunchroom, I was annihilated.

And I was trying.

Really trying.

The same applies to thumb wars.

Worse still, a four-year-old, and possibly the smallest four-year-old I have ever come into contact with, can outrun me on the football pitch, leaving me gasping for breath and defeated.

In one Kindergarten class I had planned for, as I had mistakenly heard, a class of 18. Imagine my horror when I walked in, not to a manageable 18 but an overwhelming 80 toddlers, who can barely speak Japanese let alone English.

A distinct aroma of pooh slowly emanating the room, I tried teaching animal flash cards while encouraging the children to mimic my impressions of ducks, horses, monkeys and whatnot. Initially a fun pursuit, it soon escalated into full-scale warfare as bowl cut-haired boys and girls alike started twatting the shit out of each, all bar one who had his hand up my skirt and firmly attached to my bottom.

So followed feeble attempts to regain control while perched on a windowsill at the far end of the room in my best efforts to deter his wandering hands.

In another school there is a special 45-minute session set aside whereby the children have an opportunity to question me about all things English.

Such as, “Did you see a big monster fish in England?” and “Do you cook fish and chips in your house?” I tried to explain that the Loch Ness Monster in fact hails from the Scottish Highlands, however I had once spotted him holidaying by Lake Windemere.

It was lost in translation.

Next the children asked me to stand and sing the English national anthem. Not one to refuse this golden opportunity, and hopefully amuse the students in the process, I obliged and sang with gusto.

Worryingly I was the only person stifling the laughs during my out of tune, out of time own special rendition of God Save the Queen. This painful five minutes was made worse by the fact that I don’t actually know the words.

Explaining that I am a “bad singer,” they disagreed in unison, insisting that I have a "beautiful voice."

If there's one word that cannot describe my vocal skills it is 'beautiful." Vomit inducing would be far nearer the mark.

The class then sang the Japanese national anthem, afterwards asking what I thought of the English translation. Forced to think on the spot I claimed it “a most beautiful song, which really reflects just how proud Japanese people are of their country.”

I am sure one boy wretched.

On the subject of royalty, like the queen, I am bowed at by students wherever I pass. This still takes me aback and my impulse reaction is to curtsey back.

I have no idea why.

Next week the students are going to sing God Save the Queen with me. I must go now and learn the words.