Friday, January 26, 2007

What a weird lesson

I just went to a class I practically never go to, as it's run by the worst English teacher who doesn't teach very well and commands no respect from the students. Anyway today he wanted to use me as a human tape recorder for the first years (I think my supervisor, who I do proper lessons with but is on the school ski trip now, must have asked him to use me in some way as I hardly ever go with him) so it was really dull. But one girl had graffitied over the back of her English I textbook in a big permanent pen with this:

FUCKING!!
LICKING!!
SUCKING COCK!!
BIG TITS!!
FUCKING NOW!!!!

In HUGE letters, with a couple of hearts. I was kind of shocked, and asked her where she heard that. She said 'my friend said it'. I asked where and she was like 'here in school'. ????? I asked if she understood the meaning and she said no. How weird.

And earlier, I was looking in the textbook to prepare a lesson on the next topic, 'equal roles' which is about sexual equality. Sample from the conversation:

Bob: When I get married, I want to share the household chores equally.
Megumi: That sounds wonderful!
Bob: It's the way of the future.
Megumi: I agree.

Then the book moves on to a debate about whether girls should be allowed to wear trousers to school instead of a skirt. Okay, so they're about 40 years too late with that debate, but at least they're trying, right? A reason given for the argument of why they should wear skirts, is schoolgirls look more attractive in skirts. Yes, it is being taught that a valid reason for female children to wear skirts to school is so that they look attractive. I know they have they whole schoolgirl thing over here, but endorsing it in a text book?

When I saw it I laughed out loud, and my other teacher (who's lovely, and normally very with it) asked why I found it a bit weird. I said that making schoolgirls look attractive was not really the point of uniform... Her reply was 'here in Japan many people find schoolgirls uniforms attractive. Some middle aged men buy schoolgirls' uniforms when they graduate. Of course this is not really acceptable in society.' All with a big smile on her face. And all this time I'd thought Hikami Nishi was the one bastion of normality in crazy Japan.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

"crazy Japan"? That is culturally egocentric and accurate to a chilling degree.