My Coworkers, My Family

AKA: …I think I’ve been adopted.

The day of the Speech contest, I was fortunate enough to be able to eat an early lunch with my two contest students. I say this because there is little as revealing, or as entertaining, as the open conversation of two middle school girls. My favorite topic, though, was “which of the teachers would be which family member in your family?”

In Japan, the students stay in one room and the teachers move from class to class. The teachers’ roost, then, is the staff room. We have a meeting for 10 minutes every morning, most teachers have at least two free periods a day, and most teachers are required to stay around school for at least an hour after classes are over, so there are plenty of opportunities to get to know one’s coworkers. Add to this the fact that I’m the youngest staff member here by a decade at least, and a foreigner to boot, and it’s very clear that I have been adopted.

So, my new family.

Kouchou-sensei (“kouchou” means “principal” – his name is Kamiyama, but no one ever calls him by this, using his title instead as a sign of respect) is most assuredly a grandfather figure in my new family. He’s always smiling and laughing, and everyone here really loves him. He used to be an English teacher, so we communicate well, and he has a little of the “bumbling older man” type to him, which only makes him more endearing.

On the other side, Imayasu-sensei is clearly a grandmother figure. She is one of the part-time English teachers here, and she takes care of me in a way none of the other teachers do. She is quick to compliment, but will push me to learn as well. For example, she helped me to get my kotatsu (a table with a space heater built into it; you put a quilt over it and just sit in wonderful warmth) and forced me to ask the store clerk for it myself instead of doing it for me. She’s great, and I love her warmth and her easy laugh.

I’ve talked about Saito-sensei already; he’s tough to categorize. I think the best I can say is that he is like a dad, but a dad who clearly knows that his child is now an adult and has thus toned down the parenting shtick. He really watches over me, he brags about me to other teachers, he laughs at my jokes (even if they’re only funny because I used a word in Japanese instead of English). In short, he’s an awesome person to have sitting next to me in the office.

Kuwako-sensei and Takayanagi-sensei are easy. The former is one of the office managers; the latter is a part-time English teacher who has wonderful English, both spoken and written. Both of them are clearly my older sisters. I couldn't ask for better, especially as they are usually the ones updating me on the office gossip.

Kumaki-sensei is another teacher I have mentioned before. She qualifies as the fun aunt, the one who says “hey, let's go drink!” and always compliments my fashion sense. She's been having a rough time of it as of late, thanks to some student problems, but she always manages to give me a nice smile or compliment my projects.

I'm going to stop here, though I feel I'm slighting a lot of my teachers by not mentioning them. Rest assured that my family has an older brother, several cousins, several uncles, and even a few neighbors. My general point is that, after being here for just shy of three months and not being able to speak much Japanese, I have been so well accepted, a point which continually astounds me. As my students would say, “Rukii!” (the Japanese way to pronounce “lucky”).

Oh yes, of course I have to mention the results of the speech contest. My students did really well! Only one placed (my “lived in the States for 5 years” student won 3rd place out of 14 “I lived abroad in an English-speaking country” students), but both of them had wonderful speeches and gave them flawlessly. I'm so proud, but even more so I'm glad that the whole ordeal of the contests is finally over. Cheers to that!!