|
LEND ME YOUR
SHEARS
By William Pavia
William Pavia is a first year ALT, based at the Hirose
Board of Education. In between his hectic schedule
of hopping between twelve different schools, he finds
time to play soccer and practise Morris Dancing.
Mr Ogura's vegetable patch grows up behind the Board
of Education, a lovely piece of grey concrete that
would have made Stalin very proud. It was built in
an age when the main rule of architecture was, "Anything
goes as long as it's really ugly." It hulks over the
vegetable patch and the little wooden houses, like
an enormous square tea cozy in an otherwise tasteful
tea set. There's a path through the vegetable patch
that runs along the side of the paneled wall of Mr.
Ogura's garden, to the great big tea cozy. In the
mornings I charge down it, knocking out the spiders
and ducking the web that grows in the gap in the wall.
At night I pad down it, because I am in Crouching
Tiger Hidden Dragon, rounding an ancient temple. It's
a short cut except when you meet Mr. Ogura.
 Young people working in Shimane
often complain that they find it tough to meet Japanese
people of their own age. This is of course the demographic
round here. My town's sports day divides adults
up by the decade, and whilst 30s 40s and 50s are
hugely competitive fields, in the 20-30 age group
there is myself and a lady called Shoko. And I have
my suspicions about her. Turning thirty may be a
milestone age demarking the phases of pretend and
real adulthood, but it can also be a terrible blow
to ones athletic career. Outside of sporting occasions,
seeing someone in their twenties can seem an incredible
coincidence, like meeting Livingstone in the jungle.
In comparison, friendships across generations are
easy. For all the relentless internationalization
of Japan's school children, it is the older generation
who seem keenest of all. In onsens I am continually
approached by senior citizens wanting to confirm
their status as CIR's. A friend of mine realized
why he was here recently when an elderly gentleman
told him he had never met a foreigner until 5 years
ago; the year the first CIR arrived. Half of us
have picked up surrogate Japanese parents. All this
fitted my expectations for rural Japan. In my time
here I would surely find a Mr Miagi figure. He would
make me trim Bonsai trees. He would speak about
his homeland in English that was not too good, that
made him sound all the wiser, the way it does for
Yoda in Starwars. We'd do tea ceremonies and at
the end of it all he'd offer me his daughter's hand
in marriage.
 But Mr Ogura, my landlord, the vegetable grower,
is overdoing it. He came into my house the day I
arrived, shouting. I thought I might be playing
my music too loud, then perhaps that I had inadvertently
insulted his mother. Then I concluded I had insulted
his mother and his father and danced on their graves.
Eventually I realised he was speaking louder so
that I would understand Japanese. I use the same
tactic against the French. I replied to him. My
name is William. Please call me Will. I come from
London in England. I would like to try brush painting.
Let's study English together. All the while I played
in my head the words of first encounter with Aliens
films- "you probably look as strange to them
as they do to you". But Mr Ogura was unmoved
by my show of eloquence. He folded himself up on
the tatami and just kept on talking. Not a single
English word. At one point he broke into song. At
another he made gun gestures. Occasionally he got
up and pranced about the house shaking random appliances.
Eventually, after an exhausting hour of talk, he
got up and left as promptly as he had come.
Pacing down the pathway through cabbages and carrots
and egg plant plants, I'll come upon him weeding.
The usual pleasantries about the weather in my country,
whether I cook on my own or have hired a servant,
and how incredible my Japanese is now I've mastered
four words, are entirely bypassed. He has a unique
capacity to carry on talking in the face of complete
incomprehension. He should have been a foreign language
teacher. And no subject is too linguistically difficult
or politically sensitive to be covered. His experiences
in the war, hunting whales, the nature of Islam,
all are discussed while I tap token words into my
electronic dictionary and watch white spittle collect
at the sides of his mouth. And I am sure it's fascinating.
I am sure there are jewels falling from his lips
onto the stony ground of the path. But after several
months all I understand as I stand under fire, are
a few unstrung words, loose of their moorings and
drifting in space. When I am released with a bag
of egg plants, I can hear him still talking, explaining
the world to his leeks.
|
