As you may well imagine, and as I've hinted at, Academic and Technical High School are opposites in every way. And as I've recently found out, this includes the ability to party. Or hell, just socialize like people without the biggest, most jagged piece of rebar rammed up their asses.
I wonder, are the soulless and socially retarded simply drawn to Academic High School? Or is it a natural consequence of working here and endowing yourself with some sort of oblivious holy educational crusade? Chicken and The Egg I guess.
In any case, I won't be attending any more Academic High School Soirées. You see Academic and Technical High School Parties usually fell on the same day, leaving me to choose. I usually went with Academic just because they guilted me into making it seem obligatory. But no more. I never knew what I was missing!
The biggest difference, first and most critically, is the fact that there was not a sober person at the classy Technical High School function. And this was the first party, not the afterparties.
And there is nothing better than watching your Japanese coworkers get drunk. Personalities are suppressed to such an extreme degree in the workplace (though less so in Technical High School) that any display of a personality is newsworthy.
What continues to surprise me most is how much English everyone at Technical High School (ok, from now on, THS) knows, and how willing they are to try to talk with me. This couldn't be more different from Academic High School (AHS), where even at the goddamn English teachers' parties I'm treated like just the foreigner trophy to add prestige and cosmopolitanism to the affair. And we all know no sane person talks to their trophies.
Yet, at THS, everyone from English teachers to electrical and machinery teachers were more than willing to try to talk. While clearly no deep or profound conversations were had, it was enough to build rapport, and it shocks me just how different this is than AHS. It's like that rebar that is rammed up all of the asses of the teachers at AHS also causes them to have a crippling fear of both appearing inadequate and embarrassing others with lesser English ability. Not so at THS.
There's no real point in giving a tedious play-by-play, but I think one of the highlights came from Yours Truly, if I can humbly say so.
You see, by the time the new teachers were on stage giving their obligatory, canned welcome speeches, I was a little less, inhibited, shall we say? And the teacher I was with was even worse than I was.
So when some poor awkward guy goes to bow in front of the microphone before starting the speech, he smashes his face right into the microphone.
Naturally it was the most hysterical thing either of us had ever seen. To be fair to us, he was probably more drunk than we were. The problem was that no one thought it to be nearly as funny as we did. And the patter of polite laughter died long before we stopped finding it funny.
I don't know why. It was hysterical. The sound. The fact that it should seemingly happen all the time but doesn't, but finally did here. The fact that he continued like nothing happened. The fact that he rubbed his forehead right afterwards. Or maybe it's like "Dude, you're Japanese, shouldn't avoiding that kind of thing be so practiced and culturally ingrained that it never happens?" Well, it's burned into my mind and still makes me laugh.
Of course the alcohol had a lot to do with the hilarity, but so did the fact that we stupidly kept looking at each other. Had I been alone I would have laughed, but stopped when it got quiet. But when you're with another drunkard the laughter continues long after it's appropriate because you keep fueling each other's fire of drunken humiliation. It was memorable to be sure.
But clearly such behavior was noticed and not in a necessarily negative way as two separate teachers made a point to invite me to a welcome bowling party followed by drunken shenanigans at an izakaya. As it turns out there is a welcome party for AHS on the same day.
What a tough choice: sitting alone in silence with people I can't stand or drunken bowling followed by more drinking with people who actually talk and have a personality.
Hmmm....
There is a problem with your Chicken and Egg hypothesis, a flaw in your question: "Are the soulless and socially retarded simply drawn to Academic High School?" How, when you have obviously been living in Japan for a seemingly lengthy period of time, have you failed to mention that Japanese teachers (along with every other public service position) have no choice in what high school they are sent to? Perhaps if one of your soulless and socially retarded teachers from your AHS were to be sent to your THS, they too would have the opportunity to embrace a more lax lifestyle, with less pressure on them from work.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe you're the soulless and socially retarded one.
well well, you seem to be taking this on a surprisingly personal level...do you perhaps work at AHS??
ReplyDeleteI failed to mention that teachers have no choice in what high school they are sent to because that would have been false. They fill out their 1st-5th choices, the only gamble being that they may (emphasis on may) not get their first choice.
If I were to take a survey, I would bet an overwhelming majority chose AHS as their first choice.
My 'flaw' is a moot point.