Abridged account of first couple of months, cast of characters, etc. (part I)

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16

I am welcomed to Japan by the news that I actually have no work visa. After about an hour of heated and distressed discussion, the immigration people finally let me into the country on a temporary visitor permit, with the reminder that I may not begin working until my work visa has been processed and digested by the giant ruminant that is the Japanese bureaucracy.

In the arrivals area I meet Veep and Taz. I should warn readers right now that I am going to be using pseudonyms for anyone at the school that's employing me, and that these pseudonyms will often be pretty stupid and nonsensical because I haven't given them a whole lot of thought. Veep is so named because she is the Vice-President of the 学園 where I will be working. 学園 (gakuen) seems to be usually translated as "educational institution", and in this case it is a beast that contains an elementary school, a middle school and a high school, as well as a very small university and various vocational higher-education-type colleges. Her father, King Bear, is the President.

A few words about Veep: she came to Oxford twice last year. The first time was to give a little presentation about her school to members of JapSoc. Since one of the vocational colleges is a culinary school, she made some sushi and demonstrated the millenial art of sculpting carrot slices into the shape of either cherry or plum blossoms. The second time was after it had been agreed that I would be coming to work for her this year. I was put in charge of her for a couple of hours in the afternoon, with the instruction that I should show her around the town. She immediately made a beeline for the University shop, where she bought her body weight in Oxford merchandise (and then made me carry it around), including Oxford teddy bears. Upon making this last purchase, she asked me (in Japanese, for her English (at that time, anyway) seemed pretty rudimentary), "Do you like bears?" The deep significance of this question, which will be revealed on this blog in due course (!!!!!!!!!), escaped me. I said, "Bears eat people." She was apparently unaware that bears were potentially dangerous, and this fact seemed to upset her a bit.

A few more words about Veep: one of the Oxford Japanologists in my year worked for her briefly during the summer of 2007. When he heard that I might be in her employ, he immediately cautioned me against it, telling me that I would be used for purely promotional purposes and wouldn't get to do any teaching or anything interesting at all. It is clear that there is a bit of unhealthy Oxford obsession going on with Veep, but I still don't completely understand what she's trying to achieve by strengthening her school's links with Oxford. I don't want to sound like a snob, but although the elementary and secondary schools of her 学園 seem to be pretty well regarded in Japan, the university is not exactly top-tier, and Oxford is really reticent to set up exchanges with foreign universities anyway (unless the foreign students are paying ££££ through the nose). But before coming here I chose to more or less disregard this, thinking that there was no way the school was going to house me and pay me (well) for a whole year just for a few photo ops for their prospectuses and for a few appearances at public events and whatnot. Surely they would have some real, interesting work lined up for me.

So anyway, here I am at the airport with Veep and Taz, whom I have never met before, but seems like an amiable 30-something Japanese chap. The sun is shining really brightly, and it is freakishly warm, and my circadian rhythm is recommending sleep right now. It's a more than two hour drive to the East-North-Eastern suburbs of Tokyo where I will be living, so I can doze off. At one point along the road I'm pretty sure I saw a sign that said "Sexy Miser", which gave me great hopes for the rest of the year here.

After a soba lunch, it becomes clear we are going directly to the school, which makes me a bit uncomfortable because I still feel pretty out of it, and I'm wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and the Japanese are notoriously formal in a work environment. We arrive at the campus of the university, and I am ushered into an office with couches and chairs, for Meetings, where I am introduced to Canett, whom I have christened thus as a double tribute to Bulgarian novelist and Nobel Prize-winner Elias Canetti and to the character Spagett from Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job (or whatever the correct punctuation for that is). (As you can see I am practicing my hyperlinks and stuff). Canett is extremely old: he will later reveal (on multiple occasions) that he was born in 1929. He has the old-man shakes pretty bad. He has somehow hurt his right thumb so that it is no longer opposable, and for some reason he has determined that the best way to try to cure this is by constantly wearing a thin white glove on his right hand.

I sit down with Canett, who tells me he is the head of research at the university, and that I will nominally be under his command. He then hands me a print-out of a tentative translation (by himself) of the whole 学園's mission statement/prospectus. His English is, comparatively, pretty good, but he has a tendency to give up on the end of his sentences, bringing them to a close with a few seconds of inarticulate mumbling. He also has enormous trouble with my name, going through several variations before eventually settling on calling me Mr. Jeffries.

After introductory stuff, he then begins, to my horror, to read the mission statement/prospectus word for word to me. The first page is devoted to laying out the various titles and positions of responsibility of the President, King Bear, of his wife (who we might as well call Queen Bear) and of his daughter Veep. We then move on to the school's motto (Sincerity, Reliance, Service) and its "educational philosophy", which is a barely coherent jumble of words all orbiting the central term, "Hospitality". I can't find a copy of this prospectus right now, but when I do I will give you all more hilarious details. Suffice it to say that Canett thinks this educational philosophy is of crucial importance, and enjoins me, repeatedly, to bear it in the forefront of my mind during the entirety of my waking life. This all takes a very long time, and my digestive system is disagreeing with my soba lunch, taken at a time when it expected no new nutritional input.

Fortunately, Canett spares me the bulk of the prospectus, instead recommending (many times) that I read it in my spare time (but very carefully). After this, Canett and Veep go over my schedule for the next two weeks, which they have hand-written on a piece of lined paper. It's all putting in appearances at the various campuses of the vocational colleges, which are dotted about Tokyo and its suburbs, as well as attending school festivals and even a newspaper interview on Monday. Only at the end of this period am I scheduled to meet anyone from the elementary and secondary schools, whom I assumed would be giving me my real work. So this does not bode well. Discussion of this schedule takes an inordinate amount of time, much of it in Japanese, by the end of which time I am only barely functioning from a neurological standpoint. Much emphasis is put on the fact that I must wear a suit to most of these events: clearly the sight of my T-shirt has alarmed Canett, which is hardly surprising since the school's mission statement repeatedly emphasizes the inculcation of "sophisticated personal appearances". At one point during the meeting, King and Queen Bear make a brief entrance, but leave rather quickly as they speak no English.

Anyway, we finally get to leave the university and go to my apartment, which is ridiculously big for a single person in Japan, and is conveniently located right next to the train station. A better description, pics etc to come later as this post is getting really long. Veep apparently lives in an apartment just across the tracks from me. Does this mean I will be seeing a lot of her? Anyway, after a quick trip to the 100-yen shop with Veep and Taz to buy some really really cheap and crappy cutlery, as well as kilos and kilos of rice crackers and assorted snacks, which Veep seems irresistably drawn to and which she relentlessly presses into my arms despite my feeble protestations, I can finally collapse onto my futon and sleep.