1/14

Our travels today brought us to a high school just outside of Tokyo.  At the high school we had an opportunity to talk to some college graduates who are spending a couple years teaching English at the Japanese high school.  We used this forum to ask them about ‘cultural differences.’  When they told us to keep our cultural practices while here, we used it as an open forum to subtly pwn Takagi Sensai, asking questions we knew would get favorable responses for us.  

After the passive aggressive pwnage, a group of senior Japanese students let us join them for an English class.    The group Scrilla and I were paired up with reminded me of ‘Poly Force’ from Summer Heights High, for any of you familiar with that show.  For any not familiar with the show, go find it now.  They looked like this: the ringleader had an anime haircut and wore his uniform with the shirt tucked out, there was a little mischievous girl who I am sure was making fun of people in Japanese the whole time, a monstrous Japanese dude who had bushy black hair that looked like Brett’s Hair Helmet from Flight of the Conchords (again, if your not familiar with the reference step up your HBO programming), and a short, fat kid with glasses.  Every time one of them made a joke they would all get up and high five each other (this is how I knew the little mischievous girl was making fun of people).  The huge kid with the helmet laugh had the typical ‘I am an enormous dude with a soft but deep giggle’ which he spent the entire time employing.  The ringleader spent the entire time making calls on whoever he could.   First started by mocking the English teacher, sitting behind them cross legged and used his broken English to say “today we are goin to reaarnn…hahahahaa” before exchanging high fives.  Later when the teacher asked us to close our eyes, he belted out, in melody “CRROOOSSSSSEEE YOOOOAARRRR EEYYYYESSSSS.”  Even I had to high five him for that one.  Later he turned his mockery to Alex, when Weidner answered a question intended for Japanese students he yelled, “We already knew that,” and looked around for someone to high five and hand pound.  It turned out the one place he had been to in America was Huntington Beach, so we bonded over that and our mutual affinity for Avenged Sevenfold.  When I told them they went to my high school I saw him shit miso soup right in his pants.  

The rest of the high school visit was relatively uneventful, save our exit.  For whatever reason some of the Japanese students (mostly girls) were fascinated with us, following us around sheepishly, giggling when we made eye contact or waved to them and staring out the window as we left.  Even though this was about 15 students in a school of 900, I took the only semi-appropriate opportunity I will probably ever have to do the arrogant celebrity escape.  The one where you leave, pretending to be in a hurry and not having time to acknowledge your fans, covering your face and looking down as you exit, before turning around and greeting them to an even bigger reception now that you’ve built it up (I did the turn around and wave, head back down then turn around and hold open my arms, both classic moves).  This literally had an effect on one student at best and just made me look an asshole with no sense of self, but it was worth it.  

I’m starting a new aspect of the blog that will pop up periodically.  Here’s the first installment of:

Japanese Cultural Aspect that I Have Either Ignorantly, Willfully, or Both Disrespected: Dental Hygiene.  Maybe it’s the two weeks I have been cooped up here while seeing few attractive Caucasians, maybe I am actually catching yellow fever, or maybe it was the school girl outfits the girls at the high school wore that had me questioning the statutory laws while walking around the high school, but in any sense, Japanese girls are growing on me.  Whether it’s in Harajuku with the girls with the blond haired, flamboyantly dressed almost sluts (its so cold even the sluttiest girl can only bare showing lower thigh to knee), or the schoolgirls at the highschool, I have seen many a Japanese girl that I would graciously welcome in assisting me to create some of those cute Asian babies…until they smile.  Honestly, forget everything you have seen on TV, I have yet to see one Asian, male or female with good teeth.  Not just crooked, but dirty.  Multicolored.  Every mouth is an adventure.  I have seen the shark teeth look, where the teeth are so crooked it looks like they are in rows.  I have seen the missing teeth look and the yellow/green/brown with spots of white.  It’s like the color of leaves in autumn, but inside a mouth.  Every person, without fail.  It’s a bummer.  Maybe I am too picky or need to lower my hygiene standards and expectations, but as it stands today with the dental hygiene practices of the Japanese, every person that smiles at me makes me want to open a dental practice in Japan, or at the very least offer them some floss.