For those unaware of Fujin, he is the god of wind and inspiration for Tornadus. He’s usually blue with a bag of wind around his neck. He’s almost always depicted with the god of thunder, Thor Zeus ThunderJesus Raijin (Thundurus). I prefer Raijin because he just looks cooler (with his Heatmiser hair and ring of drums). The Raijin has three fingers to represent the past, present, and future, while the Fujin has four for the cardinal directions. In paintings they’re usually slightly overweight and have sumo manboobs, but in statues they’re always completely ripped. They’re feared for their power over nature and mischeivous behavior, and often placed at the gates of shrines as protectors. During storms, children are told to cover their belly buttons or else Raijin might eat their belly. Fujin is responsible for typhoons, but he also protected Japan in 1274 and again in 1281 in the form of wind storms devastating the Mongol invading forces. The idea of the Fujin’s wind protecting them is where they got the term kamikaze [divine wind]. The term refers to the belief that a god is protecting them, and not as most Americans seem to think, a term for suicidal planes. There’s your history lesson for the day. Now let’s get to my encounter with Fujin.
On Monday the 7th, I started at Geino JHS (that day was third years, or 9th grade). I was a little worried at first because I’d only taught younger kids so far, but they seemed to like the presentation, too. This time I kept it almost exclusively in English since they had been studying it for a bit longer. There were two teachers there (I’m still not sure why). One was a small, older lady with one of the quietest voices I’ve ever heard. The other is a guy who I’ve been told is an Asian world champion in Brazilian Jiujitsu, but now teaches the girls volleyball team. He seems super interesting, but I haven’t really talked to him much yet (he:s not very talkative). Afterwards, the other teacher encouraged them to ask the questions in English, which at first made them not really want to ask questions (not that I blame them). She’d help translate, though, so it worked out and more kids started asking questions. Here I was asked another question I had been expecting: have I ever shot a gun (originally interpreted by the teacher as ‘have I ever shot somebody’ (on a slightly related note, articles (a, an, the) are never more necessary in English than when saying “I got a shot”)). I explained that I’d done some skeet shooting and target practice, but had never hunted (deer nor the most dangerous game). I’m assuming that question was because I’m American, and not just because I lived near Detroit (which a few of these kids actually recognized finally). I also got the girlfriend question, but this time it was followed by “what kind of girl do you like?” Even in English, I don’t really know how to answer this (I could actually hear a large number of you just now somehow audibly think “super skinny,” which I won’t deny, but that alone isn’t really a type). One kid raised his hand and said, “I want to play games with you.” I gave him a thumbs up and said ok. Another asked what Japanese comedians I like. I explained that I only know a few who have translated videos on Youtube. Therefore, some of my favorites were Razor Ramon Sumitani (better known as HG 
(that emoji used to be bigger…)) and Himura from Bananaman. Unlike the 6th graders who only knew the latter, a few laughed when I said RRS (they knew what was up). I also think I was told I look like the guy from iCarly. I’m not sure which since they weren’t able to offer more specific details about who they were talking about. Unfortunately, that day, the 9th graders were my only two classes, so I once again sat around and did jack squat for the next five hours. A lot of times I’m just staring at things. At this point I’m able to have a staring contest with pretty much anything and do pretty well, whether or not it even has eyes (I swear that stapler blinked). At some point I was given sheet music with a cd and told to learn the song for the upcoming festival (I think, they just kind of said “learn this”). To waste some time, I downloaded a piano app and played through it a little to figure out what it sounded like.
Wednesday we had another typhoon blow through. We had previously had a typhoon a few weeks ago before any kids had started. It was pretty big, but it wasn’t directly over us, so all we got was a lot of rain a wind. My vice principal said there was a typhoon warning, so I didn’t have to come the next day. However, I was at a different school, so it wasn’t up to him. Japanese phones are all connected to an emergency service that gives you alerts for floods, etc. (I guess America has this, too, it’s just never used in Michigan). All night, it seemed we would keep getting notifications about nearby areas that had flooded, then people in the group chat would ask others for a translation. By the third one, I learned where to look for the name of the river/area. We received another few before I recognized the one near my bus stop. Luckily, my apartment is on the second floor, so I’m pretty safe from it flooding, unlike poor Piglet. Eventually, the alerts calmed down and I was able to sleep soundly, unlike poor Pooh (I don’t know how that song didn’t give me nightmares as a kid). The next morning I had to call my supervisor to see if it was safe. It was, so I put my rain gear on and headed out. This time there wasn’t a warning, however this one was supposed to go right over us, so it was more touch and go in the morning. I biked to the bus stop and got on the bus, then after talking with a few other people, learned that their schools had canceled classes for students. I called the vice principal, and after muddling through some Japanese, learned that the kids had a day off, but because I’m a teacher, I was supposed to go in. Some other ALTs used a vacation day so they didn’t have to come in, but I was already on the bus, and I’d rather use those days for actual vacation. I wore my rain gear and I even bought a new umbrella because all the ones I had (found at my apartment) were broke, and didn’t help at all with this wind. I was surprised that most of the teachers were already there and working. However, since I no longer had students to teach, I spent the day working hard to stay awake and browsing every (SFW) website I could think of. At the end of the day, the English teacher came and told me that in the future I could use nenkyu (vacay day). It was a little late to tell me 10 minutes before I left, but I had already decided not to, so I didn’t care. By then, the weather had completely cleared up, so I got to the bus stop and realized I totally forgot my new umbrella (luckily this is Japan, so it’s still there a week later).
The next day was my first day of teaching something other than my jikoshokai (self intro). I was kind of nervous about it at first because I still often feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. I had an easy workload, though, since I was only teaching a first and a fifth grade class, and was at my small school.
The first graders was still just the introduction presentation, but slimmed down to match their attention spans. For the fifth graders, we learned “I like…” so we went over vocab, did a page from the book, and played two games with some flashcards. One of the fun things about being the teacher is that if I don’t have flashcards for something, I can put whatever I want on them. One of the games involved them pairing up and putting an eraser between them, then putting their hands on their heads. Then I’d choose a keyword, such as “baseball.” Then if I said “I like baseball,” they’d have to quickly grab the eraser. If I said anything else, they had to repeat it. It drills the vocab in their head, and it’s fun for me because I get to mess with them. For instance, if I suddenly say “I like BASKETBALL,” they hear the “ba” and sometimes can’t distinguish it enough to stop themselves from grabbing it. Then they lose a point. The most fun I had was when the keyword was “orange juice,” and “oranges” was also a vocab word. I got them a few times on that one.
At my Friday school, the first graders got the same watered-down version of my intro (instead of doing a quiz, I’d ask them how old they were, then ask how old they thought I was, and repeat to keep them engaged). After the first grade class, one of the girls asked if I wanted to come out for recess. I replied, “f*** yeah,” which she didn’t understand (probably because of the bleeping sound that came out of nowhere), so I said, “ok.” Later on, I met them in the class and followed them to the playground. I was then swarmed by a hoard of children yelling “Onigokko! Onigokko!” At first I thought it was a voodoo curse that they were putting on me, but then I remembered that it’s a tag-like game. They kept pointing at me yelling “oni” [demon], which I normally take offense to (though don’t always disagree), but in this case it meant I was “it”, so I went around tagging as many people as I could (I slowly realized it was like zombie tag). (Fun fact: Scientists say that 95% of all adults are still technically “it” from a game of tag that never ended as a kid. The most common cause is thought to be “you’re it, I quit.” It is currently unknown if this can be passed down to children at birth. Scary stuff.) Eventually I got tired because I’m lazy, so I slowed down to catch my breath. Then a big group of kids came up and said they were Oni, too. Turns out they were kids I had tagged, and maybe kids who had been tagged by those kids. Basically I had a legion of small underlings to do my bidding, like Pikmin (but less fireproof). We started another game with me and a few others as Onis, so I chased them around again and created my new legion. Throughout the game, kids kept coming up asking if they could join, so I just kept yelling [anyone can join] with what little breath I had left. I stopped again, and I decided to let another group be Onis. I now realize how futile it will be to run away in the zombie apocalypse. I was already running on steam, and no matter where I ran, I was cornered by more kids. Eventually I gave up and just stopped and let them all tag/try to hurt me. After another round, the bell rang and I went inside to catch my breath enough to teach. This will be the best cardio exercise ever.
The following Monday I had off because the students had gone on Saturday to do disaster preparedness drills, so I had a nice three day weekend. The rest of the week was about the same. In the near future, I’ll chronicle some of the more interesting/funny interactions at my schools.
Next time on a special TGC, I go to a festival in Kishiwada (Osaka) and visit a sort of Mecca in Kyoto. What shenanigans will we get up to? What Mecca is in Kyoto? How much weight would I lose if the Raijin ate my belly? Find out next time on the Gaijin Chronicles! Dah dahh dadahhh da dahh duuhhh.