Without setting foot in America for the entire 2008 election season, I was sick of it. Just from what I'd get off the Drudge Report and the various news sites I'd hit up. One of the tidbits of information I have from that period of my life: Lincoln spent about two months campaigning for President; Obama spent about the same time on a single state.

And while I'm sure that he never really thought much about the global implications of such a twenty-first century American Presidential campaign, the effects have been flabbergasting. The fact that there is a city in Japan named Obama certainly added more fuel to the fire.

It wasn't just the Obama shirt that I saw for sale walking down a busy Japanese street. Nor the desperate pleas from the humble people of Obama, who would surely flourish were Obama to win. What really made the effects of Obama's campaign hit home were my students.

For a Jr. High school activity, we were practicing speaking English in the third person. To do this, we had the students draw a friend, real or imagined, and then make several sentences about him. To my surprise, nearly every class had a student whose imaginary friend was named Obama. Sometimes Obama was a black man, drawn to look like our President. Sometimes he looked more like an anime character who simply shared the name. But Obama was there, in my classroom, in my lessons.

The dialoge for the lesson went something like this.

“Who is he?”

“He is my friend.”

“What is his name?”

“His name is Obama.”

“What music does he like?”

“He likes...”

One day, in the hallway, a group of young men came up to me. In our hybrid English-Japanese dialect that I use to communicate with the students, a boy asked me if he looked like Obama the President. In truth, not really. But compared to all of the other boys in the school, I had to say yes. Lesson learned: if you want to look like a black men, a little black goes a long way.

But even all of these occurrences weren't enough to get me to blog about the Obama effect. Until what happened the other day.

I was teaching at an elementary school. Elementary school, mind you. And I want to state for the record that I never talk about politics at work. I never brought up the subject, never mentioned the name. But at the end of the class, when the students were all excited, I couldn't help but pump them up a little more.

I said, “Mr. Diamond—number one! Num-ber-one!” And got them chanting it. “NUM-BER-ONE! NUM-BER-ONE!”

Except that they changed the chant. In a moment, without any preparation or planning, every student in this fourth grade classroom stopped saying “Number One,” and started saying “Yes we can! Yes we can!”

There can be no denying it. Obama and his “Yes, we can,” has become the new catch-phrase, the new popular thing to say.

This year I was fortunate enough to return to my favorite shrine in all of Japan. The one where they give out free potions of greater intellect. Potion isn't quite the right word. I suppose its more of a fountain or a spring.

If you're looking for a more traditional, off the beaten path sort of a place in Japan, this is the ultimate. It's hours away from Tokyo. The trains don't go anywhere near walking distance of this place. And its on the top of a mountain. Okay, not a mountain, a hill.

It happened to be snowing this visit, which added to the allure. Because these steps really were created by monks hundreds of years ago. With the snow and the ice, the climb to the top is more dangerous than it looks. At least for someone from Miami, like myself.

If you're a long time reader of the blog, you'll remember that I blogged about this place before. But what I didn't show in the last post, was the water its self. Reason being, PVC pipe.

It's so disappointing, climbing to the top of such an old temple, going around that final corner to the place where they have this 'mage table' setup to distribute water of greater intellect, only to see that the water is coming out of a PVC pipe. At least they have a somewhat authentic looking stone fountain-bowl underneath.

This visit was just before the Japanese Jr. High school students take their High School Entrance exams. We usually don't have such tests in America, so let me tell you that this is a big deal. That's why the temple was literally wallpapered with the prayers of said Jr. High School students. I can't read much more than a word or two of it, but I'm told they're all asking the Shinto gods to get into their first pick.

Also new this visit, was a vendor. An old man, an authentic Buddhist monk, sitting behind a table, selling various items. Among them, a trinket. Equipping this trinket in your wallet will increase your resistance to bad luck by +80. Using this trinket will cause a Shinto god to sacrifice some of his life force for your protection. Not too bad.

And for all those students looking for an edge? These pencils of greater intellect. Equipping these pencils in your main hand will increase your intellect by +55, which is, I believe, the highest +Intellect you can get on a pencil nowadays.

As I was coming back down from the mountaintop, I spied this small tree by the splashing micro-waterfall of the fountain's run off. Covered in ice sickles, it was much more beautiful than my amateur photography could convey.

In our culture, the stereotypical way to insult someone at school is to sneak up behind them, pretend that you're their friend, and pat them on the back. The pat is just a way to conceal the “Kick Me" sign you're putting there.

Not that this was such a common occurrence, but I thought that over the years I'd developed a sort of Kick Me protection. That I'd become aware of just who touched me and when. And if someone ever touched me out of character—a polite pat on the back—that I'd check for Kick Me signs. Just to be on the safe side.

My Japanese students have refined the technique.

Instead of using tape, which must be patted, they've used this common clip. On the right snag of fabric, you won't be able to hear or feel this sign being fastened to your back.

And the second thing these students did, was make a diversion. We're talking about the infamous Japanese schoolgirls here. The boys don't mess with me so much.

These schoolgirls, what they did was, they flattered me. They came to me and they tickled me. Imagine yours truly, surrounded by a crowd of these young girls in their matching skirts and blouses. My first reaction was laughter--they were tickling me after all. But at the same time, it was an awkward moment because it certainly wouldn't be appropriate for me to tickle them back.

And only later, in the teacher's office, did one of my co-workers point out that I had a sign on my back. It didn't say Kick Me. It said, “Boku wa gay desu.” It said, “I'm gay.” Oh how I laughed and laughed while they clipped it to my back. Surrounded and tickled by those uniformed schoolgirls, what a fine moment it was. So fine, not even their true intention spoiled it. It was totally worth it.

For bonus points, they also managed to get a few pieces of tape in my hair. Fun times.

Before I ever moved to Japan, I had to look for a job here. The big question seemed to be whether I wanted to work for the government in the JET program, or for a private company.

Today, much of the JET program has been privatized. But, if I've learned something from my time in Japan, its that you'll be wanting to work for the public school system. That is, if you don't speak Japanese.

And if you do work in a public school, you'll encounter a strange food rule. You see, the teachers MUST eat what the students eat. It's a rule. That might make you curious to know what they serve for lunch. I'm here to tell you. Here are seven days of school lunches, taken at random.

The small packet in this picture is called 'nori.' Why it shares its name with the Japanese word for seaweed and glue, I know not.

I saw this poster in one of the subways in Tokyo. And a great piece of propaganda it is.

No!!!!!!!!!! Drugs

Be Poisoned
Flashback
Be Broken
No Future!!

This past Monday, the 13th, was a Japanese holiday. Coming of age day. You may have heard rumors about people in Japan all celebrating their birthday on the same day. That would be this holiday.

Keep in mind that they still celebrate their own individual birthdays. And legally, many have already become legal adults. It's just that this day is the traditional day of celebration. "The Japanese Bar-Mitzvah Day," as my father coined it.

A trip to the local mall reveal many a young Japanese man, dressed up and lounging about. Plenty of Japanese girls in kimonos as well. Interesting that the men dress up in Western style, while the ladies in their traditional garments.

I'm told that, since the holiday falls on a Monday, most of the partying happens the Sunday before. Can you imagine the kinda of craziness that would ensue if such a tradition were carried out in the US? I shudder to think of how my 21st birthday at the U of Florida would have been.

I'll leave you with a gift. A gift for my father that is. Or any science buff. I found this on the chalkboard of one of the classrooms. It's a Rosetta Stone of kanji to our periodic table of the elements.

One of the teachers I work with decided to play the movie ET for class. I've seen it before, but not for many a moon. We watched it, standing together, whispering about the subtlties of English. Right in the beginning I noticed young men, all gathered around a table, playing a game.
Was it poker? Dominoes? A Board game? Or...?
“I think that's Dungeons and Dragons,” I whispered to the teacher, although he didn't understand the reference.
Then, in the film, one of the lines was “It's like life, how do you win at life?” and I told him I was sure of it. Was that really how they played it, back in the day? Five or six people, all gathered around a table, eating pizza? We sure have come a long way, from D&D to WoW. From all social and almost no visual, to all visual and almost no social.
Later on in the movie, a boy shouts an insult “Zero charisma!”
“Do you understand what that means?” I asked the teacher.
“No,” he said.
“So, in the game, you roll a die to see how beautiful you are. Six means you're very handsome. One means you're ugly. So zero charisma--”
“--Lower than the lowest possible!” He said, with a laugh.
[Please don't write correcting me on the fact that D&D attributes are rolled using three-six sided dice (3d6) Sometimes you've gotta sacrifice technical accuracy for brevity and understanding.]
Later on in the day, it occurred to me that this teacher had seen the film many times. Probably once a year. And I knew he had books on the films he uses. I asked him if he hadn't learned the meaning of the insult from one of them. No, he told me. He had been using ET for the better part of two decades, and never understood that line.
Should you come to Japan, your moments of teaching glory will be similar. They don't pay you to act like a human dictionary, although there will be plenty of that. They don't pay you to check spelling a grammar, although you'll do plenty of that too. They'll pay you to explain the subtle and nuanced cultural references that go along with any language.