Helping a Drunken Tokyo Fool

Recently, I did a post about a drunken bastard with his face beat in for doing something fucked up at a hostess bar(according to his drunken Japanese). While I did not have much mercy for him, there are others I do feel sorry for, enough so that from time to time I help them out a bit.

Case in point was my arrival at my home station of Aoi earlier tonight. The work day had been good enough. No major problems to report other than feeling like a man on an island; which I have experienced before with the company I work for. I was feeling in a odd mood on my train ride home. My recent wave of self-awareness has heightened my understanding of just about everything around me. I am usually very self-aware but recently it has gone into overdrive. I feel myself transforming so far beyond the stomach zombies which surround me daily that I am shocked by just how much most people miss around them.

Anyway, after fighting to step off the train at Aoi station I noticed this fella sitting on a bench in what appeared to be a drunken coma. Judging from his plain cheaply produced business attire, he was not a rich man by any means. I was pulled toward him as if something had taken control of my mind and body. I was not acting on my own accord. As I woke him up it was as if I was watching the actions of someone else from a first person perspective. I said to the man in Japanese,`Hay. You okay. You live in Aoi? Stop sleeping! Last train is coming.` When I touched this man he was suddenly filled with energy and sprung back to life. I could not tell if he was speaking to me in Japanese or if I was having one of those moments when I understood Japanese so well that it seemed like he was speaking in English(remember I am not the master of Japanese by no means). He said,`Aoi is not my home. Aoi is your home?` I pointed to the train arrive sign and said,`Go home okay. Your wife is waiting.` I don`t know how I knew he was married but he agreed that his wife must be missing him. I hold him to take the next train and I left. He tried to follow me but I had gotten on the elevator before he could catch up with me.

I did not feel in full control of myself until I had gotten to street level. As two local young Adachi gals stared at me, I lit a smoke and took a deep breath. I hope that damn fool is thankful I woke his ass up.  

Stiffing A Bar in Shibuya

Sometimes you end up doing fucked up shit due to suddenly being caught in a fucked up situation. Now, yall should know that there will be people who get really pissed off after reading this post. What I ended up doing at a bar in Shibuya one night is considered `not cool` by most people`s standards. Hell, it is not cool by my standards! I should have kicked my own ass for doing this, but sometimes you got to do things in order to keep from getting totally fucked over. Case in point is one night in Shibuya when I choose to hang out with a Shibuya Gyaru.

These ladies known as `Shibuya Garu`are not to be trusted. Anyone keen to the street culture in Tokyo knows this to be very true. Partying with a Shibuya Gyaru is like drinking with the devil; your soul is targeted for suffering from the first hello. These unique brand of J-gals are keen and rough. Usually such a lady would be interesting to me. The problem is Gyaru`s in Shibuya is that they usually have no morals. If they think they can get away with something, you can bet your bottom dollar these ladies will try to pull it off. Yet, I fucked up and partied with some of them.

Anyway, it all started when I got a call from my buddy Akio.. He wanted to party in Shibuya all night. Akio is a good friend of mine so of course I was all game. When I met him in Shibuya, he took me to an odd live house with a huge bouncer at the door. The damn bouncer was so fucking big and mean looking that he could easily eat a man whole. We got past the bouncer and paid the 2,000 yen cover charge. The cover charge ended up being an entrance fee to see some psychedelic bands play. Fair enough I thought. Akio disappeared for about 30 minutes. When he showed up again he had three Gyaru`s with him looking to drink and be crazy. One of them started buying drinks for everyone. She kept saying, `I buy drinks. Who wants to drink?` Hell, I thought if this chick is going to buy drinks all night I will let her. What I did not know was that this chick had an underhanded plan to get drunk all night and put the bill on everyone else.

She seemed alright at the live house. She was throwing money around like water. There were four of us and she must have bought five rounds. The bar was C.O.D. as to prevent any monkey business. I like C.O.D. service actually. It keeps the bar from tossing in hidden charges. Anyway, after the bands stopped playing one of the Gyaru`s passed out from drinking too much. It must have taken over an hour to finally get her up and out of there. Once the four of us finally left the live house, things started to get weird. Akio said that the ladies wanted to go a bar and drink some more. No problem for me because I was stuck in Shibuya until the trains started running again. Again the Gyaru said, `I buy drinks lets go.` We go to one of those over priced bars in Shibuya which has a DJ playing hard rock music. Damn gal started ordering round after round and I did not have time to say no. I downed so many shots of Tequila that I am surprised that I was even able to think straight. As the night wore on it became clear that this chick was waiting for someone to show up. That person ended up being her boyfriend. I am married so no biggie for me. The problem came when everyone bailed the same time she did. She had attracted about seven people at that bar and they all bailed when she did. This left me and Akio alone at the bar and the fucking bar tap. That damn devil women left us with the fucking bill! It was her plan all along. She hooked up her `friends` up at the live house only to set up the gaijin and his buddy later so her and all her friends could drink for free. I was so pissed off I wanted to kill that chick!

I had enough money to pay for myself but not for seven goddamn people! Lucky for me, Akio is a keen motherfucker. As soon as I told him we had been set up, he started to carry out a plan to get us out of the situation. Akio simply said, `be cool. wait a minute.` So I had a smoke and tried to play it cool. After five minutes I get a text from Akio which said,`don`t talk to anyone. Come downstairs.` I went down stairs but staff noticed. I saw Akio out of the corner of my eye. He was hiding around the side of the building. Yeah, Akio was planning for us to stiff the bar and get the hell out of there. The staff came down stairs and I told them I was coming back. I needed to make a phone call. They left and I bailed. I know it was fucked up to do that but it was more fucked up that bitch tried to trick us into paying the tap for seven fucking people. No way in hell was I going to pay the tap for seven people I had just met and did not really know.

So yeah, I stiffed a bar in Shibuya once because of some fucked up Shibuya Gyaru. Lesson learned I guess.

Don`t party with fucked up people and you will not have to do fucked up things in order to save your own ass.

Beginner Learners of English: The Double Edge Sword Challenge

It is no big secret that I cut my teeth as a teacher under the NOVA system. Now, back in the old days teaching by using just what NOVA tells you is a really shit way to teach but no one will call you out on it. These days things are different. There is pretty much no standards unless politics are involved. Usually they leave you alone to teach the way you want as long as the money flows and no one wants to use you for a self centered agenda. This is sad but that is the state of affairs these days. I have never actually worked for the investor group, first G.Com now who the fuck knows, of NOVA.. I have always worked for a company formally known as Seikatsu Kobo Ltd which is now known as GEOS Corp. It is a long story how this company ended up taking the name of yet another defunct English school so that is a post for another day. I just wanted to provide a little back story before getting into my own personal teaching methods.

So, one of the biggest challenges for me as a teacher has been teaching mid-level beginner students. At this level most of the students at least have a base understanding of present/past simple and have been exposed to present/past perfect.  Vocab. must be expected to still be very limited. Independent production comes and goes depending on how familiar they are with the conversation topic of the lesson. They will also often confuse gender pronouns. Getting the student to improve is where the double edge sword comes into play. How to: get the students to overcome their nature cultural fear of foreigners, maintain and improve their confidence, and ensure they retain new English they learn.

Getting them over that damn Japanese fear of foreigners must happen pretty quickly. I do not brother trying to a `popular` teacher. Fuck that! Teachers who do that are just trying to protect themselves. I know how the dirty business of English education works in Japan. It does not matter how `popular` you are as a teacher. If the student numbers drop YOU will be blamed for it. It does not matter how much the students like you. If shit goes bad it is always the teacher`s fault. Instead of  trying to be `popular` I just want them to respect me. To defeat that odd fear students have, I treat the student with basic human respect and demand they do the same. Once they catch on that I will not play the `popular gaijin` game, that fear goes away or they stop taking my lessons. I end up with students who actually want to try hard and become better English speakers.

Confidence is another matter all together. Lower level students make mistakes often, which is expected, and can sometimes stop trying to speak good English. There is only so much a teacher can be in order to maintain the students confidence. To be honest, there is a whole damn host of factors which effects confidence. Often it is something personal which is effecting their confidence. I am not a psychiatrist. I am a teacher. Yet, if I really want the student to get better I must find a way to keep their confidence level stable. I always start off mid-beginner students with something I know they can do. I don`t give them something new at the start of the lesson. It only confuses them and hurts their confidence. After they have been able to use the English they know, I try to do something from the last lesson. I attempt to get them to try to use some of the language form the last lesson; which gets into retention. Building on things and letting them use English they have mastered really goes a long way in maintaining confidence.

So yeah, retention. This is one of the hardest things for any type of beginner student. I have found that it is important to establish that when the student comes to class they should expect what was taught in the last lesson will come up again in the current lesson. There must be some kind of connection between one lesson to the next. Getting the students to do a little homework from time to time also helps. If there is little or no connection between lessons, no homework is ever given or done, and past lessons are not injected into further lessons the students will have a hard time retaining what they are taught.

These are just a few of things I believe should be done in order to help get beginner to mid and high beginner students to improve their English ability. All of these thing can also be applied to higher levels as well. With all of these things said, these methods get screwed up by me being forced to work at four or five damn branches a week. Nothing can be established with the students when the teacher is not at one school on a regular basis. I feel that in order to develop high quality lessons and turn a profit, it is important to stop pandering to the lowest common factor. No more `popular` teachers I say; yet that is a post for another day.

Who Kicked Your Ass Buddy?

The amount of crazy shit I see in Tokyo daily is enough to fill several volumes of an epic novel. I don`t even write about half of the things I either get into directly or simply witness. Tokyo is a much rougher city than most folks will ever admit. Case in point is the gentlemen in the photo to your left.

I don`t know who did it but someone fucked this guy up. I was on my way home when I first spotted him. I had made it to Nishi-Nippori station and was waiting to transfer on the Chiyoda line. He was trying to stand up but it appeared to be a loosing battle. He was close enough to me that I was able to get a smell of him. The bastard smelled like cheap beer and blood mixed with cheese feet. Mother fucker had gotten into some really bad shit for sure. The train finally arrived a few minutes later and he disappeared into the mass hoard of sorry fucks crowding the train. I thought I would never see him again; boy was I wrong.

The Chiyoda line from Nishi-Nippori to Kita-Senju was more packed than usual. I was sure this dude most likely scared the shit out of enough weak ass J-gals and was carried away by station staff at Machiya station.Damn if I was wrong! The bastard managed to survive all the way to Kita-Senju. It was at Kita-Senju station that some of this guys story finally came out in the wash.

You can figure that I was really fucking surprised to see this beat up fucker at Kita-Senju. Right there at the TX platform he was still struggling to stand up on his own. This time he was attempting to talk on his phone. My Japanese is still limited, but damn better than it used to be, so I was only able to make out some of what he was attempting to say. It sounded like he was talking to his wife. I was able to clearly make out the following, `Sorry. I got into a fight at a hostess bar. I am bleeding.` At that point I said to myself, `Fuck this asshole!` I don`t have a lot of respect for fellas who go to hostess bars all the damn time. I understand that most of these guys are going because something is missing at home. They need a women who can make them feel like a man; at least for a little while. I get that...really I do. Yet, it would be better to work on things at home rather than give up and run to some young greedy bitch you will suck all the money they can out of some lonely guy looking for a little respect and attention.

Any god damn way, when the local train finally decided to show its slow ass, the idea popped into my head to get a picture of this sorry fucker.

My feelings about this truly sad mixed up fella is complex. On one hand my heart goes out to him. He most likely had a fucked up day at work and his wife is probably a cold blooded bitch. He went to some low down hostess bar to have some young fine ass gal cheer him up. Sadly, while at the hostess bar he must have had one too many drinks, got too friendly with one of the gals, and some Yakuza bouncier beat his face in proper. On the other hand...Fuck him! His wife will forgive him and their relationship will keep on being a joke. His company is paying for his national health insurance so he will not pay a fucking dime to have his face fixed up. 99% percent of foreign English teachers get no support from their companies to help them pay that fucking over priced nation health insurance tax. If I pulled the same shit he did my wife would divorce me and I would get stiffed with trying to pay to have my face fixed up; even after the so-called discount I get from the national health insurance tax.

*So, I am wondering what kind of stuff yall want to see me write more about in the next few posts: Teaching(all aspects of it), thoughts of the state of Japan, J-blogging community, the inner workings of my mind, or the chaos that is Tokyo.  Please don`t request any lame ass `wow Japan` stuff. I gave up writing about such things a long time ago. 

I am a Continental

It must be odd for the native people of Japan to wrap their heads around the idea of fighting to be free. At times, I question if they really understand what liberty really means. It is only in recent modern times that Japanese were introduced to the idea of liberty. It was my own nation which attempted to place liberty into the hearts and minds of Japanese folks. It is a true foreign idea to the natives of Japan. America and Japan have had totally different histories. While the Americans were risking their lives just to be able to govern themselves and free man from the bonds which chained him, the Japanese were transitioning from the age of Samurai to the age of Empire. While Americans were working out the idea of being an independent individual, the Japanese were falling in line with Emperor worship and extreme nationalism. No wonder we tried to kill each other off during WW2.

But that was then...and this is now

Fast forward to the 21st Century

 Now it is America which is the Empire. Just as Japanese nationalist dogma penetrated the minds of the people of Asia, American dogma fills the hearts and minds of most people around the world. Japanese military bases could be found in many parts of Asia. These days U.S. military bases can be found in all parts of the world. Just as citizens of the Japanese empire thought that Japan was the center of the universe, modern Americans often feel that America is the be all of end all in the world.Even as the American Empire has clearly started to crumble many Americans feel that the U.S.A. is the greatest nation in the world. This is no different than when the Japanese submitted to the Royal family of Japan up until the day Japan was defeated by the Americans. That a sick fucking turn of events. What is even sicker that that both nations are just as stubborn and ignorant as ever.


These days I find myself, as an American, knee deep in Japanese culture. I have experienced the good, bad and ugly of both cultures. I have learned that Japanese culture is about as far removed form my native land as can be. At times these people take a liking to some things from America. Yet, deep down inside their hearts are with Japan. Yeah, they have an obsession with western culture but at the end of the day they will stick to Japan. The average Japanese understands as much about America as the average American does about Japan.

You might be wondering what the hell is the fucking point of this post. Well, I have pretty much given up on Japanese ever really accepting outside ideas. I have come to terms with my status as a minority. There is nothing about it which gets under my skin. While this nation is dealing with one of the worst crisis since the post war era, the government is playing political games and fighting for power. As the common business model in Japan is clearly outdated business leaders in Japan refuse to accept new ideas and methods of running their companies. The nation faces a serious population problem yet immigration laws are tighter than ever. They still promote extreme conservatism even as the youth of Japan reject such notions. It will be Japan`s stubbornest and refusal to progress which will again bring about their down fall.

Though all of this...I am still a continental. I was rebellious in American and I am rebellious in Japan. The only way to survive is to be D.I.Y. as much as I can. If the leaders of Japan choose to ruin their nation then so be it. This twisted turn of events in history is really fucking funny. From the days of Samurai to the days of Salarymen...this nation really has not learned shit. I am here until the end. Fuck it! I will hang around just to see what happens next.      

Journey to the Center of My Mind Pt. 2

Howdy! Here we are again, digging around in my mind. It is a very uncomfortable place to be; as I have found. Yet, what choice to I have? It is my fucking mind after all. You see, recently I have been pushed to the edge. A lot of things have built up inside of me. I have smacked into too many brick walls which has caused me to explode with an anger which worries me. I did not realize I was filled with such an anger. While I still refuse to engage in a vision quest, I do need to figure out what is going on inside of my mind. So, lets explore shall we?

I remember something my daddy told me once. He said, `Boy. A job is not a job, it is an opportunity.` My father died from a drug O.D. several years ago but his words were burned into my mind. My father was a scum bag but at least he worked damn hard. With that said, I have noticed a very disturbing trend. The harder I work the harder I get fucked in the ass by sub par pricks who advanced in their careers by playing politics instead by good old fashioned hard work. I really have a strong distaste for politics at work.

Here is an example:

I was working at one of the numerous branches. The company likes to spread me so thin that I hardly remember the names of the students; but that is another matter all together. For a long time I have been writing my own lessons because the textbook really is shit to me at this point. `Official` company policy is that all lessons must be taught from that damn book. I cover my ass by always telling a student to refer to one of the lessons from the book. The lesson had gone down pretty good and the student enjoyed the lesson well enough. There was a mid-level Japanese manager at the branch that day. I know this bitch very well. She has a habit of stealing everyone`s thunder and taking credit for everything she can. She is a social climber and a real snake in the grass. Student tells her that he enjoyed the lesson. This bitch sits there and goes on and on about how `valuable` the text book is. Remember, she saw me pull my own lesson from my bag and print out copies. She knew that I had used my own material and did not use the book. Yet, she totally discredited everything I had just done. Instead, she steals all my hard work and gives credit to `the system.` A system I did not use and had nothing to do with the lesson I created and used for the lesson. When the student leaves, this bitch smiles at me with a shit eating grin as to say, `I fucked you again gaijin. I will never give you credit for anything.`

It is this kind of shit which is starting to have a very negative effect on my mind.

I am not the best teacher in the world. There are a lot of things I still need to learn even after several years of being a teacher. WTF? At least give credit where credit is due. All the backstabbing underhanded shit is really starting to boil my blood and filling me a deep hatred for humanity. This is not good for my mental or spiritual well being. I could quit but I got to think about taking care of my gal. I do look around the job market a lot Most of the gigs out there right now are set up in a way to kill off all creativity and reduce the teacher to nothing more than a gaijin puppet to be used as a cash cow profit making machine. At least the company I am working for now will let me have some sort of creative control and pays we decently well. They are just so damn stubborn to give a foreigner credit for anything. It is like the Japanese management have some sort of block in their brain. They cannot admit the hard work of any foreigner. This is not unique to Japan. The same thing happens in America. If you are a foreigner in America a lot of people will take advantage of you. Japan is just a bit more out in the open about it.

All I want is credit for my hard work. Being discredited for my hard work is really twisting my head up big time. Tokyo is a rough ass city. The daily stress of living in the city can be enough to drive someone to madness. While I have adjusted to the rough and tumble Tokyo lifestyle, the whole idea of keeping me under a boot in order to advance other people`s political agenda at work is creating a lot of hate in my heart. I see too much of the bad side of humanity. Too many lairs and sold-out blood thirsty fuckers come at me looking to suck me dry all the damn time. Everyone wants something from me. Well, I want something too. A little damn respect would be nice. At least stop fucking with me. I don`t want all this hate in my heart. I am only human. I am left with the option to attempt to take it all on the chin. The people who run my company are fucked up. I must learn to accept this or else I will go crazy.        

Journey to the Center of My Mind

Here we are again yall. Another muse from the gaijin ghost of Tokyo. I have been real intense the past two months. At times I have been a real asshole. As usual, I have been fighting to survive. It has been like this all my life. It is just the way it is I guess. Yet, I have long since abandoned my own personal vision quest. Most folks spend their entire lives on a vision quest. Living their lives in tunnel vision. It is a wonderful way to live actually. Ya don`t have to be bothered with the concerns of what is happening around ya. The world could turn to shit and you would never know it. I stopped my vision quest at the age of 24.

At the tender age of 24 I decided who I was and what I was all about. I decided that my only choice was to fight for my own survival. I had been raised damn poor. I had struggled to make it as far as college. I felt that I was lucky to be alive. I realized that I will always be held underwater. It is Ryan Vs. The World. So, here I am now living in Japan. The struggles carries on it seems.

While I deeply love Tokyo, I still find myself at odds with the world at large. I don`t fit in, even among fellow gaijin. I don`t admit this very often but I often feel awkward when attending large parties with co-workers or drinking at a crowded bar. In the back of my mind this little voice says, `Fuck these people. They don`t really care about you and would most likely sell you out in a heart beat.` I try real hard to resist the emotions which are sparked inside of me when I hear that little voice speak to me. It is kind of like going against my gut feeling and submitting to logic. Yet, damn near every time I allow pure logic to rule over my judgment, I end up saying something I shouldn`t or someone takes advantage of me. As long as I stay on my guard everything is mostly okay. As soon as I cast off my natural keenness and gut reactions something get out of wrack.. This is not to say that people cannot make my heart bleed from time to time.

This is where things get complex. You see I know that most folks are little fucking snakes in the grass. There are a hell of a lot of people who will take advantage of me and step on me for their own gain. This raw fact of humanity makes it very hard to know when to bring the iron fist or the soft hand. Recently I have been using only the iron fist. I usually do that when I feel powerless or under an extended amount of high stress. Asshole Ryan is a very hard person to deal with. Even when people are trying to help me I will not trust them if I feel I am in a oppressive situation. Put me in a corner and I will come out fighting with all guns blazing. Everyone becomes a target and no one is spared my rage. It is shitty of me to be like that but too many years of having to fight to survive causes me to adopt this mindset. On the other hand it is hard for me to resist a person who is showing weakness. If I cannot see someone in situations which they need to make a moral judgment, their crying, grace, smiles or general down to earth attitude can confuse me and cause me to let my guard down. Unless I got some background or reference as a base, extremely friendly people concern me.

Still, I find myself having a deep sense of sympathy for my fellow humans. We are just rats running around in a grid controlled by truly vile pieces of shit. Those really running the show are far darker and twisted than anything us slaves could work up the balls to hold up as some kind of sick moral fiber. In the middle of defending myself from the rest of the rats and slave masters, I somehow still have a strong sense of love, honor and manhood firmly ingrained into my head.

Yeah, taking a journey into the center of my mind is not easy for me. There is some major screws loose along with several demons which need to be dealt with.