Stress Translates

I found out something very interesting at last night's dinner. I was invited to eat with ゆう中's principal and his family. To my surprise and delight, we were joined by one of the English teachers I worked with at Waga-chu last year! She brought her incredibly genki little daughter who was our main source of entertainment for the evening, and we shared stories about my "American Culture" class with the Special Education students. Powerpoints and puzzles: no wonder those kids loved me...they got away with murder!

It was a fantastic dinner: a chirashi rice dish with a chopped up whole fish nestled in with the vinegared rice (head included!), salad, a grilled beef and tofu dish, and spring rolls (after all, it's spring. You  hear that, weather? It's spring! Enough of this snow and ice crap!) We drank an interesting beer. I say "interesting" because it was like an alcoholic soy sauce. It wasn't bad, but it was definitely different.

The party was myself, the English teacher, the principal, his wife, his junior high school daughter and his freshly graduated daughter. The guest list is important and I'll tell you why.

At one point of the evening, the principal asked me what my plans were for when I went back to America. I told him my general idea: live close to D.C., look for work during the summer that could become part time over the fall and winter, and hopefully substitute teach in Fairfax, VA.

"Oh," he said. "You can apply for work any time of the year?"

"Well, yes," I said. I was a bit confused: why wouldn't I? "For 'seasonal' work, like a summer camp, or helping a depa-to for the holiday season, you have to wait to apply at certain times of the year. But for most work, yes, you can apply any time."

The group actually seemed a little surprised in the way that they look surprised when you tell them that there are no transcontinental trains or taxi doors don't open by themselves. It's a novelty, a look into the other side of the looking glass.

They filled me in. Here in Japan, you stress  in high school about your university tests because your time in university isn't so much for studying: it's for pegging your career for the REST. OF. YOUR. LIFE. No pressure.

If you get into your university, your time is best used pursuing a few classes, but all the emphasis is put on where you will intern and then where you will interview to work and finally where you will be for your career. Those last two years are for part-time work. The last one, they told me, is when you spend all your time in a black suit, interviewing.

The principal's oldest daughter just graduated and will be working at a post office in Ichinoseki (no joke, post offices here: you handle shipping, citizen registry a bit, people's pensions, bills, mail of course and basically the functioning of a city...they're like the express city-hall). And basically, she will be there until the day she retires...or marries. That depends on her. Yes, there are women who leave their work after they become mothers whether for an extended period or just altogether.

I was really stunned! I remember how stressful it was to look into colleges, consider career paths, take tests, look for internships...but that pales in comparison to this "DO OR DIE" method in Japan. Fluttering my hand over my heart, I looked around and said, "Wow! Sutoresu! Stress!"

It's the same word here. But the sentiment is intensified to the nth power.

The youngest daughter is upstairs studying...a lot!

The whole time, the younger sister stared at her salad. She knows wait lies in wait and I can only wish her the best.