It seems quite fitting that I began this year in the Hamilton Hotel in Nagoya (a great place and not too pricey) and now with just one week to go, I’m back.
Today we had a presentation for Nellie’s Bookstore. It was also very interesting to see other presenters stealing out jokes…hmmm. Our presentation was last in the day so I had to find some way of making it different from the others (apart from the obvious “genki” factor), so decided the do the “Where are you from?” theme. Of course one of the main aims of this theme is to show people that you don’t judge people by their skin colour or their face. But these teachers just did not get it! As one of the non-Japanese people said “what they saw today was the most important thing they’ve ever heard. But they’re just not ready.”
In the evening it was the Outback Steakhouse again.
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This morning we had a kids show. Needless to say I wasn’t very genki! But “genki is as genki does” so for that hour I forced myself to be genki! The kids were great though, and there were so many of them, news of this weeks shows had certainly spread. But then afterwards, and I think for the first time ever after a good show, I was shattered! I was soooo tired. We got taken out for a very nice lunch (gorgeous freshly baked bread), did some washing, caught up on a bit of sleep then headed down to Nagoya.
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Today was the reason we were invited to KitaIbaraki, to give a Genki speech to all the teachers in the city - hundreds of them! The place was very posh and about as formal as you can imagine (i.e. as it’s Japan, very formal). All the teachers, Head Teachers and PTA heads were there, as were the Board of Education and the board members themselves. Lots of people in suits! So we got them genki! And they were brilliant. I guess the setting helped, they thought it would be formal but we made it very fun. Right from the start they were laughing and getting very involved, even the very old guys!
They loved the songs and curriculum, and although I got a few weird looks during my “War Speech” everyone got on board with my ending about why International Understanding is so important - I actually thought a few of them looked like they might cry! Fantastic.
Then it was the banquet with all the high up people. I was actually thinking it’d be great to be an ALT again, now that I know how these events work. It’s all a case of picking up a beer bottle and a sake bottle and going round filling the glasses of the most important people. Whatever hard work we had done today (we’d also done a show in the morning and a photo shoot at lunchtime) then the real work is done now, with beer at the banquet. But as it happened I didn’t have to go to anyone, they all came to me. I was just so impressed, all these Head Teachers coming up to me and saying how much they were moved by the speech. They were saying the most amazing stuff about their feelings about Education and the futures of their students. I wish I could have videod them all! But of course the only time they could express these things was with the “excuse” of alcohol. But without fail every single person, from the Superintendent of Education downwards were all very impressive and very supportive. What a fantastic city for children to grow up in.
Then afterwards it was the “nijikai” (second party), and third-party, and fourth, and fifth…… and finally we finished at 3AM. Exhausted, but what a great day, and what a fantastic group of people.
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Had a show in the morning, quite good. It took a long time to get the kids going, but once they did it was fine. Actually they were good, I guess I’m just judging them from the shows we’ve had recently where the kids are just fantastic!! You can really tell the difference between a school that has an ALT once a week and one that has an ALT a couple of times a year!
Then in afternoon it was another show. But this time the school decided that they’d change the plan at the last minute and ask us to only do 3rd and 4th years. Unfortunately we can’t do this as if we do it for one school, everyone would want it. Besides, if the kids were like this morning then we really need the 1st and 2nd graders to genki everyone up. So it was into Japanese politics mode. They said “impossible”. So I said, “O I’m really sorry, there must have a communications problem, it’s all our fault”, of course it wasn’t, they’d just decided themselves, but taking the blame off them always helps “let’s try and find a way out of this”. Making sure they had an excuse to back down and I didn’t get confrontational with them. So things were going backwards and forwards and before I knew it they had called in the big wigs from the Board of Education! This was a bit of a surprise, but good news as it meant the school didn’t want to take responsibility, but the BOE people probably could. So after lots of talking and being as polite as possible they decided to do the show for all the kids!! Yeah!!! So lots of smiles all round. And after all the hard work the kids were brilliant. We had a massive sound system, 600 kids and everyone seemed well impressed and was wanting to take the credit for deciding to include all the school years!!
Then in the evening we were taken out for a very nice sushi meal. We were all shattered from the night before, but somehow we managed to get to a karaoke bar!
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Spent the morning preparing the DVD inlay again, in our Shinjuku office i.e. the Starbucks. Oh I love Gingerbread lattes!
Then a 3 hour train up to Kita Ibaraki Shi. I got a lot of audio work done on the train, then we met our host for the next three days. She had prepared a very nice welcome party which was great!
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Bed at 4AM, up at 6AM - I need to take a break from Japan!! Mind you for all the moaning I might do and however tired I might be, I had a look around at all the people on the subway in their suits and ties and felt really grateful that I’m my own boss and don’t have to do this everyday!
So I flew up to Tokyo. My bags were very wet at the baggage claim. My clothes and music gear were all drenched so I asked what happened. The reply was “it’s raining”.
Then to Shinjuku, I met up with Will and he did the final content check on the DVD. After all that hard work the last thing I wanted was a spelling mistake in there! But it was cool - great!!
Then a meeting at SSI, the publishers of our Kids English series, to talk about next year’s marketing strategy. I played them the DVD and their jaws dropped, they looked well impressed. Which is a good reaction I suppose! They’ll also check the inlay card for me tomorrow. Then we got taken out for a very nice Italian restaurant for lots of well deserved food and beer. Nice.
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