Learning to Bow

by Bruce Feiler

  “They must learn to persevere. If they were one person on an island, they could always say what they think. But they are not. We all must live with other people. This is our Japanese custom.”

  After lunch I taught my first class of ninth graders with Mrs. Negishi. She began with the same formal introduction as her colleagues but then diverted from the normal rigor into her own personal style. On this day, as on all others, a student was asked to stand before the class and deliver a short speech in English.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Bruth,” the young boy said at the start. “Let me say welcome speech for you. In our class there are twenty-one boys and twenty-two girls. Boys are handsome and clever. Girls are beautiful and kind. Today we are very happy to have an English class. We are waiting for you for a long time. We try to catch your speaking, but our English is not very good. We will do our best.”

  By the time students reach the third year of junior high school, they have been studying English fifty minutes a day, three days a week, forty-five weeks a year, for over two years. Whereas most seventh graders view English as fun and adventurous, most ninth graders see it as a catalogue of rules to be memorized for the high school entrance exam. The public school exam in Tochigi is based entirely on written material and requires no speaking or listening skills at all. Living English may be alive in the hearts of government officials in Tokyo, but it has no life in Sano.

  Mrs. Negishi tried to balance this burden with a parcel of exciting exercises. She had trained her students well, so class moved quickly. She began with a vocabulary quiz, in which she flashed a word in English and the students raced to call out the word in Japanese. Next came a word game where she called out the present tense of a verb and one student from each row had to race to the blackboard and write the past tense with chalk. For this lesson on the comparative and the superlative, Mrs. Negishi suggested that we divide the students into two teams and run a drill like a TV quiz show.

  “Which is taller, Mount Everest or Mount Fuji?” I asked.

  “Mount Everest,” a student called.

  “Which is bigger, Tokyo or New York?”

  “Tokyo.”

  “Who is faster, Carl Lewis or Mr. Bruce?”

  Just as the students were warming to the game, the principal appeared at the door. The students quickly snapped upright in their chairs and crossed their hands in their laps. Sakamato-sensei excused himself before Mrs. Negishi and summoned six boys by name. “Please come with me,” he announced. The boys buttoned their black jackets with care and followed him silently down the hall.

  The game trickled to a close as class ended, and an anxious silence took hold of the school. Downstairs in the main office, teachers stood huddled in small groups, shooing away students who wandered into the room and glancing over their shoulders at the principal’s door. Soon Denver appeared at his desk and explained to me what had happened.

  During lunchtime, while students were playing in the halls, an eighth-grade boy had called a ninth-grade boy by his name without the honorific san. The older student, thinking this impertinent, rounded up some friends and returned to teach the young boy a lesson. The band of six ninth-grade avengers picked up the lone eighth-grade offender, dragged him into a bathroom stall, and began punching him. This continued unabated until a teacher unknowingly walked into the bathroom and discovered the fight in progress.

  Back in the office, the teachers waited anxiously for the boys to emerge from their meeting with the principal. Soon Sakamoto-sensei, looking gruff and angry, pushed the boys through the teachers’ room and led them into the foyer of the school, directly in front of the trophy case.

  “Attention,” he called out, and the boys jerked into formation.

  “You are ninth-grade students,” he shouted at them in harsh, bludgeoning speech that echoed through the halls. “You are leaders in this school. It is time to understand your duties and assume your responsibilities.” As he talked, the principal marched down the row of boys, slapping each boy on the crown of his head and pushing him down to the ground. As each student landed, he assumed the formal Japanese sitting position by kneeling down on the hard tile floor while resting on his ankles. The students winced in silence.

  “You have brought shame on your class and your school. You must be punished. Do you understand?”

  “Hai,” the boys cried loudly, as the signs had instructed them to do.

  “Good. Now sit here and think about it.”

  The principal walked away, giving a last slap to one of the boys, knocking him briefly to the floor, and sending the seventh graders who had been peering around the corner scurrying back to their room. The six students were left on the floor for the next thirty minutes, slowly squirming as their legs cramped in pain. As the other teachers moved in and out of the office, most stopped before the line of students to knock one on the head or whisper some encouragement for all to hear. One particularly ferocious teacher drew a short bamboo pole from his desk and ceremoniously slapped each boy on the back of the neck, like a Zen master rapping young monks to instill determination. The entire faculty body seemed to join in the punishment, and the entire student body seemed to share in the boys’ grief. As I watched this public humiliation, I thought of what Denver had said, “Shitsuke—discipline—is the heart of our schools.”

  “Why was there a fight today?” I asked Mr. Fuji as he drove me home from school. On the street, streams of students from school were biking past us, heading home for the day.

  “Every year at this time, the ninth graders become very anxious about their future,” he said. “Entrance exams are coming up, and they must work harder now. Their hearts are not in balance. Also, the teachers are busy with preparations for the sports festival next month, so they have no time to observe the children. Without the teachers, the children are lost.”

  Then, without warning, Mr. Fuji started blowing his car horn and pulled suddenly to the side of the road. With a force that belied his age, Mr. Fuji jumped out of the car, crossed the street, and began berating two girls on bicycles. The girls hopped off their bicycle seats and withdrew their white riding helmets from their baskets. They bowed toward the teacher, snapped them into place, and pedaled away again.

  Mr. Fuji shook his head and slapped the steering wheel as he sat back in the car. “The students think that once they are away from school, they can do whatever they want. But they know to keep their helmets on at all times. Students today are growing lazy and disobeying all the rules. They are becoming just like Americans. If they are going to be good Japanese, they still have a lot to learn.”

  4

  FACES IN THE DARK: THE WELCOME PARTY

  The apprentice fixed a chair for him amid the banqueters, hung a lyre above his head and led his hands upon the strings. He placed a bread basket on the table and poured a cup of wine. Then each man’s hands stretched out upon the banquet.

  —The Odyssey, Book VIII

  AN ENVELOPE ARRIVED on my desk at the Board of Education late one Wednesday afternoon. On the outside was a question: “Have you gotten used to your life in Japan?” On the inside was an invitation to a party. The party was scheduled for that evening; the place was the Lucky Eel Inn; the guest of honor, myself.

  After several weeks on the job, I would be officially welcomed into the group of my fellow teachers on that night through the ceremonial ritual of an enkai. My office held such social evenings once a month; others held them as often as once a week. These festive functions are as important to office relations as the morning bow or afternoon snack, but one crucial difference remains: at an enkai the lubricant is not tea but liquor.

  We stopped at the door of the inn to leave our shoes, turning them backward so the toes would face outward when the time came to leave. Inside, a private salon awaited. Tender straw mats edged in violet silk covered the floor; blond wooden shji screens lined with brittle rice paper softened the afternoon sun; a burnt-orange blossom peeked out from a niche in a corner beside the window. The room
had the elegant air of a private courtyard in a seventeenth-century romantic novel. The sliding doors and tinted screens, born of that era, were fashioned to shield out formality and provide a den where true feelings could reign—without fear and especially without shame.

  The dozen guests sat on large scarlet pillows set evenly across the tatami floor, with two rows of low tables in front of them. Like its cousin the aisatsu, or greeting, the enkai follows an established form, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. At the start, formal speeches are in order. On this night, Director Kato, a large, dignified man who speaks imperial Japanese but not a word of English, delivered a prepared speech in my native tongue.

  “Welcomu, Mista Burusu,” he began slowly. “I am bery glad to see you…” He hesitated, and the others applauded. “We are bery happy that you have come to live in our city. I hope you have good time here and return to your country in a year and successfully fulfill your duties. Thank you very much.”

  I was slightly surprised that the director chose my welcome party as the time to talk about my departure, but I was even more surprised by his choice of words, urging me to fulfill my duties. My first thought was to ask, “Duty to whom?” but I thought better of it, realizing that a Japanese person in my place would not ask such a question. Duty comes more naturally in Japan.

  After several more speeches, much applause, and the presentation of a bouquet of flowers, Mr. Deputy Director delivered the opening toast. Beer bottles were opened, glasses raised, and all joined in a ringing “Kanpai!”—Cheers! The ensemble clinking of glasses signaled the end of formality. What followed was a rare treat for me: a glimpse beyond the public faces of these teachers—the stoic, formal patina that glosses office life—to their uninhibited, private faces.

  After the toast we unfolded our legs, cracked open our wooden chopsticks, and stretched our hands upon the feast. The first course consisted of fine slivers of uncooked carp nestled in a bed of shredded mint leaves and garnished with a bright yellow daisy. Other dishes included braised squid with lemon and pepper, poached quail eggs, and batter-fried eggplant with ginger root. Fifteen minutes later the main course arrived: sautéed eel on rice. Eel, unagi, has been a delicacy in Japan since the fourteenth century and is believed to have mystical powers ranging from the regenerative to the aphrodisiacal. My officemates were convinced, however, that the thin strips of flaky, filleted meat would be too foreign for my fancy. “This is very Japanese,” they said.

  I bit down on the mushy meat and found, to my relief, that my tongue could take it. I smiled through the slightly pungent taste and assured my colleagues that I too loved eel. They raised their glasses and howled, “Banzai!” This cheer, which literally means “May you live ten thousand years,” was once reserved only for the emperor, but these days it has a more secular meaning and can even be used on foreigners.

  The food disappeared in less than twenty minutes, and the guests turned their attention to the wine and beer. Formal drinking in Japan, like eating, follows a strict code of manners. First, no one is allowed to pour a drink for himself or herself. Seated in the place of honor, I witnessed a virtual stampede as my colleagues tripped over one another to be the first to fill my glass. No sooner had I finished one beer than a new reveler appeared with bottle in hand. After several shots in rapid succession, I realized that sitting in the place of honor all night would quickly leave me incapacitated. I rose, took the offensive, and armed myself with a one-liter bottle of cold Sapporo beer and a small decanter of warm rice wine. My colleagues were equally honored to drink from the foreigner’s stock.

  After several hours the room reminded me less of a Japanese tea garden and more of a classic bacchanalian den. Crumpled pillows littered the floor, covered by men in assorted reclining poses and women, as always, on bended knees. Empty beer bottles toppled over each other onto growing piles on the floor. The laughter grew louder, the jokes got bawdier, and the tension receded, as if a boulder had been dislodged from a stifled geyser. This was the time when true feelings were released. This was the time, I sensed, to beware. Presently Mr. C led me to the corner and began to talk of my duties at school.

  “You must work hard this year,” he enjoined. “Your job is very difficult. You must visit many schools and teach many students. I am very sorry about that.

  “Also,” he said with a nervous laugh, “I don’t speak English very well. I only speak Japanese English. The students are the same way. This is very strange for you, I’m sure.”

  Some of the other teachers gathered around us, slapping my back and filling my glass while he talked.

  “But,” Mr. C continued, “you must not laugh at your students when they make mistakes. Japanese people have very little confidence, especially in front of foreigners. They are very shy. Japan is an island nation, and we are afraid of outsiders. Arai-san, for example, had very little confidence before you came.” He gestured at her across the room; she smiled anxiously.

  “She had never met a person like you,” Mr. C added. “But now she knows you. She knows that you drink tea and eat crackers, just like the rest of us. You must give your students confidence, as you have given her. It will be a challenge for you.”

  As he concluded his talk Mr. C leaned closer, almost tumbling into my lap. The room grew quiet. For a moment he said nothing, and his face, flushed beet-red from the beer, hung in the air just inches from my own. Then suddenly he leaned back and sighed. “That’s the way it is,” he said. “It can’t be helped.”

  He lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke into the air.

  When he turned away I excused myself from the party and retired to the men’s room. Poised over a miniature urinal, I had a moment to reflect. What was I to make of this scene? Here was a middle-aged science teacher who had risen to some level of prominence in his career. He had a wife, two kids, two cars, and a large house. He was my boss. Yet he chose this occasion to tell me that he felt insecure around me because he could not speak English and because “Japanese people have very little confidence, especially in front of foreigners.”

  I believe there is a large measure of truth in his claim that Japanese people often feel shy and guarded around non-Japanese. This is especially true in the countryside. In Sano, people often pointed at me when they saw me on the street. “Gaijin, gaijin,” they shouted. “There’s a foreigner. He’s so tall. He looks funny.” In school, students giggled when I spoke in class or went silent when I asked them a question. In a sense Mr. C was apologizing for this behavior. “Japan is an island nation,” he had said. “We are afraid of outsiders. It can’t be helped.” Ironically, at a time when many outsiders view the Japanese as powerful and menacing, many Japanese view themselves as small in size and weak in the face of foreigners. Most respond to this fear of outsiders by escalating their faith in themselves, and especially in their culture.

  Mr. C had said it clearly: “We Japanese may not speak English very well, but we have the best wine and the best eel in the world.” This message was too explicit to mention over open desktops at work, so my boss had waited until after hours and behind closed doors at our evening enkai. Though we had left the office long ago, we were still conducting official business. An enkai, I realized, was much more than a public spree; it was a time for sharing private thoughts that prudence deterred one from saying at work.

  When I returned to the room, the party had advanced to the singing stage. A black stereo case with a portable microphone had materialized in one corner of the room. After a little perfunctory cajoling, each of the men paraded to the front of the room to regale his colleagues with dripping love songs and paeans to the beauty of Japanese women. “It’s autumn; the leaves are turning; my heart falls for you.” The crowd responded with appropriate hoots and whistles as each of the men—though none of the women—took a turn at the magic box that could turn even the most grating voice into a deep, throaty swoon. Each of the men was required to perform this ritual, no matter how grating his voice truly was. Though the acts appea
red nonchalant, I have known Japanese men who practiced for weeks before an important enkai so that they would not embarrass themselves before their colleagues.

  The anticipated moment arrived as the newcomer rose to perform his last and perhaps most important initiatory rite. I took the microphone, and the crowd began to chant, “Sain-su. Sain-su! We wantu sain-su.” After a moment to decode this Japanese English, I responded to the call.

  “Oh when the Saints (bum, bum, bum, bum) go marching in, Oh when the Saints go marching in, Oh how I’d love to be in that number, When the Saints go marching in…”

  The crowd loved my mock Louis Armstrong and begged for more. Frantically stretching the banks of my limited repertoire, I hit on a sure-fire winner, a participatory song that would satisfy their appetite for rowdiness. My next number, I explained, was a fight song used by my college football team. “Bulldog. Bulldog. Bow! wow! wow! E-li Yale. Bulldog, Bulldog, bow! wow! wow! Our team will never fail…” Enchanted by the lyrics, my boss, my section chief, and even the director of the Ansoku Education Office began chanting and barking so loudly that John Harvard must have turned over in his grave, ten thousand miles away in Massachusetts.

  So there I stood, towering 187 centimeters above the floor in my stocking feet, leading my harem of 170-centimeter drunken schoolteachers in a howling ensemble of “Bow! wow! wow!” and discovering for the first time what my contract meant by urging me to promote mutual understanding and cooperation. More important, I had achieved with this song a sense of parity with these teachers. Not only could I use chopsticks and bow, but I could also make a fool of myself in front of everyone. Now the ceremony could end.

  The final act of the enkai seemed to emphasize this group feeling. Just as the evening opened with an ensemble toast, it concluded with an ensemble chant. Everyone joined in a large circle, bent down, and then rose slowly with a growing cheer, “HeeeeeEEEEEY!” Clap! Clap! Clap! The formal party concluded on this note, and we all filed toward the sliding paper door, where our shoes lay patiently in wait.