The Tinkerbell Troupe
...written on 2001-06-16, @ 10:50 p.m.
Sat June 16, 2001
Hello Everyone! Gosh, it is so nice to sit down and feel like I have some time to write. I have been missing this creative outlet of mine.
As some of you may know, I am teaching English here in Japan and have been doing said deed since October. In this time, I think I have seen and taught over 1000 students. My Tuesday classes are the only students I see on a regular basis. The others I may see once or twice a month or once every two months depending on the schedule.
So, many times I am looking over a sea from anywhere from 2-40 students and see them so irregularly that it is almost impossible to remember names and faces.
The other day as I was riding my bike home from one of my favorite shopping hangouts (home decorating and office supplies in one stop = HEAVEN), I came upon a group of nine young boys, all on bicycles, commandeering the entire sidewalk, blithely unaware that they were blocking the pedestrian and other bicycle traffic (namely ME). I softly rang my bell, and said in English, "Excuse me!". They looked around, stopped and parted to let me by.
As I was passing through, I heard one boy say, "Kim- sensei?" Ah, it was a group of my own younguns! I smiled at them and said "Hello" as they made their way over to a car that was plastered with pro-wrestling ads. I went home and unloaded the stuff from my first shopping round and went out on foot to get some more contact lenses.
I saw the boys again. They had made their way to a fried food shop, had ordered and were now munching on octopus and potato cakes. I went up and asked them how they were and what they were doing, and then I invited them to have an ice cream. They were very excited at this unexpected treat and I lead them around the corner to "Tinkerbell", the new ice cream and sweet crape (their spelling, not mine) shop in my apartment building.
There used to be an okonomiyaki shop there, but it bit the dust a couple of months ago. While I liked the owners very much, the smells that would waft up the stairs to my apartment were far from appetizing and I had only been down there twice to eat in the early days of my arrival.
At my first invitation, I had counted only 7 boys, but as they all assembled their bikes in front of Tinkerbell, I saw that we had gained two more. As I placed the order for nine ice cream cones, the owner ofTinkerbell apologized for not having any seating to accomodate my large party. The six bar stools of the ice cream shop were already full. I said it was no problem and we all waited out front while she prepared the cones.
As the boys slurpped the soft vanilla ice cream out of the tasty waffle cones, we asked each other questions. One boy asked me if I was going to Akasaka that day to teach. I told him no, that it was my day off. I then asked them if they were all from the Akasaka branch, and they said no, only two of them were, the rest of the boys were from Shizusato. However, they were all eighth graders from the same jr. high school. I asked them if any of them were going the English study trip to Georgia this summer, and no one responded in the affirmative. I asked them if they had ever been to America. I asked them this in English, in the present perfect formation, which they won't study until the end of this school year. I could tell that most of them didn't understand, but one boy threw his head back with a big smile and said, "Well, let me see." in such an engaging manner that we all laughed heartily. One boy said that he had been to Hawaii and most of the others indicated that lack of money was keeping them from doing any traveling at this time.
They finished up their ice cream cones and I gathered up the little plastic spoons and smiled at their collective shout of "THANK YOU VERY MUCH, MISS KIM!", as they slowly disengaged their bicycles one from the other, mounted and rode off to prepare for their evening round of studying.