So, today was my last day working at JH for 2003. It was a fairly normal day: a few classes, lunch, a few free periods...as usual. A couple surprises at the end of the day:
Surprise #1 (right before walking out the door): I "accidentally" found out that I have to give a "speech" on the first day of school after winter break. "say whuh now?" Yes, a speech. Rather, I have to speak at a big teachers meeting about my opinions on the methods and techniques of English education and the progress of the students for the present school year,etc. On top of that, they told me my roommate (who teaches at another school in the same city) would be attending the meeting to translate for me. "oh, really?" First time I heard about it. The vice-principal even claimed to have told my company about it. Yet, my company didn't tell me. Seems like I should be the first person to know about a speech that I'm supposed to give, but hey, that's just me.
Surprise #2 (walking out of the door): It's time to go. I'm on my way out the door, after saying my "Sayonara"s and "See you next year"s. I head out the staffroom, down tthe hallway to get my bike, when the vice-principal comes trotting up alongside me. In his hand is a white envelope with Japanese characters on the front, written in black marker. "Amen-san, this is for you." "What is it?," I ask. "This is a present from the principal and I." So then, I thought "What's inside? It couldn't be money." He flips the envelope over and on the bottom is written "10,000 Yen." 10,000 yen is about the equivalent of a US $100 bill, so I was hella surprised. I was kinda confused as to why I was getting this money, seeing how Japanese people don't celebrate Christmas. He attempted to explain, but I didnt understand some of the words he used. I accepted the envelope, thanked him and offered several bows.
After I got on the train, I researched my dictionary to decipher the vice-principal's explanation. It turned out that is was a farewell gift. I guess he was saying it's a customary habit to give a gift when someone leaves--in this case I'm leaving the country, although I'll be back next year I don't know if this kind of gift-giving is a normal custom for someone whom you're going to see again--actually, I think he may have said that to downplay his generosity. Custom or no custom, though, cash = love.
This evening, we also had our company Christmas dinner. Catching the train there, I saw not one, but TWO Black girls. One was getting on the train, with several other foreign girls, the other was getting off the train. I gave a friendly nod to the one getting off, but the one getting on didn't really make eye contact. I was surprised because I almost NEVER see Black women here, anywhere I go, and I saw 2 at once so that was a rather unusual occurrence.
Anyway, we had our co. dinner at some fancy-shmancy French restaurant on the second floor of a hotel near Nagoya Station. After a lot of unnecessary short speech-giving, we finally got to dig in on some skimpy, fancy finger-food type courses, with beer, followed by small, fancy desserts. As fancy as everything was, heads were still hungry after the dinner was over.
Also, I found it ironic, that we were having a Christmas dinner at a French restaurant when, 1) the Japanese don't celebrate Christmas, and 2) we're in Japan eating French food? With all of us foreign national employees, I guess they were trying to appeal to our Western palettes. Honestly, if they'd gone with basic tavern-style Japanese food with tap brew, I would've been happy.
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