Nova's Troubles Continue!

The false advertising scandal just took another chunk out of Nova. According to a story on Japan Times Online, the giant eikaiwa (English school) may close as many as 200 branches. Just another reason I'm glad I got out when I did.

You have to imagine this is also related to the highly-publicized drug bust of a Nova teacher in Roppongi, and the horrific murder of another in Chiba. As one of my friends who still works there recently told me, "We are hemorrhaging kid students."

This isn't schadenfreude, or one of those typically anti-Nova posts by a disgruntled employee. I've read quite a few of those horror stories on blogs and on message boards, and heard versions in conversation by people who know them only secondhand or thirdhand. But I was there. I know what goes down at Nova. Some of these stories are true; many are the outpourings of socially dysfunctional or highly inexperienced people who committed job suicide there through failings both professional and personal. My own time there was generally positive, and as a result I have what I think is a very realistic view of the pros and cons of that frequently (and sometimes most deservedly) maligned giant of English education. Wounded giant, these days. Actually, this is the result of my ongoing nostalgia for what was one of the best and worst times of my life.

I think a lot of angry ex-Nova teachers tend to conflate everything negative about their experience (a lot of which is self-inflicted if they'd only be honest with themselves) and lump the staff and students together with the company itself in this big mass of hate. Maybe that's the normal result of experiencing severe negative reinforcement. Maybe it's some sort of displacement for their own failings. But whatever it is, it's not fair at all.

Do I blame the company for profiting off its employees by charging us ridiculous rent for our accommodations? Of course! Do I think the non-fraternization policy idiotic and unenforceable? Sure (except I also know of at least one Nova branch where the male teachers poached incessantly off the female students and only granted level-up slips to the cute ones and the ones that slept with them). Is it stupid to have Tuesday-Wednesday off instead of a normal weekend? Yeah (except the students there are generally office workers who only have Saturdays or Sundays free for self-enrichment projects like studying English).

And I can't tell you how sick it makes me to have been associated with a company that deliberately misleads its customers. Or how insane it was to have to put up with roommates who were almost constantly drunk and all too frequently unable to show up for work due to hangovers. Or dealing with sleazy guys who, back home, couldn't get laid with a bottle of Maker's Mark and a palm-load of Cetaphil doing the aforementioned student-poaching.

Still... once you've been a Nova teacher, you've been marked for good or bad. It's like having been in the military, one of those formative life adventures you share with a handful of others who were briefly your coworkers, best friends, family and roommates. The analogy holds when you consider that many of those teachers are fresh out of college and impossibly young.

So most of all, I genuinely feel bad for some of my friends who are Nova teachers (yeah, I met some shady, sketchy characters but I also met some kind, trustworthy and genuinely compassionate people as well), and for the many wonderful students I met and interacted with during my stint with the company. Oh yeah... and the hard-working Japanese staff who will no doubt bear the financial brunt of this, whatever that might turn out to be.

I'm thinking of the little Nagasakiya branch... an all-Nova Kids branch in a dumpy shopping center where I worked one day a week for about a month or so. That's where I taught my first Chibiko (tiny li'l kid) class, featuring a single adorable girl who alternated between shy reluctance and deliriously enthusiastic participation... until she fell against the wall and an unfortunately placed coffee table, banging her head twice and bringing on the tears.

I'm still haunted by that, and the image of her falling replays itself as I type this. I'm still pissed at myself for not removing that coffee table before the class. Any idiot would've known it for a hazard. And I still rankle a bit when I think of the near-argument I had later that week with our area Kid's coordinator about getting the damned thing out of the room during lessons.

For some reason, I feel protective of unloved and unlovable places like Nagasakiya. No style, no grace. A grubby orphan of a shopping center, standing off by itself and alone even in the midst of a densely-packed urban environment. I guess to a certain extent, I feel that way about Nova and its ambiguously-gendered pink rabbit spokesmodel.

Not the company. Certainly not the scumbags scattered amongst its employees. But the rest of the people. Kind, normal, everyday people with good intentions.

Harajuku Fashionista Spectacular: August 2007

I like to explore Harajuku when I go to Tokyo. Back during the heyday of the Japanese Economic Bubble until 1998 when "Pedestrian Heaven" was closed, Harajuku was the epicenter of Tokyo street fashion... a torrid zone of visual artistry where self-expression, fashion school students and avant garde musicians mixed in a creative free-for-all... and therefore, pound for pound or kilo for kilo, the absolute coolest place on earth.

The visual bible of street fashion, FRUiTS, is still around, still going strong but Harajuku itself, especially narrow shopping street Takeshita-dori, is the home of a new breed of fashionista. The street style of legend has moved to newer places... Omotesando (which is also mostly a haven of upmarket and super trendy and expensive boutiques full of international brand names) and Kitijoji (lots of fashion students live there including an ultra-cute girl I briefly dated who broke my poor heart in twain) just to name two.

But in some ways, the Harajuku spirit lives on, in mutated form. I mean, beyond the outdated living corpse trendmonger Gwen Stefani is whoring around and cashing in on, 10 years too late. Currently, when you cross the street from Harajuku Station, you can find an advertisement featuring one of the most beloved icons of Japan- Audrey Hepburn. A symbol and patron saint of haute couture the world 'round:


She represents classic fashionista heart and soul. Not trend-following, but trend-setting, muse of the great Hubert de Givenchy. Style and grace. But the modern Harajuku girl is her own muse, a little wilder, a bit more colorful, at once childish and sophisticated. Like these two girls, our sailor-scout guides on a foray into the colorful wilderness that is contemporary Takeshita-dori:

I have no idea how long it took them to get ready on this steamy Sunday afternoon, but they're perfectly accessorized, each piece coordinated into an overall theme, or a visual expression of their personalities. They look almost like sci-fi princesses.

It was very sunny that day, and the ideal complexion is milky-white... hence a profusion of frilly parasols. The girl in black with all the bags and the stripey socks is a doll-like member of another Harajuku fashion breed, the gosu-rori, or gothic lolita. These are generally fans of a rock style known as visual-kei, a sort of darkly androgynous glam/goth movement.

These girls are probably fans of one of the big visual-kei bands, but their look is a sort of future punk with gosu-rori undertones. Note the white creeper shoes, probably chosen specifically so they'd match each other. The girl on the left wears over the knee socks, which are ubiquitous in Japan these days, crossing almost all style boundaries. High maintenance gyaru (a bleached and tanned brand-oriented style emerging from Shibuya's famed 109 Department store and its environs but common in Hamamatsu and other metropolitan areas throughout Japan as well) and more conservative stylies wear them as well.

This b&w shot is me being artsy again. It's more dramatic this way, with a Dutch tilt to give it a kick of energy. This next duo is another interesting phenomenon:

The girly-girl and the boyish-girl team. Best friends, one adopts a very feminine gosu-rori style with artfully customized sleeves, a triple-tier pyramid hardware belt, a layered skirt with a flash of milky thigh above her over the knee socks, while her friend goes for something more butch, a sort of ska look accessorized with big bangle bracelets. A little bit of gender variance for spice, safe transgression and an expression of a sort of platonic love-ideal between two female friends.

Here's another gothy punk duo:

Witchy striped knee socks and fat treaded shoes for a little aggro look. And the frilly parasol... again!

Here are a couple of really femmy girl-girl types. Note the piano key motif on the big white bag, perhaps indicative of the musical influence of many of these looks. The red plaid girl also has a few sailor accents bringing to mind the infamous high school uniform cliche, and childish mary janes for a sexy-cute look. Her friend goes for something a bit more mature and overtly sexy with her chunky-heeled shoes and black socks.

Here's something fun- literally a living doll:

This is another permutation of the gosu-rori look. There are sub-genres of this look. I'm not sure if this denotes fandom of particular visual-kei bands or some sort of tribal allegiance, or if she was just feeling a bit pink and childlike that day. Her shoes look like some sort of iced pastries. This is an almost aggressively cute look.

This girl almost crosses over into the cosplay (costume play) subculture. I'm not sure what the significance of the nose-band is. Maybe it's inspired by some manga or anime character. If you look closely, you'll see her blond hair is actually a wig. Maybe she is cosplaying!

This is also interesting:

That's obviously a man, wearing full-on gosu-rori regalia. Despite his hair and the female attire, he makes no particular effort to pass as a woman, meaning he might be differently gendered or maybe he just figures why should girls have all the fun?

Here are two more gosu-roris. This tribe was out in force! I would've liked to have photographed some decora (a look of multi-colored energy and lots of cute dangling cartoon characters) or some hip, urban individualists a la FRUiTS, but alas it was not to be that day:

The baby blue is an interesting choice. Alice's Adventures in Nihon-Land; where's Sir John Tenniel when you need him? Lots of layers and petticoats and lace make them both frothy confectionery treats.

This next girl is a floral representative:

The difficulty of taking pictures on Takeshita-dori is amply illustrated by this photo. The street is very narrow and just jammed up with shoppers and tourists. Getting a shot of anyone was almost impossible. It's really a 2-person job, for a spotter and a shooter. About halfway down is a t-junction that's the perfect place for two observers to stake out and get some really fun photos, one person covering two angles and the other covering the third.

Here's another fun gender-transgressive pair:

The boy-girl has a vaguely Germanic look, doesn't she? Almost as if she were wearing lederhosen. Her girly friend is in a modified high school uniform, perhaps the one she was wearing in earnest the week before, or last year in the event she's a graduate. I doubt either of them is any more than 18. The boyish one holds the umbrella; in Japanese culture, young lovers walking in the rain and sharing an umbrella is a common romantic image.

Here's another less extreme duo:

The girly one is a frothy pink vision, and the boyish one has a hard-edged ska/punk look. In some ways J-Pop group Puffy predicated this style. Ami (happy birthday, by the way!) is usually presented as the femmier of the pair, with Yumi being depicted as ever-so-slightly more butch or edgy. But in reality, their looks are fairly interchangeable. It may have something to do with various comic book and cartoon pairings as well.

And yes, they're holding hands.

Take a gander at the girly-girl's elaborate thigh highs. Black lacing highlights down the back add a not-so-subtle element of sexiness to her otherwise doll-ish get up.

Here's a blurry pic that again demonstrates the difficulties I faced on this mission:

Here's a gosu-rori pair made delightful by the expression worn by the girl on the right:

Her skirt isn't as lacy as some others I saw, but it does feature a big white bow accent. Her friend's costume is much more elaborate, a darker presentation of black and blood red.

And in conclusion, here's this guy:

Wait, No, There's a New Contender!

Evidently, Fukuda Yasuo has overtaken Aso Taro in the race to replace departing PM Abe Shinzo here. Despite of, or because of, its history in the last century, Japan is a peace-loving country so maybe Abe's more hard line hawkish stance- along with the many scandals in his administration- alienated the public. Aso is supposedly like Abe in that regard, while Fukuda is a softer option.

Hey, I don't know. Generally, politics makes me weary and sick.

I almost had our largest class ever last night- seven students. But we had a no-show, so history was not made. I don't often teach six. Usually, larger classes (to a point) are more desirable from a teacher's standpoint. I don't work any harder teaching 6 than I do 2. And I work a lot less than when I teach only 1. Other than leading the students through the vocabulary and reading the dialogue, I hardly had to speak at all in that class. Just offer a correction or a better word choice here or there and watch 'em go.

And go they did. The lesson was on the relatively non-controversial topic of video game addiction. The dialogue between a mother and her game-crazed son hit especially close to home for one student, who has heard her own mom and brother go at it practically every day.

I think the lessons are most effective when the students can relate to the situations.

This particular student, a pleasant, hard-working (and frequently exhausted) high school girl was very lucky to be there last night. Over her summer vacation, she was hit by a car. On her way to school.

That's right. Summer vacation for high school students means going to school. So, being a very diligent and proper young woman, off she went on her bicycle... only to wake up later that evening in a hospital bed, her ocular bone and shoulder broken. It was only during her telling of this story that I finally noticed that now, a few weeks later, she's wearing eyeglasses and a fairly discreet shoulder brace, moving her left arm only slightly and only when necessary. She's a very lucky girl. While she can no longer wear contact lenses, facial surgery has left no scarring. There seems to be a slight puffiness, but unless you knew what to look for, you'd never be aware of it.

She can't participate in her school's Sports Festival (all the local high schools are gearing up for Sports Day next week), but she still has to sit out in the hot sun for 3 hours a day during dance practice.

When the older students asked her about it, she laughed and said, "I'm their director!" and showed how she was cheering her classmates on.

Well, I'm glad she's on the mend. When I think about the many times she's fallen asleep in our lobby before classes before coming into the room a bit bleary-eyed and with clothing wrinkle imprinted on her face, or a red mark on her forehead from one of the tables, I can't imagine any sort of harm befalling her.

Which reminds me- I got some good news from another student. An elderly woman who I taught on Fridays a year ago is out of the hospital at last. She had to use a crutch to get around, and once fell in the hallway of our school, frightening everyone half to death. A travelling soul (last year she was in Bunol, Spain, for the annual tomato battle) despite her ambulatory difficulties, she proved the axiom that most accidents happen in the home when she fell there and broke her hip. I think her English classes were her only social outlet here in Hamamatsu, so I often think about her.

Hearing that she was finally back home (now using a wheelchair) was a relief. I hope she comes back for more lessons. I'd like to see her again and try to brighten her week.

The Prime Minister Has Resigned...

It's not a huge surprise, but yesterday, prime minister Abe Shinzo announced he would step down. He threatened to resign earlier if Japan didn't renew the Indian Ocean refueling deal it had with the United States and NATO. His administration has been plagued almost nonstop by ridiculous scandals and some big setbacks during the recent elections. Still, I thought he'd hang on another month or so.

I learned this in my Bentenjima class from a man who barely speaks English but puts forth maximum effort. And the other male student, another older man (a retired fisheries professor who's been all around the world in his lifetime) said he felt Abe was just a rich boy with no staying power.

What does this mean? Not a whole lot. Abe's party (LDP) remains in power and they'll vote for his successor next Wednesday. Everyone already knows it'll be Aso Taro, the LDP Secretary General and number 2 man. Japan is a great place for business as usual.

Hmm... scandal-plagued, unpopular national leaders resigning. It'd be nice if this could become a fad.

Typhoon #9... September 6-7, 2007

I forgot to tell you about Thursday's massive typhoon. Or taifun, if you prefer. It came ashore just east of Hamamatsu. We got the left side of it, which I'm told is the weaker side. Traffic standards came down in Tokyo. At least 2 people died, including one elderly man who was hit by a falling tree.

Here in Hamamatsu, we had rain on and off all day Thursday, with the worst hitting right around 9pm that night... right as I was leaving work. I stopped by Popeye Media Cafe to avoid the rain, check my email and say see ya to a friend of mine who was heading for Rome and Paris the next day.

I hope she made it. The shinkansen stopped service during the typhoon, no doubt stranding thousands on various train platforms throughout Honshu.

After I left, I got lashed by rain and wind. The front metal spines of my cheap convenience store umbrella bent under the stress and in trying to straighten them, I almost destroyed the whole flimsy thing. The streets were mostly deserted; even Ohgiya had just one customer and looked like a warm, glowing oasis in the blueish gloom of a stormy night. I only met a couple of pedestrians and a few suited salarymen huddled under the shelter of the bus stop in front of CompMart.

Riding a bike in hurricane winds and rain is an exhilirating experience, but I made it back to my apartment wet but safe. I even managed to buy some groceries at Circle K along the way and get it home undamaged. The rains and winds continued all night, into Friday morning but by the time I went to work that day you would never have guessed anything had happened.

We've had rain and clouds on and off since then, typical of September.

I've lost count of how many typhoons I've been in since I moved here in 2004. The wildest ones were that first year, including one during the day where the windows of Nova looked like glass walls of an aquarium and I taught my morning classes soaked from the shoulders down as if I'd walked across the middle part of a swimming pool on my way to work that day. Considering how close it made landfall to us and the damage done in Tokyo and other parts, Hamamatsu got off lightly this time around.

Krispy Kreme Shinjuku Sensation: August 11, 2007

Here it is, Japan's first Krispy Kreme store, located behind Shinjuku Station. It's on a great concrete plaza, and on this particular day it rested under a blue sky, the summer broiling us all at an even rate until we were done on one side, but for some reason not flipping us over to cook us on the other. That's how it felt the day I finally fulfilled the dream of half a year and found the damn place. Tokyo in August of 2007 was suffering the effects of a record-breaking heatwave.

Three people died the weekend I was in Tokyo. Well, not to be overly morbid, I'm sure many more than just three passed during those few days of temperatures in the upper 90s and humidity to match. Those unknown decedents met their mortality in ways those of us who remain strangers to them can only guess at. But the heat was lethal to this one notable trio, and it's heat we're concerned with here. Heat, mortality and doughnuts.

Two elderly people perished from heatstroke, which is tragic enough but not surprising. And a 35-year-old man also collapsed and died. That was sobering since here I was, planning to gorge myself on sugary heart-death and people younger than myself were falling down dead from the heat.

The Krispy Kreme staff thoughtfully provided umbrellas for the customers in the line, though. And with my naked forehead and face already turning pink, I wasn't ashamed to heft one for the meagre shade it provided... even as frilly-fringed as it was. Word had it the wait sometimes approached the 2-hour mark, so I was ready for a long, sweaty siege.

People looked bedraggled. Tokyo in summer is absolutely brutal, and we were in a desert of steel, glass and concrete. No shade. No wind. The wise wore hats.

But the hot doughnuts light was on! Just like back home. I've explained its significance to students a few times since Krispy Kreme appeared here in Japan. Hell, for all I know it stays on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at this store.

Hot doughnuts made their circuitous journey towards deliciousness just inside the windows, enchanting the people in line. "Sugoi! Sugoi!" they told each other, shielding their eyes from the glare to peer through the glass at the doughnuts.

Which looked like this:

That's me being artsy-fartsy, emphasis on the fartsy.

Only a few customers at a time were allowed inside, in order to cut down on in-store congestion. If you wanted a simple box of glazed, you could skip ahead. But I wanted special doughnuts. One variety I was hungry for was not on the menu, unfortunately. This lucky woman is just moments away from a revelatory sugar-rush the kind she could only dream of back in the benighted days of her Mr. Doughnuts love affair:

Yes, those are security guards. There were three, two younger guys and a middle aged man, performing crowd and store access control duties. It was a very orderly scene, and the guards themselves were courteous, often taking the loaner umbrellas back from the customers as they allowed them into the Krispy Kreme, then placing the umbrellas back in convenient stands placed along the line's length.

I don't know if this system was always in place, or if it developed when it became apparent Krispy Kreme was a mega-hit, spawning massive lines with excruciating wait times. I do know this- on this scalding day, it worked smoothly and everyone was grateful for how these guys oiled the works and kept things moving with a light touch and a smile. And as hot as we customers were, imagine how these guys felt hour after hour in those polyester uniforms.

It was a relief just getting inside. No more blistering sunlight. Cool, comfortable A/C and fluorescent lights. The heat had already done a number on my appetite at this point (I actually refused the free glazed doughnut a Krispy Kreme employee offered me outside the store!), and my plan was to buy 6 doughnuts and eat them back in my hotel room.

The woman on the right in the photo below is holding up the laminated menu the staff handed out to people near the line's front. If you count the doughnuts, you'll see Krispy Kreme Japan has led off with just 15 varieties. Of course the ever-popular glazed makes an appearance in the line-up, but there are also some seasonal variations exclusive to Japan.

Once I was inside, it took about 5 minutes to get through with the transaction. The staff there are young, attractive people. How different it is from Krispy Kreme back home! Here's my unopened box, just minutes after I got my sopping-wet-from-sweat body into the hotel room and cranked the air conditioner:

What doughnuts did I buy? Here, see for yourself:

Mmm... heart attacky... They tasted exactly like the doughnuts I remembered from the US. Very sweet, very light and fluffy, melting away in my mouth leaving the ghost of a delicious flavor sensation, stoking my addiction and making me wish I'd bought 6 more.

Living in Hamamatsu...

Here are a few photos I took this summer with my new Fuji FinePix F40d digital camera. The first one is my bedroom in my new apartment in urban Motohama-cho. I live on the 5th floor of a 10-story highrise apartment building. I have 2 rooms here, not counting my toilet and shower rooms, plus a sturdy balcony with a view of some busy streets.

The first room is the entryway, which is a narrow hallway containing my kitchen. You step down into the space you see in the photo, which is comfortably sized and very pleasant. It has the feel of an urban dance studio. I feel like I should put full-length mirrors and a railing on one wall.

The neighborhood isn't as pleasant as Sanaru-dai and its tree-lined streets and little coffeeshops. On the other hand, it's convenient. I'm about 8 minutes by bicycle from work, 6 from the main shopping areas of downtown Hamamatsu. Plus, there's a small park nearby with play equipment and bums sprawled out on the benches at all hours. I call it the Bum Park. As a bum hotel, it stays vacant of children. Bums and kids do not and should not mix.

But the first week I lived here, there was a lively neighborhood festival or fair going on there, with little food booths and pretty little lanterns and lots of happy musical noise and families milling about. That was a pleasant site to behold as a new Motohama-choian.

The second photo is a twilight shot of the famous Act Tower, Hamamatsu's only skyscraper and navigable landmark. Look at it... it dominates the downtown view, and can be seen from miles away, as far as the beach at Nakatajima. It's shaped a bit like a harmonica, because Hamamatsu is Japan's musical city.

There are restaurants and shops galore inside, plus professional-quality performances spaces where world-class musicians give concerts and local chorale groups and school bands and orchestras do likewise. This next place is the building where Popeye Media Cafe resides, the place where one of my best friends here works a part-time job that frequently consists of 50 hour work weeks. But does she get overtime? Of course not! She's a part-timer!

The Denny's just below Popeye is interesting. The decor is pure and bland Americana, but the menu is Japanese through and through. I once ate a Christmas dinner of spaghetti there, though. Spaghetti of all kinds is a popular dish here. But this Denny's has various noodle dishes, and Japanese soups and things like ton katsu on the menu.

Big Boy's opened here recently, too. It looks like an American Big Boy's, although Big Boy himself is somewhat scaled down and resides just outside the door instead of on a tall post in the parking lot. The fare is almost exactly the same as the local favorite Sawayaka, a "hamburg" restaurant. Hamburg is a ground beef dish like a hamburger without the bun. Big Boy's specializes in several kinds, and also something called "chicken steak," which is just a grilled boneless chicken breast. They have the most delicious shoestring fries I've ever tasted, though... hot and greasy in a basket and quite reasonable at 210 yen.

Last, but not least, is my Place of Power, my clubhouse, my hangout. It's Ohgiya, on "Mall Street," right near the Denny's. On Fridays and Saturdays- come to think of it- this is a lively, bustling place. It's frequently hard to get a seat. The stocky, spiky-haired guy on the grill is one of the hardest working people I've ever seen, and his nightly show is worth watching while you wait for your yakitori (grilled chunks of chicken on a stick). He keeps the various skewers in order and cooking away, adding charcoal sticks, only stopping on those rare occasions where the almost-as-hardworking wait staff are so busy they can't come pick up an order and he has to take it to the diners himself.

Which is kind of ridiculous considering how hectic just working the grill must be on a busy night. Anyway, the food is cheap and delicious, and the beer is one of Hamamatsu's best bargains. Maybe the giant daijoki at Tengu is a better value, but not by much.

That's Hamamatsu. It's not the largest or most special city in Japan, but for its size and sprawl, it's a very livable place. Plus, it's almost exactly halfway between Osaka and Tokyo, so you couldn't ask for a better gateway into central Japan.

I've enjoyed living here and getting to know its places and people. I had my first beer in Japan in this Ohgiya, I've lived in three very different neighborhoods here and had times both fine and terrible