An embarrassing disclosure is my ultimately unsuited nature for working in an office. That is proven through my whole life. Another matter, equally embarrassing, is my undeniably genuine incapability of teaching Japanese to Japanese children living in the US in a view of helping them to be ready to dive in the academic competition upon their return to Japan. Like many other countries, Japan also has a special pocket for those who spent their crucial years of childhood in non-Japanese environments of a totality. They can go to English speaking colleges in Japan with foreign students. However, families’ visions sometimes have different scopes.
I worked as a teacher in a Japanese school in the city in the Midwest where I had lived for years. This is the very same location which I’ve already mentioned in On “About” and Mail (II). I worked for two school terms and left by skipping the graduation ceremony of my own students who finished their elementary level (6th grade). My mesmerizingly hard working co-teachers who were capable for anything and everything, from grand piano mini concert to tea ceremony to cooking describable as equivalent to chef’s, must have dumped or literally dumped me as astonishingly irresponsible in their evaluation scales, officially or not, regardless. I though followed at least my sense for being minimally reasonable, so that I partially made up excuses such as auditory hallucinations and headaches which prevented me from participating in the graduation ceremony.
**
(my metal sculpture - digitally enhanced photo with a rotation)
**
Date: Sun, Oct 22, 2023 at 12:02 PM
Subject: 教師として
To: [ 1 ]
下記も読み流しください。
2014年から2015年にかけて2学期関、教師として、日本語補習授業校に勤務していました。文部省(旧名称)から予算が支給される正規の学校です。
列記名は当時の先生方です。
[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
皆日本で教育を受けた日本人で、洋名は結婚名です。
[ 10 ]
先生方の中では、[ 2 & 3 ]が比較的高齢で、若い先生であった[ 11 ]は、私の入校時には帰国を目前。彼女の帰郷先である北海道を話題に雑談した記憶があります。
[ 12 ], [ 13 ]だけが東京近郊出身で、実のところ私は、[ 13 ]と一番気が合うなと直感。彼女の明朗で怜悧な都会感覚が好きでした。しかし再会する機会はもうありません。
[ 14 ]
当時役員であった[ 15 ]は、退職後の私に電子メール文通を促すことがありました。内容は、私が常々興味を抱いているところの子供を対象としたフランス語教育について云々で、一切記憶にない事なので、失礼にならない程度に、それは何のことですか、といった要旨を短く返信した覚えがあります。
回想録的になりましたが、事情の展開次第で、[ 16 ]。
[ 17 ]
[ 18 ]
**
[ 1 ] : My sister’s email address
[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] : Proper nouns indicating my co-teachers except [9] who was a school board member with no teaching position. [2], the principal of the school, was teaching Japanese to adults in the Continuing Education Dept. of the university in which the school is located. [6] was also a teacher of Japanese in the same division of the university, while she belonged to the school by her employment status. [2] ~ [9] were all women. The Japanese Saturday School was the name in English. It is the same city in the Midwest which I wrote about in On “About” and Mail (II), but this university differs from the one in (II).
[ 10 ] : Two paragraphs are omitted.
[ 11 ] : Proper noun indicating my co-teacher who had just resigned when I was hired.
[ 12 ] : The long line (omitted) contains nouns of Japanese prefectures or areas aligned to each teacher’s home region.
[ 13 ] : The same as [ 8 ].
[ 14 ] : Two paragraphs are omitted.
[ 15 ] : The same as [ 9 ]
[ 16 ] : Omitted.
[17] [18] : The line to end the letter and my name.
**
All of my co-teachers were women. My graduated students from the elementary level were two boys whose family stayed in the city for more years. The circumstance thus made the boys continue their studies in the school for the junior-high curriculum in Japanese. I used to have their photos as well as my own, taken for the photo slide show at the graduation, all of which were however retrieved by [2] and [3] for the sake of students’ privacy or some such reasons, if I remember correctly.
The Japanese school was a part-time education held only on Saturdays for natural-born American children, whose parents (usually mothers) are Japanese, as well as for Japanese children, who live temporarily in the US for their parents (usually fathers) are sent from Japanese companies for contractual positions in or near the city where the school is located. It is a small school with only eight teachers, [2] ~ [8] and me. The school had three levels: elementary (1st to 6th grades), junior-high, and high school. There was also a class of kindergarten, of which [7] was the charge. [7] was the second youngest teacher after [11] who resigned to go back to Japan and [7} was the only teacher whose home region slips out of my memory.
The other blur was the Japanese family name of [5]. In my letter, I made a mistake on it. Later, I emailed a correction note to my sister. It was a small matter. Nevertheless, keeping the accuracy as much as possible within my capacity would become accountable later, I thought, while there are parts intentionally left ambiguous in my publication of this sequel On “About” and Mail, which is not, by the way, a series of fictional essays, but autobiographical essays.
Those teachers were, indeed, the best fit to be surnamed as super ladies. In my experience and knowledge in fact, though somewhat limited, I have to admit, many provincial Japanese women are like them regarding their superbe abilities to manage many affairs with their non-stoppable working habits. I often wonder whether that is due to social pressures in rural or non-ultra urban (which means Tokyo as the counter point) environments along with regional prides for their cultural identities. The history also matter. So, I wondered about my assigned class in which there were only four students: three boys and one girl. Why the super ladies passed it to me? Two of three in my class were twins of a Japanese family sent from Japan. The other boy was born in the US. The girl was also a natural born American. Besides, it was a combined grades class (the 6th and 5th), not easy to teach by any standard. So my hardship was doubled for the drastic differences in their levels of Japanese language, which could be said almost as an absurd drama given to me. I concluded that the class must be a sort of initiation test for me as a teacher in that school that carried such challenges from mixed students, if not there was something else in their motivation.
About this class assigned to me, I was explained that, in part, I took over the class of [11] who resigned; and, in other part, [3] passed the class for she did not want to teach her daughter because she could not, according to her. Now, whatever was true, I must say I had a good time with my students too. Experiences are remembered and count, I mean. And the twins were really fun kids at the same time both were very smart, impressively, in fact.
I was hired as a teacher via [3]’s recommendation. At that time, I was working in a small factory in the city as a factory laborer. [3] held a clerical position in the factory, which was an American branch of the Japanese company located in Osaka in Japan. [3] was the person with whom I interacted most among the teachers. I did like the factory job, mostly for the factory’s environment and atmosphere which reminded me of those of welding workshop or large sculpture studio with the sense of metals in air and by smell. There were only a few workers. Labors in that factory require the skill in attentions, handy maneuvers, persistence, patience, and preciseness in addition to occasional lifting powers to handle heavy tools. A new comer, young man newly hired, took my place for all regards in those desired capabilities as much superior, and I became a factory cleaning lady on demand.
Around that time, I was also doing multiple volunteer jobs such as in food banks in the same city. I did like the job a lot. So a deep remorse enveloped me. Why I did not know my true devotion when I was in Japan? In a food bank, you can also meet different people and can speak with. Not only customers, but you see your co-workers in their probation period, or those who are socially described as disadvantaged in their mental capacity. All people were truly nice, according to me. That includes those who might have been laughing at me for my naïveté according to them.
[3] was supposedly trilingual: Japanese, English, and French. She said she studied in or graduated from a university in Montréal. [3] and I never converse in French, though I was tempted from time to time. But, the school was, in principle, designated to create the environment for Japanese language only. In addition, [3] very obviously appeared to have no enthusiasm for the French conversation with me. She though once said to me of a possibility for having a three people coffee or tea time with her acquaintance, French man living in the city, her and me. But, so was true for this one like many other social occasions she suggested to me, it was a tale of nothing much less than a proposal. [3] and I met for the first time in the library in the city when the annual Japanese festival was held there.
In my email letter above, omitted paragraphs talk more about [3], which is not anyone’s interest here. [2] was the principal of the school, but she resigned later after not only I left the school but the city to come back to the East Coast where I am now. My memory tends to pose on [4], not just because of her lovely, truly lovely interactions with her two truly lovely young children, a boy around 7 year-old and a girl around 4 year-old, but also of her home town in Japan which happened to be the same as that of the man whom I wrote about in On “About” and Mail and On “About” and Mail (III). Besides, [4] asked me more than once how I met my spouse and in what place exactly in Tokyo, somewhat in nervous manners. That was just my perception, of course about that ‘nervous’ part. But I’m a very perceptive person, such is my truth, I tell you.
***********
Women, Japanese women in particular, who hold social media accounts containing my information as theirs with their voiceover as if mine are parts of the perpetrators’ organized crimes over me.
(excerpt from “About”)
*
Juliette Masch Writes has no supplementary social media activities, by which groups or individuals can claim their collaboration with me.
(the same as above)
*
I speak of peace while covert enmity,
Under the smile of safety, wounds the world;
(Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV: Induction; 9-10)
*************
Date: Sun, Oct 22, 2023 at 3:21 PM
Subject: さらに
To: [ 1 ]
この際なので、市の関連背景を簡略に説明します。
[ 2 ]
当時、[ 3 ] という日本人が[ 4 ]北部から中部の勢力に通じていました。[ 3 ]は[ 5 ]の初代校長でもあり、現地採用ではなく文部省からその役職を任命されたということです。お姉さんより数歳年上でしょうか。直接彼と話したことはありませんが、ご婦人が親切な方で、私を彼女の友好関係に誘ってくれました。気おくれと, ある直感のようなものにより、交流を避けてしまいましたが。それでも、[ 6 ]とはその後電話にて何度も話したことがあります。
[ 7 ]はカリフォルニアのサンデイエゴ市から現地へ転居.何が起きているのか、よくご存じのようでした。
私が勤務していた当時、学校内では先生方よりも[ 8 ]が精通者と聞いたことがあります。
その件とは、任意の参加者によるゲームのようなものらしく、日本人は一つのグループを構成。敗者が落ちていく按配を参加者が[ 賭 ]金とともに、スリルを楽しむという仕組みということが、何となくわかりました。
隠[喩]により敗者の位置が週の曜日によって示唆。週末が末日の象徴として限定され、したがって金曜日と呼ばれるゲーム者は危機にあるというわけです。
下記は先のメールの追記です。
[ 9 ]
[ 10 ]
*
[ 1 ] : My sister’s email address.
[ 2 ] : The line is omitted. It states my conjecture according to which the fortune has been upon those who do not know what they do not have to know.
[ 3 ] : Proper noun indicating a Japanese man.
[ 4 ] : Proper noun indicating the state in the Midwest.
[ 5 ] : Proper noun indicating the full name of the Japanese school in which I worked in the city in the state of [ 4 ].
[ 6 ] : Lady [ 3 ] or Mrs. [ 3 ].
[ 7 ] : Mr. and Mrs. [ 3 ].
[ 8 ] : Proper noun indicating the school’s board member, who is the same as [9] in the first letter above in this post.
[ 9 ] : Two lines (omitted) explaining two facts: 1) I miswrote the Japanese family name of my co-teacher, referred as [5] in the earlier letter. 2) There was never French conversation between my co-teacher, referred as [3] in the earlier letter, and me. That means I never heard even one word in French pronounced by her, so I have no knowledge of what is like her accent when she speaks French.
[ 10 ] : My name to end the letter.
*
One does not need to know what one does not need to know. This must be simpler than a piece of advice one can find in a fortune cookie. I don’t take the matter as seriously in these days, unlike I did in those days. If I try to pick one potent memory about it in the school in relevancy; the principal said to me about things along with these lines: We’re fine, because (So on and so on, which indicated some Japanese companies’ names) paid for.
On other times, she said to me: Look and know, don’t worry. Now we’re on Monday.
All right. Those things meant to be anything, although people are usually looking for weekends and not so much excited on Mondays unless their working days are different. But, I am capable of being clever, just only occasionally. No pursuing it with questions, instead, ambiguous smiles were my replies to the anxious or happy states of the principal as if I knew everything of what she said. The ease falls upon that private donations helped the school budgets or that some people played a game with small amounts of money to bet on. Here is the catch if one wants to look into. Bet on ….. what?? Often a repetition shows its potency. One does not need to know what one does not need to know.
***
The perpetrators should not hire people to scrutinize me for a digital scheme carrying the chain memberships for participation fees to collect, the growth of which may include the trade of my authorship as Juliette Masch.
(excerpt from “About”)
**
The Japanese gentleman whom I introduced as [2] in this letter was the first principal of the school and the assignment was made by the Ministry of Education in Japan. During my days in that city, I’d never spoken with him. He appeared to be connected to various powers in the state from the north to the mid-south. I naturally thought of political powers and corporations. The state is not extremely small in terms of geography, but it can be said as that the power networks may be dense.
The reason for my distancing myself from his wife was very related to my dictum of “one does not need to know … “. She was very kind to me and very gently and generously invited me to her circle, which was different from the school’s. An intuition pulled me back and it worked retrospectively. I should not have had to know what I do not need to know. Otherwise, I would have been drawn into.
[8], referred as [9] in the first letter in this post, was a board member of the school. She probably had two children at the ages of 5th ~ 2nd grades. After my resignation, she emailed to ask me about my known interest in giving the French education to young [Japanese] children. I wondered, because such had never been my interest. So, I politely declined the continuation of correspondance with her. Few teachers also kindly informed me that [8] was a connoisseur of the city’s affair in question.
**************
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A Kingdom for it was too small a bound.
But now two paces of the viles earth
Is room enough. [ …. ]
(Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV: 5. 4; 88-91)
**************
Pitiful is the vanity of mouths belittling things already little. What I said is lighter than dust. At night, I dream of my mother’s playing a plain organ for children. She is a grade school teacher for all her life. That is a boundless star shooting tale.
On “About” and Mail (IV) by Juliette Masch (6/2)