Local Spotlight: Coffee with Egawa Sensei

My first installment of a new series in which I write about the exceptional individuals and friends I meet here on Fukue Island.

At least once or twice you must have seen the Dos Equis' commercials featuring "The Most Interesting Man in the World"? The scripts were excellently written and the delivery classic. While I do not drink Dos Equis because it is mass-produced mega-corporate beer, I tip my hat to the corporation's marketing and advertising team for their genius commercials. I also thank them for conjuring up the most brilliant metaphor to describe Egawa Sensei (with a slight change). He is the most interesting man in Goto.

Egawa Sensei is the craftsman, repairman, and groundsman of Sakiyama Elementary School. A Goto man, born and raised in Tomie (a small town about thirty minutes away from Sakiyama), he lives there now after having spent some years on the mainland in Osaka. In addition to his work at the school, he is a fisherman, a beekeeper, a taiko player, and a carpenter among many other trades that I probably don't know about yet. He is a "jack of all trades" whose life becomes all the more interesting the more I learn about him every week.

My predecessor Dan and Egawa Sensei had a tradition. Every Friday morning Dan would arrive to school and help lead a fifteen minute rapid English session with the first and second graders before classes. After the session, he had a free period to burn until the other teachers were ready to lesson plan for that day so he would have coffee and shoot the breeze with Egawa Sensei for about an hour.

My first week at Sakiyama I met Egawa Sensei and had coffee with him and Dan, but I wasn't sure if the tradition would continue; I certainly didn't want to assume! That next week when I arrived at school, Egawa Sensei strolled into the teacher's room and said, "Coffee after English time, right?" "Yes! Of course!" I responded delightfully. And it has continued since that first week in September.

I relish my conversations with Egawa Sensei because they are almost exclusively in Japanese. He knows a handful of English words but doesn't speak English so our conversations are great practice for me! He is also an incredibly down-to-earth and real individual. While Japanese people are inevitably polite, it is very difficult to forge a friendship or relationship beyond that sense of professionalism and office etiquette. Cultural differences also play a role: when I walk along the streets of Goto, I may see people momentarily staring at me in shock; I gather even a few of my co-workers are baffled about how to communicate with a foreigner so they politely ignore me. Honestly at times I feel I might as well be an alien. With Egawa Sensei none of these are issues. He knows many foreigners through the years so my presence doesn't faze him in the slightest. Our conversations are always interesting: his knowledge of Japan is vast and I endeavor to soak it all in. Perhaps one day I will even go fishing with him!

Tis the Season to Be Jolly: I am starting the Christmas season off right here in Goto! I returned from a small Christmas party on the neighboring island of Naru due north of Fukue. Six of us island ALTs gathered there and stayed in a cabin, cooking, playing games, and listening to Christmas music. It was a fun evening and a welcome respite from Fukue for the evening. Next Thursday I will be going to Fukue Kindergarten where I will dress up as Santa Claus for children ages 1-3. They are at the age to actually believe I am Santa Claus, which will be incredibly entertaining (I heard some may cry so I am steeling myself for that possibility). In about ten days I will fly home to visit my parents in California as well as my girlfriend in Denver. While I continue to enjoy my time here on Goto, I have no objections to a vacation and a brief respite at home.

Hitting my Groove: I feel like I am just now getting into a rhythm. I think my teaching skills are improving and I am starting to feel more comfortable with Japanese: I just need to practice speaking more. That is my goal for the upcoming year: to become a more confident and aggressive speaker. I want to apply myself more seriously now that I am settled.

More Jolliness: This is my last week of classes! Next Friday I will enjoy dinner and drinks with some of my teachers; they were the same group I partied with about a month ago. Then I leave for Nagasaki the next morning to do some last minute Christmas shopping. I will have a day of work at my desk Monday and then leave for Fukuoka the following morning (Tuesday the 20th). On Wednesday I return to the States! There is certainly plenty of anticipation on the horizon!