Tottori Talks

(to be published in Tottori Talks, an annual journal of writings, etc. by departing JETs)

"All things end badly, or else they wouldn't end."
-Doug Coughlin the bartender.

Where does one even begin to sum up the most alienating and most loving, most incomprehensible and most insightful, most boring and under-utilized but somehow the most affirming and well-paid 2 years of one's life? I don’t know, I ran out of superlatives months ago.

And for whom should I write this article? Am I writing this for Ms. Honda, who never hesitated to assume the role of legal guardian for this gaijin? Am I writing this for Mr. Nishiyama, whom I trust to teach an English class like Marty trusts Doc to send him Back to the Future? Am I writing this for Mitsushima-sensei, who has always been the same genuine person, whether it be in the classroom, in the staffroom, or in enkai’s? I probably don’t need to write this for my fellow ALTs, who know well that our positions in school mean more as an institution rather than a resource. I am afraid to write this for future JETs, because they don’t have to know that they’ll be coming to a Japan that desperately wants them, but doesn’t seem to need them. I won’t be writing this for y’all, all my friends who had been (thump chest) right here for the past 2 years, because if I haven’t let you know how much you mean to me then I have failed as your friend. I ought to be writing this for everyone and everything Japanese I’ve come across: I regret not having tried harder to discover every last drop of your goodness, but I will forgive most of your idiosyncrasies—except for that sucking-air-through-teeth sound.

Perhaps I should write this for all my students, the main cause of all this bittersweet ranting. Never in my 26 years has any group of people make my life feel so simultaneously empty and (occasionally) fulfilling to the point of bursting. Amidst all the deafening silence, your rare unprompted eigo-rashii utterances, spoken tentatively but earnestly, can make a man…I don’t know what to say. You made it plain and clear that Jeff-sensei is crazy to think that he could inspire you to love English; but when you came back after graduation and used your every last bit of eigo to ask me to teach you how to make a crossover dribble because you were joining your high school basketball team…just when I thought I was out, you pull me back in.

That’s why I gotta get out of Japan, this time for good. That’s why you’ll find no gratuitous thank-you-speeches here. I think, in the end, I gotta write this for me. It’s the only way I can make sense of these 730 days and 460 words. I…
(word limit reached)