Motion Sickness

My taiko group went to Kochi City to bowl and eat cheap sushi for the last time before the sixth-graders graduated and moved on to the taiko-less three years of Junior High. They can come back in high school, but not before then, apparently.

The trip was about two hours out and two hours back, all on public trains and tram cars, and at the start of the day, I bitterly resented that I had left my Kindle at home, since all the kids pulled out their hand-held video games. I needn't have bemoaned my lack of entertainment so quickly, since 1) they kept talking and interacting even whilst playing games and listening to music, and 2) we had Yukihiro.

Yukihiro is a funny kid. For one thing, he just looks a little different from everyone else, not in a mean bug-eyed, uni-brow kind of way, just in a not-stereotypical-ly-Japanese way. He's dark like a Latin American elementary schooler who picks cacao beans for a living, has crazy stick-straight-up-in-the-air black hair, like an Asian Calvin, and moves like a tiny hyper Burt Lancaster, complete with stunt-man grace and crack-addict impetuousness.

He's also a decent impersonator, and performed a very creditable imitation of a chain-saw and a trumpet at the graduation PTA after party.

The most entertaining thing about Yuki-kun, when one is traveling in a group on a swinging train, is his tendency to be incapacitated by motion sickness.
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The transformation from hilarious gad-about to pasty-faced and dismal invalid is swift and sure. One moment, he's telling jokes I can't understand, the next moment he's sitting a little unsteadily and eyeing the bathroom at the end of the train.

The effect is felt throughout the group and obsessively commented on.

"Sensei! Yukihiro looks sick...!"

Now it is a matter of watching the time bomb tick away its remaining moments of desperate poise, before he makes a slow and painful dash towards the loo.

Deliberately, he rises up, taking halting steps towards the end of the train car, his every movement updated by six pairs of hilarity-prone eyes.

"Sensei! Yuki-kun went to the bathroom!"

"Someone's in there! He's gonna get sick on his shoes!"

"The conductor lady is in his way. If he opens his mouth" (to say "pardon me" - Yu-chan is nothing if not a gentleman) "he's gonna lose it!"

To our equal part relief and disappointment, Yuki gains the restroom and exits public view. His actions are speculated on, but mostly we all think we know what happened.

When he emerges, a slightly empty-looking hero, he is greeted by rousing interest in his well-being.

"Omigawd! Did you puke?" his compatriots inquire enthusiastically.

He nods mournfully, and an impish smile flits on his lips. While the suffering is inevitable and painful, this is a kid who enjoys his celebrity status, regardless of how he gets in the press.
His recent nausea is briefly overshadowed by our arrival at the destination train station.

The trial is not over yet.

We decant from the first train and sit for a few minutes on the platform of the next, waiting for the inner-city tram to depart. As soon as the car sets out, the turbulence begins. Above our heads (well, not mine, because I'm a tall foreigner), the white hand-straps dance merrily to a two-step, dosey-doeing (dosy-doing?) back and forth with hypnotic rhythm.

"Sensei! Yu-chan's gonna hurl!"

Sensei unleashes a storm of irritated chatter, as though chiding can force the unfortunate's tummy to calm down.

I know better. I hand him a plastic bag.

Five minutes later: "Sensei! Yukihiro blew chunks!" (Or whatever the equivalent slang is.)

We emerge from the tram, bloody but unbowed, and Yuki is the least distressed.

We walk along for several city blocks and finally an uncharacteristically sympathetic friend asks him how he feels.

"Not so good," he replies candidly. "I'm hungry."

The Age-Old Conundrum

Funny place, tano. Or maybe just lacking in women.

I went to the grocery store in the next town, and on the way there, three of my students waylaid me and made me have tea and coffee with them at an old grandma's (no relation to anyone present) art shop. they asked me a lot of questions about where I was going (the grocery store) where I came from (my apartment) and if I liked anybody in Tano (ensuing discussion about the appropriateness of me liking an elementary school student). They also all confessed who they liked (not as exciting as it sounds - this seems to be par for the course in the tano shougakkou fifth grade - everybody likes someone and it's no big deal who knows, unless i'm talking to Airi who recently told me she only has one more year to trap Seiyu because he's going to Aki Junior High and he likes Honoka, who is going to the same school, while Airi is going to Tano Jr High. Drama, drama, drama.) and proceeded to as me why Ryota sensei (25) and Takamatsu sensei (26) were "too young" (although they had no problem asking me if I liked one of them [11]).

We finished our tea and Yugo, who originally ran out and flagged me down while I tuned out to "Without Love" from Hairspray, disappeared for reasons that are still unclear. But the others of us decided to go check out the local home of historical significance, Oka Goten, and check out the dolls resurrected from storage for the annual Doll Festival, a girls' festival. N.B.: boys' festival is in May and includes giant flags of brightly-colored fish.  

We went to the house and had tea and sweets. The boys were mostly awful boys, except for the one sitting across from me who in almost every way epitomized an exemplary member of Japanese society, minus the bike helmet which he refused to remove for reasons that are still unclear. 

At one point, one of my coworkers came in and asked what they were up to. "Tea with Mary," was the response, upon which they were asked if they weren't a bit too young for that sort of thing. i'm not sure they got it. Whatever. I either get only old men or only eleven year olds (Gakuto, who has a text-book crush, remained aloof and outside for the duration of tea). Either way it was fun to be appreciated.

It almost made up for the lack of men.