Tune in Tokio

ask an American but never had the chance, like “Do you have a gun?” and “Do you love Meg Ryan?”

Junichiro, a fifty-something silver fox of a man who plays guitar and is a huge Led Zeppelin fan, asks my favorite question of the evening. During the lesson I explained to them that some verbs we rarely use in the progressive (“-ing”) form-verbs like “have,” “like,” and “love.”

“For example,” I said, “we don’t say, ‘I am having a pair of glass slippers.’”

This declaration seemed to bother Junichiro and, after a few beers, he’s lubed up enough to address the topic again.

“Excuse me, Tim-sensei, I have question,” he says.

“Junichiro!” I rejoin as I put my arm around him, my belly filled with three beers and quickly absorbing a fourth. “Call me Tim-san! We’re friends!”

“OK,” he laughs. “Tim-san. In Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant is saying ‘since I’ve been loving you.’ But you say we no can say ‘loving.’”

“Wow, that’s a really good point, Jun. Can I call you Jun?”

He tilts his head as if to say, “I’d rather you didn’t,” and laughs.

“Well, I’ll tell you, and not many people know this-Mr. Plant had to get special written permission from the queen to do that.”

Junichiro tilted his head again as if to say, “You’re shitting me” or “Speak more slowly and less slurry.”

“But,” I continue, taking another swig of Asahi Super Dry beer, “you know, she was a really big Zeppelin fan, so, you know, it was cool.”

After a few more rounds of drinks (none of which I have to pay for) and innumerable toasts made in my honor, I declare to my students that our next lesson will be at a karaoke box and that everyone should be sure to bring their tambourines. And I promise to sing “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

Meanwhile, my classified ad has borne fruit. A woman contacts me about teaching her children. Being deathly afraid of children, I was at first reluctant to take on the job. They-children-are always plotting against me and/or making inappropriate comments about my hair, my glasses, my clothes, my speech patterns, and/or my sexual preference. But then I reconsidered, thinking I could charge a nice price for private at-home instruction. So money talked, and my ears were pricked. Besides, though I fear them, I’m pretty good with kids. They like it when I cuss in front of them.

I experience a rude awakening on the first day of the job. You see, though I am a revered and admired superstar at my business classes, basking in my students’ unshakable interest in me and all that I have to say, the children I will be teaching couldn’t give a good goddamn that I am a native English speaker from the exotic country of America.

Their names are Kai, age thirteen, and Daisuke, age eight, and they have just returned from the U.S., where they lived for about three years while their father was on an assignment for IBM. They know a good bit of English already, but their parents are worried about them losing their speaking skills now that they’re back in a completely Japanese environment. Kai and Daisuke do not share their parents’ concern.

Since they have just returned from spending three years in the U.S., having an American tutor isn’t so exciting for them. In fact, I can say with complete certainty that I am of absolutely no interest to them whatsoever. For three years, they went to school with Americans, lived next to us, ate our food, watched our television, played with our toys, read our books and magazines, and wore our clothes. They went to our ugly strip malls and Walmarts and realized how fat we actually are. To them I am not an entrancing enigma, a handsome stranger from the West. I am just another white guy. So when I try to get them to ask me questions about myself during their respective lessons, a warm-up technique that never fails to work with students who haven’t spent much time away from Japan, it falls flat.

“Who are you?” Kai asks.

“Why do you come to here?” asks her brother.

And since they spent a lot of time with American kids, they have also picked up some expressions that I am not used to hearing from my other Japanese students. For example, “give me a break,” “that sucks,” “aw, man,” “you suck gorilla butts,” “what’s your problem?” “no fair,” and Daisuke’s personal favorite, “that’s gay.” One time Daisuke even called me a “nasty old Yankee,” which I would have reprimanded him for severely had I not been crying tears of laughter.

I teach them three afternoons a week. We spend a lot of time reading and working in the grammar workbooks their parents bought from the Kinokunia bookstore. Actually, the first few lessons I spend trying to get them to talk to me without rolling their eyes.

Daisuke at first seems only able to communicate with Legos. Every time I walk into his room he’s on the floor making cars, houses, aircraft carriers, and alien colonies with his beloved Lego set.

“What’s that you’re making?” I say in my kindly teacher voice.

“I no tell you. You no need to know,” he grumbles.

“Come on, tell me, what is it?”

“You have to figure out.”

Towards the end of my hour with him, I’m eventually able to coax him up to his desk to do a bit of reading or grammar, but he always huffs and puffs the whole time, and he usually brings at least two of his Lego creations with him to play with.

Soon his uncooperativeness starts to bug me and I decide to put my foot down.

“Put the Lego robot down, Daisuke,” I command him.

He slams it down and breaks it, then picks it up and puts it back together.

Ugh, I’m not getting anywhere with this kid, I think. I’ve got to show him who’s boss. Looking down at the floor on my side of his desk, I see a Styrofoam gun that shoots out little Styrofoam missiles when you squeeze it. I pick it up and point it at him.

“Drop the robot, Daisuke.”

He puts the robot down, reaches over to his side of the desk and picks up a big-ass toy rifle, points it at me, and pulls the trigger. It goes “rickety ricket rick” and shoots out a rubber ball, which bounces against my forehead. Then he puts it back, picks up his pencil, and does some grammar, every so often looking over at me with a little Japanese smirk on his face.

He finishes two whole pages of grammar exercises, and, elated that I now have some actual proof of work that I can show his mother, I tell him that if he does better next time, I’ll bring him some candy. He promptly writes down for me what candy he likes and hates. I bring treats the next time, and he spends the entire hour on the floor with his Legos. I tell him I’m not going to beg him to do his work.

“Look, Daisuke, I’m totally fine with sitting here and reading my Vanity Fair. I’m not going to beg you to do your work. It’s up to you. I’m not going to beg.”

Forty-five minutes later I’m begging Daisuke to do some work.

“Please, Daisuke, we’ve got to show your mom that we’ve done something, OK? Come on! Just five minutes! Five minutes!”

Thankfully, Daisuke seems to respond to near-nervous breakdowns. He sits in his chair and finishes his vocabulary worksheet.

“Can I have some candy now?” he asks.

“Um, no, Daisuke, you can’t have any candy. You worked for five minutes.”

He picks up his worksheet and makes like he’s going to tear it in half.

I take some candies out of my bag and put them on his desk. Then I swipe the worksheet from his hands and pick the candies back up.

On my way out of the room a Styrofoam missile hits me in the back of the head.

Kai is a little more mature about things, but no more excited about having to spend an hour and a half after school with an English tutor, no matter how tall and handsome he is. Every day she sits at her desk listless and bored. If I don’t constantly prompt her to answer or move to the next question, she will happily sit silently staring at the page until I slowly disappear from her life.

“OK, what do you think about number two?” I ask, to which she shrugs her shoulders, to which I say, “Give it a try,” to which she then answers with something like, “Had been watching,” to which I say, “Exactly, very good,” to which she says nothing, after which there is a pause, and then, “OK, what do you think about number three?” and the cycle continues.