"I Prefer Not To"

left: This picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post---I was trying to see if I could figure out how to post larger pictures because my snowboarding pictures (previous post) came out small. Ignore this picture...ignore it now!

Every year, there is a prefectural English camp held in Nagano prefecture. Two hundred students attend along with 60 JETs and Japanese English teachers. In a country in which people visit the dentist four or five times in a two week period for a collective hour or two of dental work simply because “it’s the Japanese way,” a place wear senseless paperwork and long, suicide-inducing work hours have swelled to mythical proportions, planning such a camp would require countless hours of cutting through administrative red tape, submitting expense reports, emailing JETs, emailing more JETs when JETs you had been counting on decide to cancel, etc. Keep this in mind as you read on.

Today, a teacher in my office, a man with over 35 years teaching experience and an educational bag-of-tricks the size of a flea turd (OK class, I hope you're ready to dream and drool because it's lecture time...again), a man who, as unfortunate as it is predictable, sits on the prefectural board of English teachers, tip-toed up to my desk and smiled and laughed instead of saying, “Excuse me.”

Smile. Laugh. I turn to face him. “Uh Andrew, the English board had a meeting recently about the prefectural English camp." Smile. Laughing. "So…we were wondering if you and Natalie would like to plan the camp this year.”

I laugh at the silliness of his request. He fails to remember that we have already planned two camps this year for our school, we planned one last year, and the previous Assistant English Teacher (AET)planned the prefectural camp two years ago, making our school next to last in line for the responsibility.

“Hmmm. I really, really don’t want to plan that camp. When I first arrived in Japan, everyone warned me about getting coerced into planning it and said it was a paperwork nightmare. Plus, we already planned two camps for our students this year. Yeah, if possible, I’d prefer not to.” I love using that classic Bartleby line in situations like this.

He laughed. I tried to explain myself some more. He tried flattery (“Well we just thought you and Natalie had so much practice with the camps at this point and you are such strong AETs that it wouldn’t be too difficult for you”) and, after making me feel guilty for refusing—or “preferring not to” to do the camp—he eventually agreed to ask an AET husband-and-wife team who have helped with prefectural stuff in the past.

Later that day, I asked my supervisor if she thought my refusal was inappropriate or not.

“Oh no no no. It’s fine if you guys don’t want to do it. You have already done a few camps and another AET who doesn’t have to organize any camps can do the prefectural camp. But I think many teachers on the English board have heard great things about you and so they have high expectations of you. You don’t have to live up to those expectations if you don’t want to.”

Huh? This is a classic example of Japanese doublespeak! Basically, it’s OK if I don’t want to do the camp, but I will not live up to the expectations of senior teachers (most of whom I’ve never even met). It’s common for a Japanese person to avoid saying “No” by saying something like “ "Hmmm, maybe that will be difficult.” I feel like I’m accustomed to this sort of hide-your-true-opinion communication, but her comment caught me off guard.

This little episode reminded me of a time I went out to eat at a cheap casino in Reno with my extended family. We only decided to go out to eat because my uncle raved about some $2-3 dinner special the casino served (they try to lure in gamblers by offering cheap food and putting restaurants in the back of the casino so you have to walk past gaming tables to eat). When we arrived, all of the kids started drooling over various expensive dishes on the menu. With wide eyes, I blurted out, "I want the steak!" My uncle said, "You can get whatever you want, but we came for the special."

It's the same idea----do what you want but...also follow expectations.