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I have never felt this good about getting a job before, never. Farrago came close, but that was when I had the luxury of living at home. I suppose my parents' bank account is only a pleading phone call away, but I'd prefer to keep the illusion of independence going until it looks like reality.
As for the work, it's wonderful. I never expected my dubious company to have links to something like this. Time to wheel out the cliche of clouds and linings and silver.
This is what I do. I get up very, very early and catch four trains and then walk to a place where I hug Japanese toddlers for eight hours a day. Between hugs, I sing catchy songs, dance, wipe snotty noses, break up fights, rectify toy imbalances, read stories, build fantastic block towers, and draw - all in English. We can't speak Japanese to them, but I was well equipped for that one. They are between one and two years old.
I have changed one nappy so far (it was fine) but I've yet to have dealings with poo. I'm already on good terms with snot. Toddlers really do dribble snot all day long. If I were a science nerd, I'd inform you that it's because of their hyped up immune system, but luckily I'm not.
Things I've learnt:
- An unusual smell is always suspicious
- Generally, crying doesn't require anywhere near as much panic as you think
(Except if encounters with a wall/door/clumsily wielded block are the cause)
- Toddlers have little to no sense of causality. This means instant forgiveness.
- Anger does nothing. What is needed is a magician's sense of redirection
- Most problems in life can be solved with a hug.
I realised that I was in love with my job two hours into the first day, when I was grappling with squirming handfuls of child while singing D-O-R-O-T-H-Y the DINOSAUR at the top of my lungs. This is not what I expected to be doing here. But it's better than I imagined. I get paid to be a child, to live in a child's world of colour and self and curiosity and playfulness and imagination. Fuck journalism. This is the shit.
The best thing is, the kids like me. I've always been good with kids because I'm not far removed from one myself and they can sense a like mind. My small cousins mercilessly pummel me whenever they're in Melbourne or I'm in Perth; it's good grounding for this.
It's almost sickeningly cute. Today, my second day, I watched Moeko trudge along atop two soft bricks, Rastafarian-style beanie perched atop her head, wearing a grin larger than her face. Takumi gives me toys in exchange for a smile. Sakuri cries the entire day, pining for her mother. And as for Hina - well. Apparently, just before I came, there was a red-headed Australian named John who spoke a little like me, a little bit too proper to be a true Aussie. Hina was enormously attached to him, and since I look and sound kinda like him, I am the new John. She calls me John and won't let go of my leg; she throws tantrums when I pay attention to another child, she isn't happy unless she's in my lap. All this evokes wondrous fatherlike feelings in me, which is interesting, since her father is nowhere to be seen and her young funky single mother had a thing for John in the hope he'd settle down and raise Hina with her. It seems I am a Father Figure, forty years too young. There's nothing I can do to stop her attaching to me, it seems. Although I'm getting used to her crying fits and tantrums when I have to - shockhorror - pay attention to Another Child. She knocks over their blocks if I even look at them, kicks her rivals, brings me their dolly's head on a platter if I so desire. I am hers, it seems.
It's kinda disturbing, but I can feel my fatherhood genes whirring in preparation. Japanese kids have to be the cutest in the entire world, all large eyes and toddler pudge and snub noses. Don't worry - I'll breed so you don't have to.
Forgive me if my posts take on an irritating new-father character, and forgive me if I eventually put up pics of my favourites. You don't have to look at them. But dear lord, when I leave Japan, at least three of them are coming with me. Either that, or I'll stay here and wildly father children.
----
The staff also deserve mention. A couple of Orstrayans, a bloke and two chicks, one of whom is Head Teacher, a former hospitality worker who found her calling. Several Filipinos with gigantic toothy smiles. A Columbian-Italian guitarist. A Nigerian geneticist.
I've been catching the train with O__, the Nigerian. People stare openly - white and black in a country of yellow. He's fascinating - a university lecturer in Nigeria, he succumbed to the brain drain, fleeing corruption and his first marriage to England, where he married a Brit and worked as a teacher of autistic kids. After his second marriage, which 'nearly killed him' and certainly destroyed his PhD in progress, he met a Japanese woman in Britain. They talked twice a day on the phone, her English progressing from non-existent to excellent. Now he's here, bearing up under open dislike from his in-laws (nothing personal, they said, but you're black. Fine for a boyfriend, not fine for marriage or kids) and working with me. It's bizarre. We sit in the train and he tells me about the tribal structure of Nigeria (each tribe is a political party, and the three big tribes make deals with the little - not so far from our 'modern' democracy), his plans to quit smoking, his work studing the genetics of a Nigerian orchid. We carefully plan our negotiations of Umeda station together. He goes out dancing at night to RnB. He tells me that when the freed slaves in the Carribean and Americas who wanted to return to their ancestral homeland arrived in modern day Freetown, Sierra Leone, they couldn't speak the tribal languages and the tribes could't speak English. Gradually, a pidgin English evolved and flourished, spreading all over West Africa, serving as a common language for a region wracked in tribalism and parochialism. He tells me a couple of lines, like 'Me a gogo work morrow'.
It's amazing how much these last two days have cheered me up. Constant physical contact with cute creatures. Interesting people. Money. Could it get better?
I have never felt this good about getting a job before, never. Farrago came close, but that was when I had the luxury of living at home. I suppose my parents' bank account is only a pleading phone call away, but I'd prefer to keep the illusion of independence going until it looks like reality.
As for the work, it's wonderful. I never expected my dubious company to have links to something like this. Time to wheel out the cliche of clouds and linings and silver.
This is what I do. I get up very, very early and catch four trains and then walk to a place where I hug Japanese toddlers for eight hours a day. Between hugs, I sing catchy songs, dance, wipe snotty noses, break up fights, rectify toy imbalances, read stories, build fantastic block towers, and draw - all in English. We can't speak Japanese to them, but I was well equipped for that one. They are between one and two years old.
I have changed one nappy so far (it was fine) but I've yet to have dealings with poo. I'm already on good terms with snot. Toddlers really do dribble snot all day long. If I were a science nerd, I'd inform you that it's because of their hyped up immune system, but luckily I'm not.
Things I've learnt:
- An unusual smell is always suspicious
- Generally, crying doesn't require anywhere near as much panic as you think
(Except if encounters with a wall/door/clumsily wielded block are the cause)
- Toddlers have little to no sense of causality. This means instant forgiveness.
- Anger does nothing. What is needed is a magician's sense of redirection
- Most problems in life can be solved with a hug.
I realised that I was in love with my job two hours into the first day, when I was grappling with squirming handfuls of child while singing D-O-R-O-T-H-Y the DINOSAUR at the top of my lungs. This is not what I expected to be doing here. But it's better than I imagined. I get paid to be a child, to live in a child's world of colour and self and curiosity and playfulness and imagination. Fuck journalism. This is the shit.
The best thing is, the kids like me. I've always been good with kids because I'm not far removed from one myself and they can sense a like mind. My small cousins mercilessly pummel me whenever they're in Melbourne or I'm in Perth; it's good grounding for this.
It's almost sickeningly cute. Today, my second day, I watched Moeko trudge along atop two soft bricks, Rastafarian-style beanie perched atop her head, wearing a grin larger than her face. Takumi gives me toys in exchange for a smile. Sakuri cries the entire day, pining for her mother. And as for Hina - well. Apparently, just before I came, there was a red-headed Australian named John who spoke a little like me, a little bit too proper to be a true Aussie. Hina was enormously attached to him, and since I look and sound kinda like him, I am the new John. She calls me John and won't let go of my leg; she throws tantrums when I pay attention to another child, she isn't happy unless she's in my lap. All this evokes wondrous fatherlike feelings in me, which is interesting, since her father is nowhere to be seen and her young funky single mother had a thing for John in the hope he'd settle down and raise Hina with her. It seems I am a Father Figure, forty years too young. There's nothing I can do to stop her attaching to me, it seems. Although I'm getting used to her crying fits and tantrums when I have to - shockhorror - pay attention to Another Child. She knocks over their blocks if I even look at them, kicks her rivals, brings me their dolly's head on a platter if I so desire. I am hers, it seems.
It's kinda disturbing, but I can feel my fatherhood genes whirring in preparation. Japanese kids have to be the cutest in the entire world, all large eyes and toddler pudge and snub noses. Don't worry - I'll breed so you don't have to.
Forgive me if my posts take on an irritating new-father character, and forgive me if I eventually put up pics of my favourites. You don't have to look at them. But dear lord, when I leave Japan, at least three of them are coming with me. Either that, or I'll stay here and wildly father children.
----
The staff also deserve mention. A couple of Orstrayans, a bloke and two chicks, one of whom is Head Teacher, a former hospitality worker who found her calling. Several Filipinos with gigantic toothy smiles. A Columbian-Italian guitarist. A Nigerian geneticist.
I've been catching the train with O__, the Nigerian. People stare openly - white and black in a country of yellow. He's fascinating - a university lecturer in Nigeria, he succumbed to the brain drain, fleeing corruption and his first marriage to England, where he married a Brit and worked as a teacher of autistic kids. After his second marriage, which 'nearly killed him' and certainly destroyed his PhD in progress, he met a Japanese woman in Britain. They talked twice a day on the phone, her English progressing from non-existent to excellent. Now he's here, bearing up under open dislike from his in-laws (nothing personal, they said, but you're black. Fine for a boyfriend, not fine for marriage or kids) and working with me. It's bizarre. We sit in the train and he tells me about the tribal structure of Nigeria (each tribe is a political party, and the three big tribes make deals with the little - not so far from our 'modern' democracy), his plans to quit smoking, his work studing the genetics of a Nigerian orchid. We carefully plan our negotiations of Umeda station together. He goes out dancing at night to RnB. He tells me that when the freed slaves in the Carribean and Americas who wanted to return to their ancestral homeland arrived in modern day Freetown, Sierra Leone, they couldn't speak the tribal languages and the tribes could't speak English. Gradually, a pidgin English evolved and flourished, spreading all over West Africa, serving as a common language for a region wracked in tribalism and parochialism. He tells me a couple of lines, like 'Me a gogo work morrow'.
It's amazing how much these last two days have cheered me up. Constant physical contact with cute creatures. Interesting people. Money. Could it get better?
posted by Doug @ 3/11/2005 07:46:00 pm
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