The student teacher who taught his teacher

In Japan, age is considered to be one of the biggest marks of status. Eldership is not easily underestimated. Some will downright refuse to be taught by someone earlier, especially men, from what I can see. One of my friends who had studied Taikyoken but who had moved away from his teacher from college immediately refused my teaching him anything at all upon my offering my services as a friend, despite the fact he was looking for a teacher. The reason he cited was that he was one month and one week older than me, therefore he is my sempai (a stepladder on the way to being teacher, generally determined first by age, then other factors after that such as experience and ability). Call it stubborn, but the tradition of teacher-pupil relationship here in Japan is as old as the master-apprentice relationship from Europe, maybe even older. It has also changed much slower over it's time than ours have, what with the high status of teachers in general in Japanese society. It is a fairly deeply ingrained system, and one that might not be conscious to many. Luckily, women tend to be a little more liberal in some way, thanks to three waves of feminism and a general desire to change the monotony of being a bored housewife that some carry with them everywhere (and that builds up after a while).

I had an unusual Community Center class this morning, putting me in an odd situation. Firstly, for context, this was Kyoko-sensei's class. She is around 50ish, I have determined, and teaches mostly younger people, as do all teachers in the area. Fortunately for the community, she is probably the best community center teacher in the area. Similar to what I've mentioned before, her pronunciation is better than many Japanese born-and-raised in Seattle or San Fransico. She's also a determined, inquisitive, yet lady-like woman, and is a model Japanese citizen. This is important. Because of all these things, she is a significant role-model to what I would assume comes to a total of many hundreds if not thousands of peoples. Thousands is very likely. Her status is very high, and so although she offers very respectful treatment to her elder students, she is still fair. She is probably, in her own way, the highest status woman in Miki City, despite being of an inferior age to thousands. This allows her to teach many older women than herself, and she is probably the most popular choice for older women learning English. An older woman does NOT go to a 20-something teacher to learn, generally.

The idea of "fair" is not seen as optimal in many cases in Japan. Deference is to your superiors. You shouldn't really have to defer to those below you. It's awkward for them. In fact...it's gotten much more awkward for me now that I have been in a real-life status-inversion (Status inversion is my own term, one which I will use to mean when statuses are reversed because of reasons totally abnormal to Japanese society. They do not normally occur in Japan. I'm sure that they have, but it would be because someone powerful has fallen from their high place and their student has raised to power. But even then much deference would be made to the original teacher, despite the drop).

So this morning, I went to give a presentation at a nice public house that is used for cultural learning in Japan. The house is beautiful, inside and out! The furniture is all top-notch, the screens are in a newer style of bamboo, and there is a nice feeling of "progressive movement" to the whole building, yet it sacrifices nothing from it's values. The building itself is a mark of what many-a Japanese person feel they should aspire to be in modern society.

I gave a presentation that I have given before to another class of Kyoko-sensei's, which was a short summary of culture in the inland northwest, and a general overview of how the cultures many of us have brought with us from other places still exist and in some cases continue within the greater "American" culture. This class was the high-level class, so I knew I didn't need to tone-down my language much. When I walked into the classroom, I was met by Noriko (group leader teacher of the plays we did last month for "Kid's English" last month) as well as Nishi-sensei, who kindly took me to find a bookstore and also Kongoo-ji shrine! Here's where it gets confusing: they were to be in my body of students for the day! As well as a number of older women (all older than me actually!) Because of the age-priority thing, it is probably almost impossible to get into a class that isn't a late night class for Kyoko, and since this was a morning class, it was entirely dominated by 30's-80's in age (weighted more towards the 80's than the 30's). Although I am male, and that counts for more especially among older women, I am still QUITE young to be a teacher of this group. I was invited in as a guest speaker by Kyoko but...I was not expecting this! Kyoko, too, was unaware when she invited me to teach my own Japanese teacher, Nishi-sensei (because she was unaware that she WAS my teacher at all!) part way through the class, on a little break, I approached Michiko Nishi awkwardly. I had to ask her, "what is it I'm supposed to call you in this situation?" I knew she had to call me sensei, that part was a given. However, she is my superior AND she is my own teacher outside of the class. But, I underestimated one factor: the Japanese, when put into a new situation, can completely set aside the past for a cause and assimilate into a brand-new ordering, often with little difficulty. Sure enough, Michiko Nishi told me: "Just call me Michiko." I was almost...shocked. I had treated her with the utmost of respect in my past meeting with her, yet...she wanted me to call her by her first name? Preposterous! Unthinkable!

And...sure enough, I have already become Japanese enough that I found myself unable to call her by her first name. So I simply avoided having to use that particular method of calling on her the rest of the class time. Funny, I am now Japanese enough to have adapted to the heirarchy, and I have established that in any normal situation, that the respect of position is carried with you everywhere in live even as it evolves with your age, experience, and through public observation of your performance. However, I am not Japanese enough yet to be able to change instantaneously my feelings of position in the heirarchy as essentially everyone in the class seemed to be able to do with me. But that is something we don't have in America, and If I've said it once, I'll be saying it again: What people do outside of their work in their private lives is not to and generally does not in any way interfere with your work. A person can get completely liquored up and insult his entire body of coworkers one night, and the next day no one even seems to remember from all outward appearances. Correct me if I'm wrong, but to me it seems this would obviously not be the case in the US, or perhaps anywhere else in teh West. But here, these things just are not allowed to interfere. So whereas Michiko Nishi was able to adjust, I was slower to do so. When I see someone get up and make a fool of themselves, in or out of work, I remember it. It goes into my equation, in one way or another, whether I like it or not, of what I think of the person. And I will certainly incorporate my assessment of the person into how I will react to them in the future.

We all do it in the US, some more than others. We might try to treat folks equally, but there is a point which almost any of us will finally decide they aren't so sure if they want to treat certain people exactly the same as others. Fairness is a nice goal to aspire to, and treating all humans as perfect equals is a nice goal, but more than sin itself, it may be all but unavoidable. Few are immune to the things that make us human, so I think we can come very close to this goal, but that it is impossible to be perfect at it. Someone once said to me, "One of the differences between the Westerners and the Japanese is that we try to hide it when statuses are unequal. We call our professors by their first names, even though we really know better that we are not equals in status. The Japanese not only make clear distinctions of status, more importantly, they WANT to make those distinctions clear." The honorifics of -san, -sensei, -chan, -kun, etc. Are one of the many ways that this is done. At first, when I was in America and I heard that, there was a part of me that immediately protested. Now that I'm here, I see that the statement had more truth than I wanted to admit. Everything became deferential to me in the classroom, minus when Kyoko-sensei took over the class. Truly astonishing.

I can more easily see now how it is that in Japanese manga and anime old enemies can set aside their differences with apparent ease to take on the greater forces that oppose them! Before I thought it was just lazy writing style or fan-service, but now I see that the people of Japan (where it is all written) really CAN do stuff like that! Once they go to work, they by-gones-be-by-gones much easier that anything I've ever observed! It's really comforting in a way. At the same time, it makes me want to aspire to be able to do the same thing. My American nature, however, is telling me I still want to keep the choice of not being forced to treat jerks nicely when I don't feel like it though, haha.