A Marvelously Jovial Time

~As I mentioned before, my recent trip to Tokyo was part of "tokubetsu kenshu" (special training), which is considered a company reward for schools that make over a certain amount of money. While the free trip to DisneySea was certainly a reward, the second day of "special training" wasn't quite so fun. It consisted of over a hundred people sitting in a conference room at the Hilton Tokyo Bay, in stifling heat, listening to speeches in Japanese for three hours.

It was torturous. Me having a rather severe cold didn't help matters. However, I did get an opportunity to "observe" an interesting difference in Japanese and American cultures. In Japan, many people will close their eyes when listening to someone else talk; this is not considered impolite, since the person is supposedly closing their eyes in order to listen more closely.

Of course, the opposite is true in America (as so many college students know). It was amusing to see the company director sitting in his chair, looking for all the world like he was napping, while the school managers were delivering speeches. I decided to imitate him...purely to better my understanding of Japanese culture, of course.

Most of the speeches were more-or-less identical and involved lots of bowing and formal language. It was like watching the Academy Awards, with the winners thanking everyone, including their father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate. For schools with Native English Teachers (NETs), the teachers sometimes gave speeches in English, which was honestly the only thing keeping me awake.

The best speech, by far, came from my school. My British coworker Chris concocted a hilarious parody of an acceptance speech, designed to extract revenge for NETs from our Japanese coworkers. Confused? Below is a transcript, but it doesn't do the speech justice. Try to imagine it in heavily-accented British English, like that spoken by the Queen:


"Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I must say what a pleasure it is to have been so cordially invitted to an auspicious occasion such as this. Of course, we have Fukushaco [the title for the company director] and Bucho [the assistant director] to thank for our commendations.

And, my, didn't we have a marvelously jovial time yesterday. It is not often that one can afford such time with one's colleagues, gallivanting around Disney jollities. Why, our manager even shed a few tears on the more vociferous rides. Whether through sheer delight or utter disenchantment one can never be sure.

I must say, my favourite attraction was The Journey to the Centre of the Earth . How thoroughly exhilarating!

Once again, I must express my gratitude, not to my superiors, but to my colleagues. Through sincere determination and passion to superfluate our goals, our schools both achieved and exceeded our objectives.

The hard work and perseverance of my Japanese counterparts was instrumental in my being here with you all today.

Heartfelt thanks, my friends."
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A few sentences in the speech, I was trying (and failing) to keep a straight face, along with my Japanese coworkers who already knew (and understood) what the speech was. The other NETs were were nearly dying of laughter, while the rest of the Japanese staff just sat there numbly, barely understanding a word.

Naturally, that was the whole point--we'd been enduring exactly the same thing from them for an hour! They got a taste of their own medicine, but it was all in good fun. It made the next two hours of listening to dull Japanese speeches marginally more bearable. Marginally. ~Oyasumi!