Thursday, April 05, 2007

Booked in Tokyo for "Teaching While Black"



booked: 1) to hire or engage
2) to record charges against a person (on a police blotter)

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=booked

Life is beyootifulll! Had a piece of good luck today when the company through which I get some student referrals called to ask if I could do an interview with a tv news station tomorrow about what it's like to be an English teacher in Japan -- discuss the types of students I get, teaching conditions, etc. This all comes in the wake of the murder last week of a young British teacher (in the apartment of one of her male students) who worked for what is undoubtedly the biggest of the English conversation factories here in Japan.

This incident was--is--truly awful. I feel nothing but sympathy for the family of the woman who died at the hands of a probable lunatic. So, as a corollary to life is beautiful, life is (or more accurately, some people are) truly horrifying. I feel fortunate that to date I've been able to meet and be introduced to wonderful students over here (male and female, aging from 11 to 60 plus), and after hearing some details concerning the tragic death of this English teacher, consider myself even luckier and vow to continue my practice of meeting most of my students (waiver granted only to those whom I think I could take down in hand to hand combat) in public settings.

Here, I thought, was an opportunity for Gidget to show "her quality" (like Faramir in Lord of the Rings part 2 when the precious ring could have been his for the taking): to talk of her own experience with wonderful students and to reinforce the importance of careful screening of students for psychopaths and/or those just out looking for a date, while reminding everyone that -- "in general" -- Japan is a very safe place in which to live and work. In addition, 100 bucks and 15 minutes of fame was like a small but juicy carrot dangling in front of me. So naturally I lunged for it and bit down hard. The picture that accompanies this post shows the outfit I'd planned to wear for the interview: fierce and yet competent, don't you think? Or would it better were I wearing glasses...?

I was a little worried about how I'd sound, since I've been struggling with a cold for a couple of days and my head is basically one big vat of dead sticky cells, resulting in a voice that properly belongs on a habitual "powder user." Luckily, everything was going to be translated into Japanese (voice over? subtitles?) so my muffled mutterings would probably be intelligible to all. I vowed to go to bed early, after taking a homeopathic cold remedy whose active ingredients consist of massive amounts of ginger and sugar, and hoped to wake up feeling perky and cell pus free!

Well as it turns out, I just got off the phone with my "pimp," who was sorry to have to inform me that the news station had decided to go with a "white face" (one supposes this is in keeping with the racial identity of the British victim)...My pimp is also black by the way -- actually he's from Brooklyn of Panamian descent. We both laughed-bitterly? knowingly?-and after warning him to take every legitimate measure to ensure the secrecy (or at least the hopeful ambiguity) of my racial identity for all future tv ops, I hung up and snuffled a sigh of resignation mingled with relief -- really was never completely sure about wearing so much black to the interview and now (thanks to the mere presence of non-optional blackness) it turned out I wouldn't have worry about my outfit at all!

I can say no more about being almost slated to be on the t.v. news except that Japan is a strange place where race really does matter -- just differently from the way it colours (tee hee!) things back in the good ol' U.S. of A. One point of convergence: the popularity of Beyonce, Barak Obama and Will Smith notwithstanding, when it comes "white" down to it, t.v. executives arguably assume that a black face beaming into your living room through your hi res, hi def t.v. while you chow down on sushi and soba (Japan) or corn dogs and lasagna ('merica) just doesn't quite seem to warm the cockles of the vast majority on either side of the pond.

End transmission