When gaijin (foreigners) collide...

I had my first Japanese language class today, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. They had given us two newspaper articles to read - one on turning old rice into plastic, and another on how evil men are and how they destroy the environment - and I was concerned that the class would turn into a man-bashing hippie congregation... 'pass the bong and hug a tree' kinda crap. It wasn't quite like that. But instead, some of the stronger personalities appeared in class, and there were often times I wanted to yell out a "LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE!!!!!" when there were disagreements. The poor teacher couldn't keep up - she mumbled a humble "There certainly are alot of opinions, aren't there", and desperately tried to get the class back on track. I loved it, and I'll certainly be looking for more opportunities to 'stir the pot', so to speak. (Mwa ha ha ha ha)

I felt slightly ignored during the class, though. She set us homework for Wednesday, and asked everyone if that was too soon and whether it should be postponed until next monday. Some people said that they were fine with it - I pointed out that I had three classes tomorrow, and would prefer to postpone having to do this useless mind-numbingly boring assignment until a later date when I could be arsed... she clapped her hands together, smiled, and said "Wonderful. Well you can all hand it in on Wednesday!" (Damn you to hell!)

On the way out of class, I came across a group of guys sitting on the ground, ostensibly working. These people are what I like to call the Superfluous Tribe. They do bugger all, but officially they supervise each other supervising each other. The whole system just smacks of Japan.

---------------The 14 blokes taking a break from doing nothing-----------

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I've actually gone ahead and labelled them all - (from left to right) I call them Superfluous#1, Superfluous#2, Superfluous#3, Superfluous#4, Superfluous#5, Superfluous#6, Superfluous#7, Superfluous#8, Superfluous#9, Superfluous#10, Superfluous#11, Superfluous#12, Superfluous#13 and finally, Bob. He's my favourite - he stands by the wall all day and smokes. S#4 has a cheeky grin, and S#8 always seems like he's in a hurry. S#7 can't get a girlfriend, and S#9 and S#1 always tease him about it. S#10 is always laughing - either he's really happy, or he's really high. At the end of the day, all 14 of them do the job of one. Reminds me of some middle managers from Wonderland I know...