Day 159 (Staff Meeting #2) - Monday, August 25, 2008

Day 159 - Staff Meeting #2

I am supposed to have my second staff meeting today in our main city. For some strange reason, I some times make an incorrect estimate of the train times and how long it will get me to the station, so guess what? I ended up missing the 10:08am cheap train which my other 4 co-worker Alts were on. I ended up having to take the 10:33am expensive train even though it was faster. I prefer the company ( even though sometimes their conversations exclude me) because then the Japanese will stare at all of us instead of me only. Even though the stares at me are a little more intense. So yes I missed the train and had to take the expensive one and as soon as I got to the station, I saw my Jamaican friend  getting off the train with some other ALTs from our company. We headed to Mcdonalds then to the meeting. We had to ask for directions because we weren't sure of the exact location of the building where the meeting would be. A Japanese lady was kind enough to assist us within 1 minute of where the building was located.

We got to the building and met up with the other persons from our company who work in the Okayama area (maybe 70 of us ). There were supposed to be 2 more Jamaican females but I didn't see them. Anyway, I was supposed to do a performance at this meeting and my company confirmed this with me about 3 weeks ago I think. I noticed our boss wasn't calling me up so I said to myself "knowing this company, they forgot about it" .... So after the 1st segment of the meeting, I went to ask them what's up, then they were like "oooooh yes, you can do it before the next presentation" ... My friend who was also from my training group was supposed to do a brief presentation, so we spoke and then I went up to do my dub poem entitled "Into Japan" which I asked my friend to video :) It can be found on youtube at this link

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=jTo56iw2c2E

(Update 2023) Made a music video from it in maybe 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77p9ivJ-YeU 

I think this was my 216th performance.

I was running a little stupid experiment today with the other guys from my area Niimi who were at the meeting. I decided that I wasn't going to say a word to any of them and see what would happen. To my surprise or I guess not really a surprise, they all exited the building after the meeting without saying a word to me, not even "Hey Dave, we are leaving now...absolutely nothing " .. I don't know what to think, as with me, when my friends are somewhere and I am leaving out, it's almost maditory that I say, "hey I'm going now" or something to that effect ... But anyway I think too much .... It's a little different with most of my JET people from my area though, I think they are a little more friendly.... But as I said before, maybe I think too much.... Anyway, I went with 4 of the guys who were at the meeting ( of which 2 were from my training group in March) to Macdonalds then to an Irish bar place. The 5 of us were there chatting and drinking then about 10 other Alts from the meeting came along, inclusive of 2 who were from my area. 

Again I wanted to see if they would say a word to me. The guy who live on my apartment complex came up and sat next to us, and not a word... A girl who was also from my area came and practically sat next to me and not a word either ... Eventually, she moved away and our eyes made contact and that's when she said "Hi Dave" and I told her hi also... So me and my friends from my training group were again chatting away, and one of the guys was telling me what he went through while in America. He is half Filipino and half Irish, so I was telling him that most of the Filipino girls I met, they were extremely beautiful. He agreed with me then he started to tell me a story. He said he has a son with a Filipino girl and as soon as the son was born, she basically ditched him. 

She didn't even want him to see his child. Then suddenly after 2 years she filed a lawsuit against him that he should be paying child support etc etc. He tried to explain in court that she wouldn't allow him to see his child and whatnot but they didn't listen to him. So now he has to be paying a whole bunch of money for a child that this girl won't allow him to see.. I was like darn!!! When you think you are going through a rough time, then you listen to another man's story, you have to just shut up and give thanks... He also told me to be careful in Okayama city as there are many racist Japanese around, who even go as far as to give out flyers with racist stuff on it against foreigners. He said it's so bad that recently when he was with his girlfriend (who is Japanese), a Japanese man came up to her and gave her a flyer, right in front of his face. The flyer had a whole bunch of racist comments and stories about foreigners. I had noo clue that this kinda thing was going on here...