Day 03 - Most interesting person you've met.
First off, I've been watching the Chilean miners being rescued since it started at lunchtime and it has made my day being able to see these men come out of the ground. I normally feel quite misanthropic towards humans in general, but seeing such hard work and effort from people in Chile and the co-operation from countries around the world to get these men out has given me a nice feeling that humans can do really brilliant things when they want/need/have to. A guy on the BBC said earlier that this reaffirms that humans are the most important thing on the planet. I wouldn't go that far, but I think the human spirit, at its' best, may be.
As a teacher I get to meet over 100-150 people a week. At the moment, they're mostly kids. At first I hated kids, not because I hated kids, but because I really had no understanding of them. I guess I was scared of them, that's usually where some hates come from. Since teaching in elementary school, I've got to know some lovely little humans, and they really can make my day...or ruin it, depending on how much they cry.
However, I also work with adults, and I think the most interesting person I've met so far was one of my students in Yokohama. I'm calling her M. I remember very clearly her first lesson with me. M was a tall, plump lady with waist length hair and glasses - the Japanese version of an Indian Squaw (pardon my un-PC use of the word "Indian") - and she was shaking and sweating like a leaf on a hot day, which is the most unusual reaction I've had from a student. She always seemed nervous and almost monosyllabic the rest of the time, barely making eye contact and mumbling when school staff spoke to her. I taught her for about a year, and during that time she told me all sorts of stories. The thing that impressed me most was the amount of travelling she had done. As the owner of her father's business (she is a landlord in Yokohama - big big bucks) she not only had the money, but the time to take her husband away to go on world cruises, scuba-diving holidays in the Maldives, Indonesia and everywhere in between, helicopter trips through South America, and even taking ships to the Arctic and Antarctic. M said at the Antarctic base she spent her time playing with penguins, and sleeping though Polar Bear sightings in the Arctic. She said the only place she didn't want to go was the Middle East.
Her personal history was also very very interesting. Her mother was bedridden with TB while she was a young girl, and so for 6 years was confined to her bedroom. M and her sister were brought up by her father and aunt and rarely ever saw their mother. M was very boyish, her sister very feminine. She used to go out drinking in Kabukicho with her friends on all-nighters at high-school, and when she started going into a yaki-tori shop in Yokohama to drink whiskey at the age of 16, her father set her up a tab so she didn't have to get them from men. M went to university in the 60s, read Mao's "Red Book" and became a student activist, eventually getting kicked out of her Christian women's university for arguing with the lecturers and protesting against the Vietnam War. Then she spent some time trying to teach kids, but gave up after her cram school students climbed out the window whilst she had her back turned and ran off.
What she did between then and taking over her father's business, I was never really able to ascertain but she did tell me about her decision to get married in her late 30s. She went to see her father's bank manager and told him she wanted to get married, and asked if her had anyone in his office who would be suitable. So she got married. Her sister's son (sister is divorced - unusual) is agorophobic (or just a massive otaku) and never leaves the house, preferring to stay in and play computer games. M's husband does all the cooking for her and her mother (who lives in the apartment upstairs, has a massive collection of wigs, and dislikes baby birds because they're too noisy), cleans the windows in their office building, and generally sees to the running of the business while M snoozes or studies English in her office.
I recently met another super-rich person who I'll tell you about another time after I've gone to visit his fabulous house in Izu.
As a teacher I get to meet over 100-150 people a week. At the moment, they're mostly kids. At first I hated kids, not because I hated kids, but because I really had no understanding of them. I guess I was scared of them, that's usually where some hates come from. Since teaching in elementary school, I've got to know some lovely little humans, and they really can make my day...or ruin it, depending on how much they cry.
However, I also work with adults, and I think the most interesting person I've met so far was one of my students in Yokohama. I'm calling her M. I remember very clearly her first lesson with me. M was a tall, plump lady with waist length hair and glasses - the Japanese version of an Indian Squaw (pardon my un-PC use of the word "Indian") - and she was shaking and sweating like a leaf on a hot day, which is the most unusual reaction I've had from a student. She always seemed nervous and almost monosyllabic the rest of the time, barely making eye contact and mumbling when school staff spoke to her. I taught her for about a year, and during that time she told me all sorts of stories. The thing that impressed me most was the amount of travelling she had done. As the owner of her father's business (she is a landlord in Yokohama - big big bucks) she not only had the money, but the time to take her husband away to go on world cruises, scuba-diving holidays in the Maldives, Indonesia and everywhere in between, helicopter trips through South America, and even taking ships to the Arctic and Antarctic. M said at the Antarctic base she spent her time playing with penguins, and sleeping though Polar Bear sightings in the Arctic. She said the only place she didn't want to go was the Middle East.
Her personal history was also very very interesting. Her mother was bedridden with TB while she was a young girl, and so for 6 years was confined to her bedroom. M and her sister were brought up by her father and aunt and rarely ever saw their mother. M was very boyish, her sister very feminine. She used to go out drinking in Kabukicho with her friends on all-nighters at high-school, and when she started going into a yaki-tori shop in Yokohama to drink whiskey at the age of 16, her father set her up a tab so she didn't have to get them from men. M went to university in the 60s, read Mao's "Red Book" and became a student activist, eventually getting kicked out of her Christian women's university for arguing with the lecturers and protesting against the Vietnam War. Then she spent some time trying to teach kids, but gave up after her cram school students climbed out the window whilst she had her back turned and ran off.
What she did between then and taking over her father's business, I was never really able to ascertain but she did tell me about her decision to get married in her late 30s. She went to see her father's bank manager and told him she wanted to get married, and asked if her had anyone in his office who would be suitable. So she got married. Her sister's son (sister is divorced - unusual) is agorophobic (or just a massive otaku) and never leaves the house, preferring to stay in and play computer games. M's husband does all the cooking for her and her mother (who lives in the apartment upstairs, has a massive collection of wigs, and dislikes baby birds because they're too noisy), cleans the windows in their office building, and generally sees to the running of the business while M snoozes or studies English in her office.
I recently met another super-rich person who I'll tell you about another time after I've gone to visit his fabulous house in Izu.