Bullying in Japan

Bullying in Japanese schools is bad, real bad. At first I thought bullying was limited to isolated incidents of bad kids acting up (like Cartman and Penis Boy.) Now I know half the students at every school I go to are either victims of bullies or bullies themselves. Here are some examples of bullying:

Bad kids will steal whatever they feel like using at that moment. I’ve seen bullies steal other students pencil cases and proceed to dump the entire contents on the floor to pick a pen they wanted. Another example of theft is when the school lunch comes with a dessert (oranges, grapes, muffin, etc) the bad kids will steal the weaker student’s food right in front of the teacher. If the teacher (or more likely ME) tells the bully to give it back the bully just says, “No” and eats it. The teacher (or more likely me) gives the bad kid a dirty look and sits down powerless to stop the greedy gut bully.

Name calling and vicious nicknames are also prevalent. Fat kids are ridiculed for being too fat, small kids are ridiculed for being too small, and ugly or shy kids are bullied for being meek and aesthetically unappealing. Anyone that isn’t 100% Japanese is shunned and tormented unmercifully or worse, completely ignored by their peers. During a lesson about animals I’m showing a picture of a pig and a known bully yells out, “MIHO” instead of pig. Other students think this is hilarious because Miho is a girl who is slightly on the heavy side. Soon all the boys and most the the girls are yelling “MIHO!” Even the teacher is in on it! The girl Miho is embarrassed to tears. I’m fed up and stop the class and tell everybody to say ‘pig’ normally or I’m leaving. The homeroom teacher is pissed at me and says, “Why did you stop? Keep teaching.”

Of course there is a lot of the punching and hitting. Most of this is playful but other times it’s obviously bullying of weaker students. If I see it I break up the action and scold the bully, but since I’m not there 99% of the time there really isn’t much I can do. It really isn’t All Fun and Games.

All this bullying is happening at ELEMENTARY schools. I’d hate to see unpunished and brazen bad kids like Cartman and Penis boy 3-4 years from now in junior high, but that’s the case at Kim’s Warui Chugakou where good students are trying to survive as much as graduate to high school.

There is an average of one broken window a week and several minor and a few major injuries due to bad students abusing school property and other students. Recently a girl at Warui Chugakou attempted suicide by swallowing a whole bottle of pills. Why? She was a victim of bullying and didn’t see another way out. Four years ago a boy at Kim’s school died by being smashed by bullies into the glass part of a sliding door. The glass shattered and pierced his heart. No criminal charges were ever filed and the incident was ruled an accident.

This last week four of the worst bastard boys in a class Kim teaches colored their notebooks black and in white writing scrawled, ‘Death Note.’ The bullies were writing kids names in their death notes and telling them they were going to die. These are the same little bastards that bring knives and screwdrivers with them every day to carve up school property and threaten to carve up other students. The homeroom teacher is terriffied by the death note/knife wielding bullies along with the rest of the class.

*(Death Note is a popular manga, anime, and movie franchise (which was on TV recently). Plot: A teenager finds a notebook that can kill anybody whose name he writes down. He starts killing criminals and other people he judges as unworthy and believes he is a god carrying out righteous justice.)


So why do so many students bully others and never listen? Aren’t Japanese school children supposed to be little robot angels that never show any emotion? Hahaha. NO. First of all the teachers have no power to stop the bullies except for yelling or scolding them. After the 100^th or so empty threat the kids KNOW that the teachers are powerless to stop them. Teachers can’t kick the kid out of class because in Japan every child passes every grade and graduates no matter what and every child deserves an education.

The PTA in Japan is HUGE. Every mother and some fathers are active members in the PTA and teachers kowtow to these parents at every chance they can get because one pissed off mom of a bratty bully can mean a Japanese teacher’s job. Some teacher’s try to curb bullies ill intentions but most are so fed up they simply stand by and watch as bullying takes place right before their eyes. Other teacher’s try to get on the bullies good side and join in on the bullying and call the weaker students by the bully’s cruel nicknames, such as the Miho=pig example.

Japanese society is broken down into senpai (older master) and kohai (younger servant) relationships. The senpai pick on and beat up the kohai while the kohai wait for their turn to be senpai so they can pick on and beat up the kohai. This seniority relationship is supposedly a nurturing and mentoring bond, but all I see it used as is another form of bullying in schools and beyond.

I break up fights and play the mean looking gaijin act to scare kids straight, but I can only do so much. I wish I could change things but I can’t because the problem is on a societal level. I’ve mentioned to teachers that in America bad kids are sent to the principal’s office or get detention. The teachers are SHOCKED to hear this and say, “Wow American schools are so strict! I’ve never heard of such things!” Alone together one young teacher that has quite a few bastard children in her class confided in me and said, “Detention? That must be nice…”

Sick of the Cold

Japan is cold. I know this because I’m constantly reminded by all the teachers in the teacher’s room saying, “samui samui samui!” Translation: “cold cold cold!” Every other word is samui.

Teacher A: “Today is samui, right?”
Teacher B: “Yes very samui.”
Teacher A: “Yesterday was samui too, right?”
Teacher B: “Yes, samui but not as samui as today!”

On and on and on and on the samui loop goes until somebody has to eventually get back to work. I get asked everyday about the cold too. I usually respond with, “Yes very samui” and then I’m left alone. Some teachers will go further by matter of factly stating that the U.S. is soooo warm in the winter compared to samui Japan and ask how can I stand this weather. To the Japanese Hawaii and California is the United States and even if I tell them parts of America get cold they either won’t believe me or want to talk about world weather patterns in depth. To get out of this daily situation I just agree saying, “Yes Japan is very samui.”

On a particularly snowy and windy day the vice principal at Big Rice Field Elementary commented to me about how samui it is and referenced how much more samui Japan is than America. By this time I was so sick of the word samui so I absentmindedly say in English, “Yes Japan is very nippy.”

VP: “Ehhhh? What is nippy?” Please repeat slowly.”
Me: “Nippy. NIP NIP NIP EEEEEEEEE. NIPPY NIPPY. Japan is very NIPPY.”

I suddenly have a terrible feeling and as I look around all the teachers in the room have the same horrified look on their faces. Oh crap. I just said Japan is very nippy and repeated it AND shouted ‘nip’ at my boss, the vice principal, like half a dozen times to his face. I quickly reassure everybody that nippy means samui in English. Let’s all laugh about differences in language, right? Nobody really laughs accept for a few forced nervous chortles here and there.

Bringing up the rape of Nanking when talking about WW2, stating that the atomic bombings could be justified and it is a gray issue, and finally calling my boss and co-workers nips. Check, check and check. The trifecta of what NEVER to say in Japan is complete. Where do I get my idiot gaijin prize?

If the teachers are always bitching about how cold it is (in the summer they bitch about how hot it is) the students take it in stride. It was snowing like crazy last week and I and all the other adults refused to set foot outside without at least four layers on. Not the kids. During recess and lunch they burst outside into the freezing cold to have snowball fights and play dodgeball. Most every child was clad simply in PE clothes, a thin T-shirt and shorts. Samui.

Japanese kids are pretty tough. When a kid in America falls down they cry about it until mommy or teacher comes and makes it all better. In Japan when a kid falls down they laugh and get back up and if they do happen to cry some other kid will slap him/her on the head and yell, “Stop crying!” The first kid miraculously stops crying. It’s amazing. I could never envision a class of American 1^st graders playing a game of death basket. After all the cuts and bruises and humiliation the school would be shut down by lawsuits in a month.

The day after the ‘nippy’ comment I’m back at the same school and informed my last lesson will be a ‘special’ 3^rd grade lesson watched by the entire faculty and some board of education members. I’m suffering from a horrible cold that day, hacking like a 30 year smoker before their first morning drag, so I’m not terribly pleased by this news.

More unpleasant is that the teacher I’m doing the lesson with is Mrs. O who is obsessive and overbearing during normal lessons and interrupts me constantly to the determent of her class. Mrs. O plans a fifteen point by point lesson (no joke) which takes up every second of possible free time I have. Since I’m delirious with sick and she speaks no English I’m only hearing about 10% of what she is saying. I don’t get all her fifteen points but I have the rough outline and in my condition I really don’t care.

During the lesson Mrs. O interrupts me three for four times just making her look bad. I figure this would have happened even if I weren’t sick. This is the lesson:

A: “Hello. How are you?”
B: “I have a cold” (headache, stomachache)
A: “Please take care.”
B: “Thank you.”

Throughout most of the day I had managed to stem the tide of my hacking cough and phlegm but during this lesson I was feeling feverish and it all came rushing out. Mrs O asks, “Hello. How are you?” I cough for a good fifteen seconds and say meekly, “I have a cold.” To my surprise all the children and faculty are laughing exclaiming, “He really does have a cold!” “This is so funny because he truly is sick!” Every time I hack and cough the whole room bursts into hysterics. I had to leave the room for a few minutes to get some water and when I came back Mrs. O has organized everybody to scream, “PLEASE TAKE CARE!!” at me followed by a burst of cackling laughter.

The ‘nippy’ incident had spread around and people now think it’s funny. I’ll get an occasional, “It’s NIPPY today” from some of the staff. I’m a little uncomfortable with this but it’s my own damn fault. What really gets to me though is that now at Big Rice Field Elementary all the teachers and even some of the students are constantly yelling in English, “PLEASE TAKE CARE!” at me wherever I go followed by peels of laughter with their surrounding peers.

It is fairly disingenuous to say, “Please take care” while laughing in my face but I figure if I come to their country and say ‘nippy’ over and over again and other stupid things they have the right to act inappropriately too.