Praise for pragmatic fictional characters

Sometimes, I think about how it would be if someone like me would be the main character in a high school anime. Some of the standard highlights, would certainly play out a bit differently I imagine.

Beach episode: I do not really care for the beach. My swimming is quite below average, I wear glasses and cannot really see stuff without them, am bad at ball games which seem to be involved in most beach games. However, I would absolutely kill at the watermelon game. Although I always find it a bit of a waste, since much juice will probably be lost, it is a combination of many things I like. Burst of targeted violence and food. A beach episode would probably just involve getting a few watermelons and a few heads smashed.

Summer festival: although I am capable of wearing long clothes during summer, searing sun beams have made me appreciate extra protection instead of the limited cooling bareness provides, I am not good with clothes that limit my mobility. Although I have excellent mental self-control, my physical self-control is less strict. Especially my legs that preferably have some space between each other, but also to allow me to easily move around on my bike or walk the stairs. The games are also not really my thing. They are either rigged, involve skills I do not have sufficiently or involve too many others around me, especially kids. I do like the food part and the fireworks though, I could easily just fill an episode eating at all the stalls.

Cultural festival: teamwork at a large scale is not really my thing. I would probably do my job, be present, participate and stay in the background.

Sports competition: these really combine two opposites for me, at least when I see them in an anime. On the one hand it is about teamwork, on the other hand it is about winning. I am very much about winning, going all out, amazing everybody. But only if I am good at the thing. The sports I have seen featured in anime often involve a team and hand-eye coordination. Bad combination for me. But the drama created by me not doing my best and being passive-agressive about it, could be entertaining. Possibly.

Valentine’s Day: I do not like baking. I find it a lot of hassle for only part of a meal. I would probably be too nervous to give chocolate anyway if I had a crush, so it would end up being a store-bought bar to a friend or something.

Christmas: as a Dutchie, I am more attached to Saint Nicholas than Santa Claus. However, I do like the idea of a sleigh with reindeer in the air. On the other hand, having KFC or fastfood for Christmas does not attract me too much. Also, the emphasis on romance would probably kill me.

New Year’s Eve and Day: temple visit sounds fun! Praying, fortune telling is always more fun if you only do it on special occasions. Also, I would be dying to have a new year’s dream featured and possible interpretations offered. And of course food and money! A perfect combination.

School trip: I expect to not be late or miss the bus for any of this. I would probably have stuff in my mind that I want to do, see or visit at the destination, but I could be too shy to speak up. That could lead to some nice drama and heightened emotions.

About learning Japanese in China

So pretty much my next favorite country besides China, Belgium and France is Japan (probably should keep a spot for a Scandinavian country too since the chance of me finding a partner there is very high). Because I have been slacking with my Japanese studies since about 2013, mainly keeping it up through watching anime and reading manga at about one page per 15 minutes, I found a buddy to start doing Japanese again with. In China.

If I could say anything about the Chinese education system without really participating in it, I would sum it up as being: rigid, not very interactive and faithful to the textbook. This would actually turn out to be true more or less once I started. I could start a separate career as diviner!

For a Dutch person, this is of course quite the opposite of what we like to have. We tend to focus more on interaction (even if it is students saying a lot ‘I do not know the answer’), flexibility (ooh the ‘Leids Kwartiertje‘) and being creative with content (‘Yes teacher, I feel watching a movie would be very helpful in the learning process.’). So how does it feel to experience a wholly different system?

Rigid: Well this is mainly manifested in the way that each class is pretty much the same structure. 20 minutes discussing the new words, 10 minutes of reading the standard text, 1 hour of grammar and 30 minutes exercise. The fact that I know this structure already after only 2 lessons is in itself kind of amazing.

Not very interactive: Yup, this matches. I just described that we had only 10 minutes of reading and 30 minutes of practice. This is still divided by about 5-7 people. Furthermore, it is very easy to just not participate. The fact that we have teenagers (yes, 15-year olds. Nostalgic.) means that they are readily using this. One of two has clearly been sent here by his parents as extracurricular activity and is consequently one of the least motivated persons I have ever experienced studying a language. The girl obviously has watched (quite) some anime since she insterts a ‘Nani?’ (Japanese for what) between everything and is just in general sassy in a way that is not really constructive (‘Congrats teacher on writing the wrong character.’).

Faithful to the textbook: We have a bingo! Incidentally, even the short test (which is really not worthy of being called a test) uses the exact same sentences as the textbook examples. Like, word for word. And then the teacher advises us that we should really not look in our books. It is quite cute, if it was not about something as relatively serious as teaching a language.

So I might sound quite negative here. The fact that we are cramped in a small rectangular room which is about 15 square meters (does remind you of Japan in a certain sense I guess) and an atmosphere that is lethargic does not help either. However, there are also bright spots:

  1. I follow the class with a Dutch-Turkish friend, so we are the foreign stars of the class.
  2. My level is easily the highest in the class (which does not say a lot, this is the second-to-lowest level we are following) so I can act smug and be a know-it-all legitimately.
  3. It is effective to at least be actively engaged with this language for 4 hours a week. Those are 4 more hours than before!

So that also consitutes a bingo. Guess it is a tie for now.