May 20, Missed class and wandering

Hello world.

Yesterday was interesting. The majority of the group, me included, missed class. This wouldn’t have been bad at all if it had been anything like the other days, where we sat in the courtyard for an hour or tried to let everyone pretend we weren’t there, but instead we all flaked out on the first day they had planned to actually include us in something.

Flaked, got lost, missed a train; however you want to put it the result was the same. They didn’t hesitate to call us “lazy Americans”.

In two hours the group who missed is meeting for a morning discussion (read: reprimanding) with Dr. Fox and Dr. Chen. BS will be thrown, but everyone knows why this happened. Even though we had legitimate excuses we are all responsible enough to have been there if we had known it would have been anything other than a complete waste of time.

To explain, from the moment we arrived at the college we’ve been treated like lepers. In past years students have participated in every class, but this year the “American flu” scare has the administration terrified that we’ll spread the flu to their students, so instead of being taught calligraphy and participating in the tea ceremony we stand in the back and watch in silence.

If you haven’t been there maybe you don’t understand how frustrating this is. We watch students in class.

In Tokyo

People ask us what we’ve seen, and until we (unintentionally) took the trip into our own hands yesterday we could only say the courtyard of the girls college, where we sit to pass the blocks of time that had been allotted for things we’re no longer welcome to do.

After three days of this the group was fed up and completely frustrated with the schools horrible hospitality (our welcoming speech was about the damn “American flu”). Our time here is very precious to us, and so no one was overly concerned with rushing to waste it when we couldn’t find the train station (though we genuinely did try). That’s why ten out of nineteen of us weren’t there to meet the twenty Japanese students who arrived for one on one interaction. Calling it laziness is just insulting. It was apathy we were driven to.

I have no desire to apologize to the schools administration, only to their students and our trip leaders. We embarrassed them badly, and shamed our school. All of us regret that. It was a wakeup call that reminded us we represent much more than ourselves. I could care less what the girls college thinks of me, but to think that this has been taken as an example of “American laziness”, (that little quote still makes me angry) discredits our school, and reflects negatively on our undeserving trip leaders, makes me feel a little sick. Only two things could make me feel better: explaining to their school why none of us were there and regaining our trip leader’s trust.

As awful as it makes me feel to admit it to myself, I doubt I’ll be able to accomplish either.

Good morning world,

-James