Halloween

Halloween is a relatively uncelebrated holiday in Japan, though they still use it as a consumer selling point. No one really goes trick or treating, but we foreigners still do our best to put our scary feet forward and out the door to disturb the general population.

It really is a shame that Halloween isn't very big here though, especially because the Japanese love to dress up for fun. I mean, their every day clothes are pretty much costumes, so I can't even imagine what wonderful things they would come up with to dress up as if they were to try.

I, out of the kindness of my heart, felt it was absolutely necessary to bring Halloween to my children. I'm here to bring the culture of the outside world in, so why not freak them out a little right?

I only had one class the last school day before Halloween, so I gave my last class for the week and then disappeared into the teacher's dressing room. I reemerged fully dressed as a student. This may not seem like such a big deal to us Americans, but to dress like Japanese student means wearing something that makes you look like a sort of strange sailor jacked up on cute drugs.

I emerged pigtails and all, bouncing down the halls squealing "Happy Halloween". When I returned to the teacher's room I saw the looks of pure confusion cross all their faces. "What is a student doing in here? OMG! IS THAT JONES SENSEI?!" This was followed by raucous laughter. They told me that if they didn't know me they would believe I was a foreign student who's father was here on business. It really freaked them out, and continued to freak them out throughout the day as they passed me in the halls.

The students were even more confused, especially because up to this point I had kept it a secret that I can speak Japanese. Yet suddenly I appeared, fully dressed as a student, demanding that they say "trick or treat" in Japanese so I could give them a special Halloween sticker. Mostly they shrieked with laughter at the sight of me after they got over the shock, but I could tell some were genuinely irked. The sudden realization that I probably understood anything and everything they had said in front of me (or about me) for the last three months was probably not a pleasant realization.

When I made my way to the Gym teacher's (the one afraid of bug's) homeroom during lunch (he hadn't seen me dressed up yet) he looked up from what he was doing as I was handing out stickers. He looked right at me, and looked back at the work in front of him, there was a pause, and his head snapped back up with a look of utter shock. Then he broke into laughter so intense I thought I might be in danger of killing him.

All in all, it was a really great day. I felt like I had broken down the barrier between myself and my students because I had put myself on their level for a day. Furthermore, I was allowed to speak Japanese all day, so the language barrier was greatly weakened. We are all definitely on a friendlier basis now. The down side was....well let me put it this way. I am a size 8 in the US. That is the equivalent of a Japanese XL, so you can imagine how well a skirt made for a 100 lbs Japanese school girl fit. Needless to say, I was relieved to change back into my own clothes.

Ever since that day, my students have been trying to get me to speak Japanese again. However I just insist that the uniform was magic. Only when I'm in it, am I granted the powers of an average Japanese student.