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Working as a high school teacher in Japan a few years ago, I tried to tow the line and not make waves. I taught my classes and kept my head down. However, once or twice my guard did slip, and this story is about one of those times.
One day I was summoned to kocho sensei’s office. Kocho sensei means head teacher, and I immediately wondered if I had done something wrong as I hurried to his office and entered it for perhaps the third time since I had worked at the school.
The head master was a friendly man with red cheeks who spoke no English but always smiled at me and made some pleasantry in Japanese. Also present was an English teacher and the vice principal. The English teacher was my colleague Junko, and she explained the situation to me. One of the school’s teachers, Toda sensei, was in the states on some kind of study/exchange programme, and he had been taken ill. Apparently Toda sensei had a history of health problems, and the school wanted to find out how he was.
To this end, I was given the telephone number of the hospital and asked if I would make the call. It already felt like a strange situation as they all watched me dial the number and get through to a head nurse. I told her that I was with the headmaster of the school where Toda sensei worked, and that they wanted to know how he was. The nurse was friendly, but made it plain that information about patients would only be shared with immediate family. I countered this with a short spiel about how the workplace in Japan is an extension of the family, and that I was surrounded by Toda sensei’s boss and worried colleagues.
The nurse responded kindly, indicating that she believed me, but remaining firm. However, there was something in the tone of her voice that told me that Toda sensei had died. I cautiously asked her, “I know I’m not immediate family, but has Mr. Toda passed?” The nurse confirmed this to be true, and I then ventured to ask when he had died. The nurse kindly told me that he had died the previous evening. I thanked her profusely and hung up.
I turned around and saw three expectant Japanese faces looking at me, knowing that I had news for them. I hesitantly began, “Toda sensei…” in my pathetic Japanese, desperately trying to think of the word for dead, a word which I had recently learned. My mind was a blank, and instead of speaking in English which would have been the obvious choice, I did what an immature ten year old would do in such a situation and drew two fingers across my throat and made the accompanying quack-like sound one makes to indicate death.
The three of them were perhaps too overcome with this sudden sad news to be upset about the manner in which it had been delivered, but I am cringing now at the thought of it as I have every time I’ve ever thought about it. If I were an actor who was required to play in a scene where I was embarrassed beyond belief, then I would simply remember that rainy morning in kocho sensei’s office in Japan.
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