And the hardest part was letting go, not taking part…
Somewhere on the Eastern shore of Japan I’ve been here once before. I made the grave mistake of moving to Korea in the middle of the 2009-10 Stanley Cup Playoffs. If that wasn’t hard enough, the hockey gods made sure to mock me by sending my beloved Philadelphia Flyers to the Stanley Cup Final the one year that I was unable to get my orange clad ass down to Broad Street. Yeah… I was not a happy lady that year especially since there was a game IN PHILLY scheduled on my birthday!
Japan is a different story. I’ve mentioned before that my work schedule ensures that I can only watch NHL games scheduled on Fridays and Saturdays (NHL time), and that’s if I have the free time on the weekends to take advantage of that luxury. Now that it’s the playoffs, I’m feeling the limitations of my self imposed lack of free time more than I had been during the regular season, especially with intense series like the Pittsburgh/Philadelphia shit storm that’s been brewing. Although, I suppose all this is good for my hockey rehab.
However impeding my lifestyle is on my enjoyment of playoff hockey, staying busy has been the one thing that has gotten me through spending the 2011-12 hockey season overseas. Time goes by so much faster when you don’t have time to sit around and do nothing. Sure, I have a “fulfilling” day job where I “teach” (read: amuse) just under 2000 children between the ages of 6 and 15, and tone my muscles to weekly sessions of aerobic Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes (“OK, kids, LEVEL UP 2, 3, 4!”), but I also have about a zillion night jobs. It’s to the point that I’m disappointed in myself when I have a free night to myself, especially if that night is not Saturday. I *try* to convince myself to keep my Saturdays free, but if work is offered I will ALWAYS take it. BAH! I’m a yen whore!
Anyway, my night jobs generally involve teaching adults in various settings from formal business classes at the offices of major Japanese corporations (by the way, if I die of mysterious circumstances, it is probably because the evil spirit that I know to be haunting the Mitsubishi plant got me while locking up at night) to free conversation practice in Starbucks, or the like. And, boy, I have definitely met some interesting characters in my workaholic adventures. I’ve mentioned how getting a tattoo also landed me a couple Yakuza private lessons. Well, if you can believe it, they seem totally normal compared to some of the others that have crossed my path.
Now, as a female, I take extra precautions generating my client list, but occasionally a couple weirdos do leak through the screening system. There was this one guy that was definitely into some shady stuff, or had some sort of shady associates, and was a pawn in all their underground dealings. It’s hard to tell since his English was so bad, but it was pretty obvious from the get go that he actually had no interest in learning English. I’m more inclined to believe that he was involved in shit that he really didn’t realize was illegal, especially considering that he would tell me about it. I remember one particular night where he was regaling me with a tale of how he just got back from Okinawa. He had flown there, exchanged Japanese money into several foreign currencies, and flew back 20 minutes later. The Naha airport is a 3 HOUR flight from Narita, so already that’s a bit fucked up. He showed me the airline tickets, and some of the money (Egyptian, Russian, American, and South African) he had kept as a souvenir, I guess. The best part was when he pointed out how he used a “false” identity to fly to Okinawa, and execute his shady mission. “So… What you’re saying is you were trying to get rid of money with certain serial numbers, eh? Hmm…”
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it couldn’t be what it sounds like because he wouldn’t be dumb enough to tell me. Trust me, he is. He was very young and naive. Wouldn’t be surprised if Daddy was using him as a pawn. There was also the fact that ALL his “girlfriends” and “ex girlfriends” were prostitutes he met on some site called Miss Universe or something like that, which I found amusing since all the women on there claimed to be from different countries, but they were all blatantly Russian. Guess that would explain how he spent 1.3 billion yen on his “ex,” whose photo, I might add, he had as the background of his cell like some love starved puppy… Aww!
Anyway, it took 3 months for the truth to come out about our pointless English lessons. As you may have guessed, he couldn’t care less about studying, but was rather trying to recruit me (probably on someone else’s behalf) to be a nude model in whatever pornography operation he was involved with. Naturally, I declined. Not because I’m against it, but mostly because nobody wants to pay to see me naked, trust me!
3 months seems to be the standard amount of time that my shady male students wait before bringing their real intentions to light. I had another unleash this awkward moment on me back in December:
Him: So you told me you don’t have boyfriend.
Me: Yeah… [Thinking: Oh God... Here it comes...]
Him: Don’t you want to have boyfriend?
Me: Umm… No, no I don’t…
Him: *actually shocked that a girl wouldn’t want a boyfriend* What?……. What if I offered you?
Me: Offered me what?
Him: How do I say…… I want to be your boyfriend.
Me: You’re married.
Him: Yes… But it’s very complicated.
Me: So? *not my problem eyebrow raise*
Him: But you make me very happy.
Me: Sorry.
Yeah… You wonder why I never date. A history of lusty hockey players, and non-hockey playing douche bags have made me pretty jaded. And I’m not even the one that’s being cheated on! Creeps. It’s pretty much my belief that all men will cheat if given the chance. You should see the Charisma Men that come overseas. They are total zeros at home. No personality. Can’t get a date for the life of them. They come over here and Japanese girls think they are all kawaii and shit, and they land themselves girlfriends that aren’t aware just how out of their league they are, and what do they do? Nope. They don’t kiss the sky that they can finally change their Facebook status, they screw around on them with any and every Japanese girl that also can’t tell the difference between them and Brad Pitt. Men!
Sorry for my little rant there, but you see the kind of stuff I put up with on a daily basis just to support my expensive little hockey addiction. Not sure how much more of Japan I can handle. Everyday I check my email and snail mailbox with the hope that there will be something life changing in there to save me from 11.5 more months of this nightmare!
P.S. A special thanks to the Pittsburgh Penguins and Vancouver Canucks for making me look like a jackass. This is the last time I go against my gut, my fave teams, and, more importantly, my good sense not to make playoff predictions after a season I missed in its entirety due to the aforementioned workaholism. Grrr!!!
Top Photo: Your token cherry blossom shot. Taken on the go from the inside of Paul Kariya, as I’m far too busy to pause for even a minute!
That’s OK! He’s not with the team now, so I feel that I can say that. Shhhhh. And let’s not forget about access to Cup rings and Mini Stanleys!
