Of Graduations and Skeezy Burger Joints

Ah, next week wraps up another school year in Japan and thank goodness because that means the psychopathic 3rd graders of Mori JHS are gone! Still, that leaves the 1st- soon-to-be 2nd-year students sporting a head full of bad juju to deal with in a couple weeks. Will their newfound seniority (at least over the incoming 1st-years) tame their wild streak or inflame it? Time will tell.

We had a lovely little graduation ceremony at Yahata JHS though, as I can attest to. These kids were quiet and sheepish when it came to English, but in comparison to the town's other schools of comperable or larger size they were angels and I was sad to see them go. The class also contained two of my more interesting students, Saki and Maki, a pair of identical twins who liked to bust a move with mad hip-hop dancing skills and sometimes showed up to class in full on cornrows. I'd like to say that they have a bright future in entertainment, but Saki (shit, was it Maki? I can't tell them apart!), I witnessed, is exceptionally good with kids and will probably end up teaching at the local preschool upon HS graduation. Oh well, knowing the Japanese Media Monster I can plausably see the twin thing being spun in either a good or evil direction, so perhaps it's for the best the act end sooner rather than later.

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I've been fixing up an old hybrid bike to sell to an ALT named Owen for the past couple weeks and finally got around to delivering it yesterday evening in Oita City. We met at a shopping mall called Wasada Town and did the exchange before shooting off for some grub. A few weeks ago a  friend of mine, Betsy, told me about a nearby burger shack that sounded fantastic and I'd been wanting to try it out since then and almost did on one occasion. Owen and I tracked it down not too far away and got into its unique vibe right away: It really is a tiny little shack plastered with baseball paraphenilia, a few plastic lawn chairs for seating, no tables and a garden faucet in lieu of a sink to wash ones hands in. Oh, and next to the lawn chairs was a big experimental Kyushu Electric wind turbine.

The burgers were ridiculously cheap and even with a side of fries I only paid 680 yen--virtually highway robbery in Japan. And my god, what a massive hunk of...STUFF...it was! The beef patty was over-seasoned, but I think it was designed to help season all the rest of the lettuce (maybe a quarter-head's worth), onion (half of one, I'm sure), tomato, mayo and ketchup. And then there are the inexplicable toppings of a fried egg and a bite-sized bit of breaded, fried pork. Actually, the egg is a sort of staple of Japanese burgers, but still. And neither of us had taken but two bites of our burgers when the proverbial shit hit the fan.

A woman and her two kids fresh out of baseball practice pull into the stand's dirt parking lot and order two burgers to go. The woman says something about going to watch TV in her car (the proportion of cars with GPS/TV units is much higher in Japan than in the US) and retreats back there. The owner of the place, a stocky, surly looking dude is pissed at her for something, neither of us know at this point why, but goes about making the burgers. When he's done he calls her over to come get the burgers and she tries to abscond with them back to her car without paying while his back is turned--the classic dine-n'-dash. The owner catches her doing it and she tries to play it off, saying she has the money and is going to eat in the car first. Nope, this guy's not buying it.

Some other customers arrive and the owner is out of the stand approaching the woman's car. Between shouting expletitives at the woman he tells the customers to leave because this will take too long. Dutifully they hightail it. It's reaching a weird fever pitch now where the owner is shouting at her rolling his consonants like a Yakuza and the woman is speaking extremely politely to him, but laughing at the same time. Neither of us had ever seen anything like this. His fury continues for nearly twenty minutes before the cops arrive in unbelievable force. Five patrol cars roll up, more than I've ever seen anywhere in Japan at once...and that includes a police station.

Not wanting to get involved and answer questions we quietly slip away and leave the cops to mop it all up. I do so love dinner theatre, but this display leaves me queasy and reminds me that I really do live in the Mobile, Alabama of Japan.

--Matt