fire drill
So last week was the fire drill practice at school.
Every year kids get put through their paces practicing for all kinds of drills should some kind of natural disaster occur. Since this is Japan we not only have fire drills, but earthquake drills, Godzilla drills (ok that’s a lie but it would be cool) and also the dreaded FUSHINSHA drill. A fushinsha basically translates as a “suspicious person” and is a drill that has been practiced ever since a suspicious man walked into an elementary school in Osaka a few years ago and started to suspiciously stab students and teachers left and right with a huge, suspicious knife.
So there I was, sitting at my desk when the principal pops his head through the window behind me,
“Fire drill very soon!”
He said, as I quickly minimised any windows on my computer that showed blatantly non-work related material (which was all of them). I turned round and told him no probs, I was ready. Now, I’m not sure what it is about this particular school but the two top guys, the Principal and the Vice Principal really are a couple of characters- well let’s not pussyfoot around, these guys are BIZARRE HUMOUR MANIACS times infinity to the power of seven billion kafillion. The Principal just has this constant sideways grin which I have time and time again wondered whether is the result of just being generally amused by everything and everyone he sees, or some kind of cheek cramping, or face cancer. As a result, it is impossible to take him seriously, since everything he says is said with this cheesetastic smile therefore undermining any sincerity in his comments whether he intends to or not:
“Jon-sensei. I am most troubled this week. My wife, she is very sick. The doctors said she has 2 weeks to live” grin “wha-? Oh no that’s terrible- I’m so- wait a seconnnnd- .! I know this one! The punchline has something to do with a cow udder and a bucket of semen, right?” “- ? No. I am being serious. I love her so much. What can I do?” grin ‘Oh god. Oh god I am so sorry. It’s your face, you see, I always think you are j-” “GOTCHA!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAH” grin “heh- heh- yeah you got me good there- but actually I always kne-” “No seriously, she’s dying.” “?” grin
And the Vice Principal has quite possibly the driest humour I have ever experienced in my life. He NEVER smiles, even when he is creating a constant stream of witticisms that is making everyone else in the staffroom keel over in convulsions of uncontrollable laughter, perhaps not because the jokes are particularly funny but the fact that he is delivering them with his particular brand of effortless, stone-faced zeal. I was sitting next to him at lunch once. The lunch that day was “Niku Jaga”, which is a kind of meat and potato dish. He pointed at it, looked at me and said “Rolling Stones”. Then gave a kind of sigh of disgust at himself and went back to looking blankly at his plate. After a couple of seconds I understood what a terrible joke it was (Niku Jaga- Mick Jagger- Rolling Stones- heh- ) but couldn’t help myself giving a little snort of laughter since he told it with such an obvious nuance of it being a really crap joke.
So anyway where was I- Godzilla- face cancer- ..oh yeah fire drill.
The Principal sticks his head through the window and tells me about the fire drill. At this point in the afternoon, I was both engulfed in preparation for the upcoming conference, and frankly, so I guess I must have seemed a little less than enthusiastic about looking ‘ready’ for the fire drill. So the principal added:
“There is a penalty for the last person out the door”
And walked off, grinning inanely the whole time.
I thought to myself for a second and concluded that yes, this is the kind of school where they WOULD have some kind of stupid forfeit for the slowest person, but still needed a bit of confirmation in // I blasted out of the school to the sound of the principal in the distance with all the other teachers, laughing at me for falling for such an obvious hoax.
“Is there really a penalty?” I asked the other teachers present in the room. “Haha- heh- ” they all chuckled. As they edged towards the door.
And soon everyone was sort of chuckling and snorting, whilst making a discreet headway towards the only exit, leaving me sitting there still wondering if it was all some Big Joke. Finally I sprang up from my desk, which just about made the 3 teachers left in the room jump 20 feet in the air. Their eyes bulged, they screamed, and fled the staff room. Well now there really was no doubt. I legged it out the staff room as fast as my gay indoor-slippered feet could carry me. I met most of the teachers at the genkan where I discovered that EVERYONE (except me of course) had laid out their outdoor shoes in preparation, to save themselves time in getting out the main entrance. I fumbled with my slippers whilst watching the other teachers literally smash each other out of the way to get through the door and pushing each other over like a bunch of ninja retards, then I grabbed my shoes, leaving the shoe locker looking like it had been brutally vandalised, and scrambled out the door. It was at this exact point, the point where I knew I was finally ’safe’ (other people came out after me) that I realised just how stupid all of that was.
Overall there isn’t much difference between the fire drills back in UK schools and the one here, apart from one glaring disparity. In Japan, all the students know that there is going to be a fire drill. There is even an announcement beforehand, saying “in 10 minutes there will be a fire drill, please be ready” which as you can imagine, saps all the spontaneity and basically eliminates the point of the fire drill ie. it being a practice for a real life fire situation. God forbid if there is ever a real fire here, as the students will just sit around patiently behind their desks waiting for confirmation over the tannoy that it is in fact a real fire, whilst flames lap at their ankles.
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