Separation Anxiety

Last year I taught the first group of male Cabin Attendants for a certain Japanese airline - the first in 50 years of history (the cultural "logic" behind this refusal to hire men is another story). They were a great group, but when the second injection of new male blood were due to come through, I tried to get out of teaching them.

My company pleaded with me, but, much as it is nice to be wanted, I had actually tried to cut down my hours with this particular client. Not because I didn't like them, as they've been incredibly good to me, but because after 2 years of teaching the same "Do you want fries with that?" service material, every day there felt like GroundHog Day.

Also, its a really short course, only 7 lessons, so its never enough time to build up a relationship with my classes like a lot of the other Language Consultants do. And there was no room for creativity or challenge - the Flight Academy is run much like an army regiment. Only with better looking students.

However, in spite of my efforts to sidestep teaching this class, I had my arm twisted and was thus banished to the outpost of Haneda Airport. This in itself, is testament to the doggedness of the scheduling girls at my company, as I can be as stubborn as a mule in heat when I have decided to dig my heels in about something.

Now, I don't know what I'll do when the course is over (this afternoon)! The current bunch of 4 guys is probably the best class I've ever taught. They crack me up every lesson merely by being buffoons and it's one of the only classes I've had where I really look forward to seeing what special brand of tomfoolery they have in store for me. In turn, my routines (made up of a lot of very bad jokes) have had them in stitches, too. Unlike many other classes, I actually felt like I was being myself with them.

Being an instructor is a sweet job - good pay, pretty good conditions, and for the most part, excellent students. But they didn't tell me about the acute separation anxiety suffered when one has to say goodbye to a class whose comedic banter (all of their English is excellent, thankfully) closes the gap between two different cultures.

It has been so strange but so uplifting to discover that my brand of humour (Matt would argue that this, in itself is a bit "special") is on a similar wavelength to 4 Japanese men who have been brought up in a different country to me by a different set of rules.

Japan is different to Australia but then again, not so much...