A junior high school teacher was beat up by his student in our area recently.
Kaisei area, sorry to say it, seems to be the worst. I don`t know what it is
about Kaisei Town. It is a beautiful area and I have taught many of the kids there
while they were in elementary school or even at my English school but some of the junior high school students are very difficult. The kids at the elementary
school were great!
These days it seems:
The junior high students think nothing of swearing at their teachers. We have
monster parents coming into schools and kicking over chairs in the staff room
or screaming at teachers over the phone for forty minutes.
What is it about Japan these days?
So much has changed since I arrived twenty years ago now.
It is a much more violent and angry society. Is it simply
economics?
Japanese often seem to have a disdainful attitude towards spiritual
study or religion, however I think we need a good dose of something
spiritual, especially now.
I think Japanese need to practice being kinder to one another.
I just saw a high school boy kick another boy in the stomach
on the Odakyu line and then grab his private parts and attempt to take
a picture with the boy`s cell phone. The smaller boy had been complaining to the bigger boy, why do you always bully me?
Of course no one did anything except me.
I got up and asked the bully which school he went to. He mumbled something. Then I took a look at his school symbol on his jacket.
He was a high school student judging by his uniform. Maybe I should
have done more--stopped the train--flagged down a station attendant.
I asked my wife to try to track down the boys school. He obviously lives in
Matsuda, and the letters on his jacket were stylized either NA or MA. I think
they were the former.
What has it come to that people here tolerate watching another boy kicked in the stomach in front of them and pretend not to notice?
The announcements at all the stations say that we should report anything unusual at the train stations.
But when I reported rough-housing, a chimpira-looking punk was
slapping and pushing a high school boy at Shin Matsuda Station on the platform, the station man refused to look in spite of my explanation in Japanese and pointing at the altercation only five metres away--just across the platform.
In exasperation I finalled yelled:
"Nihongo ga wakarimasuka?"
To which of course, he pretended to not understand.
"Eh..eh???!"
I told a friend the stories above and he said:
"Oh yah, I see the junior high kids hanging from the rings on the
Daiyuzan line and kicking each other in the stomach all the time."
Sometimes I don`t understand this country.
