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kateahontas · 6 years

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JET Program Final Mission

Just a warning that this post is horrifically sappy. Please comment the amount of times you cringed or rolled your eyes and I'll eat a mint chocolate flavoured product for each one.

Matt sent the modems back to Softbank today, so the internet in our apartment is long-gone and that is a real occurrence to cement all the happenings right now.

JET Program Final Mission was on Saturday night. It was a great success in that it was a beautiful time, but it really sucked in terms of having to be a farewell party, meaning that we will be leaving the country and the date is approaching too quickly.

The party was in a fancy hotel in Tachikawa and had a much too expensive price of 7,000 yen per person. We had absolutely no problem with people not being able to justify coming because of the price. A few non-English teachers from my school were present (teachers being present from my school at all that aren’t Kenichi is a huge thing in itself) and that made me tear up, because who knew you could mean anything when you often feel like you don’t?

Matt and I were officially announced and walked into a room of our pals standing and applauding. We were greeted by life-size print-outs of ourselves from our Australian wedding, who we of course got photos with part-way through the celebrations. We were shown to our seats and Party Master gave a few words. He is always self-appointed MC, and it’s definitely the most fitting. Matt and I had to give a speech in Japanese that we were not even secretly terrified about. It’s really difficult to articulate feelings to these people in English, and even more difficult to do it in Japanese. We did a lot of tag-teaming, involving giving messages directed at our schools. I said a chunk about Kenichi, and that was the only part I asked for assistance from a Japanese person for. I found a really fitting sentence in Japanese about having a telepathic relationship with someone, but I was unsure of the nuance. My chosen Japanese pal to lend me assistance was Miki, who was also present at the party. She has been so good to me over the years and speaks English pretty much fluently despite never having studied or lived abroad. Also, her children are adorable and her husband works at Matt’s school, so we’re all meant to be. She helped me in making the sentences a bit more coherent. It got a really great reaction at the party, so I was relieved.

Kenichi had told me the day before of the table Matt and I would be sitting at. Kenichi, in true Kenichi style, seated me next to him. Before we even made our speech, we were sitting at the table taking in the scenes and Kenichi turned to me and said “I can’t imagine my life without you” and that was really the beginning of the end for me personally. Kenichi drank throughout the night to try and deal with his emotions (which he has A LOT of) and it didn’t work at all. He became more emotional and was pretty much bursting into tears any time something happened.

There was a screen located to the right of the stage, and while the food was being brought out, a short presentation of our three years in Japan played. It was edited by a teacher from Matt’s school who has basically given her life to us. It featured all the photos we gave to Party Master a few weeks back, a million photos from our Japanese wedding party and also photos from our Australian wedding. The food started coming out and Kenichi made a quick toast so everyone could drink as much as possible.

Kenichi had mentioned to me a few weeks earlier that he was preparing for some kind of performance. I assumed that a few teachers would do the same thing, but that was not the case. He presented a speech that contained four separate stories about our lives together while being backed on piano by another English teacher from my school (who I did not know even had such a talent?) The speech was in Japanese, but we are being promised copies of it in both Japanese and English.

The first story was the story of the purple hair. About two and a half months before we came on JET, I had my hair dyed bright pink and purple. I always obviously had the intention of changing it before Japan (and actually only found out I had been accepted into the program the morning of the day I had my hair dyed). I worked at a Steiner school with the crazy hair, so nobody cared. ANYWAY, I entirely blame Ben for the story of the purple hair. He started messaging me a few months before we came to Japan (when my hair was bright and popping) and he told Kenichi about it EVEN THOUGH I had conveyed to him my full intentions to dye it brown before coming to Japan (because I am not an idiot). Kenichi has revealed to me on a few occasions that he was terrified to meet me, and it was exacerbated by me having purple hair. He thought he would have to tell me that I would not be able to show up to my school like that. He said he even practiced telling me in a stern voice (before he met me) to dye my hair brown. I imagine he practiced in front of a mirror, because that makes me do a weird side-smile.

The second story was the story of Otosan. Otosan is “father” in Japanese, but for the purpose of this story, we are referring to Otosan, the lovable hound who is the face of the Japanese phone company, Softbank. I needed a phone contract with Softbank, because of how deep my love for Otosan ran, even though I knew nothing about him. In our first week of being in Japan, Kenichi took us to the Softbank store in Tachikawa to get us both phone contracts. It took three hours and once I started working at my school, it didn’t take me long to realise that that kind of time is really precious for someone who works as much as Kenichi. Kenichi told the person signing us up at Softbank that I loved the pupper that was the face of their company, so they gave us a stuffed toy of Otosan that speaks in Japanese when you press his tail. We still have it and I will never forget such a gesture by a man who was probably properly flustered with us at the time, but never showed it.

The third story is the ongoing story of how Matthew knows everything. Kenichi was telling us about a Japanese celebrity once when we went out for dinner with him, and Matthew already knew who it was. This particular story isn’t so impressive. I believe the story of Matt having to reprogram the Rakuten Mobile page so that I could sign up with them is more impressive. Last week, Kenichi asked if I knew where a place was that is related to moving out stuff we have to do. I said “Matthew knows. He knows everything” and Kenichi said “ああ！さすがマシュー！" Which is just like “as expected, Matthew genius’d again”. I Kenichi would marry Matt if it were allowed.

The final story was the story about Kenichi’s birthday last year and Christmas. It took me a really long time to get to the point in our friendship where Kenichi invited us to his house. I tried really hard for a long time, thought that I was probably being a pushy jerk and then I backed off a bit, and Kenichi would be the one to initiate hangs, which was a huge break-through for me. We had already been to his house at least once before his birthday. His birthday party first took place at Kenichi’s favourite restaurant close to his house. Matt, myself and a few other teachers from my school (one an ex-teacher) were all there. We later went to Kenichi’s house where he showed off his Google Home and the cake was brought out. Matt helped Kenichi cut his cake and then I fed him his first bite of cake using a huge spoon and getting it everywhere. Then, everyone else also fed Kenichi one bite of cake each. We later found out that this isn’t normal for Japanese peoples’ birthdays. On Christmas eve last year, Kenichi invited Matt, myself and some other pals to a community centre that his parents run to make udon. We made udon noodles from scratch, cooked them, ate them, did some craft and had a really good time. Then on the way home, Kenichi took us to a hill nearby that had an amazing view of the entire area and we all hung out there for a bit. It was perfect at the time, because we really wanted to be in Australia for Christmas and we couldn’t, but we still got to spend it with our family anyway.

Finally, Kenichi broke into song for a bit for the last part of his performance, but I was already crying at that point.

Some time after his speech, Kenichi and I were talking at the table about all the times we’ve had. He said “there is another thing I remember clearly” and he went on to mention the night that Matt had to fly back to Australia to be with his mum. We had just spent Christmas in Perth, and had flown back to Tokyo the day before. Matt got a message from his brother saying that Matt’s mum had taken a turn for the worse, and things didn’t look so good. We were able to get Matt on a plane the following morning, but I had to stay here. We ended up apart for three weeks, then I went back to Perth for our wedding. The day after our wedding, I flew back to Japan alone to spend another three weeks away from Matt. On that first night, when Matt had just left to be with his mum, I was sitting on the couch in my pyjamas watching Gilmore Girls and I had just eaten avocado toast for dinner. I got a phone call from Kenichi who said “what are you doing? Come and meet me at a cafe in Tachikawa.” I got dressed and met him there about half an hour later. We spent three or four hours together talking about stuff and practicing Japanese and English. He said to me “this is going to be the hardest night for you and you shouldn’t be alone”. That whole period of time was unbelievably shit. I look back on it and I have no idea how I managed to function and go to work and be a person. When Kenichi brought that up at the party, I couldn’t even. I said to him “you saved me that night” and I told him how I don’t even know where the strength came from that got me through that. He said “you know that I have trouble just calling people up like that and asking them to hang out. I just don’t do it. I knew that you needed me that night” and the whole exchange is honestly going to be the thing that makes it impossible to get on the plane.

The food was fancy and tasty and difficult to eat consistently because we had to make the rounds. I tried to let all the teachers from my school know that it meant a whole few truckloads of existence that they attended. I hope they do know, because it’s true.

I saw Miyo, a beautiful human who works in the office at Matt’s school for the last time, and it was so heartbreaking for the two of us that we just had to walk away from each other.

We were presented with a cake that had a beautiful chocolate message on it authored by Party Master. A retired teacher from Matt’s school who is a beautiful soul came up and gave us two pictures that he had painted the night before. One was of Matt’s school building, and the other was of the cafeteria at Matt’s school. They look amazing and they are framed and he said “never forget our school”.

Kenichi and Kosuke presented us both with bouquets of flowers and some other people showered us in gifts. Cake was eaten, photos were taken and I only got to consume two alcoholic beverages. We gave our final speech and then it was time for the second party at everyone’s favourite sports themed karaoke place: BASEBALL.

Lico rocked up part-way through this party and she said “I want to sing Korn with you” we were like “you want to what?!” and it turned out she actually meant Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”. We made dreams come true. We are going to karaoke with Lico and Kenichi on Sunday, so we have decided to show her some Korn then.

Kenichi and I sang Don’t Look Back in Anger because it’s our thing and he said “this is the second last time we’ll sing this” so the finale is definitely happening on Sunday!

To be frank, it was too much and I would say I don’t deserve what these people do. Other feedback from other JETs confirms things we always thought were true: no other schools have a Party Master or a Kenichi or a Lico and I wonder about the inner workings of the universe and how your outfits might not always match, but I am sure you don’t look as shit as you think you do.

We are allowed a few repeats on Friday as Matt’s school is having their end of term party, and we are very much there and on Sunday too at karaoke.

#worlife #party #jetprogram #food #partylife #livingabroad #travel

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