Gaijin Jump
By Craig Chapin. First published in August 2006.
The event portrayed here didn’t occur exactly as shown. Once again I claim artistic license. Here is what did happen.
One day, during my stint as a secondary school teacher in Japan, I was working at my desk in the teachers’ room when the phone rang. Another teacher—we'll call him “Mr. Yamato” so as not to cause any embarrassment—was summoned to take the call.
After a brief conversation, he walked back to his desk and started to sit down but stopped halfway. His head cocked slightly to one side as he turned over an idea in his mind for a moment. Then he rose to a slight stoop and said in a voice that, though quiet, could be heard across the room, “My wife just had a baby.”
The other teachers applauded briefly. He sat down. And everyone went back to work.
I didn’t shout at him. I didn’t grab him by the lapels and shake him.
But I wanted to.
I wanted to say, “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you with your wife?” But that would have been the American in me.
Most likely his wife had moved back to her parents’ home temporarily so that her mother could assist her. That’s how it is done in Japan, and there isn’t much interest in changing how it’s done.
But I still wanted to shout at him.