The Chiba Monologues

Psychologically, Kahimmakuhari is about as far from Tokyo as it is from Paris or London. It’s at best, a poor imitation of an American suburb of Cincinnati or a Bloomfield Hills in Michigan. To the unfortunate hostages who reside there they act like there is nowhere else in the world and their curiosity is limited to sales at Costco, 20% off coupons at the ubiquitous outlet shops at Makuhari Messe where they can buy brand goods from places like Ralph Lauren, Gucci, Coach or Michael Kors at discount prices. There are of course, the gorgeous restaurants to be visited for special occasions- passing a junior high school entry exam for the dubious privilege of mommy being able to brag to her friends and neighbours that her dim-witted progeny, devoid of any redeeming intellectual or aesthetic sense has climbed one further rung up the ladder to middle class acceptance and if trends continue will have the opportunity to enter one of Japan’s finest third rate universities to prepare for a lifetime of servitude at a middling Japanese company which is lauded for having the bold vision to use email instead of the fax machines which continue to litter Japanese offices- the detritus of a giddy pre-bubble era before the post- apocalyptic perversion of the American dream it has become (well, at least in Kahimmakuhari)

The teachers are worse. Burn-outs from teaching in real schools in other countries, young kids who know nothing more than the myriad pleasures of Costco, or cycling down wide roads to go to a park to play Ultimate Frisbee with their “friends” who are invariably their co-workers- so difficult and fraught with potential danger it is for them to communicate with those outside their bubble.

Teachers….god how I hate them. Nitpicking sanctimonious twats whose sole merit seems to be the puzzling ability to ignore all evidence to the contrary and believe in a world where a tidy workspace, neat penmanship and a desperate desire to please led them to perpetuating the cycle of mediocrity and perverting younger generations with their cowardice, irrationality, and saccharine quotations about doing one’s best.

The earnest ones are the worst of all. They act like what they are doing is highly skilled labor- as if they are neurosurgeons performing delicate surgery and blather at each other about the excruciating minutiae of the exciting “lesson” they just taught about how to capitalize proper nouns via a set of Google Slides they made using cute or “funny” graphics to “engage” the students.

They happily take all the credit when by some miracle students succeed but are quick to apportion blame to a complex set of factors seemingly outside of their control when they don’t.

Despite living in the confusing prefab suburb of doom, they wistfully exchange tales of Tokyo and talk about their “adventures” there as if following the guidance of one of those clever wenches at Savvy or Tokyo Weekender is the barometer of cool. They trot a more well-worn path than their foreign predecessors 20 years previous when anything worth seeing was through trial and error or word of mouth- which was typically limited to a select few and carefully guarded to prevent a horde of English teachers descending on a decent spot and ruining it forevermore.

They talk about Tokyo as if moving to some far-flung outpost of the metro area only a few kilometres from the border of Chiba is akin to living in Harajuku, Azabu, Omotesando or something- not the depressing shift to the uglier parts of Taito ku or Koto ku that it actually is. Watching Netflix in Chiba is pretty much the sane ad watching Netflix in Baytown. If you never leave your house….

Maybe they feel they will have better dating opportunities on Bumble or Tinder in Tokyo than in Chiba? It’s hard to say.