Yoko & Presents

Yoko was slightly strange. Flick and I met her in the lobby of Cambridge House, and we went for tea at, of all places, "Mister Donut". How very Japanese. We had a strange conversation: It wasn't long before she was telling us how she used to go to a Pentecostal church, how she became a really hard-core Christian, but that she had questions. Her minister told her that they were a work of the devil, and so she left.

We arranged a time for us to teach, though she's leaving her job at the end of October and doesn't want us to work very much anyway. In the end I think we're both going to do about four hours of work for her! She ideally wants to be a nursery school teacher, but she's quitting her English teaching job to become a general secretary for a company that sells farming equipment internationally! She says the nursery thing is something she wants to do when she has her own children, but she's already 35 (though she looks about 21) and she still lives with her parents. Even she knows she's running out of time.

I think she mostly just wants to be friends, though she comes over as a little desperate and she didn't want to talk about what the job involved. Instead, we're going out for an Indian next week on Friday - it's a holiday anyway, so I'll have to get my own food. Haven't got a proper job yet, however, so I'm trying not to spend too much at the moment. She also wants us to try raw eel. Supposedly our predecessors, Heather and Katie (whom she talks about endlessly), really liked it. They also liked the Indian place. Flick suggested that in turn she try Marmite, though we couldn't explain what it was to her.

We did "present giving" in class today. ほんの気持ちです (honno kimochi desu) "It's a small gift." At the end she gave us all a present ourselves: some Japanese cookies. They taste like a cross between rice crackers and very salty popcorn. Quite revolting. Though I shouldn't have got my hopes up given the standard of other Japanese food.