Japanese version of the Backstreet Boys

Yesterday an assembly was held at the junior high school where I work. The assembly was in honour of the third year students who will soon be graduating and moving on to high school. I was standing at the back of the gym, near the wall, when Kado-sensei (a fellow teacher) motioned me to come sit down in the teacher's section. I sat down directly behind the principle. Soon after, he was called up to the stage to give a speech. After the speech, the principle was walking back to his chair when he realized I was sitting right behind his seat. I saw panic flash through his eyes. For some reason, Japanese people are uncomfortable around me. Maybe its because I'm a gaijin (foreigner) or maybe its because I'm weird. Who knows? The principle sat down stiffly in his chair. Then he started shifting around. I can just imagine what he was thinking: Oh my god, the gaijin is right behind me. She's looking at the back of my head. She's too close! He abruptly stood up. It was at this moment that I noticed the principle had placed a special cushion on top of the seat cushion. When he stood up, the cushion fell to the floor. I thought to myself, I should probably say something. Forget it, he doesn't understand English and I don't speak Japanese. He took a step forward and tripped violently over the cushion, almost falling to the floor. Now, in Japan, whenever something like this happens, everybody is just supposed to pretend that they didn't see anything, that it didn't happen. And that's what everyone did, except me. You see, this is the kind of thing I find absolutely hilarious. I tried desperately to keep the laughter in, but it threatened to escape. I started laughing and coughed to cover up the laughter. It was pretty damn funny.

The assembly continued and the special guests arrived. It was a Japanese boy band. In Canada, we consider the Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, and all those other boy bands an embarrassing remnant of the 90's. It was a lapse in judgement. Let us never support such terrible music again. But in Japan, boy bands are alive and well (ie SMAP). When they entered the gym, all the junior high school girls screamed with joy. The band was composed of four guys, all impeccably dressed in matching black suits. Their hair was meticulously styled down to the last strand. But their dress shirts were untucked and their ties were loosened to give them that "cool" look. They started singing a sappy love song and I cringed inside. Its okay. This is very cute for junior high school kids, I thought. But then they did a Backstreet Boys cover. If there's anything worse than a Backstreet Boys song, its English-illiterate Japanese guys doing a cover version. You can imagine what it was like. They even had special dance moves which they performed in unison. I sighed. At least the performance was entertaining, in an amusing sort of way.