Big Jump

The Tokyo Bay Hilton is the most impressive hotel I have ever stayed in, and my girl colleagues agree. It is luxurious. But we are here to work. To learn, so we can contribute better to the company that is so generously granting us this opportunity. More and more suited GEOS employees stream into the lobby and climb the broad staircase up to the first floor, some familiar faces from previous training days, one person I met in my London interview session. Many of them assemble in the smoking area in front of the big room that is at this very minute being prepared for our training. Smoke clouds the entrance while inside, handouts are being laid out on tables, name cards put up and organised by shishas. Waiters are polishing a big, silver hot water dispenser and lining up jugs of iced water on a table in the back.
We talk and get to know each other. There must be over a hundred people, maybe more, don’t quote me on numbers, but we are a big group, and we are only an infinitesimal part of the whole ginormous company. The cream of the crop, we will be told several times today. As our small talk evolves into conversations, however, it is nice to notice that the cream of the crop consists of people just as normal and open and unblemished by corporate pressure as me. Everybody is young, from different backgrounds, with different ambitions, but everybody shares the wish to do something special with their lives and the world, and some pleasant qualities like the gift of the gob, a willingness and skill to communicate and be friendly, and a hopeful smile that, beaming through yawns, displays professionalism, and, occasionally, shining through eyes from somewhere higher up and deeper down the soul, reveals interesting and radiant personalities behind the suits.
We are finally told to sit down at the long rows of tables, behind our assigned name cards. First, we are greeted by M, whom I know from my initial Tokyo training session. She quickly passes on the word to P from Urawa School, who takes over the lectern and asks us all to rise as we quote the “Shaze Shakun”, that encapsulates our company principles to guide everybody’s daily efforts and provide a corporate culture to live in and adapt to.
“Through our global network of language centres, we shall promote international understanding and cross-cultural communication,” intones P. Then, we all tune in with our half-awake Thursday-morning voices and mumble: “Meet the Challenge.”
The next part makes us all the more credible. Like an encouraging military marching chant, P starts every phrase with the word “Credibility.” Then we finish together:
“Credibility – comes not only from what we say but also from our appearance and attitude.
Credibility – comes not only from what we say about our lessons, but also by providing a friendly, enjoyable and academic atmosphere.
Credibility – comes not only from words but also by a cheerful, friendly smile: be sincere, look sincere.”
Sincerely, we all drop back down onto our chairs.
And there we sit, listening to speech after speech, with short 5 to 15 minute breaks in which we hurry down to the Starbucks in the lobby for more shots of coffee as it becomes more and more difficult to stay awake through this all too sedentary stretch of a day. There is of course some interesting information we get to hear. A lot of it, we already know. Some of it is new. GEOS has over 500 schools in Japan, and about 50 abroad. If we make an effort, we can become teacher trainers, managers, sub teachers, or textbook researchers, or we can go to one of the overseas schools and become teachers or managers there. We are the cream of the crop. We are the future. And if we reach our monthly targets straight through, we might even get to go on an overseas trip to get to know one of the GEOS overseas schools, in Vancouver, or Oceania.
The centre piece of the day is our Kaichō’s speech. He arrives with a little entourage, a bald wardrobe of a man watching over him from the right side of the room as Kaichō adjusts the microphone and speaks. His bodyguard? He is important and rich, our Kaichō. We are all lucky to be in the same room as him and hear his valuable speech. A completely different experience from watching it on video in the lobby of our schools while hastily preparing for our next lessons. Not the content, of course, just the atmosphere, and the fact that here we have the luxury of devoting our full attention to it. Although some of it goes into nursing our coffees to spread them over the duration of this stretch of afternoon.
Kaichō speaks good English. He is a very serious man. No jokes. No laughs. In order to sell the apple, it must be delicious. So he prefers spending money on employees’ training to spending millions on TV commercials. We must improve our teamwork. He draws a dot on the whiteboard. This is our goal. Then he draws a horizontal line underneath the dot and lots of arrows pointing away from it into different directions, none of them reaching the dot. If everybody works without looking at the goal, we cannot achieve what we want. He then draws a second dot and a second horizontal line underneath it. This time, all the arrows are pointing from the line towards the dot. The result looks like a volcano. “This,” says Kaichō,” is teamwork. We must reach our goal. You are young. You just started. You take up information like a sponge. So please make an effort.
We all clap. By the time we leave the sponges in our heads are so full that their content starts trickling out of both ears. We go for dinner in a big room fitted with round tables. Again, we are organised by shishas. “Higashi Kansai”, says the sign on our table. I get to sit together with my new friends D, a very funny Kansas City man, T, an extremely pretty, pleasant Vancouver girl originally from Vietnam, with a special touch of unassuming professionalism about her, and P, a beautiful West-London girl with Indian roots that radiantly shine through her name and smile. We eat salads, bread rolls, broccoli soup, croquets, meat, fish, gratin, and a yoghurty cheese cake garnished with fresh fruit for dessert, served one after another on a big, turning plate in the middle of the table. D, who has assumed a leading role to make our shisha feel like a real team, asks us all to tell some funny or embarrassing stories. I tell everybody about Hoover, my talking seal hero from Boston. S, my gentleman fellow trainee tells us he went out with his students and toasted to them, fatally using “Chin-chin!” instead of “Cheers!” which, in Japanese, denotes a certain male organ that is better left unmentioned in the company of one’s students.
Then, in a Tokyo Bay Hilton pub quiz, we are asked questions like “What does the GEOS acronym GSI stand for?”, “Murasaki Shikibu wrote which famous book that may well be the first novel ever written?”, and “Who was president of the United States when Neill Armstrong first set foot on the moon?”
Under the name “The fearless Talking Seals”, we enjoy the wonders of teamwork, as our knowledge pours into the empty boxes on our quiz sheet, and finish second, together with two other teams.
Finally, we have to clear the room, and spill into the corridor, exchanging more anecdotes, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses. P and I throw our bags into our room and celebrate our stay at the Hilton by jumping up and down and across the three beds we share with C, another lovely English girl.
Then, sadly, the group splits as scattered group movements break it into a Hard Rock Café group and a group that can’t be bothered going so far and ends up in the Hilton Hotel bar. So we sit in the dimly lit hotel bar, little waterfalls making the wood glitter, large glass bottles and a giant bowl full of lemons, elegant lights creeping out behind flat, wooden pillars – the place exudes elegance. We are led to a table and borrow a few more chairs from a neighbouring table to accommodate us all. Then, we take a look at the menu and try not to run straight out again as we see the drink prices, which go up to just under ¥ 4000 (£17/€ 25) for a single drink. The cheapest drinks are coke, sprite, fanta, and oulong tea at ¥ 700 (£ 3/€ 4) a glass. Oulong tea it is. Other people order the relatively cheap Guinness at ¥ 1200 (£ 5/€ 7,60), but it turns out to be about half a pint. Undisturbed by the slight drawbacks suffered as a simple GEOS teacher when socialising at the Tokyo Bay Hilton Hotel Bar, however, we continue our round of stories, mirth, and merrymaking, and nurse our drinks, making the drinking less and the talking more intoxicating as we give each other advice on how to become better servants to the divine company who has honoured us by taking us in and giving us a never-ending array of fascinating opportunities.
S suggests reciting the Shaze Shakun in front of the mirror in the bathroom every morning and evening, N, an eloquent American girl who will soon become a “split” and work in two schools, suggests removing all male plants from the office, as they disturb the fruitful development of ideas, and ruin the creative atmosphere in the school. I feel tempted to pull out my notebook, but my brain willingly agrees to take notes for me this time.
We are an exciting mix. Former Chicago bartenders, Haruki Murakami fans and aspiring writers, psychologists, law firm employees, farmers, and marathon runners. I sit next to J who is from Alaska and now works in a school in Okinawa – what a change! At least in climate. As for population numbers, the two places seem to be similar. She has about 20 students and lives by the beach. It sounds appealing, compared to our school, which has about 80 students, out of which I teach about 60. Other schools have many more than that, still. Also, there is affectionate, smiley, utterly amiable P, who reckons god is a gas, which leads to a round of follow-up jokes, bringing the deep conversation about god and belief back to a level more typical for a light post-training drinking session. But both the deep and the shallow end are pleasant to swim in. We leisurely paddle about in the hotel bar light-lit water, cooling our heads and warming our hearts, learning more about people with similar and very different experiences, learning, growing, dreaming. Until finally, it is time for last orders, and we are forced upstairs and into bed. But I am not too angry, much as I love conversing with my wonderful fellow teachers. The very best part about work are the interesting acquaintances made along the way, and there is no shortage of them. But at some point, the idea of a nice, clean, warm bed opening up its quilted arms to take me in becomes more and more attractive, and it is a special kind of ecstasy sinking into the Hilton hotel bed after last night’s short, light sleep at the Asakusa capsule hotel. Capsule one night, Hilton the next. Big Jump. Living the dream. Zzzzzzzzzzzz.