We Live Where We Are

Are You Happy? Why?

There's a dead heat stalking me in the teacher's room. The windows are open but there's no wind. Rivulets of sweat are running down the cleft in my back to other clefts that need not be mentioned. The rainy season has gone, leaving as its sole remnant a vaporous humidity that frazzles hair, darkens underarms, and makes the peels of our bananas curl back in horror. The Japanese summer is upon us.

These next two and a half weeks will be a mad-hatter rush to clear out our apartment, pack out belongings, and say our farewells. The goodbyes have already started. Last week at Mukaiyama SHS, my visit school, I gave a farewell speech to the student body, assembled and collectively withered outside after a long and electrolyte-draining sports day. My introduction speech two years ago was largely greeted with silence, an inland sea of black-haired faces giving me the not-quite-evil-but-certainly-shy-of-benevolent eye. This time was different. I opened with the obligatory physical joke about being too tall for the microphone. My feigned awkwardness drew a roar of laughter, a response I hadn't really anticipated. I sometimes have a hard time telling what students consider funny. I've learned that sarcasm simply doesn't fly, but slapstick is gold, the more juvenile, the better. I hadn't prepared a speech, so after I got their attention I just winged it. The students' response was amazing. They cheered several times, clapped, and at the end the student body president came forward and presented me with an enormous bouquet that later drew curious stares as I was riding home on the bus.

I've already had my final lesson with many of my classes. Knowing that most of the students won't have another chance to talk with me, I've had each of them write a single question on a slip of paper and submit it anonymously. At the end of class I try to answer as many of the questions as I can. By far, the three most common questions have been "Why are you so tall?", "How did you meet your wife?", and "What did you say when you proposed to your wife?" Here are some of the more interesting or, in some cases, inexplicable questions:

Are you happy? Why?
Who is your favolite chalacter in Street Fighter II?
How much are you loving your wife?
Will you marry your wife again in the next world?
Having traveled around the world by swimming, what do you do how to swim?
I love you. Have you had a flight in your nose?
What do you want to do if you were an invisible man?
Who is the most pretty girl in this class?
Am I a good boy?
If you were a woman, do you think you would fall in love with you just now?
Which do you want to kiss, the cutest boy or the plainest girl?
When was your's first love? And please tell us that detailed story as possible as you can!