Tokyo schoolboys checking out a poster for Final Fantasy at Shimokitazawa station

"Returnee" is the common term for Japanese people who have lived abroad for a while. For kids from a returnee family, it's a pretty weird time. Some of them come back with almost NO Japanese skills at all (and sometimes no English either - some speak mainly Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, etc), and no understanding of the cultural norms in this highly traditional society. The school where I spend 3 days a week has a great program for these kids, which begins from Grade 4 in the Elementary school and runs through to High School. They are put into intensive kokusai (international) classes for a few years where they are given extra Japanese language & culture lessons as well as English lessons with native speakers. One of my weekly joys is a 2 hour Friday "Oral English" late-afternoon class with 16 Grade 11 and 12 (Ko-ni & Ko-san) returnee kids. These kids have taught me lots about just what it's like to be a teenager in modern Japan thanks to their (reasonably) fluent English skills.

A few weeks ago, Takeaki came to see me with a grimacing smile. He told me that he could only come to the class for half an hour a week from now on because he had just started at a new Juku (cram school for tutoring school subjects) and the only time he could go there was from 4pm Fridays. So we struck a deal. He now writes me a weekly report about his week and comes to see me at lunch time to talk about it (seeing it's supposed to be an oral communication class). He's been back in Japan a while now but lived in the US for a couple of years when he was younger. This is his first report. I thought I would share it with you, verbatim.

I would like to write a diary of this week. First of all, sorry for not joining most part of the OEB class at this term. I'm so sad about this because I love speaking English. And in my life at Japan, there are only a few times to speak English. These are at the OEB class with Martine, and Creative English class with Mr Millen. But I have a University witch I really I really want to go to. I was faced with a tough choice, but I chose to go to the cram school. Please forgive me.

Sorry If you felt unpleasant, but today, I would like to write about the cram school. Because I had no event except for going to cram school this week. Of course, I stayed there for a whole day while the schools entrance exam holiday. I go to three different kinds of cram schools. Two are in Shibuya and the rest one is in Kichijoji, And I go there for six times a week. And if I had no tennis tournament or any other events on Sunday, I stay there for a whole day. I'm exhausting!

Especially, one of the cram school in Shibuya is crazy. It's an English cram school, and they basically teaches us the grammer. Guess how long the class is. It's six hours!!! So when I'm back home, it's sometimes past twelve at night. I often talked by a police. By the way, I usually writes English in script, but my English teacher in cram school told me not to. According to him, most university doesn't mark the English test written in script. Can you believe it? I feel a discomfort in writing this way [printing]. Anyway, I will do my best.

Such is the life of a fairly typical Japanese High School kid.