A weird thing happened today. I went to a class I wasn't scheduled for to help the teacher finish the interviews we'd started earlier in the week. When we were done she was going to do some boring textbook stuff so she said I could leave. As I was walking down the hall I heard someone speaking English in one of the other classrooms. Speaking it very clearly & quickly, not the way a Japanese person would. Besides which, I knew where the English teacher was, I'd just left her.
So I stuck my head in. It was my favorite 1st grade homeroom after all, they wouldn't mind. The P.E. coach was showing them a video since it was a rainy day & nearly a third of the class was out sick anyway. It was a tape of an NBA game. How old I couldn't say. The Wizards & the Hawks, I think it was. I don't particularly like basketball so I couldn't really tell you anything about them, except that Michael Jordan was in the video.
The teacher didn't notice me for a while, but of course the kids did & they kept glancing back now & then to see if I was still there. I stayed until almost the end of class watching it with them. The funny thing is, I really don't like basketball at all. My dad & brother love it, & so do a couple of my friends but for me it's currently (and pretty much always has been) my least favorite of the big 4. Baseball being #1 of course & hockey being #2 since there's skating involved. It was cold & I was standing in the doorway, but I couldn't bring myself to leave. I was more focused on that game than the newest Gundam 00 epsiode.
About 10 minutes into it I realized there was someone speaking Japanese on the tape too. I'd naturally tuned in to my native language without realizing anything else was even there. I'd stood there the entire time thinking how interesting it was that the coach chose to show the kids something in English & wondering if maybe it was easier for them to get something out of if they were more focused on watching the players since they couldn't understand the commentary. I'd completely missed the Japanese overlay as I debated what I would tell them if one of them asked me if I could understand what was being said.
From that point on it was a struggle to hear only one language at a time. Once I was aware that two people were speaking it became impossible to separate the sounds from each other, but I still couldn't leave the room. I wanted so badly to zero in on that familiar, rough, American voice again that I even closed my eyes for a while. But it was too late. I began to hear a mixture of English & Japanese words that made no sense at all when put together.
Instead of leaving, I opened my eyes & watched. I can't say I got any more love for the game out of it, but I saw the way the kids looked at it, awestruck, & tried to see it through their eyes. Imagined what it must be like to be a 13 year old Japanese girl & see all those tall, muscular, bald black men playing a sport in an arena cheered on by thousands of tall, noisy white people. Somehow I'm starting to get why they think we're so cool.
