After being in Japan for over two years now, it's kinda easy to forget the seemingly weird situation that I'm in. Just because I speak English, I'm invited to international events to represent my country. I've been asked to do English lessons with people because of my knowledge of medical and scientific terms - my knowledge, which only stems from watching Grey's Anatomy. These so called 'skills' and 'knowledge' that are just things you could find in almost anyone back home, but being a token foreigner in an isolated city makes them oddly in demand.
My token foreigner skills came in handy again for getting an extra English job on Mondays. It involves teaching a small group of 3-4 year olds English for an hour. By "teaching", it involves chasing them around for most of the time getting them to sit down and listen before I sing "London Bridge" or teach them how to play Rock Paper Scissors. And by "an hour", it includes 15 minutes of snack eating time with the kids.
But the weirdest part of my job? I'm doing the lesson at one of the mother's family's temples, because, you know, it's totally normal for a family to have one. At first, I just figured that we were going to be on temple grounds and doing it in some building there, but after going to see it on Monday, I can confirm that it is in fact, inside the actual temple. Unlike most of the famous temples in Japan, which are now reconstructions, this temple is the original building that was built over 400 years ago, and apparently was made for Tokugawa Ieyasu's sister.
So, to sum up, I'm being paid to play with kids in a 400-year temple that was at one stage owned by a family member of one of the most historically significant people in Japan. Yeah, definitely not something that I would normally do back home in Australia.
