Chatty Cafe Staff Drive Me Batty

    Being a freelance conversational English teacher in Japan involves a lot of time spent in community centers and cafes. Sometimes I find myself teaching at diners or small restaurants at the behest of my students, who generally call the shots for placement. I give them my time and knowledge of the language and they get to pick the venue in which it is delivered. 98% of the time, this had worked just fine for me with students tending to pick nice quiet locales with minimal interference and decent coffee and food.

    Every once in a while, something goes amiss. Back in December, a class with an older student of lower fluency happened to occur on a day when all of our usual cafes were closed and we instead popped into a shop a little smaller than the living and dining area in my 3LDK apartment.

    A cheerful smile greeted us from behind the counter as we came in to take two seats at the bar. We picked our lunches from the menu while the owner chatted in Japanese with my student, who chatted back happily. Eventually we got to our brief lesson based on what my student had prepared as homework. Then, in the class time that was usually occupied by brief casual forays into English small talk, there came more chatting with the cheerful owner.

    My student seemed happy with this arrangement so I went along with it. She is paying for my time. If she chooses to use it chatting with someone else in Japanese, that is her choice.

    As I realized I wasn't going to be doing my normal job over this working lunch, I started to tune into the Japanese conversation and noticed the owner repeating this odd katakana phrase which I suddenly realized was the family name of an older man whom I used to work with. He has since moved away from Sendai with his wife and grown daughters, one of whom is apparently making waves in the entertainment field. It turns out that the owner is friends with my former colleague's wife.

    Under the misguided impression that I was also part of the conversation, I decided to tell them about this, out loud and in Japanese. While my vocabulary is on the low side, my fluency is intermediate and I was sure of the words I was saying. "I know her dad. We used to work together. He's from California." isn't actually beyond me.

    Nevertheless I was greeted by a blank expression on the owner, who turned to ask my student what on Earth I might be talking about. My student then said that I must be mentioning California because I am from there, so the owner responded by commenting on how nice it must be to live in California.

    I am not now nor have ever been from the state of California. Even people who have never been to the US usually get that Texas and California are not the same place, and one of the first things my students learn about me usually is my state of origin. This student had even brought an atlas to an early class so I could point it out to her exactly, yet in front of this stranger, all of that knowledge disappeared, just like the meaning my spoken words had held.

    "I've never lived in California," I said in Japanese, cheeks going red as I fell silent for the rest of the class.

    I spent some time later contemplating how to handle the situation with friends suggesting various solutions including my choosing of the weekly spot for class. Not being able to find a reliable place near my home, I gave up and let the class continue as it had been. The next few lessons saw us visiting out normal locales and everything was going a little better until the day in mid-February when we returned to the chatty cafe.

    This time, I endeavored not to engage with them in Japanese, speaking to the owner only in response to questions directed at me and trying my best with the five minutes of live-action proof-reading that I got to perform for my student in English. At the end of the day, I still got paid for my time and got a meal out of the deal.
    

    What I learned from this encounter is that not everyone needs to know if you have anything to add to a conversation. When the job is teaching English, it can be better to just feign complete ignorance of other languages, especially if no one is actually talking to you anyway. Sometimes it is better to just do the bare minimum of what polite society calls for.