MY NAME

What is the meaning behind a name? In Japan, apparently, the significance of a name is taken at face value. Last weekend I was hanging out with some bosom buddies and one Japanese friend spotted a strange word scribed on my sketchbook. “Baldry.” Not knowing me as anyone other than “Tayrah”, I tried to give my friend a faithful interpretation of my surname.

Me: “Baldry is a compound word for ball and dry. In America, we use ‘baldry’ to describe someone with significantly dry balls.”

J-Friend: “Honto? (Really?)”

Me: “Yes.”

J-Friend: “Wow. Sugoi (Amazing).”

Me: “Yeah, I have to write this word on of all my belongings so everyone knows that I have unmoisturized testicles. It similar to the Star of David used to identify Jews in Nazi Germany.”

J-Friend: “Taihen datta deshou (That must be tough).”

Me: “It is taihen but the nice thing is that at parties I am a big hit because I can absorb spills with my brittle scrotum.”

J-Friend: “Ehhh? (Holy shit)”

HAPPY FATHER’S DAY

Happy Father’s Day to all of the dads of the world. If your offspring forgot, couldn’t be bothered to do something special for you, or went out of their way to ignore you today, here’s a little something to ease the pain of being a thankless father. It’s a drawing of my dad.

From drawyourdad.com

A SERIES OF PAINTINGS DEPICTING MY FRIEND GORDON AND I IN A LEWD STRETCH COMPETITION ON A TRAIN TO TOKYO BUT OUR BODIES ARE REPLACED BY VARIOUS HAWAIIAN MANGOS

To pass the time during a recent jaunt to Tokyo, my friend Gordon and I held a sexy stretch-off, where, taking turns, we attempted to out-class each other’s risque poses. In the paintings, I chose to render our bodies as mangos because I can’t paint bodies.

KEYWORDS

A glimpse at Gerpan’s site analytics reveal a variety of means through which readers visit the website: many folks know the site url and enter directly, others opt to follow a link from a referring site such as Facebook or Twitter, while most visitors are spambots that trawl the internet seeking susceptible blogs and forums to comment on. While these are all great ways of accessing our content, our favorite way users come to our blog is through keyword searches.

The following is a collection of our favorite Gerpan search engine terms. If you can come up with a more ridiculous key word phrase that leads to Gerpan, we would like to hear it. The best keyword search submission will be rewarded.

bag of dried apricots farts

baby legs 2 japanese footjob

boiled fish paste recipe

english sertificat

gerpam

karate kid kicking wood

long shamelips

my pubic hair changed color purple

liz taylor nipples

avatar areola

na’vi nipples

nipples

sigourney weaver nipple slip

taxidermy fox and chicken

very thin japanese slaves

wearing a thong to the doctors

who said “profanity is the attempt of a lazy and feeble mind to express itself forcefully”"

STAMPS

Many of you may have noticed my recent absence on the blog. Though most of you may not have. In any case, I’ve been on a bit of a travel bender the past month so free time has been scarce. While I feel like I have much to relate from my recent trips, I don’t have the energy this evening. Instead I’ll share a recent conversation that I had with my colleague, Taylor.

ME: “So, how do you reward your students for good work?”
TAYLOR: “Sometimes I give them mushroom stamps. They seem to like getting those.”
ME: “Ha. Gross. But seriously, I need some ideas.”
TAYLOR: “No, really, I give them a mushroom stamp if they answer a question or win at Bingo.”
ME: “Right. Funny. But for real.”
TAYLOR: “What do you mean? I usually give them a stamp on their special stamp card. It’s a stamp that looks like a mushroom.”
ME: “Oh. I thought you meant the other kind of mushroom stamp.”
TAYLOR: “What other kind?”
ME: “Look it up.”
TAYLOR: “… Good lord!”

THE COLOR PURPLE

A friend, Megumi and I went out for dinner the other night. I could tell that she had something important to say when she leaned across the table and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I think,” she paused, checking for eavesdroppers, “I think, my hairdresser might be gay.”

I spat out my green tea in what I thought to be obvious mock disbelief. “Are you serious? You mean your flamboyant hairdresser? How do you know?” I raised my voice at the end and threw my hands in the air for added comic affect — a gesture I use in Japan to punctuate my sarcastic remarks, should there be any room for doubt.

Megumi giggled before replying. Good, I thought, not without excitement. Maybe she’s beginning to understand dry humor.

“Well, he always wears nice clothes and his voice sounds like a woman’s and he always talks about nice clothes.” I nodded my head in agreement but admitted that I was still skeptical. Void of humor, she sounded like a witness testifying at the Nuremberg Trials. Sarcasm I’ve learned, like pubic hair grooming, is largely a foreign concept in Japan.

Two weeks ago I spent some time in South Korea. Despite the countries close proximity, the Korean and Japanese people seem worlds apart. Koreans are laid-back, their youth do not dress like senior citizens or in blackface, and when Koreans smile, it doesn’t look like someone set a grenade off in their mouth. However there is one common thread that ties the two cultures together: their inability to comprehend or detect sarcasm.

While in Korea, I spent a day in a Daegu mountain village with my friend Mike and his ex-pat comrades, Llana, Stephanie, Julie and Julie’s Korean friend, Chen. Chen was a middle-aged loner hell-bent on showing foreigners a good time. He met Julie earlier that day at a subway station when he spotted her eyeing a poster for a festival and offered to take her there as a guide.

We spent the afternoon hiking and afterwards we decided to dine at a local eatery. The owner brought out several appetizer dishes such as kimchi, pickled vegetables and sliced radish dyed purple. I had never seen purple radish before and I joked to Llana that I couldn’t eat anything that was purple, such as prunes, grape-flavored candy or eggplant. Llana laughed politely but Chen took action.

Moments later, a beaming Chen returned with the owner who, in a flurry of apologies, set out fresh plates of white radishes. Chen confessed that he overheard the comment about my no purple diet and didn’t want me to feel left out of eating delicious Korean radishes. Not wanting to make him look the fool, I thanked him for his consideration and sharp ears.

Later in the day, Chen turned to me and inquired why it was that I couldn’t indulge in purple provisions. “Good question Chen,” I said, stalling for an answer. “I guess it goes back to my childhood when I had a birthday party at McDonalds. As we were enjoying our McNuggets and milk shakes, a man showed up in a purple Grimace costume and tried to burn down the building.” Chen stared at me blankly. “Also,” I added, “he popped my purple balloon.”

THE BIG 200

Should old acquaintances be forgot and never brought to mind? No, you just didn`t stumble upon celebrationsongs.org a website designed to promote celebration songs specially tailored for your next party or wedding. No way! This is Gerpan and today we’re celebrating the 200th (cough) post on Gerpan!

To usher in this momentous occasion and to help solidify Gerpan as a permanent member of the social media-neighborhood, (get off our lawn! ) we would like to introduce Gerpan 2.0, Facebook edition!

The old Gerpan will still be here but now you can also keep up to date on the site on Facebook while you search for old classmates, write on a friend’s wall, or quietly weep while you masturbate to an ex’s latest photo upload. It’s up to you!

MAIL CALL: STUBBED BY STUDENTS

Dear Gerpan (and readers!),

Today my adolescent students thought it would be funny to swipe my sphincter with chalk-coated fingers. Good grief! It happens to me every time I walk down the hall. Now the rectal area of my slacks is a rainbow of dusty fingerprints. Ugh! If I had wanted a group of people fingering my butthole, I would have gone to airport security! Or better yet, the Interstate 94 rest stop at 2:30 A.M. Holy moley rocky! I tried to wash out my colorful derrière by splashing my behind with handfuls of sink water in the bathroom. Big mistake! I was forced to creep back to the staffroom with my toosh against the wall so no one would see my wet ass. Think of the explanation I would have to give if someone saw me and I don`t even speak Japanese! What a bunch of malarky!

But seriously, how do I deter my students from goosing me every time I walk to class? I can`t give out detentions, I can`t finger them back and I can`t hit them.

Sincerely,

Frustrated When Fisted

GAIJIN WATCH: FOREIGNER SEEKS WIFE

It’s no secret that many Western men are drawn to Japan due to yellow fever. It’s understandable as normal turn-offs for the ladies back home — such as pasty white skin, social awkwardness, obsessions with female comic-book characters — can actually improve your chances here. Tapping some Far East booty is fairly easy, even if you don’t speak the language. During pre-intercourse courtship you can get by with drunken inarticulates and post-coital conversation can be limited to either “Sex! Good!” and a thumbs-up or making animal noises to cover the awkward, unsatisfied silences. I assumed that for single Western men the allure of Japan was mainly sex, until the day I met Billy.

At first glance I had him pegged as a big, brash American frat-boy but on closer inspection I learned he was Canadian. But beneath Billy’s puka shell necklaces, muscular physique and ill-crafted innuendos, was a soul yearning for something deeper. A sadness pervaded his well-being. This observation came to me after spying him dry-hump a wall, alone, in the corner of a karaoke bar but became much more apparent months later — all thanks to a chance encounter at a bus station.

I hadn’t seen Billy for a while since we first met. He was alone at the station, had grown a thick beard and was completely lost in thought. When I called his name he turned slowly and it took him a second to recognize me. He was, it turned out, preoccupied with one thing.

“So you’re leaving Japan this summer, huh? I’ll be here for another few years yet. I mean there’s only really one reason I’m here and that’s to get married. I want a Japanese wife, man, but right now it’s not going so well. I got a t-shirt made up saying “I love Japanese Girls” but even that didn’t seem to work. Yeah sure every Saturday night I’m cruising the town with my buddy and yeah sure we’re picking up chicks in bars but do they want to marry me? I don’t think so. Then take this other chick. A teacher in my Junior High. Man, I am sweet on her and I know she is on me but we just keep dancing around the issue, you know? The whole marriage issue. In class I can feel the energy but how do I win her heart? I’m asking you, please, how can I find a wife?”

Billy, by the way, is only 25 so the question took me a little off-guard. I was also a bit disturbed by the pleading, almost desperate look in his eye. Struggling for a response all I could say was “just keep wearing the t-shirt” to which he nodded and solemnly resumed his brooding. Lost in thought, he barely noticed when I had left.

Then, about a week ago, he called me.

“Keep this one under your hat but we – Akiko, my teacher and I – are heading to Nagano for the weekend to kind of, you know, test the waters. Oh, by the way, you can have my t-shirt if you want it.”

LEAKY BOTTOM

Admittedly, I don’t follow the news from the States as closely as I should. I’m certainly not one of those expats wishing to cut all ties from their motherland, but I am one of those expats who uses living abroad as an excuse to become increasingly indifferent. I have met plenty of folks living abroad who are filled with contempt for their country. I, on the other hand have, nothing but love, peppered with profound disappointment, for the good old US of A.

The latest news story since the great healthcare debate that has caught and held my attention is the colossally catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has made a right mess and it appears all
efforts thus far to curtail the crisis have been ineffective. Fortunately BP has not run out of ideas, according to recent reports. “If attempts to cap the well fail, BP may try to plug the leak by
shooting debris — shredded tires, golf balls and similar objects – under extremely high pressure into the well’s blowout preventer in an attempt to clog it and stop the leak.”

I’m all about not letting waste go to waste, but is dumping trash into the already contaminated ocean a sound solution? It’s a bit like dousing a fire with asbestos or clogging a leaky damn with a cement
mixture comprised of used baby diapers and broken syringes. I suppose the reality of it is, is that we already have a sea canvassed in Texas tea – what’s a little more rubbish going to hurt? In fact, I think we should be tossing in more trash.

Whether it’s leftover Senior Frog’s t-shirts, or vehicles abandoned by the recently beheaded, Mexico is abundant in refuse. For example, they have dead pit bulls in spades. It’s a no-brainer, really. Anyone who has seen a bloated corpse knows that they are highly absorbent and fur is already being used, in addition to human hair, in the current clean-up efforts. Using raft-building technology borrowed from the Cubans, Haitians and Dominicans, we can float the deceased canines over the spill site, conjoin them with stucco in the shape of a festive mariachi hat and lower the construction to cover the existing ”top hat.” Not only will the spill zone benefit from an additional containment “hat”, but BP can feel like they made good on our southerly neighbors after destroying their namesake bay.

THUS SPOKEN REIKALEIN: THOUGHTS ON ENGLISH TEACHING

I was thinking about my time in Japan the other day, while munching away on my last Matcha Kit-Kat (sad times!), and wondering what I would stock up on when I next go back. Which got me thinking about my friend’s wedding that will be taking place in less than two weeks’ time in Nara. How my mind went from green Kit-Kats and Umeboshi to weddings, I don’t know. Stream-of-consciousness is supposed to be logical, no?

Anyway, the thought process led me to contemplate a Canadian friend and who first moved to Japan as an English teacher in 2003-ish. He intended on staying for “a year or two” and, like a lot of people I know, ended up staying for a good five or six. He met a lovely Japanese lady whom he is marrying in Japan where they will most likely raise their kids. To an extent, my Dad actually belongs to this ilk of gaijin, only he and my Mum had absolutely no initial intentions of getting married, especially since my dear mother was mere 19 when they met. They’ve been happily together for almost 26 years now. Just goes to show we shouldn’t trust our gut instincts.

I met my friend when I was 16 and he was, let’s say, much older than me. As we hung out alot, I’d say he is responsible for introducing me to a great portion of the English-teaching crew I have in mind while writing this post. They were all older than me and seemed so grown up, so I never questioned the notion of English teaching as a career. However, after a year of teaching English, my Canadian friend moved on to a different profession due to the near-to-nothing satisfaction rate of his English-teaching job at a large (and notoriously crap) corporation.

Now that I myself am at the age at which traveling is often assimilated with the concept of settling somewhere temporarily to teach English, I’ve been giving the profession more thought. Many of my friends, especially those who studied languages with me, have wandered off to teach English in various corners of the world. Recently, I read a rather disheartening article about teaching English abroad. It’s a bit old (2004 seems like ages ago now, huh?), but the reality doesn’t seem to have improved all that much in some places (cough, cough, Italy, cough), which really saddens me. Being able to effectively teach any language is a truly valuable asset and yet it often gets shoved into the “part-time job” category, along with bartending and waitressing. I have absolutely nothing against the latter jobs, but if we consider the qualifications required for all three then surely English-teaching ought to be ranked slightly higher in terms of wages (at least at the language establishments that actually require credentials). I mean, you do invest a certain amount of time and money in acquiring these qualifications. Certainly, this should be reflected in your pay cheque.

Ready for an injection of irony? I strongly believe that language teachers, or anyone filling an educational role for that matter, shouldn’t have to feel as though their jobs are not sufficiently financially rewarding, yet I work for the largest language school company in the world and know for a fact that our teachers don’t get a fair deal. I don’t expect to make loads, but the reality is my pay is also relatively poor, for someone living in Switzerland. Why is it that businesses in this sector tend to consistently exploit their workers? Of course almost every company exploits its employees, but I find it particularly disconcerting when it involves education-oriented companies. Personally, when businesses selling products that are designed to be genuinely beneficial to their consumers, as opposed to purely materialistic and essentially superfluous, I can’t help but feel that when the employees are mistreated, the positive image the company portrays is instantly marred and the hard work that goes into providing customers with a truly life-enhancing product goes down the drain.

Anyone care to share their views? Do you teach a language under really good circumstances? Are there some rewarding English teaching jobs that don’t get enough attention? Or do you think you’re under-appreciated?

HONESTY REPORT

At the moment, Gerpan is slowly transforming from an ugly caterpillar into a beautiful, majestic moth. We’d like to know how we’re doing. What do you like? Who don’t you like? What ideas do you have to make Gerpan better?

You can email us or leave a comment. If we don’t hear from you we’ll assume the worse, for which we apologize.