Suspicious Characters

At every school, the teachers have a different unofficial smoking area. At Joyo Chu I had to walk across the street, around the corner, and into a park. At Kita, I just had to stand around the corner from the school, and at Higashi, I went down the street a little ways, but I’ve heard rumors that in school there’s a smoking room… something I’ll have to investigate once I return there next week.

At my current school, Nishi, I smoke right outside the school gate. I figure this is a good place to smoke, largely because all the other teachers smoke there. Well, they do when I’m not there. I’ve found that I get different reactions from teachers. The smoking core at Nishi seems to hate or fear me, one of the two. If I am outside smoking and they see me, they either a) stop and turn around or b) walk down to the street and around the corner. If they’re out there before I am, and I try to join them, see b) above. It makes me feel like I have the plague, but that’s ok. All the nonsmokers seem to like me.

Anyway, today I was smoking outside when the vice principal comes running out of the school, out of the gate, and down the street, looking around like a man possessed. He eventually stops, scratches his head, turns around, and finally sees me. Then, he breathes a gigantic sigh of relief, laughs a little, and starts to walk back into school.

Dumbfounded, I stopped his progress and asked him what was wrong. He said that a concerned individual had called the school reporting that a suspicious person was lurking outside of the school gates smoking, and that said person feared for the safety of the students. He immediately went out to investigate, because the safety of the students is primarily the responsibility of the teachers. I know it’s theoretically the same in America, but here it’s different. One teacher has told me that should a suspicious or dangerous person enter school grounds, it is the teachers’ responsibility to essentially bum rush that person, trying to stop them through the sheer wait of numbers. Should a teacher fall, that’s ok, you just keep pressing forward, attacking the suspect.

On the previous subject of the smokers here at Nishi, there’s one teacher who apparently has a large amount of dislike for me. I have no idea why, but he doesn’t make any effort to show it. For example, today during lunch I was sitting with the teachers. When Smoking Douchebag came over, there were several seats open, but only one still had food at it, and as usual it was right next to me. He walked over to the open seat, looked at the food, looked at the empty seats, looked at me, looked at the food, looked at me, frowned, looked at the food, looked at me, then sighing, sat down and attempted to scoot his chair as far away from me as space allowed. This entire process took no longer than two minutes. My response was simple: I moved my chair close to his and attempted to engage him in conversation.