It was my first day at a new school. Not only that but I was starting in the middle of the year. And it was a new country for me; I had just arrived. Greeted by snow and civil, gentle people speaking in a tongue I was unaccustomed to. The school, however, was an international one and English was the main language. Not Australian English, though.
I was from the bush, on the edge of Sydney, and a week earlier I was sitting in my old school, The Bush School, Wahroonga Public. Hand built, wooden shack style classrooms. I had only recently been shown a map of the world. I was used to running around barefoot, playing in the creek, climbing cliffs and avoiding venomous snakes. Now I was in one of the biggest, busiest cities in the world, sitting with a bunch of strangers from a variety of nations. Sons of diplomats, businessmen, wealthy families.
Where was Dom, from down the road? Jane Lumby, my very first crush? Mr. Harding, my fourth grade teacher - the kindest, warmest teacher I had met? Do they even have Twisties in this country? (No.) The school is massive! Multiple buildings of multiple stories. And everyone is dressed so formally! A tie? A jacket? Seems excessive. I’m a singlet kid. My hair is long-ish, I like being outside - playing. This all seems a bit serious all of a sudden. And now everyone is staring at me. I have been asked a question.
The new kid. Everyone is curious.
“Do they play basketball in Australia?”
I had seen the gymnasium earlier. It was humongous. This school was big on sports, competitiveness in general. We used to play chasings and the game with the four squares drawn in chalk and a tennis ball, but that was about it.
I must have seemed a little vague. I felt slightly overwhelmed. I knew my two brothers were out there somewhere in classrooms of their own, facing challenges of their own - but I doubt I could have found them in the sprawl. I didn’t like that feeling. As the eldest, I was protective of them. Liked to know where they were. And my parents. They had dropped us off - in a bright orange taxi. One that had an automatically opening back door. That was cool. But the driver did not speak a word of English. Luckily, my father had memorised three key place names - coordinates between where we were and where we were headed.
Tengenji. Furukawabashi. Isarago.
Maybe one day, I would need this knowledge myself. I learnt the sequence, speaking it to myself over and over, like a rhyme. Every morning my parents would accompany us in a taxi, drop us off and then carry on to the office - where my father’s business was. Before we arrived in Tokyo, he had slept there, on the floor on a futon. Getting things set up. He had convinced a select number of Australian companies - a glass manufacturer, a chemical company, an envelope company - to give him seed money in exchange for representation in this exciting, rapidly growing new economy. He and my Mum had already taken the time to do an intensive course in Japanese language at ANU in Canberra in preparation. As well, he had visited Japan before, as part of a team representing his father’s chemical company. He had seen opportunity there, connected with the culture, appreciated the people. After all, they were in many ways like him. Thoughtful, considerate, forward looking.
So there I was, just a few days in to what was initially planned to be a two or three year adventure but turned into a protracted stay that would last two decades and shape and nourish my family and myself in untold ways. But this was still week one. I didn’t even really attempt to grasp what was happening and how things may unfold. I was just taking it a day at a time. It was exotic, novel, abuzz.
“Do they play basketball in Australia?”
It was the teacher asking me. Attempting to welcome me into the fold. Find out more from the sprightly but shy Aussie kid - probably the first that any of them had ever met. His accent was heavily American, a drawl. The school was populated by 50 different nationalities but the academic system was the American one. Many of the teachers were Canadian. Catholic brothers. And the majority of the other students were American.
I wasn’t sure. Some kids threw out explanations, mimicked ball bouncing, shooting for the hoop. I got it. Must be netball. I had seen girls playing back at school in Wahroonga. But only girls. So I told them.
“Yeah, only girls...”
But because I was a little Aussie and my accent must have been broad it came out sounding indecipherable to them. A mass ‘huh?!”
“Gills.”
What? Huh? Giggles, echoing.
“Only gills.”
It was an all boys school. Netball was for girls. Wasn’t it obvious? Why wouldn’t they even already know that? And why couldn’t they understand me. There are only two sexes in the world. Males and females. We were all male. Surely they knew about girls. (Though I hadn’t seen any there.) I was confused but persistent.
“Gills, gills...”
It became kind of absurd. A guessing game. Lots of kids were laughing, shouting out speculations. Mr Potter was determined to get to the bottom of it.
“Is that a sport in Australia?”
“No! Gills. Only gills play it.”
Blank faces. Giggling.
The whole thing had gone from being a simple question to a minor international incident. The flow of the class had been disrupted. I felt out of place, indeed, I briefly questioned my entire grasp of and understanding of reality. There are women in this world, right? I saw some on the way here in the taxi!
Tengenji. Furukawabashi. Isarago.
Gills! Gills! Gills!
I couldn’t quite work out how to explain them.
Then finally, I figured it out. Since they are too complex, mysterious to define, I can say what they are not.
“Not boys. Boys don’t play it....”
Instantly a bright flash of light, comprehension illuminated the room and all in it. The puzzle had been solved.
“Oh, grrrrrrrrls! Grrrrrrrrrrls!”
“Yeah.” I meekly shrugged. Like, obviously. What a saga!
Everyone clapped and laughed raucously.
Then the energy moved on. I was relieved. First test passed. A thousand more to come. The adventure had just begun.
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