Those of you who know me probably do not think of me as a great self-promoter.  I don’t feel particularly comfortable tooting my own horn in the hopes of drumming up business but a dwindling bank account is changing that.  Satomi and I have been in Japan almost five months and we haven’t made as much money as I was accustomed to making in just a few days in my previous incarnation as a salaried employee.  That isn’t to say that  we haven’t labored hard on most days.  It’s just that when you volunteer your help you don’t get paid.  We knew that coming in but we expected that there would be lulls in our volunteer labors when we could make some dough.  Finally those lulls have come.  We are down to three days a week of work on the orange farm and with our readily available cash at a level that I figure will last us fewer weeks than I have digits on my two hands, I would call the times desperate-ish.  And, desperate-ish times call for me to get off of my modesty-horse and drum up some business.

I came to Japan with a (very) basic business idea:  Teach yoga and teach English and pay the bills. Granted, my MBA friends might not consider that a business plan but we have taken at least one step down the road to a business.  As faithful blog readers may remember, we rented a house well suited for me to teach both yoga and English.  Add to that the fact that I am fairly proficient in both of those arenas and success seems imminent…if I can get some students.  Like most first time very-small-business-people who want to make a career out of offering a service that they enjoying giving, I hoped deep deep down in my self-promotion-fearing soul that I could just dream up some good classes, let a few people know what I was up to and BINGO…the money would roll in.  My practical self knew and still knows that that isn’t true so I did what others of my ilk would probably do as well.  I decided on a class that I wanted to teach: Let’s Talk About Animals (for 5th and 6th grade students).  I planned the class (an it’s going to be really good!) and picked the price.  Using my best Japanese I made a flyer that I hoped would win the hearts and pocketbooks of my fellow townspeople. Next, I showed the flyer to Satomi.  She gave me a few grammar and vocabulary fixes but nothing major and I thought I was ready to go.  After printing up a few copies I was ready to start conquering the world of elementary school ESL but before I could run into the street to foist my flyer into the hands of the unsuspecting, Satomi pulled me aside and said, “don’t give those to anyone!”  It turns out she was just being a supportive wife when she showed approval of my original flyer. I sincerely thank her for that.  I also thank her for stopping me in my haste.  Apparently, my third grade Japanese was fine for around the house but is bound to call my intellectual capacity into question.  Not a good thing to do when you want work that is aimed at imparting brilliant wisdom to young minds.  So, Satomi rewrote my flyer and I was ready to go.

I gave a few flyers to people I know around town.  Dropping one off at the agricultural co-op caused quite a stir.  Excellent, I thought.  People are interested.  Farmer’s have kids.  Ka-ching with a side order of good karma for helping the people of the world communicate a little bit more easily.  Now, all I would have to do is sit by the phone an wait for it to ring.  The phone didn’t ring.  The next time I was at the co-op people were still talking about my flyer.  They all loved the career bio that Satomi added to pique people’s interest.  No one mentioned my class. One man asked, after reading that I teach yoga as well as English, “is yoga like Akido?”.  I said, “not really.”  He said, “oh, yoga is more like this,” and proceeded to twist his arms together in a way that made me worried that he might break something.  I think he was trying to look like one of those statues from India of the dancing Shiva.  It’s also possible that he had yoga mixed up with having a brain aneurism or traumatic head injury.  This exchange made me think that maybe I should go directly to the people I hope to serve (or wite a book about my life and sell it at the co-op).  Vowing to skip the middleman and make a personal connection with the people who I want to teach (or at least the people who value their children’s education) I did what anybody else in my situation would do.  I printed out twenty more copies of my flyer to go with the ones I already had and put them in a very nice clear folder and set folder on the table by my front door.  Still the phone didn’t ring.

“Time to bring my ‘A’ game!”.  I did what I should have done in the first place.  I decided to get out and meet some people and ask them, “are there any message boards in town where I can post a flyer?”.  With my shiny clear folder chock full of flyers, I headed out.  First stop was the community center where I know the woman who runs the weight room.  She happily posted my flyer.  I should have been doing this all along.  It’s soooo easy!  Next I decided to stop at the town’s education division. My Japanese boss from ten years ago when I lived in Japan (in a town about 45 minutes from where I live now) had asked me to stop and introduce myself to his friend who is my current town’s Education Chief.  Maybe he could give me some hints on where to hang flyers.  To the town office I went and stated my purpose and was quickly ushered in to see the Education Chief.  He was really nice and suggested that I go to the schools to “play” with the children sometimes, presumably free.  All in all that exchange was a wash.  On my way out I asked one of the Education department’s employees, who happened to be wearing an eye patch that was skin tone in order to be less visible but that had the effect of causing me to feel a little queasy, if there was a message board in the building where I could hang a flyer.  A very polite answer of “no” was given and, undaunted, I headed off to the library.  Turns out that I couldn’t hang my flyer at the library because I wanted to charge money.  Only flyers for free events can be posted.  But the cute ladies who work there asked for flyers so they could let people know but I think that they were really interested in my bio.  This was getting to be like work.  I wonder if they would by bio if it were published as a book?  The stop wasn’t entirely a waste of time though, Satomi had ordered a book from another library and I picked it up while I was there.

Back to the drawing board.  After some thinking about what approach to try next, I was was down to two alternatives.  The one that I really wanted to do would let me stay home, listen to some music, and have people knocking at my door in no time.  The other would mean that I would need to talk to people and sell my vision.  In the end I chose to promote my vision even though my other idea of meditating until I was able to manifest  a gaggle of paying customers was amazingly appealing.

Out the door I went to bring honor and earnings to my poor humble home.  It occurred to me that if I want to teach elementary school students then maybe I should just go to the elementary school and hand out flyers as the students leave school.  It was getting close to 3pm as I walked to the school.  My guess was that just after 3pm the school doors would open and a throng of potential enrollees would rush toward me.  I would say, “hi”, in English, dazzle them with my charisma and witty charm, give them my flyer, and they would run home begging their mothers to call and reserve them a spot while there is still space available.  At 3pm the school doors did open and twelve very small students ran out the door and began twirling their back packs around in circles.  It was very cute and they seemed very happy but they weren’t my demographic. I waited and waited and the twelve students twirled and twirled.  Eventually, another twenty or so young students came out into the school yard.  Some twirled, some ran around and did this disturbing thing called “kancho” that Japanese students love to do.  “Kancho” means enema (I think) and the students poke their fingers at other students butts.  The reality is much worse than my description.  It is beyond super duper not cool. One kid picked his nose or at least it looked like it from where I was standing.  Time passed and the rest of the students finally came out but no one was leaving school.  Was some danger lurking?  The thought passed through my mind that maybe someone had reported a suspicious foreigner in the neighborhood and the authorities had been alerted.  Maybe it was just a matter of time before I was handcuffed and hauled off for questioning.  Maybe they would throw a jacket over my head so that the TV cameras couldn’t get a look at my face.  Judging by the video on Japanese news shows, they always do that.  I don’t know if they do it to protect the identity of the person in case they are innocent or what.  But, I like it.  It adds mystery.  I wondered if the saying, “there is no such thing as bad publicity,” applied to foreigners living in Japan who hoped to work with children.  Eventually, the teachers came out to the school yard as well and none of them even threw a glance my way so I was probably not the cause of the day’s delay.  The students all lined up by what I could only guess was class.  Both the teachers and students stood at attention while a man, who I guessed was the principle, began talking.  It was a little windy so I couldn’t hear what he was saying and even if I could have heard there is a sizable chance that I wouldn’t have understood anyway.  I was starting to get a bit worried about looking like a dangerous pervert.  A woman in a Japanese pick-up truck had driven by a couple of times and I felt like her gaze was getting colder with each pass.  I decided no to find out if bad publicity is bad in Japan. My intuition said to call it a day, at least at school.  That would be an adventure for another day.

I looked at my shiny folder of brochures and knew that if I went home without giving out any flyers I would feel like a loser and that my wife would emotively and verbally confirm my loserness.  “Start with something easy,” I told myself.  In that spirit I left a flyer on the counter of an empty laundromat.  One down, literally.  With the ice broken I had a little more confidence.  I stopped in the dentist office.  I have seen the teeth of Japanese people and know that they spend plenty of time at the dentist starting from an early age.  Despite the fact that I forgot to take of my shoes and put on slippers before entering the office, they let me put my flyer in with the magazines.  Next, I tried the local drug store.  Satomi and I sometimes go there and use their shipping service to send oranges to various parts of Japan.  Initially, I just asked if there were any message boards in the area where I could hang my flyer but I got more than I asked for.  The clerk was really nice and said that she would hang it on the front door.  Things were looking up.  From there things continued smoothly.  I knocked on some doors where I knew kids lived and talked to their mothers.  Somebody said that they would see about getting my flyer to the PTA. It was actually fun.  The mothers had questions about the class and if it was possible for other ages to come, would I do private lessons and so on.  I even offered a neighborhood discount to one family. Maybe I do have a drop or two of business acumen.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that things will work out but just in case I might spend a few minutes meditating in hopes of manifesting success on the astral plane and hope that success trickles down to my bank account.