Namflow

There's Always Someone Cooler Than You

So I've been at my high school here in Japan for 2.5 years now. At first I was kinda shy but I've slowly climbed my way up the popularity ladder. Now all the students, both boys and girls, think I'm awesome. They say "Hi!" and wave to me in the halls, they give me a standing ovation when I come to class, the girls think I'm cute and funny while the boys think I'm badass, girls run up and try to give me a hug and if I make eye contact with them too long they're like "Yabai! (it's dangerous!) like in a 'omfg he's hot' kinda way). If I say anything in Japanese they all laugh and are happy. All and all I've never had so much attention in my life. Until one day...

Matsuda Sensei, the noob sensei of the school who everyone hates, comes up to me and puts a piece of paper on my desk.

"Do you know who this is?" I looked at the paper and saw what looked like an application and a passport sized photo.
"Nope, should I?" was my response.
She said, "He is an exchange student. He is from Australia. He is coming to our school."
"Oh really, when is he coming?"
"Next Monday... he will stay for one year."

Over the next few days I began to hear about this exchange student. He was Australian, 18, and supposdly fluent in Japanese. So I began to think to myself, "Nah his Japanese can't be that good. I know friends who studied more than me in college and have had home stays here but don't have that good Japanese. There's no way an 18 year old can be fluent. And he won't be that popular. I mean I go to all the classes, he's only going to be in one! Plus I'm older and I'm a teacher, he's only going to be just another student..." I kept rationalizing to myself how my spot as #1 alpha male gaijin in the school would be safe.

Then came Monday. He arrived at 7th period and I met him in the teacher's room. He was taller than me, blonde, and tan. If I had to say he looked like any one person it would be Blaine, the Australian surfer Barbie dumped Ken for.

Artistic representation of the enemy, if he were a Barbie doll

Anyways, I introduce myself, and I began to talk with the guy to see what's up when I hear "KAKKOII!!!!!!!" (COOOOOL!!!) and out of the side of my vision I see some of my girl students waving. But they weren't waving to me, oh no - they were waving to him. And they told him in their broken English "You are handsome. You are cool."

Then we made our way from the teacher's office down to his homeroom. Every single girl in the school creamed their panties when they saw him. I've never seen anything like it. Take some cliched scene from an anime where some cool guy walks around and all the Japanese schoolgirls fawn over him, multiple it by 1000 billion, and then make it real. It was like a train and he was the leader, everywhere he went more and more students followed. In this minute walk from the teacher's room to homeroom 1-4 Michael got more positive attention from girls than I've ever gotten in my entire life.

After that there was his welcome party. and all the students introduced themselves in English. The girls were sooooo embarassed and shy they could hardly walk to go to him to shake his hand, it was downright embarassing. Then he introduced himself in Japanese, and after he said two words the whole crowd was like "OMFG HE CAN SPEAK JAPANESE!!!! OMFGOMFGOMFG!!!" Needless to say he's a bit popular.

So after the party was over it was picture time, and his whole homeroom got together and I took a picture of them all. It was quite symbolic really, I wasn't in the picture but was asked to take it, and as I was like "one two three" the girls did a little chant and impromptu dance to the syllabils of Micahe's name as they chanted out like "Mi-cha-ru" with a little hand dance, and as I took the picture I caught the very moment in time that Micahel ch0wnd the attention of all the girls, the whole school, and my alpha status as awesome and only gaijin in town for no other reason than he's blonde, tan, and tall.

Today I saw Hasegawa Sensei, the teacher with perhaps the best English and most certainly the best attitude, and he says to me he says, "The way the girls act when they see Micahel, I just want to hit them! All they do is see him and scream. Why didn't any girls scream when you first came to this school?"

What a very good question indeed.