ALT Gossip

News travels fast in the school community. You tell someone something and the next minute some teacher at another school is asking questions about it.

Just the other day I went to play tennis with a teacher I made friends with some time ago. There was the usual crowd of tennis playing teachers from different schools. I recognised one teacher from the first school I ever worked at in Japan.

So, this one teacher got talking to me about the ALT who lives not far from me. I don't know anything about her really. I see her sometimes with her boyfriend but we only exchange pleasantries. The teacher went on to tell me that this ALT is getting married soon, he tells me all about her fiance and even where they first met. I mean come on, this is too much.

I wonder if the same gossip flies around about normal Japanese teachers or whether there is a special interest in the foreign teachers. You have to be very careful about what you tell people.

Comments

[Roy]

Is that mostly foreigners gossiping about foreigners or foreigners gossiping about japanese or japanese gossiping about foreigners or japanese gossiping about japanese?

I think people gossip most about others that they feel they don't really run into that often. Maybe in your setting that kind of casual acquaintance is common. In other work places where everyone knows everyone else there's not as much gossip as everything is usually common knowledge.

[Darren]

It is that most Japanese teachers like to gossip about the foreign teachers in particular. Actually, I knew the answer to this question before writing this post.

I don't doubt for a minute that gossip about each other spreads like wild-fire but there is something very interesting about the foreign people who stick out so obviously in the teacher's room.

[Rick]

I have sort of a different take on it. Japanese teachers at school are always at a loss for subjects of conversation when it comes to talking with "the foreign guy" in the teachers room (or in your case the tennis court). I think most of have an urge to talk to you. Why? Because you're probably the only person in the teachers room they haven't had a really good conversation with and you look so darn friendly just smiling all the time whenever you don't understand whats going on. But other than "What Japanese food do you like" or "Do you eat natto?" The most natural thing to talk about is things that you have in common. Or more interestingly, people you have in common. In which case between a foreign teacher and a Japanese teacher, the only people they have in common that they think you know well is...the other foreign teacher. So they try to have a fun conversation and share everything and anything they know about John or Jane Friendly.

I'm sure you've never heard them start their story about foreign teachers with the words, "Ooooh, guess what I heard about John!" or "You gotta hear the dirt I got on Jane!"

News certainly does travel fast. But I don't think that talking about mutual friends is necessarily gossip especially when it's public information. Try spending a day with any of your bestfriends and try to not talk about anyone else at all. Conversation flows from one subject to the next naturally through common interests. A lot of the time it's people and events that make that up. Just my 2 cents.

p.s.- When i say "you", I don't mean YOU in particular. Just foreign people etc.

[Darren]

It's interesting how you managed to make yourself sound like a Japanese person in the staffroom.

Actually, this guy normally just ignores me and isn't interested in conversation. I think you've met him before, actually.

I am talking more generally about what the Japanese teachers discuss between themselves, not to you (I know in my example I was involved in the conversation).

I've heard many stories where ALTs know that other people are plainly gossiping about them behind their backs because the teachers wrongly assess the ALTs' Japanese ability.

Yes, talk is inevitable. Whether we like it or not I think we are 'interesting' subject material to talk about.