How bizarre?

Last night,I had trouble sleeping and lay in the dark thinking about everything and anything.And for some reason,I suddenly remembered the oddest thing I have ever had in my working career here in Japan.And this makes the NTT telephone answering competition judging stint I did for 2 consecutive years look quite normal.

It was a summer a year or so after Kenichi and I got married when I was summoned out of the blue to the Board of Education office.They are my official employers so it was obviously a work related matter so I trotted along from school to see what they wanted.I could have never imagined what was to come.I was taken to a small meeting room where my boss of the time(a dreadful character may I say) was waiting with a couple of black suited men.I was introduced and the men gave me their business cards and the meeting began.It was a bit confusing as they were so vague in what they were discussing and although it was obvious that I was involved(doh,why else would I be there?) but also very obvious that my boss had been discussing things with them prior to my arrival and that this was basically the end of the meeting and that plans had been made.I got the jist that the visitors were from a school and wanted me to make a speech.But no mention of the subject matter was made.Then as abruptly as it began,it was over.Lots of grunts and nods and my hand was shaken warmly and they asked to take a photo of me.

Once they had left,I asked my boss WTF it had all been about.Then he dropped the bombshell.It seemed that the men were the Principal and head teacher of the biggest agricultural high school in the prefecture.That coming autumn,the school was celebrating it's 100th anniversary and part of the celebrations was a series of lectures and panel discussion about farming in foreign countries.And that the school had been looking for young participants from Europe to lecture the students and join the fore mentioned panel discussion.My heart nearly stopped as my boss went on to say that the school had telephoned every Board of Education office in the bloody prefecture and were delighted when they found the perfect partcipant....Yes,indeed.My boss had received the call and said that of course,M would do the honours as her parents in law are farmers here in Japan so she knows lots about farming.BASTARD!!!

So,that was that and the meeting had been to confirm everything.My boss told me that the lecture was to be half an hour in length,all about British farming and also about the problem of BSE.And the speech was to be in Japanese as would be the hour long panel discussion.OMG.

So,I did the only thing I could do.I called my dad in a major panic.And he did what I had hoped he would do...he offered to write the speech for me and to research everything.Bless him.A few weeks later,I received the speech and it was LONG.It was very technical and very detailed and I learned lots of things about farming in Britain and about the BSE crisis.And I also learned lots of new words.

Then came the really tough part.I had to translate this speech into Japanese.Kenichi was my second knight in shining armour(dad being the first).We spent hours and hours translating words,phrases and sentences that I had try and understand in English before explaining them to Kenichi in order for him to make sense of it and write the Japanese.As we were both working,the only time we could work on the speech was in the evenings.When we were tired already.But it had to be done.And after a few weeks,it was.And we didn't kill each other....

But then came the next barrier.I had to practice reading the damn thing.And all those new words and phrases in Japanese.So many tongue twisters and so much technical stuff.It took many many more hours and even then,I sounded like a bored robot spewing out a load of sounds that had little or no meaning.

The day of the big event came and we had to leave home at some dreadful hour of the morning to get to the school which was 3 hours away by 9am with time to spare in case anything went wrong.After our arrival,Kenichi left me as I went to meet my fellow panelists and get the low down on the morning.My memory is vague at this point but I do remember sitting on the stage looking important and feeling like the total fraud I was .Then the curtains went up .In front of us sat over 1,000 very bored looking boys between the ages of 15 and 18,obviously not at all titillated at the thought of spending a the next few hours hearing about farming around the world,a large number of OB's, parents,random dignitaries and my dear husband sitting right at the back of the gymnasium with a massive grin on his face enjoying every moment of my humiliation.

There were,I think,5 or 6 panelists and I was the last to speak.The others were from Asian countries and knew their stuff as they were studying agriculture or had there own farms etc.But the lectures were seriously boring.I spent most of the time trying to look interested,trying not to yawn and wondering if it would be a bad idea just to get up to and flee.The guy before me from Korea seemed very laid back about the situation and when it came to his turn,I knew why.He had a bloody translator with him so just rattled off bit and waited for the hapless translator to do his thing.I couldn't believe it...this guy had a fricking translator so why not me??It came to light afterwards that my bastard boss had told the school that I didn't need a translator as my Japanese was good enough.That was the final straw and I never spoke to him again unless I had to.Seriously.

So,at last it was my turn at last.I got up to the lectern and just machine gunned my way through the whole thing.Forget feeling and intonation.No sirree,I wanted to finish this thing as fast as I could.Half an hour later,the deed was done and Kenichi swears that it was understandable and made sense but I don't believe him for a second.Come on,I was supposed to know what I was reading yet didn't understand a word of what I had just rattled off.But I still to this day know how to say BSE in Japanese.

After that,we still had the panel discussion to go.And that was fun,er,NOT.Everyone knew what they were talking about...except me.All these complicated questions about this,that and another.I didn't have a clue but they always made sure they called upon each panelist for their opinion.So I just agreed with however was before me and if not,blatantly lied.It was then that I realised that this was quite fun.I just said what I wanted to and it was all so tongue in cheek but only Kenichi seemed to realise what was happening.The only bit I can recall is when they were very seriously discussing pest control and the use of Eco-friendly ways of dealing with the problem.I took over that bit by saying that in Britain,each farmer has hundreds of specially bred cats to deal with the problem and that the cats not only control the venom but also love crunching on all those pesky insects too.And that lead to a very animated discussion about the use of snakes in some rural areas of Indonesia and all sorts of fun ways to kill the local rat population.

And then it was all over.I was elated..It was all over and to top it all,I was given a nice fat wad of money(40,000 yen) and a collection of produce that the students had grown and things they had made including jams,biscuits and best of all,a big old bottle of some mystery wine.We drove back home in high spirits feeling so carefree and polished off the wine and spent hours have a good cackle at how ridiculous the entire affair had been but what fun it had been for me to blindly take part in a discussion about something I knew,and still know bugger all about.

The other day I found the original speech that dad wrote for me.Which must have triggered my memories last night.So if anyone out there ever needs to give a lecture about farming in the UK and the BSE crisis,do let me know and we can come to an understanding;)