Is Limerick the capital? Is our national symbol a lion? The Irish in Japan on the JET programme do a lot more than teach English - they educate youngsters about our culture and many go on to work in Japanese-related jobs, writes David McNeill
Robert Dobbins is a long way from home in Enniskillen. "Is the population of Ireland 3.8 million, 38 million or 128 million?" he asks.
Foreheads corrugate under 40 jet-black heads before pencils scratch across paper. About a third circle 128 million.
It's multiple-choice time for the students at Omia Technical High School in Saitama, Japan, and the subject is The Oul Sod.
"What's the capital of Ireland: Limerick or Dublin?" he asks, and looking at the answers, it's just as well we're a 14-hour flight away from the nearest sensitive Dub.
"Is the national symbol of Ireland the lion, the shamrock or the geisha?" One youngster circles geisha. "Are you serious?" I ask him.
"No, I'm just joking. I know it's the lion," he says, smiling sweetly.
When Dobbins tells the class that the legal age for drinking in Ireland is not 25 or 20, but 18, there are gasps of "wakai ne!" It's so young! But that's nothing to their surprise when he says his sister dyes her hair black, even though she's a blond. "Shinjirarenai." Unbelievable.
By the time they graduate from high school, many of these 15 to 16 year olds will have done exactly the opposite.
Dobbins is one of about 100 Irish currently enrolled in the Japan English Teaching (JET) programme, an ambitious effort launched in 1987 to boost the country's poor foreign language skills and "internationalise" homogeneous Japanese society.
Most of the JET teachers come from the US, Britain and Australia, countries that for one reason or another figure more prominently in the Japanese imagination than Ireland, so much time is spent imprinting the country on young minds.
"Most students mix it up with Iceland," says Donal Keenan from Ferbane in Offaly, who teaches in a small town near Osaka. "Mine thought it was very cold so I had to explain the Gulf Stream. Others didn't know Ireland was separate from England, or that we had our own language." The teachers warn against being too hard on the students, however. "Can you imagine the answers you'd get if you asked kids in Dublin questions about Japan?" says one.
Some teachers work very hard to make sure nobody confuses them with Scandinavians. Apart from the English he's contracted to teach, Pol Mac Fionhacain from Mulhuddart in Dublin, offers the locals in Yamagata prefecture - "the Mayo of Japan" - Irish language, dancing, hurling and uilleann pipe classes. And just in case that isn't enough, he cooks.
"I've made coddle for the locals. It was revenge for being made to eat petrified prawns, but they ended up loving it," he says.
More than 500 Irish people have now passed through the JET programme and most had the time of their lives - even if it was in some of the remotest places Japan has to offer.
Aine O'Keefe from Co Waterford spent three years in Izu island (population 9,500), about 300 miles off the coast. Not only was she the first Irish person on the island, she was the first female foreign teacher. "They were quite worried about having a woman," she says. "The school principal stopped my welcome party to warn everyone about sexually harassing me."
Wasn't life lonely and tough? "I loved it," says O'Keefe, who is now back home in Dublin co-ordinating the programme at the Japanese Embassy. "The culture, the food and the beer. And all the things that initially freaked me out, such as everyone doing things in a very organised regimented way. I grew to really like the structured way things are done before the relaxing takes place."
O'Keefe says Irish teachers get on well in Japan because they're "flexible" and willing to adapt to life there to get over the linguistic and cultural road blocks. And the heat.
Robert Shortt, now business correspondent for RTÉ, spent three sweaty years as a JET teacher in a village of 6,000 in Wakayama prefecture. He reckons he left his mark on his charges.
"Students always remember their teacher, especially if he's the weird-looking foreigner who sweats all the time. They used to hate me coming down to correct them because big splodges would appear on their copybooks when I was standing over them."
Many of the teachers find Japan isn't as foreign as it sounds. "There are a lot of similarities with Ireland," says Shortt. "The predominance of the family, the connection to the land, the nationalism." The success of the programme in improving the standard of foreign languages in Japan is up for debate. The classes are set up like lectures and it does not work for teaching English as a foreign language, says Mac Fionhacain.
THERE is no doubt, however, about the importance of JET in helping to build linguistic and cultural bridges. Japan has come a long way from the days when children pointed and stared at foreigners on the street, and JET has played a huge part. The programme has also helped to train thousands of Japan specialists who have helped bring the country closer to the rest of the world.
Some Irish JET graduates have gone on to live and work in Japan, such as Barry Brophy from Ballinteer, who now works as an editor for the Japan Times, the leading English-language newspaper in Japan, and Fiona Keyes, from Dublin, who is about to marry a local and settle down to life in a ryokan, or Japanese-style traditional inn.
Keenan, one of the current crop of JETs, says he is thinking ahead to a business career: "I want Japanese people to come to Ireland. And I want to build up networks and contacts while I'm here.
"I'm probably the only Irish person to have set foot in this town. If the students can't speak English when I leave I won't be too upset - but I will care if they don't know where I come from."
For JET programme application details, contact: 01-2028306. Website: www.mofa.go.jp/jet The deadline is November 29th
