Superintendent Komata is a Very Elite Person in Town

From what I've observed, one of the perks of having seniority in a Japanese office is that you can disappear for long periods of time during the workday, as long as you announce where you're going. I've observed both my boss and the local Superintendent, Komata-San, simply announce that they were going to the post office or a school and then proceed to disappear for an hour or two.

Earlier today, Komata-San had me translate a postcard into Japanese that the American home-stay students had sent him from Maine. I didn't think that I did a very good job (and had to take a few interpretative liberties) but he seemed pleased that he was able to get the gist of it. Perhaps to thank me, he walked into our office later in the day and announced "Mehan and I are going to the town office now".

Next Febuary, our town and the next town over, Shimoda (home of Charlie Mac, the mall and the train station) are merging to form Oirase-Cho. The fashion in recent years has been for small towns to continually merge, forming slightly larger small towns and I suppose even Momoishi couldn't resist the urge to merge (thanks, I came up with that myself). As such, local students have been invited to submit designs for the new town logo. The designs (I would estimate that there were probably 500 different submissions in all) are being exhibited at town hall, where people can go and vote on which one becomes the Oirase-Cho logo.

When we arrived at town hall, Komata-San initially pulled into a parking spot but then changed his mind and pulled forward so that he was effectively parked across three parking spots. We then went inside where he told me that you are only allowed to vote once, for your favorite design. For some reason, he voted three times. The room that the designs were being exhibited in was also host to an old ladies exercise session. There's really no adequate way for me to describe the exercises that they were performing but they involved two people, two strange inflatable devices and some new age music. After voting, Komata-San stood around and watched the old women exercise for a good 5 minutes. Next, we walked into the administrative office where he announced "I would like something cold to drink" and we were immediately provided with iced barely tea. He then sat around for about half an hour talking to the secretaries while I looked around the room in boredom.

Someday, I hope to be a big shot, just like Superintendent Komata.