I Teach Kendo in Tokyo

Chapter 35: No One Speaks Better English Than Me

Kazuma was oblivious to the conversation between those two old men in the kabuki.

He still had one last lesson left.

Because of the incident that morning, Kazuma was very unhappy with Yamada Yoichi. Hence, he was paying particular attention during class today.

Although he felt that the exams in Japan were simpler compared to China’s National College Entrance Examination, the problem was that he did not transmigrate immediately after his high school graduation.

It had been many years since he sat for the National College Entrance Exam.

Hence, trying to get into Tokyo University without a refresher was like a fool’s dream.

Therefore, he had to listen attentively.

Kazuma felt weird when he thought about how he had just beaten up a yakuza boss yet was now paying attention in class and taking notes like a model student.

During the break, the news that the student with the poorest grades from Class 3B was applying to Tokyo University had spread throughout the entire third grade. Kazuma would attract curious looks even when he was going to the washroom.

The instigator of all this, Yamada Yoichi, even ran to Kazuma’s side as soon as lessons ended. He chatted loudly with his small clique, saying things like, “Sigh, last time, I got a deviation value of *** during the mock exam at my cram school, but even this deviation value might not get me into Tokyo University, so I could only settle for the second best.”

And so on.

Kazuma wanted to pick up his bamboo sword and slam it on Yamada’s face.

However, on second thought, Kazuma should defeat him academically since Yamada was mocking his grades.

Once the results were out, Kazuma would wrap his exam slip that would have a higher score than Yamada’s on his bamboo sword and give him a hard slap on the head.

So Kazuma decided to swallow his pride for now.

Right now, the yakuza was still observing the situation. Although he did not know how long they would be watching, there should be a period of relative peace. He had to take this opportunity to get used to the pace of Japanese education. The time outside the classroom should be used to practice kendo, so he probably would not have much time to study outside the school. He could only work harder in class.

However, Kazuma would gladly accept any opportunity to show off his intelligence and deal a blow to Yamada’s arrogance.

He had never looked forward to an exam so much.

He hoped the next test was on Mathematics or English.

Japanese History would be fine too. Kazuma was quite familiar with Japan’s history, especially the Warring States Period.

But please, no Japanese language exams.

Similar to the original Kiryuu Kazuma, the current Kazuma’s Japanese was the worst in class.

After all, in his previous life, Kazuma was only a beginner in the Japanese language. He knew only simple words like “big brother” and “let’s go.”

However, there was only one last lesson left today. It seemed like the plan of mocking Yamada back with the results of class quizzes was going to fail today.

After the bell rang, Kazuma looked out of the window and imagined for the umpteenth time when Tokyo University would send out their offers.

The enrollment of Japanese universities was very different from that in China.

To get into a university in Japan, one had to pass an exam in January that’s similar to the high school graduation exam. It’s called the National University Entrance Exam.

Only those who had reached the cut-off point for this exam would then be qualified to apply to the school they wanted to study in.

The real test was after the application. The target universities would set their own papers and exam venues for their candidates.

All public and national universities would set their exams on the same day. Therefore, strictly speaking, you could only apply to one Japanese university. If you went to sit for the Tokyo University exam, it would be impossible for you to take the exams for another national university.

Therefore, it would not be possible to choose a lower-grade university as a backup plan like what people did in China, and the only choice left would be private schools. In theory, one could never choose national or public universities as their backup plan.

However, the tuition fees of Japan’s private universities were terrifying.

The Kiryuu family might not even be able to afford to send Kazuma to a national university. If he were to go to a private school… Chiyoko would have to sell herself.

Although Chiyoko was the cause of the series of trouble that the Kiryuu family was facing now, Kazuma had already beaten her up, which had made her reflect deeply on her mistakes. Yesterday, the two siblings had even fought side by side, and judging from the results, Chiyoko had saved Kazuma’s life yesterday.

Therefore, Kazuma did not want such a good sister to encounter anything terrible.

The past was irreversible, so Kazuma decided to consider how to achieve the best result in the current situation.

Sell the dojo, take the money to invest, and then get into Tokyo University using his own abilities—this was the best solution.

After graduating from Tokyo University, Kazuma would be a newly-promoted member of the upper class.

In order to achieve this optimal solution, Kazuma had to be strong in both kendo and academics.

Just when Kazuma had made up his mind, the English teacher entered the classroom.

Kazuma was delighted when he saw the stack of papers in the English teacher’s hands.

A class quiz!

The English teacher put down the stack of papers and adjusted his spectacles. “Let’s do a small quiz today. I’ll give you until the end of the class. Class representative, come, distribute the papers.”

The class rep stood up and walked to the podium. She took the papers and began to distribute them.

Kazuma was already rubbing his hands together excitedly.

After all, he had been a senior commercial representative of a foreign trade company in his previous life! Bragging about his company’s products to foreigners was his daily work.

Speaking English was the basic requirement of his job. His performance award and year-end bonus depended on it.

Kazuma soon received the paper.

He took a quick glance and grinned.

At this moment, he heard Yamada mumbling to his table partner, “The worst student in the class laughed when he saw the paper. Did he give up because he can’t answer a single question?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe he has just encountered some similar questions before.”

Kazuma ignored them and picked up his pen to write.

Time passed quickly. When Kazuma filled in the last blank on the paper, he looked up at the clock on the wall. There were still more than ten minutes left before the end of the class.

Kazuma wanted to submit the paper and leave. Whether it was in university or high school, Kazuma had always liked to hand in the paper immediately after finishing it. That’s because for some reason, if he turned back to check his answers, he would often change the correct answers to the wrong ones, so it was better not to check.

Just as Kazuma was about to stand up, slap the papers on the podium, and leave, he thought of something.

This was Japan. Although you could hand in your papers in advance, it would make your teachers and classmates think that there was something wrong with you.

Hence, Kazuma decided to take a nap on the table.

Not long after he rested his head on the table, he was knocked over the head by the teacher. “Kiryuu-kun! Please take the quiz seriously!”

Kazuma got up, glanced at the teacher, and smiled. “I am taking it seriously. I’ve finished the paper.”

The teacher frowned and glared at Kazuma while Kazuma looked back at him honestly.

He picked up Kazuma’s script suspiciously and started to read from the first question…

Then, Kazuma saw a note appear above the English teacher’s head: “Daydream.”

After he focused his attention on the note, the description went: “I must be dreaming.”

‘What the f*ck, how stupid was the original owner of this body? Look at how scared the teacher is. He is doubting his life.’

The English teacher took less than a minute to look through all his answers. It was not that his reading speed was fast, but the paper itself was very short.

Kazuma had already gotten used to the super long papers in his past life that could be folded several times and were densely packed with words.

Japanese test papers were A3 in size, and the print was huge.

Kazuma had finished answering the questions quickly, and the teacher read them quickly.

The English teacher put the paper back in front of Kazuma and turned to look at the paper of the girl on Kazuma’s right-hand side. To be fair, the girl was in the best position if Kazuma wanted to copy the answers.

However, the girl had not finished writing. Obviously, Kazuma could not have copied her answers.

The English teacher turned to Kazuma and asked seriously, “Did you… attend a cram school during the winter break?”

When Kazuma was about to share the story he had just made up to explain why he suddenly became smart, the teacher shook his head. “No, no cram school lesson can produce such huge progress. You…”

Kazuma was now excited to hear how this teacher would comment on his totally different English level.

However, it was apparent that the teacher was at a loss for words.

“You… Uh… You did well,” the teacher said. “But to prove that you didn’t rely on any external help in doing this paper, I want you to translate what I say.”

Then, the teacher spoke with a strong Japanese accent.

Kazuma frowned.

He heard Yamada laugh loudly.

Perhaps the core member of this class thought that Kazuma was going to make a fool of himself.

Kazuma was also embarrassed.

His English was very strong, especially his speaking skills. However, the problem was that the Japanese accent was too hard to understand.

In Japan, English teachers used Japanese pronunciations to “localize” English words. This was to reduce the difficulty of learning English.

Anyone who had watched Jet Li’s version of “Wong Fei Hung” would know a meme called “Ai Laohu Yo[1],” which was actually “I love you” but in a weird Chinese accent.

As an analogy for the Japanese English education system, they had used “Ai Laohu Yo” as the standard pronunciation.

In his past life, Kazuma was able to chat with foreigners fluently, but he couldn’t understand what this English teacher was saying at all.

The only thing that he managed to catch was the last sentence, which seemed to be about a shining star…

Yamada shouted, “Sensei, don’t make things difficult for him. You spoke too fast, even I can’t understand…”

The class rep chided, “Yamada! We are still having class. Don’t be so loud!”

Kazuma glanced at the class rep and could not help but exclaim, ‘She’s such a beauty… Hold up!’

Kazuma was inspired.

When he saw the class rep this morning, he’d tried to recite a poem to describe her beauty and see if it could give him a buff.

Reciting poems?

Could it be an English poem that the teacher had just recited with those strange intonations?

A shining star? Perhaps the last word was “winter’s midnight”?

Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine

On some frail bark in winter’s midnight roar.

This was Shelley’s “To Wordsworth,” the favorite piece of any young man who wanted to show off his literary acumen.

Even though Kazuma looked dull and unrefined after becoming a senior commercial representative, who had not pretended that they loved literature when they were young?

So Kazuma cleared his throat and recited what the teacher had just said in standard American English.

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In fact, he wanted to recite the full poem to show off, but unfortunately, Kazuma only remembered the most famous line and the line before and after it.

After reciting it, Kazuma looked at the note above his teacher’s head and realized that the “Daydream” note was gone. Instead, it was now “Ashamed.”

‘Eh? Did I overdo it? I should restrain myself and not embarrass my teacher too much…’

However, with that thought in mind, Kazuma opened his mouth and said, “Sensei, your pronunciation was not good. It took me a lot of effort to recognize that it was Shelley’s poem.”

[1] Literally means “love tiger oil” in Chinese