It's Christmas Day, and I'm at school.

Only in Japan. Only in Japan are the people crazy enough to be at work on Christmas Day. So here I am at school, along with most of the other teachers and staff, and there's not a single student in sight.

At least we had yesterday off, but only by coincidence. We didn't get yesterday off because it was Christmas Eve, we got yesterday off because December 23rd is the Emperor's birthday. And since December 23rd fell on a Sunday this year, we got Monday off instead. How nice!

Crazier still, some teachers were actually supposed to be teaching today. You see, the junior-high-school students went home for the holidays after school on Friday, but the high-school students weren't scheduled to go home until after school tomorrow! But that plan changed for some reason (a lot of kids were sick?), and the high-schoolers were allowed to go home on Saturday. So all the students are gone. But here we are anyway.

Before I came to Japan, I heard that the Japanese were very hard workers. For example, I heard about all the long hours Japanese workers put in at work, all the pressure kids were under to get accepted to good colleges, and all the deaths (including suicides) that were supposedly connected to the stressful lifestyle over here. (Did you read the "death by overwork" story published in the Economist about a week ago?)

And now that I'm here, I can personally attest to the fact that, yes, the Japanese do put in long hours, at least in schools. (Even though the school day doesn't start until around 8:10 a.m., which isn't all that early, most teachers stick around until about 6 p.m. or so.) But it's hard to say if Japanese teachers truly work harder than their American counterparts, just because they put in longer hours at the workplace.

For instance, in America, for the most part, teachers teach five classes a day. Here, well, I'd say teachers teach only about 12-15 classes a week. So what do teachers do during all of those other hours at school? And what do they do on days like today, when there are no students around? Good question.

If you ask me, there's a whole lot of nothing going on: Phone-answering, envelope-stuffing, paperwork-completing, desk-cleaning, smoking-break-taking, and "I'm-busy"-acting, followed by more phone-answering, envelope-stuffing, paperwork-completing, desk-cleaning, smoking-break-taking, and "I'm-busy"-acting. I'll be doing a lot of the above all week long.

Not all teachers will be here every day this week, but those who do stay away from school have to take a day off. The only days off that everyone gets are next week, from Monday to Thursday.

Of course, in all fairness to my colleagues, Christianity is practically non-existent over here, so there's really no reason for the Japanese not to work on Christmas Day. And I'm actually very impressed with the abilities and professionalism of my fellow teachers. (Overall, I'd have to say that, on average, teachers here are far more qualified than teachers in the United States.)

So it's certainly a bit unfair of me to say the Japanese are crazy for being at work today. But if you look around and see the deserted classrooms, well, you have to wonder what the point of being here is. And if you were to ask around, I'm still sure everyone who is here today (except for "Jumi-cho," but that's another story) would tell you that they'd rather go climb a rock.