Japanese Teacher/Poet

We were told that we were to have classes in Japanese, in addition to our usual courses - Chinese, math, English, science, history, geography, music, and PE.
Most of the children in Shanghai private schools had to learn a second language, which was English, unless you were in a French school. Come to think of it, you still had to learn English in the French school.
You started your ABCs in the third grade. That, however, did not make you a learned person in English by the time you graduate from high school. English was taught by native Shanghai teachers who learned to speak the language with an accent; because, their teachers spoke the language with an accent. 
Now, if you happen to be taught by English priests, then you learned to speak English with a British accent.  
If you were taught by American nuns, then you learned to speak English with an American accent. And, there were the Portuguese teachers, and French teachers, and may be German teachers . . .      Have I confused you enough by now?
There were some exceptions, of course.
There were always some who watched plenty of Hollywood movies and learned to speak Hollywood English. Hollywood movies were Big. We had them except during World War II years. 
How do you think I ended up with the name of Loretta? Remember Loretta Young? Ah, may be you are too young . . . 
So, usually by the time you graduated from High School, you could read some English, write some English, but not necessarily speak much English. Besides, all the similes, inferences, colloquialism, metaphors, etc., were never explained to you, because your teacher probably never knew any of them himself or herself. Well, so much for that.

Actually, I don't think that there were any government operated schools then. All schools were privately ran.You had to pay for your children to attend schools. Attending schools for children was not mandatory. I don't know if the school standards were regulated. I am sure there were some minimum requirements, but I am not clear on any of it. It seemed that most us Chinese took things for whatever they were. No questions asked. You don't want any Trouble.
There were schools ran by missionaries. There were schools ran by Foreign governments. There were a myriad number of different kinds of schools. You could take your pick - you sent your children to the best school that you could afford.
Our music lessons were usually consisting of singing some songs from the book called One Hundred And One Songs.
The teacher played the piano. The children sang - not too much off key. Surprise!. Or, sometimes, we would sing "O-sole-mia" or something like that. I loved the Italian songs - not that I knew any Italian.
PE would be some sort of jumping jack, or bending forward or backward, and flapping our arms, and yelling, One-Two-Three-Four, over and over again. May be a bit of running. Track! Oh Yes, we had volleyball, I almost forgot. May be a bit of badminton.
I sat out of most of them, because I had a note from my parents saying that I was not strong enough to take part in those strenuous exercises. I had a slight health problem - the doctor said that I had an enlarged-heart. (Now I am 85 and I don't take any medication!)
I was allowed to sit on the side and read a book. I usually would doodle. You see, I always liked to draw. And I did draw a lot on my own.
Until this day, exercises are not for me. The truth is, I don't like to sweat.
Art classes - non-exist. 
We did have to write our Chinese "characters" with brush and Chinese ink, made with grinding water in special inkwells with special ink-sticks. Most of us became fairly good in calligraphy.

Anyway, after the announcement of having Japanese lessons, every morning, for an hour or so,we found ourselves in the classroom with a fairly young Japanese man, a lot more refined-looking than the soldiers on the street corners. He drilled us with the Japanese alphabet and taught us a few sentences in Japanese. Wait, I should correct myself. He tried to teach us many sentences in Japanese, but we kids learned a "passive-aggressive" strategy and refused to learn. He allowed us to look at the books when he gave us tests and so on. He passed us all. 
Some days when he was totally stressed out by us, he would look straight pass us and recite poems in Japanese as if we were not in the classroom. He had a pretty musical voice, I remember.
We, of course, could not understand one word that he was saying. He had this faraway look on his face - I thought he was wishing that he was in Japan and did not have to be in our classroom. Sometimes, I felt a bit sorry for him. Then I would catch myself and made myself banish those thoughts.

So, after two years, I learned the alphabet (51 of them - I can still recite them), how to count to ten, and how to say,
"What is your name?"
"My name is ---."
"Thank you."
"Good-bye." - In Japanese.     
We all learned to say "Good-bye" very well. 

However, we did not say "good-bye" to him. He did not come to the school the day after War ended.