At the junior high school the ninensei (2nd years) were learning the expression “You look __________” to make compliments. After teaching them the basic format, the English teacher put a few sample adjectives on the board, “cute, young, beautiful, pretty, wonderful.” She had the students practice by going down the row and asking them to compliment me. I would then smile a charming American smile and say “Thank you.” Most of them just used the words on the board. I got a lot of “you look pretty,” “you look beautiful.” A few adventurous ones turned to a list of adjectives in the back of their textbook, mining it for pleasant seeming words that could plug into the target sentence.

They did pretty well. Some were just neutral. “You look tall.” (“Oh, really?”) The worst one I got was, “You look interesting.” I looked uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to respond. The teacher saw my expression and asked me if it was rude. I told her it wasn’t directly rude, but it’s usually used to “politely” say that someone looks strange.

Then, to make things more interesting, the English teacher asked the students to say something about Ms. T, the science teacher. “Ms. T looks __________.” Ms. T is a bit of an odd bird, for a Japanese lady. I’m not very good at guessing age, but I’m going to guess she’s in her early forties. She always has this wide-eyed look on her face, as if someone just pointed at her. She seems flustered and sighs a lot. Since she’s a science teacher, she has an excuse to wear a white lab coat all the time, and she does. I’m pretty fond of her because she has the most animated facial and vocal expressions of any adult Japanese person I’ve met.

We worked our way down the row until we got to the smallest girl in the class. Then it happened. She had been scouring the back of the book for creative adjectives.

“Ms. T looks easy.”

I choked on my own breath. “What did she say?!”

“She looks easy,” the English teacher repeated for me. I turned red, shook my head vehemently, and waved my hands back in forth through the air. “Happy?” the English teacher tried. “What does it mean?”

“No. It does not mean ‘happy.’ It means…. It means…. She’s easy to go to bed with.” Yes, I know you’re not supposed to define something using the same word.

I have no idea what the English teacher told the class. I wish I knew Japanese.

I scanned the list of adjectives in the back of the book. Overall, the students had done pretty well in choosing ones that would make suitable compliments. There were lots of other opportunities to make things awkward. I could have gotten “You look high.” I’m glad they’re quite familiar with the word “tall.”