Now here’s something you don’t see every day.
Japanese people are much more comfortable with their food than Americans. They like things raw. Raw fish. Raw beef. Raw horse meat. They like things whole. If it has eyes? All the better to stare at you while you bite down on its head with. If it’s alive? Even better. Writhing squid? Yum! Little fish swimming around in your soup? Delicious! (more…)
The junior high students had exams for three days, which meant that I spent half a week in the teacher’s room with nothing to do. Eventually, I gave up all pretense of working or studying and just settled down with a trashy novel. I got to page 346.
The students finished their exams with their last period of Friday set aside for marching practice. They put all the students and teachers in the gym. They made the students line up in a predetermined order according to height (girls on one side, boys on the other) and made the teachers inspect them. This is one of those moments when I felt so much sympathy for the students. I’m young and still confuse myself for a student. I’m used to being the one inspected and corrected, not the one doing the inspecting and correcting. Luckily, I wasn’t asked to help with any of that, and even if they had wanted me to, I would have feigned complete incomprehension. (Actually, it probably wouldn’t have been feigned.) There’s just something that feels wrong about looking and behaving exactly like everyone else. From uniforms to lockstep movements. This is always creepy. Well maybe not if you’re in a marching band, and even that’s probably questionable. (more…)
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.