The Adventures of Scary Sensei

In an effort to increase students at our school, we have started having a story-time hour, where Kevin and I will read one of our story books and "act it out" with props and stuff. We get a lot of current as well as prospective students who come in.

Now, as a side note. Japan is a rather homogeneous country. I believe the foreigner rate in Japan is 1%. Add to that the fact that about 70% of the foreigners are from other Asian countries (China and Korea mostly), we're talking .3% of the population are western foreigners. We look different.

So, back to story time. One kid is already whimpering a little and running away from me when he sees me before we even start. We are about to start, so we all move into the room... Another little boy walks in, looks at me, and yells 先生は怖いよ。分かんない。 (Teacher is scary. I don't understand.)

In the beginning, this was upsetting to me. Now I just find it funny. The moms are always really embarrassed. The comedy continued... the first little boy (who was running away from him) found a little tigger stuffed animal, set it on the ground, mounted it, and started humping it like a dog. Now, it's my turn to say: 分かんない I don't understand.

日本語 Japanese

I'd really like to be able to speak, read, and write Japanese. Naomi tells me that I try harder than any NET she's met. I try because it interests me. To me, Kanji (the Chinese characters used in Japanese) is this big puzzle that I want to solve. It's really interesting when you start to understand it. Like the character for book 本 is a derivative of the character for tree/paper 木. Or look 見 is a derivative of eye 目. I really enjoy 消 which shows up in the words for fire department, gastroenterology, and hand sanitizer. It means "to consume" (in the case of sanitizer, the kanji is something like consume poison). I really enjoy it. So, I see characters around me and I get interested, so I look them up. I REALLY miss my iPod already. There was so much I looked up on it. I just figured out how to work the dictionary on my phone, so I have a replacement, but my iPod was a much better set up. At any rate, I came across this character today: 当. Google says it means "this" and my phone says it means "advisable, expedient, right, well, reasonable." Not quite the same thing. I'm confused...

I am trying, though. Part of the Japanese culture is to really praise others, even for small accomplishments. So, people tell me a lot that my Japanese is really good. It's nice to hear and very encouraging, but maybe all I've said is "no bag, please" to the clerk at the convenience store or something equally simple. I'm at the point that I can do a lot of (simple) practical things like make reservations, order in a restaurant, buy tickets, etc. But, I can't tell you how I'm feeling, or about my day. It was only a few weeks ago that I learned the word for happy and sad. I don't know angry or thirsty or... I know tired (I hear that one A LOT). And I know full... onaka ipai. That one I remember, because I accidentally said onaka pai, which Naomi cracked up and said I just said stomach boobs. Ooops!!

My hair dresser, Haru-san, really wants to learn English. We have a date set up to ge together and talk for a bit. First half in English, second half in Japanese (or vice versa.) Conversations with her are fun, she's super cute and very sweet. But they are a little hard and tiring, because neither of us are at a place with the language where conversation is free and easy. Still, I'm looking forward to it. It should be fun. I'll just bring my phone dictionary and a lot of mental energy :D