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.