A student who normally finds an excuse to run away whenever I try to speak English to her comes up to me after lunch and grabs my upper arm. Surprised, I ask why she did it. The response: "it's my preference."
Left late after work one day. Walk by the outdoor tennis courts near my parking space. A group of third year girls come up to the chain-link fence and we make a brief conversation in English. Before I turn to leave one of them asks me if I have any food and then they all cry out in unison "we're hungry!" School is a prison.
Craving caffeine before doing some shopping around town, I find myself at Starbucks. Drizzling a bit but the crowd outside is decent. Before I can cross the street two of my students sight me and call for my attention. I indulge them in some Japanese conversation for a change and they ask if they can take my picture with their cellphones before I go. Seeing no harm in it, I agree. They stand in the middle of the road to take the snaps, a taxi driver tries to pull out and honks repeatedly at them. They don't move an inch. My exit is swift.
"Which do you like better, cherry blossoms or me?" The only full English sentence by a student all day at the picnic.
The all-time classic: Finished with her worksheet ahead of the rest of the class, a student with advanced English abilities goes to her backpack to retrieve a large Japanese-English dictionary and phrasebook. She consults it for a while and says to the male student next to her "stop touching me you creep!" She neglects to translate the sentence into Japanese. A while later I walk by to check the progress of the other students. The girl turns to me and says, with an innocent smile, "do you make love to your girlfriends?" (note the plural noun)
One of my students writes me that she wants to "make a boyfriend." I am requested to assist in this endeavor.
"Show you" sounds like soy sauce and "people" sounds like a police/ambulance siren. Use of these must be avoided at all costs.
Agreed to assist with basketball club practice one evening. Start time wasn't until 90 minutes after work so I briefly went home for a rest. Came back in my own car (as opposed to the one provided by my employer) and the tennis club girls were shocked to see me step out of sleek grey Mitsubishi station wagon with plenty of years and kilometers to its name. Once the stunning effect of my return had subsided their were cries of "my car? My car?" At least they're trying harder than they ever would in class.
Joined a small class for lunch with several teachers and assistants present also. As always, the conversation naturally turned towards my vegetarianism and I received the usual slew of questions ("Can you eat natto?" "Is rice okay?" "How about grapes?"). One of the assistants spotted my drink, iced tea, and asked why I wasn't drinking Coca-cola. "I don't particularly like cola" was my reply. He had to gather himself for a second . . . "that's not my impression of Americans." "Well, it's because I'm British-American." "Ah" everything had fallen into place. That is now my go to explanation to immediately get out of any conversation involving American stereotypes.
The cover of a notebook that several of my students possess reads: "When I think about the life in my own way I need gentle conversations." Chew on that for a while and I'll see you anon.
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