Atsui means konnichi wa

Yesterday after school I was invited to some random club’s activity for the week. They made tako-yaki. Tako-yaki are little balls of something like pancake mix with various things inside. As the name suggests, octopus is a necessity. (tako means octopus) It’s much nicer than it sounds. It’s one of those things that sound horrible, but when it’s prepared you hardly realize you are eating octopus inside a pancake ball. It’s topped with mayonnaise, Worcester sauce, bonito (some kind of fish) flakes and “aonori” dried seaweed. I got a chance to talk with some of the kids. Some were friendlier than others. It happens.

Today I had two classes at the middle school. Both were first year classes. They have only had one semester of formal English classes, so you can’t expect much. Both classes were a “introduce yourself” then “ask questions about Mr. Scott” format. Getting kids to ask questions is comparable to pulling teeth. Until you tell the kids that if they don’t have any questions, we can begin the lesson. Then the questions came. In my first class, the kids sort of nominated a question asker and would first tell him the question and he would ask me. Mind you none of this was in English, so why they had to have one of the kids “translate” for them is beyond me. I’d answer back in English and they understood a lot of it surprisingly. (a lot=25%) My favourite question has been “Do you have a girlfriend?”. Because usually if I say no, they will respond with a “why?” or “so you have a wife?”. I’ve taken to instead asking back to the students “do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend?”, and if they answer no I ask why. They are completely taken aback. I think it’s good to sometimes treat the kids like they treat you, because they hopefully will begin to understand some of the irrationality behind things they perceive as normal.

Also in the question/answer time was the infamous Hiroshima question. I was asked by one of the kids what Americans thought of the use of the atomic bomb in WWII. I told him that there is not just one opinion in America, so it is hard to answer such a question. I was going to ask about why they think of the Nanjing massacre (a current popular activity in Japan is denying atrocities committed by Japanese troops) , but decided to leave that for another day.Then they asked me if I liked Busshu-san (Mr. Bush). They were really surprised when I said not really and even more surprised when I said that many (if not most) people in America don’t like Bush. Dissent, like individualism, is not really a Japanese quality.

I’m at work right now, looking forward to a hot afternoon in the office with no air conditioning. Even though I hear cries of “atsui” at least every minute. In two weeks is the autumnal equinox, so I’m pretty sure after that there will be no hope of air conditioning. Apparently people are enslaved to a certain date to turn on and turn off the air conditioner. And also a certain temperature. It’s only about 80 degrees in this room, but it feels so much hotter since there is no moving air and a million percent humidity. But that doesn’t matter. Irrationality shall prevail.