I heart Santa-san and Reindeer-San!
On the 11th grade final exam at my nerd school, I asked my kids what they want for Christmas. Among the iPods, PCs, and book answers were the following:- "I want to eat the biggest cake in the world!" Awesome! I would say more than half of my kids said they wanted cake for Christmas. Easily pleased, right??? The Japanese tradition of Christmas is to eat fried chicken (usually from KFC) and Christmas cake (strawberry shortcake, basically). Also, Christmas is a "romantic" holiday akin to Valentine's Day, so you spend it with your boyfriend or girlfriend, not your family. The best part is that they think that this is the bona fide American thing to do. Oh, so much to teach about our beloved culture!
- "I want as much money as possible because money can buy you everything except love." A lot of kids wrote money too, but one of my wise guys (his name is "Yohei" and introduced himself by waving "Yo!" and then "Hey!"- instant cred in my book!) is apparently a Beatles fan!
- "I want a pen so I can study." This kid's demanding, right? However, he got a really low score (a 10 out of 40, by far the lowest in the grade!) so I wrote (with like 11 smileys) "Dude, I will get you a pen!"
- "I want a very cute girlfriend because Christmas will be a more happy day." Hilarious!
- "I want to spend time with my friends because I want to enjoy the day in order to forget the sadness I haven't a girlfriend." This was actually written by #5's best friend! I wrote "good luck!" on both their papers.
- The best one of all (written by one of the top students who's probably on his way to a top law school): "I want nothing because in Japan, many people have financial difficulties....I hope it will be better. (It's a joke. I want books for study.)" Amazingly deadpan! It would depress me if I weren't impressed by his mastery of sarcasm- ellipsis points even!
To end, here is an impossibly cute picture...Not only did it make my students gasp with "Meccha Kawaii's!" even the Vice-Principal couldn't help but point and become overhelmed by a cuteness-induced giggle! (One of the boys: "Is it me or is Reindeer-san too cute?")
3 comments:
Too cute! For Christmas, I want to have a lot of fun and not be sick (cause Jon's sick now, which means I should be sick in about a week...which is Christmas). What do you want for Christmas Pamu? Also, are you headed to Hong Kong? Ooh! And when I had a job and was listening to NPR on my commute, I heard that KFC started the fried chicken/cake thing. It was a $5 meal. Now it can be crazy extravagant--with foie gras stuffed goose and such for like $500 dollars. Cra-zy!
Haha, aw...yes, he is correct. Reindeer-san is too cute.
Hmm...so, do none of these kids know the story of Christmas? Because, if they did, wouldn't they wonder where the chicken and cake and valentine stuff comes in?
i saw this way post xmas, but regardless... i don't see how your students' lists differ from your average american's. i'll have you know my list to santa this year read as follows:
1) a cake
2) jake gyllenhaal as a boyfriend so that christmas will be a less sad day.
santa failed on both counts.
Post a Comment