After school today I met with my afterschool club, the English Speaking Society, and I had four students show up. That was actually quite a few, and I was happy to see them. Today I brought in a bunch of American candy for them to try. I didn’t realize it, but inside there were some Atomic Fireballs, which are pretty intense. One of the poor girls popped one in her mouth and started wigging out. The Japanese are generally not into spicy things – this must have been a sensory overload for her. She started giggling in pain, and that set me off giggling, and pretty soon we were both unable to talk in either Japanese or English. It was quite a scene.
I’m hoping to cook tacos with my ESS club next week. I have the tortillas – I just need to pick up some ground beef and some toppings at the store. I’m going to ask the home economics teacher if we can commandeer the kitchen for a while. I’m hoping we get to do it.
On the train ride home I sat next to one of my students, and we were talking in Japanese for most of the train trip. At his stop, he got off and said “Goodbye” in English, and I said “Goodbye” in Japanese. I turned to my left and someone that just got on the train was looking at me like the world had just turned upside down. I suppose it was a strange thing to see. I just smiled at him and said “Hello!”.
Once I got to the playground, some of the kids playing there pulled me aside and started asking me a ton of questions in Japanese. I spent a minute or two talking to them, and then one of their mothers came over and talked with us, too. One thing led to another, and the kids invited me to play in the playground with them. I went upstairs, changed into some play clothes, and came downstairs, while all the kids jumped up and down and cheered. As I walked towards the park, they circled me chanting “Gaijin, gaijin” (foreigner, foreigner). The neighbor kids came out and pretty soon I was surrounded by ten or fifiteen kids between five and nine years old. I found that I was able to communicate pretty well with the five year old kids, which tells me something about my level of Japanese 🙂
Anyway, we played in the playground for about twenty minutes, then it got dark, and I headed in. The mother that I had talked to said that she is a big hiker, so I may be invited to their next family hike.
