Who is your daddy, and what does he do?

I had a private lesson with a 16 year old girl today and it prompted me to finally write about something that, for a long time, I've thought is quite strange.

There are an unusual number of Japanese kids who don't know what their parents' names are, nor what their parents do for a living. Let that sink in a little. It's natural for a 5 year old to not know their dad's name, nor to know what their father does for a living. But a 16 year old girl? It's unbelievable.

I know the names of every family member I can think of, and I know what they do for a living. This 16 year old girl with whom I was talking thinks her father's name is Norimoto. Thinks! I guess this gives her an out when she gets in trouble at school and can't give her father's name to someone so they can call him, but I really can't think of how this is beneficial.

Later in the lesson we were talking about occupations and I asked what her nameless father did. She said she wasn't sure. Okay... not everyone knows exactly what their parents do at their place of work. But most know where they work. "Does he work in an office?" "Um, maybe?" Maybe!? You live with a nameless man who disappears for more than half the day and you don't know where it is this man disappears to?

This isn't an isolated incident; as I said in the beginning, this is something that has perplexed me for some time. I taught a junior high school class a couple of months ago and they were learning occupation names. Only one of the students knew what his father did (he's a pastry maker).

I get that it's rude to call your parents by their first names (at least when you're young) but I don't think it's rude to ask them their names. And unless your father is a member of the yakuza, I don't think it's unwise to ask what he does. Or at least where he works. At the very least, maybe ask the general direction he heads in when he leaves the house in the morning.

Pikachu!

The other day, one of my smartest kids -- as usual -- finished his work before everyone else. So I struck up a little conversation with him. He has a Pokemon pencil case and I started pointing to different characters asking their names. I pointed to Pikachu and said, "I know Pikachu, but," pointing to the rest of the characters, "I don't know who these guys are."

Usually kids in any country are happy to go on for hours about who their favourite cartoon character is, what he likes, what his powers are, what his weaknesses are, what happened the last time he did such and such. I've met kids -- they do this. But this smart kid gave me a smart ass answer.

"Why do all foreigners only know Pikachu?"

He's 5 so he said this in Japanese, expecting that I wouldn't understand. And because of the rules at work (we're not allowed to speak Japanese) I maintained the illusion for him. The other two kids in the class thought it was hilarious that he said this, and they laughed and laughed while I sat there with a dumb "I don't know what you're saying in Japanese" smile on my face.

I gave them all extra homework and told them Santa Claus isn't real. But they're smart kids and they like homework, and they don't celebrate Christmas because they're Japanese, so neither of those things had the desired effect; that is, their spirits were not crushed.

Today I Was A Pirate

The first book I ever received was a present from my grandmother: Today I Was A Pirate. I'm pretty sure that's the book on Amazon but there's no picture so I can't be sure. I have the book at home on a shelf so I can't check the author's name.

It was an excellent book for a kid my age and got me hooked on pirates. How many little boys have a grandmother who encourages them to be a pirate? Just me.

For Halloween at ECC we had to dress up for a week. I teach at 5 different schools so I had to wear my costume five times during the week leading up to Halloween. It wasn't too bad though because I had a sweet costume:



I wasn't really going for the Johnny Depp/Jack Sparrow look but this was the only pirate costume at the department store near our house. It worked out well though. All of my kids liked it (some a little too much as I ended up with significantly less black plastic hair by the end of the week) and all of my staff members were happy to pose with Jack Sparrow. The best part for me was that I looked about 8 feet tall with that hat on.

At the end of the week I realized that I should have dressed up as a pirate a long time ago. I received Today I Was A Pirate when I was 5 or 6 (I think) but Halloween week was the first time I had ever dressed up as a pirate. Sorry I took so long Grandma!

"My name is Dragon!"

Sometimes Japanese people take English names to use at the schools we work at because it's easier for the Native teachers to pronounce them than to pronounce Japanese names. I think this is ridiculous - your name is your name and you shouldn't change it because some people who come to your country to work have a hard time pronouncing it. But this is a choice a grown person makes so I've never said anything to anyone other than Aimee.

This past weekend I worked at a kids summer party at one of my schools. Basically my job was to play games with each of the groups of 20 or so kids who rotated around the different game centres in the building. The last group of the day was the largest and also the most disturbing. My conversation with the first kid who came in illustrates this:

Mike: "Hello! What's your name?"
Kid: "My name is Dragon!"

At first I thought this was cute. The kid wanted to be a dragon so he called himself Dragon. I asked the next kid:

Mike: "What's your name?"
Kid: "My name is Bear."

Ok, maybe this kid likes bears? At this point most of the kids had come into the room and I started looking at their "My name is ____" name tags and was thoroughly disturbed. Here are some of the highlights:

• A group of 5 or 6 boys came in and they were all named after colours. I had a Blue, Green, Red, Yellow and Orange.
• Dispersed throughout the group were common animals. I had a Dog, Cat, Mouse, Snake and Bear.
• The worst was the group of girls named Chocolate, Cinnamon and Candy. They had no idea that if they lived in North America they would be destined to become strippers.

Wanting your kids to learn another language is a good thing. Languages are useful and anyone who can speak more than one language has a huge leg-up in life - especially if that language is English. However, it is ridiculous to go so far as to give your children English names thinking that this helps the process. It is especially ridiculous when those names aren't even names! If the group were any larger they would have had to start giving the kids numbers as names.

Maybe I'm making a light situation into something it's not but wouldn't renaming your child make them feel like their real name isn't good enough or is worthless in another country? When I was learning Japanese at university my Japanese friends gave me a Japanese name (it's Masato and it means "elegant and graceful person," which I am). They would call me Masato when they helped me with my Japanese or when I helped them with their English but I never thought about changing my name. My name is part of my identity.

I don't think that changing part of a child's identity is a good thing. If I were one of those children I immediately would have questioned why I needed to have an English name just to go to an English party. Children are already easily confused as it is. Why would a parent willingly add to that confusion?

Boys Don't Cry?

One of the boys in my class lost a game to another girl and he freaked out - he started swinging his arms and stomping his feet. Inadvertently he hit me, so I told him he had to leave the class for 5 minutes. He refused and instead sat down on the cushions and cried. So I picked him up, carried him out of class and sat him down outside the room. The tears kept rolling down his cheeks and he buried his face in his sleeve so none of the other children (nor the giggling mothers who were also outside the class) could see him. Oh, this boy is 10 years old.

What 10 year old cries because they lose a game to another kid? I was embarrassed for him. I told them to touch their noses with their right hands and the girl was faster than the boy, so she got a point. It's not like he got the answer wrong - he was just slower. When I tried to bring him back in he again refused. Perhaps he realized he was being a baby and felt embarrassed? I had to pick him up again and carry him into class, stand him up and give him a ball to shoot in the basket on the wall (we play "shoot the basket" a lot). Miraculously he got the ball in the basket (they rarely do) and afterward all was well.

After talking with other teachers I've found out that the crying boy phenomenon is common. I don't think there's anything wrong with crying - if it's for a legitimate reason. I had a different boy in the same class cry once but he got hit in the eye by one of the other students. There's no shame in crying there. But because you lost a game?

The consensus seems to be that it's because Japanese boys are spoiled. I agree with this. I see more boys walking over their mothers and getting away with murder than I have seen in Canada. It's ridiculous. If these boys don't get what they want from their mothers they start to cry or they throw temper tantrums. It's logical for them to assume that the same thing will work with Native teachers. This is one reality I'm happily destroying, one crying boy at a time.