Not Just Ninjas

So I bit the bullet today and wore a damn mask to work. It seems a bit counter-productive as a foreign language teacher to go to class with my mouth covered, but whatever. Coming from America, I feel absolutely ridiculous wearing a mask out in public. And then there’s the smelling your own breath all day aspect. Which becomes more of an issue after lunch… mmm. Miso and milk. But I had no choice, the chalk dust was killing me.

Today’s junior high classes were especially pleasant. I hadn’t particularly been looking forward to Christmas lessons, as I kind of secretly hate carols (unless they’re old ones) and am not a particularly festive holiday person. But today was awesomely fun.

First of all, I got to be Santa, thanks to a red coat and hat I found in my closet. Thanks, anonymous predecessor! I didn’t have a beard, but the mask made for a nice stand-in. My Japanese Teacher of English (JTE) asked me to bring in a True/False Christmas quiz. I had already quizzed some other students at another school, so I knew about some of the common misconceptions re: Christmas in America. So I got to dispel some myths: Not everyone in America celebrates Christmas. No, we don’t eat Christmas Cake, per se, not with strawberries and whipped cream, like everyone here does. Nor do we tend to consume massive quantities of fried chicken on Christmas Eve. I don’t care what you say, Santa’s not from Finland. And these little dudes named “elves” help him out with the presents. That freaked everyone out. “Like Snow White and the 7 Elves…?” Um… kinda. Close enough.

After which, the kids sat around making cards. I even was the proud recipient of one, which incorporated newly introduced concepts such as the 3-tiered snowman (here’s the Japanese version for contrast) and Santa eating cookies with milk.

ほほほ.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 14th, 2006 at 4:02 pm and is filed under Culture Shock, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.