Bashō and Fukurō – Japan in 84 Days of Haiku: 06/18

Excuse me Ma'am,

can you tell me how to get...

to Rikkyo Street?

I had the Sesame Street theme song stuck in my head all day today. In my classes this week we've been learning how to give and practicing giving directions. This has lead to me hearing "Can you tell me how to get to..." about a thousand times, often delivered in a slow or staccato manner. My students have gotten noticeably better throughout the week, but some of the exercises call for them to ask "Can you tell me how to get to..." then pick a place off the map, so they still pause right at the point where my brain wants me to shout "SESA-MEEE STREET!" The lessons have been great, but one negative point was a listening exercise where characters gave each other directions in an old west town. They have cowboy style accents which is entirely unnecessary for my basic level students to have to listen to. One of the cowboys even says "Much obliged" instead of thank you. I'm not going to teach my students to say "much obliged" in a Texan accent. Although it has given fuel to my Hank character, the Texan who speaks Japanese.
(More on him here if you missed it: http://bashoandfukuro.blogspot.jp/2014/06/0528-chatting-shit.html)

The Sesame Street theme song being in my head all day did make sense, since it is a beloved children's show and my day started off with a lot of kids around. On the train ride to work in the morning we ended up next to a large group of schoolchildren in their uniforms. The boys stayed separated from the girls, as I suppose is an international standard. However both groups stared at me a fair bit. There was a lot of giggling from the girls when I got on the train and I could tell they were talking about me. Aykut even commented on how they were definitely talking about me. Unfortunately, we had no idea what they were saying. One girl in particular stared at me the whole ride. She found ways to squeeze and slide into different spots as the train filled up yet still maintain an angle at which she didn't have to break her unrelenting stare. That was not the funniest thing one of the children did though. A boy who couldn't have been more than 12 and who was trying to show off his "abs" to his friends early in the ride started impersonating the hand gestures I made while talking to Aykut. Everything I did he mimicked earnestly right after. It was pretty hilarious.

Another great part of my day was during my free speaking period, where I had my students plan a tour around Vancouver using some Vancouver maps I brought from home. They had to use the direction skills they'd been learning to direct another group to a list of places I gave them. It was really cool and they asked a lot of questions about the cool spots in Vancouver. It was funny to hear them guiding others to everywhere from Kits Beach to Gastown, without ever having been there. They were pretty impressive too, even using the information I gave them to work interesting facts about notable landmarks into their directions.

Finally, my last class of the day was a lot of fun. My oldest student, yet the one with the most childlike spirit came early and brought me coffee. I don't like coffee but it was a very nice gesture. We had a good chat. He told me lots of interesting things as I helped him with his homework and prepared him for the lesson, to help him follow along as much as possible. The funniest part was how he told me his grandchild didn't like him. I asked him why they didn't like him and he said his wife believes it's because he has "BIG...VOICE!" Which he definitely does. It took me a while but I got it out of him that it was a female grandchild, but he kept referring to the singular girl as his "GRANCHILDREN!" I laughed when he told me, after acting out trying to get his grandchild to come to him, that his grandchild is only six months old. I said well they can't walk then, no wonder they aren't coming over to you. He said "CAN'T WALK. CAN'T SPEAK JAPANESE! CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH!" as though he was really disappointed. What a useless six-month old. Guess she should start watching Sesame Street.