Okinawa Sakura

It's that brief time of the year again when Okinawa cherry blossoms are in bloom!

Click the picture to go to my Flickr page.

Obama in Japan

Japan is familiar with Obama for various reasons. While still running in the primaries, he received a lot of hype because there is a city in Japan called Obama, and everyone cheered him on pretty much for that reason alone. I guess the reverse logic would be true: if there was a city in the world named Cliff, I would think that would be the greatest place ever.

Adults are familiar with him now for the obvious, but the kids also know about him because there is a comedian who dresses up in a suit and pretends to be him. He goes around saying, in English, "Yes we can!". So a lot of my students are now repeating it and coming up to me asking what it means. I also sat in on a few young classes for lunch last week (1st and 2nd grade), and the kids are saying, "I know who the new American president is...Barack Obama!". I reply with, "and who is Japan's Prime Minister", which is answered with silence.

Now for a quick Japanese lesson. The word for president in Japanese is 'DAITORYO'. The word for feces (yes, as in 'poo') is 'DAIBEN'. A clever 1st grader of mine put the two together and said "Obama Daibentoryo".

*insert laugh track*

Zombie TV

I was watching a TV program yesterday that placed normal people in extreme situations. For example, there was a 42 year old who always wanted to be a pro wrestler, so they matched him up against Japan's current champion. It was funny cause he comes out to Rocky music only to find, to his surprise, that his family had been called in to watch. The champ seemed to not hold back and just whipped this guy up for a good 5 minutes. By the end, he was bruised all over and bleeding heavily from his mouth. His wife was just shaking her head and his kids had gone pale, but he was happy because he got to do something he always wanted to do.

The best skit was with a mom and her three kids, a girl who was 6 and two boys who were 5 and 3. The TV guy was interviewing them with just random kid questions, when he asks the older boy what he is scared of the most. He replies, 'Zombies!' A few seconds later, you hear screaming coming from outside. Everybody rushes out of the house to see a crowd of around 50 people running towards the family shouting 'Run away! Zombies are coming!'.

The kids run back inside, and the TV guy works to calm them down and help them set up traps in the house. The kids went along with it, looking kind of confused. They gathered a bunch of toy blocks to use as ammo, and then they set up a bucket with a cord above the front door that the girl was suppose to pull when the zombie came in.

The front door had a foggy glass pane set in, so when the zombie arrived, you could only see a pale shadow. Then the door knob started to turn. It was really scary and the camera turns to show the girl by the door holding the cord. She looked like she was about to pee herself. The zombie walks in in professional makeup, and the girl freaks out and pulls the cord early. But the zombie still stumbles on a few other 'traps' that were setup in front of the door and falls down. The kids then bolt for the bedroom to plan for the final battle.

This is where it became epic. The girl had a roll of saran wrap that her and the older brother were to wrap around the zombie's face. They were standing on the bed crying and the TV guy is telling the older brother, who is the most scared, that he has to protect his family. The zombie comes in and walks to the bed. The sister presses the saran wrap to the zombie's face, but can't get herself to stand close to him long enough to wrap it around, so she gives it to her brother and begins crying even more. The brother tries himself but is unable to wrap it around the zombie's head. The zombie, in the meantime, is just kind of standing in the room and stretching his arms out every now and then at the kids. When all help appeared to be lost, the boy sees two plastic poles, grabs them, jumps off the bed, and starts whacking the zombie as hard as he can, crying while he's doing it. He then throws them away and just starts punching and kicking the zombie screaming 'Get out!' The zombie turns around and runs away.

The TV guy begins interviewing the 5 year old with 'You did it, you saved your family.' The kid is bawling and gasping for breath in between each word. He said, 'We did it as a family. No one came to save us so we had to do it ourselves.' It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen and got me a bit choked up. When the skit ended and cut to all the TV personalities, they were all crying.

So if you are ever in a situation where there seems to be no hope, just remember about the kid who saved his family from zombies.