Black or White

Today at Ogimi Elementary, I ate lunch with the 2nd graders and we played a little game which I'm calling "Black or White".

First, a quick Japanese lesson. Kokujin means 'black person'. Hakujin means 'white person'.

So while we were eating, the kid in front of me asks, "Cliff-sensei, are you black?". I replied with a polite, "No, I'm white.", which caused the kid to ask the teacher what the koku in kokujin was.

Once that little bit of information was sorted out, we somehow got into a guessing game. I would name a famous foreigner, and the kid had to say hakujin or kokujin.

"Kobe Bryant?"
"Kokujin."
"Yes!"

"Michael Jordan?"
"Hakujin."
"No!"

"Yao Ming?"
"Kokujin."
"No!"
"Hakujin."
"No!"
"Huh?"

The teacher also had a pamphlet of the current starters on the Okinawa pro basketball team, and so I went through the foreigners on the team and I'd say he got half of them right.

Calling someone black or white in Japan is not considered rude. But why couldn't the kid guess who was black or who was white? Probably just because he knew the name of the person, but didn't know what they looked like, so he just guessed.

It was a fun game, but I don't think I'll be adding it into my lesson plans any time soon, though.