A funny story ... rated PG-13...

My first job out of college was teaching English to the 1st Japanese children who came with their families to work @ Denso.

I LOVED THAT JOB.

In the morning I taught 1st and 2nd graders. In the afternoon middle school.

The middle school curriculum required that they learn parts of speech and vocabulary and sentence structure ... it was okay. But there was a ton of pressure on those kids to perform quickly.

The younger kids were just fun! Hands on learning was the name of the game. Lots of experiencial lessons ... fruit salad where we learned the names of food and the words for how to cut and clean up and manage the mess! Movies and songs and every holiday was an event! There were a million things to teach those kids in english and it was amazing! Our favorite activity was our Friday morning hikes in the college woods. They learned words like walk, run, skip, jump ... throw, pick up,catch, toss and fling (using a frizbee)... the lessons were endless. On one particular Friday we set out toward the House in the Woods and the boys were wound tight! I was having a little difficulty keeping them reigned in (an interview question today prompted this memory, but I did not share it in that setting) and under control. The guys were tearing through the woods, grabbing sticks and playing swords. Ching/Ching Ching/Ching ... the japanese sword sounds ringing through the woods. I asked several times for them to stop, asked several times for them to settle down ... to no avail. They were out of control. So I got two of them by the arm and made them look at me ... took their sticks and said in a very forceful voice ... "NO MORE CHING-CHING- no more." making sword movements with my hand ... "no more"

And every stick hit the ground.

There was no more talking. They lined up. We finished our hike in almost total silence.

Something had not translated well. I'd been at the job long enough to know that there had been a communication error- but I had no idea what.

We walked back to the classroom. I handed the children off to the bus driver to take them onto school. And marched myself to the director's office to explain the situation ... and find out what in the world those boys thought I meant.

I detailed the situation in a very professional manor to Kelly. As I neared the part where I explained the boys' reaction to my directive ... laughter erupted. Kelly opted for a direct translation for my humiliation ... and then his take on what the boys were thinking ...

Direct translation: ching/ching= penis, boyish slang much like d---

What the boys thought I meant- I'm going to (with the swing motion of my hand like a sword) chop off your ...

so somewhere in Japan are 20 something men who are probably in the midst of much therapy over their english teacher's communication gap ...

ahem. I was so thankful those Japanese moms liked to laugh!