"Okay class I've given you all a sheet of paper," I told my elementary school kids. They never have their own paper and they're not expected to.

"I'd like you to take out a pen and write on that sheet: One word in English."

Most kids wrote vocabulary words from my previous lessons. Things like colors and numbers. Below are the more interesting answers.

ADDIDAS
Stitch
Potato
Sugar
Mentos
I love you
Puma
Pizza-La (my favorite)
Disney
Capcom
Boss (a drink company ala Snapple or Pepsi)

I found this pamphlet while in a shoe store. No idea what the intent is, but reads like "Barf Out" to me.

Okay, yeah the "Homme" might be a clue that this is really French or something. But still...

Yukiko Kimijima
HOMME
BARFOUT!

The following is an actual assignment I graded. The identity of the writer has been removed to protect the innocent.

At first I had trouble understanding what this was all about. Was it some sort of joke? Turns out "The Cocksucker" is really some Rolling Stones song.

Truly I tell you, the world is a strange place.

I'm going to talk about Natumi You.
She is a menber of Takaraduka.
My mother told me about her last year.
Natumi joined Takaraduka as a male impersonator in 1976.
She became a leader because she very good at acting.
After a while, the in vitation whather you were going to do the cocksucker in her came.
It's very difficult that male inpersonatar's person performs the cocksucker.
But, she didn't decline it.
She kept practicing everyday, and performing the cocksucker splendidly.
I learned a lot of things from her.
I think that It's inportant to challenge a difficult thing.
I want to go to see Takarazuka that shi is performing Some day.
Thank you.

One cultural difference between all nations is their perception of package size. It might be a stereotype, but I think common idea is that Black > White > Asian.

What do Japanese think? Well they get really specific. I found this pic on one of the Japanese blogs. They put American dick as smaller than Japanese dick. But, of course, Korean comes in last. But the real surprise is that they think French man have giant choaders! You simply can't make this stuff up.

***WARNING NOT WORK FRIENDLY***
Click here to see the a very detailed drawing of the Japanese conception of penis size.
***WARNING NOT WORK FRIENDLY***

My English class was about to start. But the Japanese man I teach with wasn't ready. "Can you please talk to the students while I finish preparing?" He asked me.

"Sure."

I told the class we would start without Mr. Kageyama. They stood up and bowed to me. After asking them the usual questions, which they answered in unison (How's the weather? / What day is today? / What is today's date?) I told them to sit down.

"Who has an iPod, raise your hand?" I asked. Several students raised their hands.

"You sir, how many songs do you have?"

"Two hun-do-re-do." He said.

"And did you copy them from a CD? Or did download them?"

"Download-shi-ma-shi-ta."

"Where did you go to download?" This question stopped him. Several other kids joined in, but he couldn't quite give me an answer. I took a pen and asked him to write the website. The address. Finally one of the kids in class understood and said the magic words, URL.

"Yes, what's the URL?" I asked, thankful that this one translates perfectly.

But he didn't know the URL. Then how did he download songs? I thought about it for a moment, and remembered seeing a Google commercial on TV--before their recent Super Bowl ad. Why would Google have a TV spot in Japan? Because Yahoo is the main search engine here.

On the blackboard I wrote "yahoo.co.jp" and then drew a line to a search box. Then I drew another line to the word "Music." I tapped the empty search box. Kids today don't even bother memorizing the URLs of their favorite webpages, I've noticed.

He understood what I wanted to know, took the chalk and wrote this in the empty box. (I hope your PC supports Japanese)

天元
http://tengen001.web.fc2.com/ is the URL I think.

Several other students joined in and added the following.

ニコニコ動画
http://www.nicovideo.jp/

However this second example is more like a Japanese youtube. And you have to register to use it, so meh. I should caution you as my students cautioned me. The download site above is "Chinese" and "dangerous."

SpongeBob Square Pants, for whatever reason, was popular back in the US what? Like almost a decade ago. When I was in college I remember some friends watching it once for fun. Little known secret--my wife learned English by watching SpongeBob. The English is easy, the situations clear cut and the episodes short.

But did you know SpongeBob is alive and well here in Japan. For sports day, classes must make their own banners. Two of my classes chose SpongeBob as their mascot. Keep in mind these kids are 13, 14 years old. They would be High School freshmen, were they in America.

While SpongeBob may be commonplace here, I remember catching the show on TV once. Amazingly, the theme song was changed to "What Bob Who Pants?" I never saw or heard that jingle again, nor do any of my students recognize "What Bob Who Pants?" but I swear I'm not crazy and heard that on TV once.

Yeah the "Hail Hitler" salute is kinda weird on SpongeBob don't cha think?