Language is a Funny Thing

Engrish or Japanese English is a pretty well know hilarious phenomenon. Typos, poor grammar, and outright strange word selection and combinations are everywhere in Japan from clothing, to foodstuffs, and even office buildings. Just like the way some buffed out frat guy has Chinese characters tattooed on his arms, the Japanese use English as design and often have no idea of it's meaning. Seriously though for the sake of foreigners can't somebody use spell check or grammar check before they print a T-Shirt or paint a sign? Besides that annoying point, some of the mismash of English words are really funny.

Thirsty for excellence! – Is this the latest slogan for a Japanese sports drink? No! It's an axiom written in huge bold letters in front of the prefectures most prestigious hospital.

I came too hard / I never came so hard– I've seen this on a couple of T-shirts so I think it's pretty popular. Although the latter was worn by a middle school aged girl...

I have HOT WEATHER COCK – This shirt design was worn by a dumpy middle aged woman. And yes she is a teacher at a school I work at. And yes I had her class on the day she wore that shirt.

There are other ones that I can't think of right now. More to come. Hard.

The Japanese really like bugs. Diagrams of the insides of beetles and dragonflies are found on the walls of many classrooms and a conspicuously large number of nature shows are about insect collecting, fighting, and mating.

One English lesson I'm forced to do involves teaching the English names of various insects. These kids may not know colors, days of the week, or basic greetings but damn it all if they can't say mantis or cockroach when I get through with them. One insect that is guaranteed to send the students into fits of laughter is cicada. Why? Because cicada sounds like the Japanese word for 'sexual harassment.'

The homeroom teacher always laughs along with the kids and never helps to settle them down. I've had some teachers make things way worse by mimicking a bug touching a girl's butt or breasts, which was pretty damn funny but these are elementary kids… In the end I waste a minimum five minutes of class time trying to settle the students down and for the rest of the lesson whenever cicada is mentioned they bust out laughing again. I've pressed upon the teachers the dangers of cicada before the lesson starts, but they always want the lesson as is.

I don't blame the mostly bored kids for laughing because when I was in 5th grade and some foreign teacher was showing me a picture of a weird looking bug and yelling, 'SEXUAL HARRASSMENT' I'd laugh too. However, the worst part about all of this is that some kids have taken to calling me cicada sensei.

Japanese girls: "Ahhhhhh it's cicada sensei! Run or he'll sexually harass us!" Then they sprint away screaming for their lives.

Can I go back to being called Michael Jackson? If only these kids knew that it's really the same thing then I'd be in really big trouble.