Friday, February 8, 2008

Cross cultural thoughts on prostitution

Every Friday I teach two adult language classes. Sometimes it is really awkward and I find my self laughing at the jokes then realize that it was all in Japanese and I have no idea what anyone just said.

Recently, I have been enjoying my intermediate class.
They are always eager to ask me questions about American politics.
They cannot believe that Americans do not follow Japanese politics.

Currently, they are all Obama supporters.

Today the political questions got complicated. I started to kind of make up answers. Or told them that I do not know how to explain that in simple English and I will tell them next week. When really I started to feel bad about kind of making things up.

I could tell them that all Americans ... YES all Americans decide who will become President. Not some council or something. But ALL PEOPLE. We all get to vote on that fateful day. They did not know that. Fuck yea freedom.

Then we started to talk about stereotypes.
One guy said that he saw a Western movie about Japanese people and the husband was making his wife sleep with other men. In the movie, the man was giving his wife as a gesture of kindness.
The guy who saw the movie was like, "No way any woman I know would let her husband do that !"

I asked the women what they would do. Most of them shook their heads, looking a little embarassed.

My favorite student said she would take his money. "I would steal all money from man I share bed with."

I laughed and smiled telling her "I am glad you would take his money ... that is good."

Then she said, "No, I would take money and kill him before." As she made a stabbing gesutre.

Alright. That makes things even more interesting.

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