Two random stories.

So, last week, young Shintaro comes in and starts crying when his mother tells him, "Enjoy class, see you in forty-five minutes or so, goodbye!" (Shintaro is around 5 years old.) He continued crying as one of the teachers carried him upstairs to the Kids Classroom. I was in there, setting up the VCR to run a Richard Scarry ABCs video that we play for students who come early. Shintaro continued to bawl, until he came into the room and saw a) the video starting, and b) me. Within seconds, he had stopped crying and was animatedly discussing the merits of the tape with me.

"Hakuru wa mike da!"
"Yes, that's right, Huckle is a calico cat."

The week before, a parent brought in her young daughter to sign her up for English classes. As part of this process, we brought her up to participate in a class. She started crying for her mother. (Not surprising...taken away from her mother in a really strange place...) Anyway, her mother came up and sat with her outside the door of the classroom, occasionally trying to get her to go in (iyada! iyada!).

I was also outside the classroom, as I was to read a story (the Three Little Pigs) during the last part of class. I noticed that the little girl was starting to look at me curiously -- who is this big, strange-looking guy? I sat down and showed her the book, and she stopped crying and ran over to look.

"This is a pig!"
"Kobuta da!"
"Hai, kobuta da, ne? Kobuta wa eigo de "pig." One, two, three!"
"Wa-n, chiuu..."

At that point, one of the teachers in the room stuck her head out and asked me to hold it down, as the kids in class could hear me and wanted to see what I was doing. (oops!)