And the Cutest Child in the World Award goes to …

I’ve started my elementary school visits. I get to go play with the kids about three times a month and I know its going to be the highlight of work. You know the ad for the new phone network 3 – the one with the singing cherry and the two little girls who are in the finals for this award – imagine a whole school full of kids to rival those two all focused on you and trying to impress you with their English. The class consisted of my self-introduction followed by questions – I was asked what kind of beetles we have in Ireland and how far I could swim (they were very impressed with my answer of several kilometres – that earned me points). We then played games – London Bridge is Falling Down (ahh… how the lake at home returns to haunt me) and the Business Card Game.

The Business Card Game consisted of everybody approaching each other and executing this script.
Me: Hello. My name is Rachel
Kid: Hello. My name is _____. Nice to meet you.
Me: Nice to meet you too.
But really the English was just in the way of the real business – Janken. Don’t know if you’ve heard but Rock, paper, scissors is a serious phenomenon here. I’ve used it in Junior High classes where they laugh at how slow I am – but they were nothing to the elementary kids who were determined to beat me and win one of my business cards. Because that of course was the most important part – win as many business cards as you can by playing Janken for them. I think I enjoyed it far too much.

As soon as the game started I was surrounded by a huge crowd of kids – there was almost 60 in each class – and I Jankened until I was really to fall over. In the first class I was beaten badly and had no cards left. In the second class I somehow got good at Janken – I couldn’t loose even when I tried cause all the kids wanted was one of my cards so at the end I gave away the left over cards and was nearly mobbed for them. After the frenzy to get my meishi (cards) ended I was politely approached by almost every kid who I hadn’t won a card off and solemnly offered one of their cards. I now have an excellent network of contacts here in Japan, does it really matter that they are only 9?