The Japanese: Assheads (I knew it!)

Not much going on here in the land of...err..kimchi (I don't think Korea has any cool names like Land of The Rising Sun or something of that ilk), but thought I would just post some amusing tidbits from the past several days. The title refers to some rather interesting discussions with my middle schoolers over the weekend. Now coming into Saturday I was pondering where I stood on this Japan vs. Korea debate. Usually I side with the Koreans since they've been terribly friendly and helpful to me, but every once in a while I think, "Wait, I completely understand why the Japanese hate these motherfuckers". Saturday saw me straddling the fence on the issue until my students made my decision quite easy. We were doing writing, so I gave them the question, "Where in the world do you want to visit and why?", and asked them to brainstorm and then write about. Well, my oddball (that's an understatement) best student from my regular classes was here and his writing was...interesting. For his destination he chose Japan. For one of his reasons he put "destroy", and the attached ideas (I had them use a bubble/web brainstorm structure) were "bomb", "war", "magic power", "nuclear", "for the world", and my personal fave, "for my pleasure". Now most teachers and sane human beings would have been (and probably should have been appalled) by this, but being the terrible person I am, I just laughed and egged him on. Another student was thinking along the same lines, as he asked the high level student for the word "assassinate" in English so he could say that he wants to assassinate the president of Japan. He was not without a heart, as he liked sushi and "was worried about if there will still be sushi after Japan falls". See, they can show compassion towards those evil Japs. "Crazy Boy" as he is called by all (and I mean all) of the other students at school, kept the hate train a rollin' when he moved from brainstorming to writing. His plan was to assassinate the president, turn Japan into a Korean colony, make peace with Japan, then follow this up by completely wiping Japan off the map. An interesting strategy, make peace, then wipe them off the map. The crown jewel was his description of what would happen to the Japanese and then then the rambling afterwards: "I will throw the Japanese to the sun. I will send them to hell. God damn it." Every once in a long while, a student will throw out some English that is unusual and not normal for a native speaker, but sounds beautiful to my ear. The line about throwing the Japanese to the sun is such a line. The hate didn't hold to just Saturday, as he spent all of the lunch period on Monday compiling a list of why Japan sucks which goes something like this: "I hate the Japanese because they are assheads (not shitting you he had written assheads), stinky, dirty, smelly, criminals, beggars, insane, mentally challenged, stupid, weak, ugly, monsters, etc (the list went on with more english words for some time after that)". I don't know where the hell he got asshead from, but it made my day. I wanted to keep the copy of the writing to show to the Japanese fans out there (mainly just Collin), but he wanted it for himself. Probably so he could put it up on the fridge at home. Sorry Brian, but they don't really have much to say about China. Hope you don't feel left out. I'm hoping this prompts Collin to give me some good examples of Korean hate so I can nod and say, "Yeah, that sounds about right", but I'm assuming that the Japanese don't really give two shits about Korea. Ohhh Korea, so delightfully oblivious to your own global insignificance. Sometimes I laugh to myself when a student asks me if I've heard of some Korean band or actor. Kid, most people in the US and around the world don't even know where the fuck Korea is, let alone some obscure band or actor. Here ignorance is not only bliss, it's a way of life. Although, that sounds a lot like home, come to think of it.