Obama mania is running wild, BROTHER! (I would like to take this moment to apologize for using a 1980s professional wrestling catchphrase. Sorry.) Seriously though, they love that guy over here. In the last week, I have taught two lessons that have used the President as an example.
First, one of the teachers I work with decided to post a quote of Obama’s in the classroom as a motivational poster. The line was from Obama’s stump speech. It’s the one about how we are the people we’ve been waiting for. A good message for a classroom if ever I heard one, but there was one snag. Specifically, I had to read it to the class before the teacher and I explained the meaning. Reading scripts to a classroom of Japanese children is normally about 75% of my job description, but this is OBAMA MATERIAL! I pride myself on being a good public speaker and on being able to use several amusing voices to liven up a dead class. But this is BARACK OBAMA level $%*# we’re talking about here. I’m good, but I’m nowhere near that good.
Anyway, I did my best as I always do and things turned out alright, but it left an impression on the teachers. They’ve spent the last two years thinking of me as the paragon of the English language, the source of answers to any English related question they might have. The fact that I couldn’t even come within 34.621 light-years of matching President Obama’s oratorical style proved just how good he is.
The second Obama related event this week was when we had to teach the expression “Call me (insert nickname here)” as part of a lesson on introductions (being able to give a proper self introduction is vital to Japanese culture, so it is assumed to be equally career making/breaking in English). Without my knowing it, the teacher had prepared a special flashcard for us to use to fill in the blank. A picture of Bo. That’s right, Bo, the Obama’s long awaited dog . . . in his so-cute-it-gives-you-cavities lay. So we taught the example sentence “They call him Bo.” The students gave us some weird looks because Bo is, apparently, a weird name for a dog. The Japanese teacher then asked me to explain the meaning of Bo (you have no idea how tempted I was to make a Doctor Who/Face of Boe joke here). Realizing that no one in the room would get the reference if I mentioned either Doctor Who or Bo Diddley, I just shrugged and said that it didn’t have a hidden meaning and that the Obama’s must have thought it sounded cool. It wasn’t until days later that I realized Bo = B.O. = Barack Obama.
The students still weren’t satisfied since we were talking about a NAME here. Names have meanings. Nobody names something just because they like the sound of it (Remember, if it’s like that in Japanese, it must be like that in English). At this point I realized that I had just spent seven minutes or so on Obama’s freaking dog and that I’d had just about enough. About the third time I was grilled on the name, I turned it back around by saying to the teacher, “I don’t know, what does ‘Pochi’ mean?” Pochi is a stereotypically common dog’s name in Japan (think Fido). I’ve seen it written in Katakana so I know there’s no kanji to constitute a hidden meaning. To my mild surprise, I was right, the teacher realized that no, Pochi is just a cute word to call a cute dog. To my increasing relief, that was the end of that discussion.
This whole Obama craze extends far beyond the classroom. Last year, my principal got up in front of the faculty, PTA, and school board at a group party and gave a 20 minute speech on the cosmic philosophical implications of “Yes, we can” and how it applies to our teaching. I’m proud of myself. I managed not to burst out laughing. Also, the big man himself has appeared as a piece of clipart to make homework sheets look more interesting. I had an Elementary school student last year who picked up the nickname Obama because he was good at English. And every bookstore in the nation is packed with books of his speeches, considered to be the pinnacle of the English language. All in all, it’s hard point to argue.
Allow me to conclude this post by apologizing once again for the Hulk Hogan joke at the top. By the way, Hulk Hogan caused me no end of trouble when I first moved to the States, specifically because I had no idea who the hell he was. Professional wrestling was not offered on our TV system in Germany and I’d never even heard of the stuff. Imagine being an elementary school kid in 1991 California who had never even heard of Hulk Hogan. It was one of the many things that made my life . . . somewhat less than comfortable. But that’s a rant for another day.
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