Headline reads: Play in English with Amanda-san

(yes this only ran in a newspaper with a circulation less than the courier post. let me have my moment!)

A large part of my job involves going out to various schools in the prefecture and teaching about America. Oh, scratch that - it mainly has to do with them introducing a foreigner to the students and teaching them a bit of English. Still, it’s a chance for me to go to schools and interact with children, which I don’t get to do very often. It can get a bit boring always being in an office with other adults, so even though I get nervous about “performing” (and annoyed with the prep work) it always turns out to be a lot of fun. I’m not particularly good at playing with children! I’ll admit it! But even I can get them running and jumping and laughing and not wanting to leave. By the end, I don’t much want to leave either.

To be honest, doing cultural workshops with children is the best way to get Japan ready for their coming influx of foreigners (unless they just want millions of jobs to go untaken once their already massive elderly population gets even larger) and I wish there were more of them. This event was in Kanegasaki, a small little field of white in the middle of nowhere. You know how many foreigners these children get to see? It’s easy to see western foreigners on the tv and think all of us are perfect, plastic (and usually white) people with pearly teeth, so it’s really fulfilling for me to go into a classroom and show them I’m just as much of a living, breathing person as they are. Foreigners just look different than what they’re used to. When you’re a child, those physical differences can seem much more important than they are (heck, who am I kidding? They’re much more important to adults than they should be either).

You play a game with them, you mention you like Pokemon just as much as they do, and suddenly foreigners become a lot less intimidating and little tiny bit more relatable. I want Japanese children to grow up and think of foreigners as just as normal as they are, not some scary creatures who will scream English epithets at them “HELLO HOW ARE YOU IM FINE AND YOU?” It would be nice to create a fascination in a young child about America just like the fascination I had with Japan that grew out of a silly little show about collecting monsters. Because in the end, it’s the memories you make in your childhood, it’s the impressions made in the middle of a snow-filled day, that really stay with you for the rest of your life.

“Hey, Amanda, guess what?” a little girl of maybe 5 said to me once. “My friend says that foreigners are scary. But I met you, and you’re not scary at all!” If my job means teaching little children that we’re all humans at the end of the day, then consider my job satisfaction at 100%.

(Plus, I-san saw that photo and said we have to play this game at the next drinking party. You wish, I-san!! :3)