What do you do with your teeth?
On Monday one of my students had a tooth fall out in the middle of class. Since I teach junior high, this is a decently rare occurrence, but out it came. The teacher explained to me that in Japan upper teeth are buried under the house and lower teeth are thrown on the roof. This is considered good luck and helps ensure that the next set of teeth will be strong. In turn, I explained that in the U.S. we put a tooth under our pillows, and the tooth fairy comes to pick it up, leaving money behind. The teacher translated this for the students, and they all made the standard Japanese noise of astonishment. They say “Eh”, but instead of making it one note like crusty old Americans do, the sound starts relatively low and raises 22 notes. The lack of completion of the third octave conveys a feeling of bewilderment. But in this case it was good bewilderment. I think they all wished they got money from their teeth too.
Um, would you like a pen?
Since I live overseas I have my mother on my checking account. It means she can deal with my finances and pay bills without too much of a problem. Because my parents live in a small town with exactly one bank, that is the bank chain I use. Like many companies, this bank gives out pens to its customers. They happen to be really good pens, and when I make my once a year visits I grab
half a dozen to take with me.
Today at the elementary school I teach at I saw the students looking inquisitively at my pen. I didn’t see anything special about it. It is a dark green ball point pen with English writing. Still, if they valued it that much…
I offered the girl the pen. She insisted she couldn’t take it. But the boy next to her said he would take it. The girl got mad at him. I don’t
know if it was because she actually wanted it or because she thought it was rude for him to take it. In either case, this was something I could fix. In elementary school the students come to the teacher’s room to fetch me to start class and they walk me back afterwards. The girl happened to be the one assigned to accompany me. Back at the office, I asked her to wait a minute and dug through my backpack to find another pen from the bank, which was subsequently presented to her. She thanked me and left. During cleaning time I saw she was using it to mark the progress on her group’s chart.
I wonder if this bank has any idea that it’s pens are floating around in rural Japan.
jilidachristiansen 
Did you ever find out why she seemed so interested in the pen in the first place? Curious. 🙂
No, I didn’t. But I might next week when I see her mom in my adult English class, as her mother has better English. There are a lot of mysteries around here that are just left hanging because I never find out what was going on. Quite a few stories never make it onto the blog or into conversations because I don’t have endings to them.
I asked the mother of the girl what was going on, and she had no idea. The mother knows enough English to be able to tell her daughter that the fancy writing on the pen said “bank.” But she didn’t know, either, what was so special about the pen.