Yugenius

Yesterday my dear friend THE HOR, was kind enough to propose another travel destination for me and invited me to join her in the ghetto.

She paints a picture of a magical realm populated by colorful little folk (Mexicans) where danger lurks behind one corner and adventure peeks out from the next. While the idea of calling myself Frodo Trash Baggins and gathering a fellowship of diverse and gangsta friends to venture off with discover our destinies sounds beyond appealing, I am going to have to pass due to a strong allergic reaction I have to being knifed in the gut. Also, if I got mugged i would start to get homesick.

Can I take a rain check?

OK, story time.

The other day I mentioned having taken in a Japanese exchange student while in 8th grade. His name was Yuji Yabushita and he spoke maybe 3 words of English. Hungry, tired and bathroom. They are probably the three best words to know when you are in a foreign land, but it didn't exactly lead to us having a rich exchange of culture. It was difficult to get a sense of his personality because of the language barrier. However I did get a glimpse into the mind of Yuji during math class one day.

For 8th Grade math I had a teacher named Mrs. P. Her husband, Mr. P also taught math at the same school. They were one of those couples who weren't what you'd call attractive in any way, but they were cute together. Now before you go off wondering what nationality a last name like P is, I will tell you it was short for a long name I can't be bothered to remember.

Yuji was sitting at a desk with me to my right as Mrs. P was teaching us the wonders of algebra. I noticed he was jumping around in his Japanese to English dictionary with a sense of purpose. He would briskly flip forward or backwards through the pages and then jot something down on the top of his paper. He did this a few times it seemed. I wasn't paying all that much attention to it.

When he was apparently done, he tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the top of his loose leaf paper with this weird grin on his face. I figured he wanted to know if he could leave to go to the bathroom or if he had to pee in a bucket under the desk, you know, like they do all the time in Japan. Look it up. Wikipedia Japan. It's in the first 2 paragraphs I'm sure. So, I look over at what he wrote down and it said

"This teacher look like a gorilla."

Well I completely lost it. It had never occurred to me before that Mrs P looked like an ape, but she totally did. This revelation by Yuji, along with the little gorilla face he drew next to it, made me wish I was in japan because I laughed so hard I needed a piss bucket under the desk. I'm telling you it's true. Ask any Japanese person.

I'll wait.