Mike-sensei: Television Star

When I lived in Japan, I taught English at a rather prestigious elementary school. As such, we would often have special visits from educators, government officials, or news teams from all over Japan. One day, a television news crew from the nearby city came to our school. They followed our English lessons all day, filming and conducting interviews with teachers and students. After one lesson, they made the mistake of attempting to interview me, the foreign teacher with limited grasp of the Japanese language. One of my answers, I later realized, might have given the reporter a slightly odd impression.

His question went something like, “How do the students respond during the lessons? Do they seem to be enjoying themselves?”

To which I answered (or thought I did), “The kids are really great. They’re always having fun and they’re always excited.”

At this point, the reporter seemed to pause rather awkwardly before abruptly thanking me for my time and moving on to interview someone else.

Later that afternoon, I realized why he had been so quick to end our interview. Instead of the above, what I said actually meant this: “The kids are really great. They’re always having fun and they always have boners.”

Then I knew why the reporter had acted so strangely, but I was extremely relieved to discover that they decided to leave my interview out of the broadcast that evening.