Bite club －バイト・クラブ（かみかみクラブ）－

“The first rule of Bite Club is, you don’t talk about Bite Club.”

Toddler Durden might be angry if he finds out that I am talking about Bite Club.  But to be honest, I am not too worried.  He doesn’t read my blogs.

In fact, he can’t read.  That’s because he is only one year old.

But he is a very strong one year old.  And he likes to bite people.  He bites people when he is angry.  Even more so, he bites people when he is happy.

“When he bites you, it is because he wants to tell you something but doesn’t know how to say it.”

Someone gave us this advice about babies who bite.

So just what does he want to say?  “I’m so hungry that I could eat you”?  “You had better entertain me or I will hurt you”?

Perhaps he wants to say something more complicated than that.  In the 1999 film with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, Tyler Durden formed an underground club for men to fight each other.  Like the earlier movies “Rebel without a cause” and “The Graduate”, the theme of the film was young people (young men) rejecting the society of their parents’ generation and its rules.  For the men to fight each other expressed their hatred of the shallowness of modern consumer and advertising led society.  When they hit each other, they were really saying, “I don’t want to live in a fake world.  I don’t want to have to suppress my primitive male desires just to fit in any more.”

Perhaps when Toddler Durden bites his parents, he is rejecting their society and rules too.  He is saying, “I don’t want to have to suppress my babyish desires any more.  I don’t want to change from milk to solid food.  I don’t want to sit in the high chair at meal times.”

And how can you stop such a baby from biting you?

I asked an older relative for advice.  She said that I used to bite her when I was a baby too.

“And how did you deal with it?” I asked.

“I used to bite you back.”

It is probably better not to tell people that.  These days, they will have you arrested.  The second rule of Bite Club is, you don’t talk about Bite Club!

Vocabulary:

a toddler – a baby who can walk a little

underground – about a society, movement etc., hidden or not well known

shallowness – a lack of depth or real substance

to suppress – to hold back or not allow to be shown

primitive - unsophisticated; having existed for a long time and being simple

Charity begins at home －チャリティは、うちで始まる－

I recently wrote about the British student who had to have his bathroom window repaired after his date got stuck in it.  We don’t need to mention again why she climbed into the window.

One point I didn’t talk about was precisely why this student’s story became widely known.

He went onto the internet to a crowdfunding site, basically to beg other people for money to repair his window.  He said that as a poor, 24 year old post-graduate student, he couldn’t afford to pay the 300 Pounds repair bill.

Considering the story of his nightmare date again, I started thinking, “Well he must have at least some money, or he wouldn’t be able to afford to take his date out to a restaurant, or to invite her back for wine.”

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people collecting money for charity over the internet.  But I could perhaps come up with some better ideas for charities to donate to.  How about people affected by recent earthquakes or hurricanes?  People living in poor countries without clean water?

A young, healthy man in one of the richest countries on the planet needs a new window?  Couldn’t he get a part-time job then?  Or stop going out to restaurants so much?

I also noticed that although the repair bill was 300 Pounds, he collected more than 1,000 Pounds.  When the media asked about it, he promised to give the extra money to a firefighters’ charity.  I wonder if he would have still remembered to do so if his story had not become so famous?

Still, at least his crowdfunding story is not as extreme as that of Zack Danger Brown (I have no idea if Danger is really his middle name, but that’s how it was reported.)  Danger claimed to be a poor student who was struggling to pay for meals which had fresh, healthy vegetables.  So he went onto the internet and begged for 10 Dollars in donations to help him make a potato salad.  Many people found his request funny and sent him money.  In the end, he collected 55,000 Dollars.  Again, I notice that he didn’t shut down his profile very quickly after reaching his 10 Dollar target.  Too busy studying for his exams, I suppose?

Okay, I admit it.  I’m just jealous.  I want to be given lots of money for things I normally have to pay for myself too.  All I need to do is come up with some stupid story to go with my begging letter.

“I’ve got a hole in my slipper.  I need just 1 million dollars to buy a new pair.  By the way, my favourite film is The Wizard of Oz.”

“I’m a poor, struggling English teacher.  I offered my student a cup of tea, and she asked for milk and two sugars.  I need 3 yen to recoup the unexpected expenses.”

Any extra money raised I promise to give to charity.  And charity begins at home, you know.

Vocabulary:

a crowdfunding site – a website set up to collect money from many people, such as for a new business idea or charity

to beg – to ask for food or money as charity

a post-graduate student – a student who has already gained one degree and is pursuing further qualifications, such as a Master’s Degree or Doctorate

to recoup (some money) – to get back (some money) already lost or spent

Teaching our young to survive in a harsh world －若者に過酷な世界で生き残るのを教えること－

My grandmother used to keep several cats.  When I was a child, I enjoyed visiting her house and playing with them.

One day I moved my hand about quickly on the floor as if it were a mouse.  The cat suddenly pounced on my hand and bit deeply.  That was the end of the game.  I probably ran away and cried.

But the painful experience was a little lesson in life.  Pretending to catch a small, fast moving object is not just a fun game for a cat.  It is also a form of training, maintaining the cat’s ability to catch and kill small animals.

Adult cats teach their young how to hunt and kill by playing these sorts of games.  But what games do humans teach their children?  And is there a deeper meaning to how we play with our own young?

I was thinking about this recently when my wife was struggling to get our one year old son to eat the dinner she had prepared.  She tried to make eating solid food fun for him by turning it into a game.  She pretended to give him some food and then quickly put it into her own mouth.  She encouraged him to do the same thing.  So he offered food to her and then quickly put it into his own mouth instead.  When my wife starts to play this game, my son sometimes grabs and eats his food as fast as possible in order to prevent his mother from stealing it. 

So in one sense the game has been a success.  He enjoys mealtimes more and eats more.

But it also occurred to me that we have taught him how to steal.  We have taught him how to protect his own property from theft.  And we have taught him the value of lying, of pretending to do something in order to trick another person and gain an advantage.  Is this all just a coincidence, or are these useful life skills that humans teach their young so that they can survive in a harsh world?

Vocabulary:

to pounce – to jump on something with speed

to maintain – of a skill, to keep at a high level; to prevent from declining

to struggle to do something – to make an effort to do something, but find it difficult

theft - stealing

 

On being a little too desperate to avoid embarrassment －恥ずかしいことを避けようと、少し必死すぎてしまうことについて－

We would all like to avoid embarrassment.  We try to show ourselves to the world in a good light.  We want people to respect us.  Then we do something silly like walking into a lamp post because we aren’t paying attention.  And the realisation that everyone is laughing at us, whether openly or not, is a horrible feeling to endure.  Our social position has suddenly fallen.

But sometimes people try so hard to avoid embarrassment that they make life much more difficult for themselves.

I occasionally meet English students who hate to be corrected.  They will make a mistake, and I will correct them.  But they will try to keep on talking, pretending not to notice my correction.  If I ask them to repeat the correct sentence, they will mumble, ashamed that they have been “caught” making a mistake.

This obviously makes it much more difficult to learn a language.  If your teacher is not there to correct your mistakes, then what is his job?  A host in a host bar to keep you company?  A psycho-analyst to listen to your problems?

This week you may have heard about another poor young woman who tried a little too hard to avoid embarrassment.

She was meeting a young man on a first date.  They went to a nice restaurant.  Then they went back to his apartment to watch a movie.  Things were going really well.  At some point, the young woman needed to go to the toilet.  Perhaps the food at the restaurant was a little too spicy, who knows?  But she left some solid waste in the toilet.  Then the toilet wouldn’t flush.

Oh dear.

“If I just pick up the poo and throw it out of the window, he will never know,” she thought.

Sadly, her plan backfired.  The object got stuck between an inner window and an outer window.  She had to tell her sexy date what she had done.

“Well, she’s totally crazy,” he thought.  “But she has an admirable blue sky approach to problem solving.  I think I can continue dating her.”

The unlucky woman with weak bowels then volunteered to climb into the space between the windows to go and get back the poo.  She then got stuck between the windows and had to be rescued by the fire brigade, which smashed one window to free her.

So the whole thing spiralled out of control because the young woman tried too hard to avoid the initial embarrassment.  For my English students who try to hide their mistakes, please remember the moral of this story.  Your English teacher is an expert plumber.  He is there to help you flush your mistakes down the toilet.  But if you don’t accept his help, then your mistakes will just sit there, floating forever in the bowl.

I have to go and wash my hands now.  I taught three students today.

Vocabulary:

to show oneself in a good light – to make one’s actions, character etc. appear positive

a lamp post – a tall, usually metal pole in the street for holding up street lighting

to correct (someone) – to point out someone’s mistake; to tell someone when they have said something wrong

to mumble – to speak in a low and unclear way

a psycho-analyst – someone paid to understand other people’s minds and help them to get over their problems; a follower of Sigmund Freud’s methods

to backfire – of a plan, action etc., to have the opposite effect than intended, or to hurt rather than help

blue sky - usually “blue sky thinking” – thought which is very free and not limited by the usual rules, taboos etc.

bowels – the part of the body where food and waste goes after it has passed the stomach

to spiral out of control – of a problem, situation etc., to become worse and worse until it is impossible to manage

a plumber – someone whose job is to fix water pipes, toilets etc.