Boy

Takeru is a boy in one of my 6th grade classes at a school I teach at. He appeared about one third of the way in to the the school year. At the time, the homeroom teacher explained that he had been living in Shanghai and could speak Japanese, English and Mandarin. I said hi to him and didn't think much of his arrival. He was just some new kid who happened to be good at English.

Anyhow, as the semester went on I noticed that Takeru did not fit in well. The other students seemed not to like him, and it got to the point where he was becoming ostracized in class. At first I thought maybe it was because he was a little fat and nerdy. But then I realized it had more to do with his way of thinking. Takeru was not like the others. He was simply more open, and more curious than your typical Japanese kid. After having made these observations I didn't give his situation much thought though. 

Well, today at lunch I was scheduled to eat with the 6th graders. A desk in the classroom had been set aside for me. To the left sat Takeru. Hungrier than usual, I sat down and quickly dug in to my meal.

As I was slurping away at my alphabet soup Takeru spoke up. "Which do you like more, America or Japan?" he asked.

"Japan," I lied.

"Yes, Japan is good. The air here is very clean," he nodded.

"I guess so."

"China's air is very dirty."

"Huh?"

"Yes, very dirty. I don't like China's air."

I remembered he had come from China. "You lived in Shanghai right?"

"Yes. And China's air is very dirty. The trees give the clean air, but the China people kill the trees."

"Is that so?"

"China man are very bad. They kill trees and they sell people."

The statement struck me as odd. It gave me the impression the Takeru did not like China. "That's not good." I said. "Why do they do that?"

"Money," he answered rubbing his fingers together. It was an unusual gesture for a boy to give, especially a Japanese boy. (Here in Japan when people give the sign for money it's not done like in America. They make an OK sign, but with the palm facing up.)

"The food in China is not healthy," he continued. "I won't eat China's hamburger."

"I have heard that the food there is questionable."

"China's hamburger has insect. I won't eat them again."

Poor boy. I pictured him at a McDonald's in Shanghai. He was enjoying a BigMac when suddenly a cockroach came crawling out on to his hand. But really, who knows why he said such a thing?

"What else can you tell me that's wrong with China?" I asked him. He gave no reply. Must not have understood, I thought. "What more is bad in China," I asked again.

"The street," he said, "they are very dirty. They have very much...Oh, I forget my English."

"What is it you want to say?"

"Gomi," he said in Japanese.

"You mean trash?"

"Yes, there is very much of it in the street. China's people don't use the trash bin. They are very dirty."

Though the conversation we were having may seem absurd now, I was thoroughly enjoying my chat with Takeru. It was perhaps the first time I had had a full on English conversation while eating with my students. Usually, there's hardly any speaking at all, and when my students and I do converse it's always in Japanese. They simply do not have the language ability to carry a conversation outside their own language. 

"How long were you in China?" I asked.

"12 years."

"Wow, that's a long time." When he said it, It didn't occur to me that Takeru had spent practically his entire life abroad. "You must speak Chinese like a native," I figured.

"Yes, my Chinese is very well."

"Say something for me in Chinese."

"Okay."

"Say 'the streets in China are very dirty.'"

He did just that. And when I heard him speak I almost fell out of my chair laughing. There was a glaring disgust in his voice, as if he was letting fly his true character after having been unable to express it properly in English. I found his unexpected burst of emotion absolutely adorable. Moreover, I could relate to him. There was a time when I too couldn't express my feelings convincingly in a another language.

We continued our chat. And as we were talking something occurred to me. Takeru had been just another student, but because he was trying so hard to use the English he knew, and because he had delighted me with his strange words, and most importantly, because he had made me see a bit of myself in his eyes, I was now viewing him in a different light. How strange I thought. The boy had actually endeared himself towards me. 

On we talked. Our topic had shifted to my failed attempt at learning Chinese in Taipei. I was telling him things I had never told a student before. And poor Takeru, he was making such an effort to hold up his end of the conversation that he had completely forgotten to eat his food. By then the other students had finished up and were putting their plates away. A girl came by, and I watched her as she chided Takeru for still having food on his plate.

He then turned to me and said, "I'm sorry Mr. Phil. I can't talk more. I have to eat.”