On The Fourth Day of Christmas...

~Somehow, I managed to survive to New Year's vacation (oshogatsu). It's the last of the three major vacations in the Japanese work year (the other two are Golden Week and Obon). I hope to do some skiing later, but for now, it's time to relax and keep out of the slushy, sorry excuse for snow that's trickling down from the sky.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a bit about the Japanese tradition of the "wishing tree", where children write down their holiday wishes and attach them to a paper tree on the wall. Inspired by this, I made my own wishing tree and had my students write down their wishes. Just for fun, I had them draw pictures of what they wanted. Here are pictures of some of the more amusing holiday wishes:

^ Video games are always in-demand among this demographic. This student wants a Pokemon game for the Nintendo DS, and regaled me with more information than I ever wanted to know about this particular creature.

^ This student had a slightly more sensible want. Because he's in a more advanced class, I had him write out "I hope to get..." rather than a simple "I want...".

^ Awww, how cute is this? Give the kid a dog, immediately!

^ Yet another sensible present. While at first asking for a pen might seem a bit under-achieving, there is more to the story. This picture was drawn on the day after Christmas; I think she interpreted the question as "What did you get for Christmas?", rather than, "What do you want for Christmas?"...which, to be fair, would confused me if I was in her situation.

My attempts to replace the idea of Christmas presents with New Year's gifts proved futile; Japanese children get money for New Year's, and find it difficult to imagine getting anything else.

^ I was confused at first by this student's answer; after all, what child dreams of getting a table? But she was adamant about it, wanting a very particular low table with a pig design on it. Bu, bu!

^ I'm sure you can guess which student made this Christmas wish for a "Dorcas Titanus Palawanicus" (spelling corrected), a rare beetle from the Philippines. Compare the above unfinished drawing with the real thing. Not bad!

Out of curiosity, I asked him a few questions about his beetle collection. He says that he keeps them in jars in his garage and feeds them banana slices every two days. He added that his father is also interested in beetles, but his mother quite sensibly forbids them from being brought into the house. ~Oyasumi!