Globalization, Manifested

As busy as I've been recently, the one thing that I really like about my job is that I'm able to get a lot of reading done. I always have a few minutes of downtime between classes at the various schools I go to and while this normally isn't enough time for me to focus on studying or anything quite so involved, I can usually manage to read a chapter or two over the course of a day. I'm currently reading Naomi Klein's No Logo and despite the fact that it's probably unhip to like a book that was trendy five years ago, it's still a good read and remains a seminal text on branding and anti-corporate activism within the last decade.

Well, ironically enough, I was sitting in the teacher's office at Koyuu Elementary school a few days ago reading that very book when I was summoned by a first grader to eat lunch with his class. When I got there, a kid with a Nike t-shirt leaned in and asked me, "Mehan-Sensei, which do you like better at McDonald's, the hamburger or the fillet O' fish?"

Here's another mildly comical anecdote: the other day I had to be at the school fairly early in the morning so my supervisor drove me instead of the usual office lady. We get in the car and the minute he turns on the engine, the radio starts blaring a Lil Jon song. For the entire car ride I sat there biting my lip to keep myself from laughing while my supervisor drove stone-faced, seemingly unaware that he was pumping the crunk at full-volume. Yeeeeah!