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Other than writing for 4cr I have a full time job as an English teacher. This year I switched to teaching elementary school. The kids are great but it is an exhausting job. Anyway, recently I decided to do a lesson about family structure. To teach English words like Father, Mother, Brother, Sister, etc.

As with a lot of lessons I do with first graders, I have to make it as interesting as possible or I can’t hold their attention for more than about 7 seconds. Kids this age love video games. Especially Mario games, so when teaching the word “brother” I decided to use a word they already know from the game “Super Mario brothers. However as it turned out, the one who got the lesson was me. Here’s what happened:

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This is my first attempt at making a Japanese music video so I decided to stick to something I know. Green public phones! The song is in Japanese but I added subtitles to the video. It’s weird but I hope you find it funny.

Watch it here!

Want to know what’s cool for little kids in Japan? Right now it’s a bug that likes biting people in the butt. This Oshiri Kajiri Mushi (Butt Biting Bug) is the star of a song that hit the top 10 in Japan and became an instant children’s classic (until the next one comes along). The song is crazy but insanely catchy.

Watch it now

Many of my students, both boys and girls, have pencils, notebooks, toys, erasers, etc. with this guy’s image on them. And if there is a class with students I just can’t seem to connect to, sometimes I will sing a few lines of this song and just watch their faces like up. “Teacher knows Oshiri Kajiri Mushi, he must be cool!” Because to a six year old, there really is nothing cooler than this.

The other day I was at a convenience store and I saw the Oshiri Kajiri Mushi on a package in the snack food aisle. The product was called “Oshiri Pie” in Japanese, which literally means “Butt Pie”! In what country other than Japan does that sound like something you would want to eat? Yeah, I bought some.