It’s been a funny few weeks. Back at work following a long and nice break for the Obon holiday (main summer holiday in Japan) and there’s been a string of fairly comic moments, which all culminated today. Let me entertain you if you will…
First I discovered that someone, somewhere thought it would be a good idea to licence (and I use the word lightly here cos I really wonder if they did licence them) extracts from British TV comedies to show in school receptions, while students wait, chat etc… Which sounds like a great idea - British comedy is after all responsible for some of the finest moments in the history of comedy on TV (Fast Show or Monty Pythons just to name two). If there’s one thing I’ve always loved the Brits for, it’s their sense of humour (with a few exceptions - I never quite got some of it, TV or real life). Where it gets a little twisted, and kinda funny, is in the choice of said British TV comedies: Little Britain and the Migthy Boosh… err… what? :???: It ain’t nothing against either of these programmes in particular, I quite liked Little Britain at the start though it got tiring fast and I never got the Mighty Boosh but a lot of friends rave about it, it’s just that well… I don’t quite see how Japanese people would really understand either, there’s an incredible amount of references with regards to culture, society and the likes which I would never expect a Japanese person who hasn’t lived in England for a while to get, and that’s without touching on accents and slang, double entendres etc… What’s more, some of the sketches in Little Britain don’t strike me as particularly good taste - yeah they’re funny, but for a school environment? (ok and here feel free to point out that Eikawa does not equate school) Whatever floats the corporate boat though, it’s pretty funny witnessing moms, children and receptionists watching the only gay in the village sketches or the violent throwing up ones :lol: After all it’s English, which is all that seems to really matter to them.
Second, one day last week I walked into the reception to do a bit of paperwork and pick up a high school student (nudge nudge wink wink - ok I’m tired and it’s late) only to hear the radio blurting what I seem to remember being a Green Day song about masturbation! I did hear the words ‘wanking’, ‘furiously’ and ‘I’m so bored I think I’m going blind’ before bursting into uncontrollable laughter. Much to the bemused faces of the school manager and student. It did liven up my day though.
Third and fourth - today was a double whammy of what the fuck funny. First I’m chatting to the guy I work with, while he’s going through some teacher notes for a summer school lesson he’s teaching. 2 minutes later he stops the conversation, and goes ‘you need to see this, I was told about it but didn’t think it was true’. I glance at the notes and can’t quite believe it either. There’s a paragraph about eliciting some language from the student, using 2 pictures. One of a man doing sports and the other of the same man, older, watching TV. It says and I quote: ‘Using picture 1 elicit information about Bill (he was active, he liked sports etc…). Now using picture 2 elecit information about Bill again (he’s older, he’s not very active, he likes watching Swedish Communist propaganda porn movies on TV).” :shock: :lol: Obviously someone in head office blew a fuse along the way. I reckon this has to rank quite highly in the finest moments of English teaching materials, if anyone knows of a better one please let me know.
The second funny of the day came in the shape of a poster in the reception for the Eiken programme, which is I think some sort of English test kids can take which then allows them to go and study abroad, that sort of stuff. Anyways the poster grabbed my attention for one major reason, it had the words Turkey Ranger written in big, bright fonts all over it. After passing it a few times, my brain ticked… hold on a minute, Turkey friggin Ranger?! You what?!
Turns out to be another prime example of lazy design coupled with horrendous drawing and even more laughable, slightly scary use of English. I had to take pictures, as words cannot do this justice. But really the Village People guy on the sides, coupled with the dazed looking turkeys, the man in a caped outfit (I’m assuming this is the famed Turkey Ranger) and the truly abismal comic in the middle make this quite possibly the worst advertising poster I’ve ever seen in my life. And that’s without even touching on the idea that it’s supposed to be related to an English language proramme whilst using some prime examples of Engrish/Japanish. Whoever wrote this should step away from the language, not now but right now. Loved how the receptionist pointed out that ’someone said it was a very famous comic character’ whilst I was wondering what the hell it was. If anyone can actually back that point please do, or actually come to think maybe don’t bother… I don’t think I want to know. I’d love to see a report on the effectiveness of this recruiting campaign though. Another prime example of the ’stick it up on the wall cos it’s English’ school of thought.
I’ll leave the pictures do the talking…
You couldn’t make up this dialogue even if you tried…
This one reads: ‘Ohhh global standards! Sounds so charming’. Explanations on a non returnable postcard please.
This one reads: ‘Well we’ll study too! I’m pumped!’ Insert bad taste joke here.
That turkey is so not impressed by the ranger’s moves…
Get this friggin snake off my arm!!!
I am turkey, all your bases are belong to us… resistance is futile…
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August 28th, 2007 at 7:21 am
The poster is NOT awful! Its superb!
Its from ‘the world of golden eggs’, though ive not seen enough of it to understand the whole turkey thing.
Seen some youtube clips of it, and its pretty funny! Excellent 3d style and animation too. I think its on MTV in japan.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+world+of+golden+eggs
As for the communist porn thing? Thats just ace. I cant remember the URL, but there was a blog i read that used to post pics of his students’ answers at school, with hilarious results and crazy english use. Im sure its not kosher, but their identities are protected :wink:
August 28th, 2007 at 10:45 am
had a feeling you might be the one clearly that up for me. Just watched some episodes and i think i’ll still stand by my original claim that it’s pretty bad… im not into that kinda design to be honest and the dialogue/subbing makes no sense, which goes nicely with the comic on the poster and engrish quotes. I still think it’s pretty ironic that they chose this to promote a study abroad program. what do i know tho!
August 28th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Hm, yeah. A few are quite funny (the french lessons one is ok) but most are a bit ‘WTF’. I still like the design of it though. It has a unique look, and as a 3d artist, i think it does the job and must be very quick and cheap to produce.
But why use that to promote english lessons? Strange indeed…
August 28th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Doesn’t look very Japanese does it?? It looks very similar to the style of the main illustrator of a certain British English school who quit 2 months ago to move onto a new job (have a look at last years’ summer school sheets to see what I mean). Did he move on to Eiken??
I also laughed at Little Britain for the first time in my life- at the idea that some genius thought that was a good thing to put in reception! And to think I used to take the effort to take down the Gaijinman comic strips someone put up in one of the schools because I thought they weren’t suitable for kids…
August 28th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
ha ha yeah i did think it struck an odd resemblance to said illustrating and resource creating genius. I wasn’t here for last year’s summer schools but i had to suffer the spring and summer schools he came up with this year (i think he did the summer ones, if not it’s obviously the work of someone who thought his style was good) and the use of his HS books which are slowly but surely driving me to want to murder someone…
But yeah you’re right, I wonder who’s behind this school of golden eggs thing - it’s freakily striking in resemblance the more I look at it.
I should have checked who was responsible for the Swedish porn thing, as its an adult summer school resource, so it may well have been a parting gift? ha ha
The Little Britain thing is retarded beyond belief, I do really wonder if they’ve got licence for it though?
Gaijinman comic strips? That sounds like an interesting one too.
So did you use to work for said British English school in Japan as well Alex? I read on your blog you worked for them in Thailand.
@ Andy - yeah fair enough, i gotta be honest the design puts me off. I find those quick and easy to produce looking animations mainly so so, especially as south park was there first and did it better than anyone else 10 years ago now (1997, damn!). The only one I really enjoy these days is Robot Chicken - i think that’s genius.
August 30th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Hey Laurent I didnt know about ur blog until today, I found it while at work. It’s important for them that the characters used for the poster is totally NOT-japanese looking, as long as they’ve got that down they dont care. When I first went to Sydney years ago, they made us sing stuff like Michael Jackson and heaps of billboard chart songs e.g. those human-nature looking dudes(ones that sampled EWF’s lets groove tonight straight up) with all seriousness just so that we can learn English.
August 31st, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Re. Little Britain being shown in reception - do the places where you work never have English radio shows with expletive-filled rap songs on? It’s nothing to do with whether the students can comprehend the English, it’s solely a way of making the atmosphere seem more impressive to prospective students.
It’s like having a David Beckham branded football school - you’d chose it over a no-name school but 99.9% of the people who go there will never be a professional football player, even if they get 10 minutes training with Becks himself. Just like how 99.9% of people who go to English schools will never gain a working command of the language.
The same way that people play sports with no intention of becoming a pro, or study flower arranging for a year cos they’re curious about it, Japanese people mess around with English for a bit. And if you did flower arranging, wouldn’t you want the opportunity to see some ace flower bender in action, even if you didn’t understand anything that was going on?
August 31st, 2007 at 6:48 pm
oh yeah I’m fully aware of the fact that they show them solely because it gives off an impression of Englishness or whatever to impress people. But i just find the choice of Little Britain highly comic. We’re lucky we don’t get really get explicit rap songs where I work, though I do work in Ebisu on sundays which is a more central school, so they sometimes play the BBC’s online radio, which leads to some funny moments. Generally though most schools seem to either opt for cheesy 80s pop songs, cover CDs or Japanese/English talk shows. meh.
I hear you on the hobbyist (sp?) nature of a lot of Japanese people though, it’s something I’m finding hard to deal with at times in the classroom, just cos it makes you want to bang your head against the wall (or maybe that’s just me).
August 31st, 2007 at 8:20 pm
How was BTC?
Looking forward to the update :grin:
October 11th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Hey - I’m an AET in Hokkaido and I laughed quite a bit when I saw this. Yes it’s from WOGE….but the funny part is they also have a English instruction DVD that they sell by itself…it teaches you to say things like, “I want beefy ham arms.”
The comedians who make this speak very bad Japanese…so they teach you bad English too…I think it’s pretty awesome to see the Japanese making fun of Engrish (not Japanese-English) - the commercialization of a language is never a good idea.