Dan vs the World

Monday, April 25, 2005

F&cking Kanchos!

It happened again, today. You think I would be use to it by now, but man alive, it still pisses me off. I am, of course, referring to the time honored Japanese tradition of the Kancho. Now for those of you unfamiliar with Kanchos, I’m about to shatter (or greatly reinforce) your conception of Japanese society. First it should be explained that instead of disciplining children in here, the Japanese prefer to ignore the misbehavior. I guess if you don't acknowledge its existence, it's not a problem. So if a Japanese adult sees a kancho occur, they won't scold a child, they will just ignore him. Worse still I've seen teachers joke with the students about Kanchos, which, of course reinforces the idea that this is acceptable behavior, and as far as I can tell, though it may be considered immature, it isn't actually considered inappropriate, especially if a child chooses a visiting foreigner (i.e. me) as there target.
So you can call me intolerant and bigoted towards other cultures, and you might be right. Now I try to keep an open mind about things, but I just can't bring myself to tolerate kanchos as an acceptable part of society, especially when I’m the victim of one.
Now for those of you who don't know about Kanchos, let me fill you in. Kancho literally translates into enema. I wish I could say that the name was misleading.
To properly perform a kancho, you first need to take your hands and fold them together, leaving the index and middle fingers extended, so it looks like you are pretending to hold a gun. Next you need to find a target, preferably a foreigner about twice your height and 5 times your weight, and who doesn't speak a word of your native language. Now when your target’s back is turned, insert your extended fingers into his butt crack, preferably with a sharp jabbing motion. However, as long as your fingers end up in his ass you have done your job. Please see the illustration below:



Now for further fun, when your target turns on you with the rage of God in his face, quickly perform the jabbing motion again, but this time aim for his junk. Repeat this until either the target retreats in disgusted terror, or you lose consciousness due the excessive beating which you may receive.
Now for some reason, some of the kids find it hilarious to evoke rage in there giant of a target. So this of course leads to very unpleasant situations, especially since my Japanese is about on par with that or the neighborhood Golden Retriever. So they get to see a big white guy yelling at them incoherently.What fun!
This is my life in Japan. I’m glad to say that by the time the kids reach 4th grade, they have mostly outgrown (or think better of) kanchoing a giant foreigner, though they continue to do it to each other into high school.
Now there is a gender gap in this practice. It is mostly little boys who enjoy doing this. This, for good or ill, has made me favor the female student, since I feel that my personal space is safer in there company. Right now, I never want to have a son, those little ass-poking boys. Maybe my mind will change once I get back to America where kids just swear and hit you. I could deal with that a lot more easily.

1 Comments:

At 4:46 PM, Blogger TJ said...

wow...you learn something new everyday. kanchos.

 

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