Kids English Summer Camp: You have won a grand prize!

It was a dark and stormy night. No wait, that's the beginning of every story my father ever told. OK, a fairly ordinary morning. The place: central Osaka, Japan. Our hero (I use the term sparingly, without assumption that he has ever done anything 'heroic') exits a crowded train to enter a crowded station. Crowded suggests a large space is taken up, but in this case its fairly 2-dimensional: the bottom 3 feet of the station is taken up by the bodies of 300-odd Japanese children, like some shallow but dangerous pool. Japanese kids are shy at first, but they warm up quicker than a Coke left on a dashboard in summer. 15 minutes after wading his way into the group, our hero had two hanging off my arms and one trying to give him a kancho (Japanese for poke-in-the-butt). Anyone who's ever worked with Japanese kids know that poking someones ass isn't politically incorrect here, despite how disturbing that is.

The Magnificent Fifteen

Flashback (we probably need some backstory on this setting): One week previous we found Tim (for the lead in this story is indeed myself) signing up for a summer camp for Japanese primary school students (mostly 7-10 yr olds), designed to have fun with English. Have fun with English?, I hear you ask. Well, in this case that involved playing out a plot loosely based on Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, brought to you by the outrageously-copyright-dodgingly named PISNEY C corporation. To accomplish such an entertaining task an elite band of ninjas superheroes entertainers is an invaluable accessory. Brought in for the challenge are: In the back: Lucas (USA), Kerry (Canada), Daniel (Israel), Sam (Belgium), Myself, Andris 'Andreesh' (Hungary), Mari; Middle: John (USA), Miyuki, Yukie, Mami, Yuko; and kneeling: Fumiyo, Kazue, and Kayo on the far right. Children, prepare to have fun.

Arriving at the camp after a 3-hour train ride on which I posed for roughly 5000 photos and gave about 7000 autographs (or so it seemed), we checked into the spacious and seaside manor-esque hotel (think Solway Park, but actually interesting). Anyone keen on GoogleEarth can find the camp at 34°18'N 136°48'E, though the resolution of that part of the world isn't great yet. You can see how truly out in the middle of nowhere it is though, compared to the rest of Japan. Makes you appreciate it more. The heat was certainly making me appreciate the fact that we were going swimming - the humidity was just getting too much for me. It's like that everyday for about 2 months here, and you begin to realise why places like Spain have siesta. It's just too hot to do anything of importance, except use the waterslide, throw kids in the pool and avoid having your togs pulled off.

The plot of the evening involved introducing the kids to the special guest at the camp, Johnny Wonka, who tells the kids all about his new chocolate factory nearby. Along with company president Kerry and PR rep Yuko, he tells the kids a golden ticket will be hidden in just one of the chocolate cakes they will have for dessert. As it turns out, none of the cakes have a ticket (I should know, I ate about 6 pieces leftover. Damn good cake). John goes to find out what happened at the factory, and comes back covered in ants. His Oompa-Loompa helpers (Luca-loompa, Kayo-loompa, and a very sexily dressed Miyupa-loompa) have all been possessed by the Big Bad Ant (the 'B.B.A.'). They say the BBA has taken the ticket, and no kid will be allowed a golden ticket because kids eat too many sweets, play computer games too much and act selfishly. I fail to see how this makes him 'Bad'. I think he should be the 'M.B.A.', where the M stands for Moralistic, or alternatively, Manatee. Manatee Baby Ant.

So we go outside and try to find this oversized devilish insect. The kids gather round the campfire (we really don't need a campfire, its still a sauna outside even after the sun's gone down), and we dance and sing about how we won't eat too many sweets. Yuko brings bugspray, where the secret ingredients are keyword

Children with glowsticks, not supernatural phenomena.

s: 'be humble', 'be nice', 'be active', 'be kind'. The ant shows up in black PVC form, carried by the bigger kids he's possessed. The little ones all get a bit scared, but collectively we tell him to shove it, and that they're all good kids. The goodness of the children is too much for the ant to comprehend (or possibly it was he couldn't fathom the complexity of the lies?), and he runs away, losing an antenna in the process. Turns out we need both antenna to stop the ant and his regime. Leaving it all sounding a bit like a classic children's movie such as Gremlins, we head off to bed, or in the 'real big kids' case, off for a few drinks and a chinwag.

The next day (Wednesday, but you can't tell time when you're at a camp). I wake up (-grab the brush and put a little make-up-), and head out for the days activities. I supervised the traditional Japanese games (spinning tops and the like), but the highlight of the day was catching crabs in the swamp. Some big mother-fathers, but they were very susceptible to squid bait on the end of a piece of string. Was really nostalgic of the rock pools in Days Bay where we used to disturb the seaside wildlife on a regular basis. All these activities were for the kids to show their ant foe that they were active and kind, and they earned their brownie points to proceed to the 'Final Stage' (now it sounds like Tekken). Priceless moment when waiting to go in and face the BBA:
Kerry: Now, what do we do if we see the BBA?
***Silence***
Boy: Ask for an autograph?
The ant was eventually vanquished by the power of love and keywords, along with the help of an over-exuberant John, who faked his own death at least a dozen times for different child groups that afternoon (by faked I mean both literally and within the context of the plot: it turned out he didn't get killed after all). And what's more, everyone got a golden ticket! Sunshine lollipops and rainbows! Printed enthusiastically on each ticket is the words 'You have won a grand prize!'. What prize? Why, a trip home! But first, buy some dried shrimp biscuits for your grandparents from the giftshop and write your parents a pictureless postcard! That's the Japanese souvenior way!

Anyway, kudos and much love to the guys and gals at Yamaha English school, the neat staff at Nemu-no-sato, and to the kids who came to the camp - and kids everywhere, for that matter. Without you, we wouldn't need warning labels like 'Keep out of reach of children' and 'This site contains explicit content'. Keep up the good work.

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