today's word is "kancho"

Entertaining blog by a guy teaching English in Japan:

You know what's kind of funny though? Some kids can't say "Good morning", but damn near all of them can ask if I have a big dick. Or, "bigu dikku" in Engrish. [...]

I wish I could say it stops there, but actually, it gets worse. Let me introduce you to a game Japanese kids like to play called "Kancho."

Actually, it's not so much a "game" as it is kids clasping their hands together, sticking out their first fingers, and shoving them up your butt. I'm really not joking.

You know, before we come to Japan, they tell us a lot of ultimately useless stuff. What kind of computer to bring, if our DVD's will work, clothing sizes, that kind of nonsense. Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, in the 3-4 months of orientations did anyone ever mention that at some point, a Japanese kid may try to stick their fingers up our butt. That's something I would have liked to know, personally.

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31 Responses:

  1. mandil says:

    I've been reading for a couple months <lj user="koreabrie">'s journal of her teaching experiences in Korea. They play the "kancho" game there too...

  2. pjbeardsley says:

    I was on the JET program for 2 years... and they DID tell us about that at the Boston orientation. And believe you me, every time I walked down a hallway in an elementary school my hand was closely guarding my puckered starfish.

    • mandil says:

      Is it really that bad? One would think they do it for attention, what if you NEVER responded? Wearing a good thick pair of jeans should defeat any real penetration. I've worked with kids in special education for years now and they do all kinds of things, used to have a kid bite me on the ass while I was washing dishes. Jeans were great in that situation. He couldn't get any kind of good grip with his teeth and I just ignored it. Active ignoring is a great behavior modification tool.

      • pjbeardsley says:

        Actually, I was just kind exaggerating for, you know, (failed) comic effect.

        I can't even remember how I reacted to it. I guess I would ignore it/not ignore it depending on my mood that day. I don't think it would really make any difference, it's just something kids do there, like some weird game of tag where you're "it" when you get poked in the ass.

    • bellacrow says:

      what did you think of your experience? I keep wondering if I want to do something like that (I used to teach 7th grade english)

      • pjbeardsley says:

        I enjoyed my time there and I'm glad I went. I got to live in a (very) foreign country and learn the language on someone else's dime. And it was a great jumping-off point to see other parts of Asia.

        If you are in any way idealistic about teaching you will probably get bored/frustrated with the program, as did my friends with real education backgrounds. Most people I'd say only teach about 3 classes a day(some more, some less). The rest of the time you can join calligraphy or gym class, or hang out in the teachers room drinking green tea or really nasty instant coffee.

        • bellacrow says:

          I think I might like that actually. I wonder if anybody does any short programs, like 3 mos there, 3 mos back, or just 3 mos there. Were you paid enough to live on?

          • pjbeardsley says:

            Well, the program I was on (the JET program, which is run by the Japanese govt.) only does a year contract at a time. The pay is really good, lots of people get subsidized housing (my rent was like $100 a month). And like 20 days of vacation a year... maybe more over the summer if your school is nice. Oh, and because for some reason they can't have you working more than 35 hours a week, you get Friday afternoons off. The drawback is the year at a time thing, and although you have some say over where you want to be, there's a good chance you'll be put way out in the middle of nowhere like I was (1 stoplight rural mountain village, population 3000 and dropping).

            Another option is English conversation schools (eikaiwa) like Nova or Geos. I don't think you have to sign a contract, and you can choose where you want to go. But the pay isn't as good from what I understand, and you generally don't get to work with kids... although some eikaiwa schools do have kids' classes.

            If you want to learn more, there's a message board you can check out... http://www.bigdaikon.com. But like anything else on the internet it's just a bunch of people bitching, so take what you read there with a grain of salt.

    • curious_au says:

      I'm supposed to depart from Sydney in the next intake. Thanks to this timely information from you and the Jwizzle, I will be packing an extra pair of 'armour jeans'.

      -- C

  3. prog says:

    This reminds me of Boon Ga Boon Ga. I am relieved to learn that the game's bizarre theme seems to have an actual cultural basis. Wait, no I'm not.

  4. ydna says:

    Sweet revenge:

    I hadn't had any attempts since last April. The ichinensei had just entered jr. high, and one day one boy tempted fate against me. Thanks to my trusty Kancho Sense� I avoided getting my oil checked, but I realized that if I didn't head this shit off at the pass, I'd have to be parrying them for at least the next few months. So I turned around and chased the boy down. He was surprised, he probably didn't think I could move that fast. I caught him...I restrained him with my left hand, dropped to one knee, put my right hand back as far as I could, said "One thousand years of pain!!" in the over-blown anime style and everything, and prepared to kancho him straight to Hell. The boy was freaked out. I think tears were even streaming down his face. I don't blame him. In retrospect, I can't even imagine - you're a 12 year old Japanese boy being forcibly restrained by a large black man who is bound and determined to penetrate your ass. I would have been crying too.

    • frandroid says:

      Even better!

      "Uh-huh. If you ever try that again, I will give you the biggest kancho in the history of Japan," I say. "General Tojo will feel it 60 years ago, and call his planes back before they get to Pearl Harbor. Got it?"

      ROTFLOAO

      • baconmonkey says:

        I can't tell you who got what or what got hit or how many times. I don't know how many of you have been in a position where 6-7 Japanese boys are grabbing your dick and sticking fingers up your ass simultaneously (show of hands?), but in that situation, you just don't know what's going on. Except that you are getting violated. from

        Think about that for a minute. That's fuckin' incredible. Again, you are a 12-year old Japanese boy being held *off the ground* by a large black man who is bound and determined to penetrate your ass...you manage to get an arm free, and more than escape, more than Ass Preservation even, your only thought is on how you can grab his dick. That's unbelieveable. < href="http://outpostnine.com/editorials/teacher30.html">from

  5. shadowolf says:

    All things about prostate exams aside, you've got good taste in music.

    Then again, maybe games like Kancho lead to Katamari Damashi, while wedgies lead to Doom 3.

  6. bokane says:

    Yeah - when I was teaching in China, the kids had a similar game, except that they weren't aiming for penetration, just copping a feel. These were second-graders.
    I tried all kinds of things to stop it: telling them, in Chinese, that there was absolutely no set of circumstances under which it was cool to touch my ass, lying and saying that there was a new Ass-Touching Law under which they could get 5 years of hard labor on the Qinghai plateau, even breaking a cheap plastic ruler to demonstrate what I'd do to the next kid who so much as thought about the possibility of considering touching my ass - all to no avail. In the end, I just got really good at dodging incoming ass-attacks by wriggling out of the way at the last minute, in kind of a reverse Butt Dance.

  7. primroseport says:

    finally, an insult to replace "douchebag": Kancho ninja

  8. The Gajin Smash post is classic. I swear, the air over there projects some sort of anime/video game filter over your senses:

    On bad days, I'll spread my Gaijin Perimeter, and combo a Gaijin Optic Blast into a Gaijin Smash for 70% damage. And when I have meter...watch out, cause then I can cancel into Super Gaijin Smash, and there's just no coming back from that.

    :D

  9. drstein says:

    I lived in Japan for 6 years and nobody ever tried to give me a UFIA. Maybe kids in Japan are reading too much Fark. ;)

  10. belgand says:

    Perhaps it's just me, but I'm amazed that someone could get their fingers into your ass with this method. I mean, I assume people are wearing pants and regardless of their other functions pants tend to keep things out of your ass.

    I'll probably understand after getting kancho'd myself, but until then I can't see any more than an unpleasant poking

  11. quirrc says:

    The reason of such different behavior is just that those nations originate from a different race of aliens.

  12. belgand says:

    I was thinking about this today and while I still think it's pretty bizarre does it really differ significantly in nature (thought in practice it's orders a magnitude worse) from giving someone a wedgie. While one involves direct digital penetration they both pretty similar in nature (i.e. applying an unpleasant, semi-painful experience to the anus) and I would suspect are tolerated to a similar degree (though it does appear that the Japanese students are getting away with far more than they would in the US).

  13. sukeban says:

    /Randomly delurking

    That "Thousand years of pain" (sennen goroshi) thing comes from the anime "Naruto" (from a manga that runs in Shonen Jump). It's a stupid ninja technique devised by the main characters' teacher:

    http://www.bootyproject.org/images/misc/kancho_naruto_large.jpg

    Later in the anime the protagonist uses that technique to strike a tanuki demon in its weak spot...