The Price is Right!

Late last year, my Uncle Geno was asked to, “Come on down,” and be the “next contestant on the Price is Right!” After a couple of rounds of bidding, the lucky guy made it up on stage and actually won a car! Mom and Dad copied the show when it came on television, and just recently sent me a copy. I had told my adult English class that my uncle had won a car on a TV. game show, but they couldn’t quite wrap their brains around it. So, tonight, I showed the DVD to my advanced class, and what a blast we had!

Everything was interesting to them. I spent about ten minutes just giving background information about the show and how it worked, etc. Then, as we watched, I stopped periodically to make sure they understood what was happening. The English on the show is much, much too fast for them. However, with a bit of help, they had no trouble following the show. We even watched some of the commercials and talked about them a bit. One lady decided that the cat in the American Iams commercial (a pet food brand) was the same as in the Japanese commercials.

It’s so much fun for me to look at American things (T.V., customs, etc.) through the eyes of non-Americans. Of course, it was a bit odd for me to watch American television, also, since it’s been a year and a half since we’ve been in the U.S. Even before that, we didn’t have cable in Juneau, so it was a strange experience.

Uncle Geno and Aunt Betty’s Good Sam group all wore matching shirts which read, “I wanna come on down!” on the front, and on the back they said, “Please spay or neuter your pet.” Those, of course, are both famous words which come from Bob Barker. Nao noticed the spay/neuter thing, so that spawned a brief side conversation that was interesting. Spay/neuter is not a common practice in Japan at all.

Here are some very late photos for you. They are from the Setsubun celebration held at the pre-school about three weeks ago.

Everyone working on their oni
This is our group, working
Holt standing in his classroom
More creative juices flowing
Holt with an oni mask on, Ridge is in the background
The worlds's biggest pot of rice
After the peanut throwing, the kids all played with the oni costumes. This is the head of the yellow oni
Oni parts, scattered about
Ridge is making loud noises as he hops about in an oni body, chasing Ryuuya.