Cute and Frightening

In Japanese, the words for "cute" and "frightening" can be easy to mix up. "Kawaii" (cute) and "kowai" (frightening) are mostly differentiated by emphasis; "kawaii" holds out the final "i" sound slightly longer than "kowai," giving it an added syllable. Otherwise, the two words are, despite the "o" and "a" difference, fairly similar in sound. It was hard for me, in the first month or so that I arrived, to make this distinction while using the words to others, though I could hear it easily enough myself. In any case, it's long been amusing to me that there is so little distinguishing the difference between these denotatively-opposed words.

Then again, maybe that isn't something limited to semantics.

Today, at the end of class, one of my 2nd graders asked me for my signature. This isn't uncommon - the kids like to watch me sign and like to see how crazy (and long) my signature is compared what they're accustomed to seeing. I later was eating lunch with this same class, and the same girl came to me with her notebook, opened to the page I'd signed at the end of class, and said, "Could you fill this page with your signature, just like that one?" Odd, but OK, why not? I signed the page an extra 9 times. (As I did so, I commented that it was like I was having "signing practice." As others laughed, the girl said without missing a beat, "You're an adult, so it's OK." I'm still not sure why my being an adult has anything to do with my signature practice, but her assurance that it mattered was pretty cute.)

After I finish signing, the girl excitedly took her notebook back and started showing it off to other students at her lunch table. Their responses of "wow, that's a lot of signatures" got her even more excited and, being revved to the max and in need of a new audience, the girl went running across the room, yelling "IT'S LESLIE POWER!!"

That's right - having 10 of my signatures is equivalent to being bitten by a radioactive spider, being male and having imbibed the Water of Life, or being under the influence of a sun different from the one of your home world.

While I was trying my best not to laugh too loudly at this (resisting laughing all together would require a piece of paper with 10 of my signatures on it), the skin on the back of my neck crawled just the slightest at this exuberance. It's somewhat strange to be that special to a kid when you don't know their name, don't have any strong or personal connection with them, and only see them once a month. It was clear to me that the only saving grace of this encounter is the girl's youth and gender - I would have been significantly more disturbed were she a boy, or were she older than 7 or 8. And yet, I have to admit that it was still pretty adorable.

Cute and frightening? The evidence is in. It comes in the form of a Venn diagram, and the overlapping territory is broad. If you go looking, I'm sure you'll find several things from Japan: Goth versions of Hello Kitty, Harajuku Lolitas, and a little 7 year-old with her notebook.