Turtles Don't Make Good Ninjas

Halloween isn’t really celebrated in Japan. The Japanese are always interested in American culture so they like to learn about it. They sell Japanese-style Halloween candy at the store and even decorate but don’t really have parties and definitely don’t go trick-or-treating. But in school they like for us natives to share our culture. Today I went over to my pre-school for a little party dressed up as a ninja turtle. The kids ate it up. Things started off well. First I handed them all candy as we practiced trick-or-treating. But afterward a dark cloud turned and things so horrible happened my mind blocked some of this from my memory, so I'll tell you what I've got. Following our trick-or-treating, the teachers wanted us to just play. The teachers were busy doing other things while I just got completely torn to shreds.

Today I discovered that if I were to become a real ninja, being a turtle could possibly be the worst handicap ever. This wasn’t the first time IT has happened but it was the first time IT happened while I was in a completely restrictive costume with 4 webbed fingers (I know, turtles don’t have webbed fingers, but I converted the costume from some Japanese monster). Those little kids gang kancho-ed me. Let me refresh you on what a kancho is. The Japanese Webster defines a kancho as the act of an impish child clasping his hands together with his index fingers protruding out in the form of a handgun while then proceeding to use those fingers as a rectal probe in a violent jolting motion. And when you have 20 small kids all trying to get a piece of the action they just probe wherever they possibly can. By the end of the gang-kancho, I found myself lying on the ground in the fetal position protecting all my importants. They had stripped me of my belt, my arm bands, my knee pads, my pride and had ripped a hole in my neck and were sticking their hands down my back. Fortunately my mask went untouched and my secret identity was kept intact. But my head hung low as I walked out a defeated ninja turtle today.