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My Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf Moment:
On Wednesday mornings, I teach English Conversation and Literature to a group of women in Kunitachi. It’s actually quite fun because I get to think aloud about things that don’t usually occur to me in normal situations. After class was over today, something funny happened:

One of the women I teach came up to me and said in Japanese, “My my, how long your eyelashes are!” (This isn’t the first time I get this in Japan or while studying in the United States!).

I suddenly thought of that conversation between the Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s clothes before he ate her, and laughed it all off in an uncomfortable chuckle.

Luckily, no one was eaten afterwards and I went on with my day.

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A Champion of Victorian High Culture:
In my History of Civilizations class, we were discussing some of the ideas of the English poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold who classified Victorian society as the Aristocrats being barbarians, the Middle Class being philistines and the Working Class as the populace. He also said, “without order there can be no society, and without society there can be no human perfection”. Click here to read Arnold’s “Culture and Anarchy”. Still trying to sort my thoughts out on this one.

On another note, I really don’t like the word “philistine” because I feel it borders on racism. Oh, well.