One of my first days working at a Japanese elementary school, a second grade girl approached me.
“Victoria-sensei! I drew this picture for you! It’s me and my friends outside at recess.”
“Wow, it’s great! So here’s you and here’s your friends, and there’s the playground, but what’s this red circle in the sky?”
“That’s the sun! You’re silly, Victoria-sensei. You don’t even know that that’s the sun!”
While I’m ashamed to say it now, I do have to admit that in that moment, my instinct was to judge that little girl. Drawing the sun as a red ball in the sky seemed ludicrous to me, because there was nothing red about the sun in my opinion, except for occasionally during sunsets. Suns were clearly yellow when up in the sky. After all, that’s how I’d drawn them on my own elementary school artwork, complete with sunglasses and a goofy smile (very realistic).
However, in that moment, I remembered a previous experience learning Japanese on exchange in Kyoto where our instructor had told us that green traffic lights were called “青信号” (‘ao shingo’ – blue signal light). When he said that, we had all looked at each other and giggled to ourselves. What were the Japanese thinking? Green lights were clearly green, not blue. There was just no mistaking the colours, and yet, the word was what it was. Our instructor, in his infinite wisdom, took the chance to humble us.
