Cartoon Wife

"So now that you`re married," the twelve-year-old girl I tutor asks me, "do you want to become like a Japanese housewife?"

"What do you mean by that?" I ask, raising my eyebrows.  This could get interesting.

"You know," she says "you pat the kids on the back as you send them off to school...you make lunches and cook dinner for your husband...you clean the house and wear an apron all the time..."

I have no clue where she picked up these ideas.  Her mother, after all, is a real-estate agent.

"and take a nap in the afternoon...and eat lots of doughnuts and sweets...and go shopping with the baby tied to you all the time...and gossip with the neighbors..."

She`s spitting all this out in rapid succession.  As much as I enjoy talking to this girl, her monologues may be likened best to an express circus train on its way nowhere.

"and you budget the family`s money... but secretly keep some of your husband`s salary for yourself... then use to buy clothes for yourself at the department store..."

"OK," I stop her, finally, "where did you get all these ideas?"

"A cartoon!" she states matter-of-factly, without pausing to think at all.

"Which cartoon?" my eyes widen.

"Crayon Shin-chan!"

Of course, Crayon shin-chan.  Shin-chan is a somewhat inappropriate children`s cartoon that no Japanese parents want their kids to watch.  This makes the show`s high ratings all the more curious.  The cartoon depicts a stereotypically average Japanese family, saving the fact that their 5-year-old son is a raging, Cartman-esque brat with an pimp`s vocabulary.

A lot of the jokes don`t translate well, but here it is anyway.

"You didn`t answer my question," my student has gotten impatient. "Are you going to be a housewife?"

"Well...no," I respond.  "Do you want to be a housewife when you grow up?"

"Um," for the first time in our long-winded dialogue, she actually pauses to think.

"No."

Comments

[Veronica]

Shin-chan! That show was hilarious when they used to show it on Cartoon network durring their adult swim block.

[Jenna]

I LOVE Shin-chan! They show it on cartoon network once in a while.... and I think it's pretty funny. It's dubbed but still good.

[Miki]

Shin-chan is such a funny show! My sis and me always thought they must have changed the words around...what a shock to know that this kid's vocabulary is for real!