Nihonjin mo shiranai nihongo

I finally got around to reading Nihonjin no shiranai Nihongo. The title means "The Japanese that Japanese people don't know," and there are some interesting tidbits here about things like word origins and dialects, but what really makes the book are Umino Nagiko's hilarious comic-essays about her experiences teaching Japanese as a second language in Japan, full of misinterpretations and culture clashes.

Much of the humor is sadly not amenable to translation, but there's a part where Nagiko-sensei is having her class celebrate Tanabata, which you celebrate by writing your wishes on pieces of paper and hanging them up on bamboo.

So the students write their wishes on pieces of paper and they hang them up.

May my family back home stay healthy

(This is the one that's actually the kind of thing you're supposed to write...)

May I quickly find another part-time job

Nagiko-sensei, please tell me what is going to be on the next test!

I want a PSP. A silver one.

Please, help me out here!

I keep remembering all the cringe-worthy moments of my own past Japanese classes. Ford-sensei, I'm so sorry!

Apparently there is a drama based on this that just started airing recently. I'll have to look into that.