One of our teachers uses quite round-about ways of introducing grammar and the set-up usually takes half the class. Today she wanted to introduce “even though I thought ~, it was actually~” (〜だろうと思ったが、以外にも〜), which got thrown in there at the end of the lesson. The rest of the class was taken up with personality tests. Here are two. Feel free to post what you came up with and tell me why answers are wrong in the comments.
Question One
There are 5 people: L, M, B, S, and H. L is a girl. The rest are men.
L and M are lovers, but M had to move away and now lives far from L and it seems as though they can never meet again. L decides to go to see M, so she puts all her money together and travels as far as she can until she reaches a river with no bridge, but only a ferry to get across. The ferryman is B. He refuses to let her cross on his boat without paying up front, even when she begs him and promises to pay on the way back. S overhears their conversation and he offers to pay for the ferry trip if L spends a night with him. She agrees to do this so she can meet her true love, does so, and gets to see him. When she meets him, he says “it must have been hard getting here,” and being the honest person she is, she cannot lie and tells him the whole story. He gets angry and breaks up with her, sending her home, never wanting to see her again. On her way home, she meets H, who hears her full story and falls in love with her. He proposes to her.
Who is the “best” person and who is the “worst”? Rank them in order, from bad to good. Don’t think about it too much. Don’t read on until you have it decided, if you can. Try guessing what I answered if you want. Scroll to the bottom for the results from myself and the class when ready.
Question Two
This one’s shorter. There are three people: you, your lover, and your lover’s new partner who he/she’s cheating with. You have a magical rubber (or “eraser” if you want) which can erase anything. You can erase anyone of the three people, and only one. Who is it?
Answers to issues raised in class: there is no magic pencil to draw in a fourth person to make everything better, and you can’t not use the rubber in the name of peace. You must remove one person from existence.
Question One results
What I wrote was LSBMH. No one else in the class or anyone else I’ve spoken to put L first. Misogyny? Most people put H last, but a couple put B last. A Japanese friend I asked gave SMLHB as her answer. In general girls seemed to put L later in the list than the guys did. Almost everyone had S and M as their first two. My “L” was closer to the start than anyone else. My M was later in the list than anyone else.
If you’re interested in my justification for my answers just ask.
Here’s the key, which was revealed to us: L: Love M: Morality B: Business S: Sex H: Humanity
The order you put them in is, in ascending order, what you value. For example, I value Love least, apparently.
Japanese people really really love these things. I’ve had them asked to me by so many friends over the last year or so. They’re big into fortune telling based on year of birth (I’m the year of the Dragon, 辰年), the Zodiac (I’m Capricorn, 山羊座) and blood type (I’m A) here. Those are the big three and everyone knows that information about themselves.
I’ll post individual answers from my class soon, with gender and nationality information, so watch this space. It’s pretty interesting — just a shame that there aren’t more Japanese results to compare with.
Question Two results
Most people answered that they’d remove themselves. Three people, including myself, answered that we’d remove our lover. One guy said he’d remove his lover’s new partner. A Japanese friend pointed out that removing yourself is a pretty safe thing to say in front of a room of people so the answers might be a bit skewed because of that.
I answered BLMSH. H is a bit of an idiot but out of the rest of them, he’s probably the best. I chose B because he started the whole thing.
I chose to remove the lover’s other partner. That way, she’s miserable, the other guy doesn’t exist and I’m perfectly okay. Why would you erase yourself?
LSBMH and the lover.
People can marvel at their choices in these games, but if it came to it, all of them would betray the revolution! Such is the way of lesser humans!
LSHMB and The Lover.
I don’t think there’s going to be a revolution any time soon.
This is incredible. All my Irish friends are putting L first. No one in my class did that, even with a 50:50 gender split.
SBLMH and him. I agree with Kevin about H being a little idiot. I don’t know about morality being before love, probably it’s wrong… and of course i’d erase the cheater.
Interesting point that I’ve noticed is that girls refer to their own lover as “him” but guys specify it as being the lover. Maybe girls make it more personal? A friend answered “I’d erase him” and I had to remind her, “remember that it’s inverted for me so that means nothing to me”.
Haha, remember me?
I’d go SBMHL, I think. And I’ve no idea who I’d erase. Well, it’d either be myself or one of the other two, and if I were to pick the latter, I think I’d be much more likely to erase the lover’s new partner, for a number of reasons. I can’t narrow it down further than either myself or the lover’s partner though, the pros and cons for each seem to equal each other for me. Anyway what does it mean if you pick a certain one?
Hey Shane. It doesn’t mean a whole lot, but it’s interesting to hear how people justify their decision when it’s different to yours.