The
language school that I work at has a short list of questions that the students - usually under ten, and sometimes as young as two - learn to answer by rote. With incisive precision,
foreign instructors like myself can get to the bottom of the brat's very soul with penetrating interrogations based on questions like 'How are you?' and 'What's your
blood type?'The answers are rarely instructive or interesting.
One of the questions the students learn is 'What do you want to be?' I've heard a million answers to this, most of them dull, but a four year old named Sho came up with a
brilliant ambition that knocked me out when I heard it. Having been asked the question, he hesitated not at all in answering 'A horse.'
To hell with ballerinas, firemen, and
kung-fu fighters. I'm with Sho all the way in his equestrian fantasies. As horses in
Japan say, Hee-heen, hee-heen.