Yesterday was our regional English speech contest. My student rocked the house with second place, and, according to a number of people, deserved first. This means we're going on to All-Saitama in a couple weeks. This isn't surprising. She's awesome. And now we come to the heart of this tale.

Japanese people are modest to a fault. Part of this involves deflecting any praise one receives ad infinitum. Makes sense enough. Where this gets dicey is that this also extends to one's close relations particularly family. We return to school somewhere around six in the evening, and my student's mom comes to pick her up.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Ono! Your daughter did so well!"
"Oh. No. She did nothing. She would have failed miserably were it not for you."
Little Miss Ono is standing right there.
"She's the one who did all the work." Left unspoken is, "She's your daughter, shouldn't you be congratulating her?"
"No no no. If it weren't for your tireless efforts, none of this would have been possible."
"No. Really. I'm not the one who practiced this for five hours a day even when I had final exams coming up."
"Oh, but you do so much."
"No I don't."

Even though she's been raised here, you could see my student felt more than a little snubbed. I gave her an extra high-five as she left to try and make up for it a little.

PS