HIROSE-KUN
I was in a tornado. A tornado of four year-old Japanese children. At any given time there had to be at least eight children touching me - two on each hand, two in the back, and at least four future rock climbers trying to scurry up my front. Japanese people aren't usually renown for big eyes, but you would never know it with these children. They were wide-eyed with wonder and all-out with more questions than any mortal can handle. "Ben-sensei, Ben-sensei! Why are your eyes blue?" "Ben-sensei, Ben-sensei! Will you sit by me at lunch?" "Ben-sensei, Ben-sensei! I tooted!"

One cute little boy, his name is Hirose-kun, held onto my hand almost the whole time I was with them. We played tag, sang songs, and ate lunch together and the whole time he held on tight. There was definetely no letting go. One other boy tried a coup on my right hand - Hirose-kun's hand- but there was nothing doing. Incredibly, something about me fascinated them. My guess is the simple fact that I'm a foreigner and they don't get many of us around here. But whatever it is, they wanted to know all about me, climb all over me, and generally get any piece of this strange white guy that they could. What they don't know is that I want just about the same thing - to crawl back inside their world, or simply take their hands and go for the first star on the right and strait on till morning.