japan vs. china

On Saturday, our school had the Culture Festival. It was an eye-opening experience.

A Culture Fest in Japan is almost like a combination of a talent show and an open house at school. I think its intention is to show the friends and family what the students have achieved in the past couple of months.

The only difference, however, is the level of involvement by all parties. Generally, I wouldn't expect the students to be running the show and emceeing the whole day, but it happened. Also, I wouldn't really expect the teachers to be so involved with the performances either. There were generally-serious teachers (male and female, mind you) dressed up in school girl uniforms pretending to be Sailor Moon. Now that's pretty cool.

Ah, so let me get the story that is behind the title of this posting.
At the crafts fair section of the Culture Festival, a teacher came up to me and asked me if I knew what japan (with a lower case J) meant. He specifically told me it's not the country. He even wrote it out for further clarification.

I told him that no such word exists in English...but, apparently it means lacquer ware. He explained it to me and used china (with a lower case C) for comparison. I looked it up in my electronic dictionary and lo and behold, it was true.

You live and you learn.