I’ve been teaching animals lately, and my favorite animal picture to show is a turkey. The reactions from the students are amazing! Turkey stumps them every time. I always give them time to try to see if anyone knows it before I say what it is. My favorite answer so far: “Flamingo!”

(On a side note about turkey: For those who know Final Fantasy 9, you may get a kick out of this. When I first heard a student say it the Japanese word, I thought he’d just said “kuja”, and I did a double take, thinking, ‘Really? Kuja? That’s FF9’s villain!’ and I had to keep myself from laughing. I had to listen again, and found that it’s actually “kujaku”, but I find that I wouldn’t be surprised if Kuja’s name came from the word for turkey. He’s got feathers after all, and he’s certainly flamboyant enough….)

The other animals have been funny as well. They love porcupine. When I show cow or sheep, that almost always elicits the sound for the animal, rather than the name (and not the English onomatopoeia, but the Japanese, so I don’t know if they really think that’s the word or they’re just being silly – likely the latter). One time when I showed sheep, half the class yelled, “Merry!” I’m not sure, but I think that might have been a reference to the “Going Merry-go”, the name of the One Piece crews’ ship. It does have a sheep head for the front, after all. I show monkey, and the though most just yell, “Monkey!” I’ve heard several say “Monkey D. Luffy!” Ah, One Piece. It just creeps into everything.

Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece)

The Going Merry-go (One Piece)