Mexican Halloween

Recent events have proved to be fun, yet a little on the weird side.
I was at my eikaiwa (English conversation class) last week and felt in a rut. Staring back at me were people who think that if they pay the fees and sit in close proximity to a gaijin on a weekly basis, they will be able to speak English. Grrrr! Okay, so not all of them are like that. I really like my students. Some of them are good friends. Some of them are drinking buddies.
So, to cut a long story short, I said, lets eat Mexican food next week. Come a little early and I will cook for you. Piles of tacos, tortillas, guacamole and bean dip later, we had ourselves a good old time. Deep fried cinnamon churros with mexican chocolate! I invited Matt, Jen, Pauline and Pete to come and be as gaijin as possible! Thank you guys. People seemed to have a good time and enjoy the food. It was fun showing them a totally new kind of cuisine. It was hilarious, a few of them you could just tell were thinking, 'where the hell is the rice?!?'.
I got to talking about Halloween with the people at my table and they told me a story about a Japanese man living in America who met a tragic fate while out Trick or Treating a couple of years ago. When we talked about Halloween in class today the same story was trotted out.
An exchange student, he apparently wanted to get out with his mates and experience some real life American culture. He knocked on a door and a guy came out with a gun and said 'Freeze'. The Japanese guy didn't speak much English and so couldn't understand what was going on. He probably thought it was all part of the fun. There was some kind of confusion over the pronounciation of the R/L sound. Long story short, there was blood on the dancefloor. The guy shot the Japanese dude dead. Now every time I talk to a Japanese person about Halloween, they tell me this story. Here's the problem: when they tell me I. Can't. Stop. Laughing. I don't know why.