Han Solo is wasted on the young

[spacealien_vamp]

Classes are well underway, and things are pretty much back to the usual routine by now. However, my students have found a new way to make me feel old.

In one of my lessons, the book introduces the question "Who is your favorite actor?" This is one of those standard questions that all English teachers cover at some point here. I recall when I taught in Niigata, this was one that came up a lot. I always said "Harrison Ford," because he was a big name actor who didn't have the "trendy" factor that plagues younger actors. (That was back when all of Japan was raving over Titanic, to give you some idea of what I mean.)

Anyway, I was pleased to see that Harrison Ford was actually one of the examples in the textbook. That led to the following conversation...

Student: Who's Harrison Ford?

Me: He was in Star Wars.

Student: No, he wasn't.

Me: Yes, he was.

Student: Oh yeah? Who did he play?

Me: Han Solo.

Student: ...Who's Han Solo?

Me: O_O

Comments

[metallijedi1.livejournal.com]

Hello, I hope you don´t mind I added you.

I came across your journal because I was
investigating about living in Japan. I
thought about studying the language and
living in there sometime ago.

It´s impressing how little
culture today´s youth has.

You don´t have to be a die hard fan of Star Wars
to have at least a general knowledge of the
movie and who acted on it, specially a movie
that made such a high inmpact in pop culture in
general.

[spacealien-vamp.livejournal.com]

I hope you don´t mind I added you.

I don't mind at all.

It´s impressing how little culture today´s youth has.

To be fair, Star Wars isn't as big a phenomenon in Japan as in the US. Still, it did come as a shock.