Is Batman a Ninja?

Is Batman a Ninja?  

Night, Dark Knight, throwing stars, he must be a Ninja!

I used to say to my students in Japanese, “Are you are a ninja?”. They would all mumble something I couldn’t hear while I would be thinking how cool it would be to be a ninja.
I finally started asking them what they were saying, since it was always too quiet for me to hear. A few of the boys told me that no one says that, since its not cool. Unless you are 5 years old. That also reminds of the time when I wrote sweatpants when I was 15 year old and this school mate told me, “Dude! Sweatpants? Seriously!? Those were cool when you are 5!”. I continued to wear sweatpants till I was 20. Anyways..........

This guy is cool, wearing sweatpants at age 50.  Read his sign.

I couldn’t grasp the idea that something can’t be cool. so when I asked the students why. They would tell me Ninjas have no morals or code of honor. I couldn’t believe that. I always liked the movie AMERICAN NINJA and Beverly Hills Ninja. They were Ninja and somehow tied it into the American way. Too bad it wasn’t the Canadian way!
This is a lesson here. Do not ever tell people in Japan you want to be a ninja!
I imagined sneaking around throwing shuriken (throwing stars) at people, climbing up buildings, using a reed straw to breath underwater, becoming invisible with my mind. How could it get any cooler than that?  I recall as a teenage my Japanese class High School teacher FITZ (who was Caucasian) used to always say he was a ninja. He told us he could kill people without them even knowing he was there. Ya I thought, that dude is totally right. Well, just to let you know, Japanese people don’t think ninjas are that cool. Kids might when young, but their history is not as cool as you think. Mostly they were kind of countryside people who would use whatever they had on hand as weapons to kill or maim advisories. As time went by, they become specialized mercenaries for hire. They trained in secret, and were somewhat the opposite of Samurai. If you tell someone you want to be a ninja, its like saying “I want to learn how to stab people in the back and be dishonorable”. Instead of facing my enemy, I use darkness to conceal myself and throw little sharp metal objects that are totally annoying but probably won’t kill. It will just blind people, and therefore cause dishonor to them for the rest of their lives. Still cool?

Well yes, a little. Plus, how you resist that you get to wear black and cover your face. Its like batman or something,  wearing black, using night to conceal, scaring people with awesomeness. Wait! Is Batman a ninja? A ninja of night justice? He punishes those that don’t do what’s right and throws metal batarangs at them. I guess he is!

An unskilled Ninja.

Anyways, back to story at hand. Is it cool to be a ninja? Hmmm maybe not? You know what actually on second thought who am I kidding? It's always cool to be a ninja.  Yes, because you get to be all secretive and do cool stuff, but at the same time it's not honorable or right and sometimes being a rebel is cool. Who believes in doing what’s right all the time, besides I’m a Canadian after all. You know us and our reputations.  
The long story short is even though in the West we think Ninjas are the coolest things, its not necessarily the same in Japan. In addition, real Ninjas don’t exist anymore. Except Batman.

Ninja vanish, I’m out and you didn’t even notice.

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Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


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http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva