Culture Shock we meet again!

So I came across 2 hilarious instances of Japanese/English. Last night, I was teaching my eikawa class (my adult English class). I was teaching Conditionals (should, would, could). At the end of class, I asked everybody, "I am going to an onsen (hot spring). What should I bring?" I thought it was a good subject, and I wanted to know for my own knowledge since I haven't been yet. So we went through the normal stuff like towels, shampoo, etc. Then jokingly, I threw in, "Should I bring a water gun? Could I bring a water baloon?" They enjoyed that. Then Yukari threw in, "I think you should bring your bladder!"

"Excuse me?"

"I think you should bring your bladder!"

"Like this bladder? (I place my palm over my bladder)"

"Yes...because the water is so deep."

I was very confused. I definitly intend to bring my bladder...you know...since I'm kinda connected to it.

I talked to Yukari after class. We talked about the subject for about 10 minutes, cause I had a REALLY good feeling she wasn't talking about the same bladder I was thinking about. And apparently, a bladder can also be translated as a floaty toy. You know...like the little inner tubes you wrap around your waist when you're a kid.

I told her that I translated bladder as that bag inside your body that holds urine. We had a good laugh. And I told her, "OH! I was thinking I needed to bring my bladder just in case I might drown...so I can rocket myself to the surface of the onsen with my stream of urine. Do people pee in onsens?"

A great laugh was had by all.

So today...an even better story. I was talking to my JTE at the HS, cracking jokes, and he told me in a quiet low voice, "You are so freakin' tight."

"Excuse me?"

"You are so...freakin' tight."

Me in my head: "Um...and how would you know?"

I told him the sexual connotation that the phrase could have. I told him, "You see...when you're in bed...and it feels really good (at this point, I'm miming a slow grinding motion with my hips), you can tell your partner, 'You are so freakin' tight.' And by this phrase,　we are talking about her vagina...her vagina is really tight."

At this point, he is rolling on the ground. He thought that "to be freakin' tight" was to be really funny. Which would've been the case in 1990, but today, it has taken on a sexual connotation (or at least it has with me).

So I continue the internationalization process by teaching him some other phrases with "tight." Consider the following:

To be a tight wad: "Dude...you didnt leave a tip?! You are so frickin' tight."

To be close friends with somebody: "Alvin and Brian? Oh yeah, we're tight."

So to make a fair trade, I made him teach me a Japanese phrase. I've learned "onara suru" "he wo koku" and "onaru." I love Japan.