Foreign Verbal Diarrhea

(Our Japanese teacher is a very sweet Japanese lady close to retirement age. On that day, we were being asked to complete some sentences in a way that would make sense.)

Teacher: *to one student* “Please complete this sentence: ‘After eating too much ice-cream, …'”

Student: *jokingly* “How do we say ‘diarrhea’ in Japanese?”

(We start laughing.)

Teacher: “The word is ‘geri;’ let me write the kanji for you on the whiteboard…”

(We look at her, finding it hard to believe that she actually answered seriously.)

Teacher: “Why are you laughing? What if you go to Japan one day and eat something weird? What will you tell the doctor?”