Emergency? A Dialog

This morning one of my English teachers looked at me and said “Last night there was an emergency. Did [my supervisor] call you?”

“No! What emergency?” I replied, thinking I might have slept through one of Japan’s many potential natural disasters. At this point the teacher takes out her bilingual dictionary and comes over to my desk. So earthquake is out because she ought to know that word already.

“Ah, there was a burglar.” She underlined the English word in her dictionary.

“A burglar? That was the emergency?”

“He went into a small store with a small knife. And he was not caught. We brought all the students inside. We took them home by our cars.”

“Um…a burglar?”

“The police were patrolling Taiwa. If there is danger we will not have class today.”

“Um…did anyone get hurt?” I was extremely confused as why somebody robbing a store would lead to classes getting canceled.

“No. Not yet” Well that seems a bit morbid and pessimistic.

The conversation continued a bit, all the while I was thinking “Emergency? I do not think that word means what you think it means.” I guess coming from the mean streets of America (where everyone must own a sawed-off shotgun or something) I was a bit confused. Crime is bad. But a robbery where nobody got hurt is not my definition of an emergency. But I guess in Japan, where there is virtually no crime, people’s reaction is slightly different (and alarmist).

After I typed this, all after school activities were canceled, students were told to walk home in groups and another teacher told me that I had better stay in my apartment tonight.