The Killer Bingo Instinct

So, the kids here love to play bingo. I remember playing bingo, hangman, and all sorts of other games as a kid. But bingo is where it's at in Japan. As part of a lesson, I created a bingo game for one of my students. The squares of a 5-by-5 board were filled with pictures of different foods and depictions of different actions. Below each picture was a phrase, such as "Do you like...?" (under grapes, pizza, etc.) or "Can you drive a..." (under a car, boat, etc.) Each square had a spot where you would guess the answer of the person to your left. After guessing the other person's preference or ability, each person would ask one question per turn. The object of the game was to guess correctly on five consecutive spaces, resulting in "bingo". The middle space was free, of course.

This bingo game was actually the second such game that I played with my students. Only having one student the first time hampered things a bit (I wonder who's going to win?)*, so I included sheets for the other teacher and me. I figured that I'd take it easy and give the student a chance to win. This was my downfall. She avoided, at all costs, any kind of victory. When she had three or four in a row, she would change rows and go for another random square. I had to lie about what I thought she would answer so that I wouldn't win. I expected the game to last about ten minutes. Twenty minutes later, when we were still playing bingo, I decided to put her out of her misery and win the game. I feel bad winning, but there was really no other choice! We would still be playing the same bingo game today, Stef would be wondering where her husband went, and I would be clawing Japanese swear words into my skin.

What happened to the killer bingo instinct? Why would she not try to finish the game? Her shyness had nothing to do with it, as she could have gotten out of the game more quickly by winning. Is it a Japan thing? I have yet to complete a bingo game that the kids won (after a huge sample of 2 games). Are they so worried about standing out that they don't even have the killer bingo instinct? Will I ever understand the Japanese mind? The world may never know.

*The answer: nobody. Nobody won, because of unseen forces that caused fiery darts of imaginary pain when he considered going for the fifth square.