
Japanese ninja history student gets top marks for writing essay in invisible ink - momentmaker
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49996166
======
Trias11
When my father was in university (60's) he asked what size of paper they
(students) need to deliver an engineering draft project on.

Professor told "Any, you may even use a postal stamp".

My father cut a paper of a size of a postal stamp and under spy glass draw
perfect engineering architecture student assignment.

Professor unemotionally examined the work.

Well deserved top mark followed.

~~~
Mathnerd314
In today's schools you can get a failing grade for margins 0.1 inches off.
Professors who reward creativity seem to be getting rarer.

~~~
cyberferret
When I was in flying school, we had a fiendishly difficult navigation
examination with a known curmudgeon of a CFI (Chief Flying Instructor).

Almost everyone in the class failed. One student got 68% and myself and
another got 99.9% I was amazed as I am not often such a high scoring student,
so I cheekily asked where I had lost the 0.1%? The CFI told me that I had
copied one number down incorrectly from the question sheet onto the first line
of my (4 page) working sheet. I had got the "right" answer at the end though,
by following all steps of the spherical trigonometry through to the end.

Instead of marking me as a 'fail' for getting the wrong copybook answer, he
still deemed it correct because I had followed all the correct formulae and
logical steps, using the derived results in the next sections. He deducted
0.1% for the brain fart that transposed one starting value.

I didn't find out why the other guy lost 0.1%, but I was amazed at his
integrity to mark the work and knowledge and not just see the final value
different from the desired outcome and simply marking it wrong. It would have
taken him some time and effort to validate my results from my wrong initial
values.

~~~
lupire
1\. That's usual for math tests run by non--corporate-robots.

2\. IMO, copying numbers correctly is a critical skill for pilots, and you
should have lost substantial marks and retaken later with a proper checklist
for validating your work.

~~~
Const-me
2 - that professor was teaching navigation. I don't think it's a part of their
job to judge students on unrelated matter.

~~~
FabHK
Which professor or class do you think should teach to copy data from the
authoritative source correctly, if not all of them?

------
jrockway
> "I didn't hesitate to give the report full marks - even though I didn't read
> it to the very end because I thought I should leave some part of the paper
> unheated, in case the media would somehow find this and take a picture."

This guy gets social media.

~~~
RandomGuyDTB
I think he meant media as in the news media, not social media.

------
19870213
That reminds me of a character from Discworld called Vetinari who is a trained
assassin (which is established as a legal guild in Ankh-Morpork, a quite
respectable profession for the upper-class) that failed his stealth
examination due to 'not attending'. :D

(I might be missing details, it's been a while since I read Night Watch.)

~~~
codeduck
Vetinari is the ruler of Ankh-Morpork, and is notable for imaginative
solutions such as "Tax the rat farms" when asked how to solve a plague of
rats.

He's like Machiavelli, only with more style.

------
gattr
I heard an anecdote from a ninjutsu instructor (a European). He was visiting
Japan, meeting with friends; and to one of the meetings he wore a T-shirt with
the Nin kanji. Suddenly one of his hitherto very friendly acquaintances
changed to being only coldly polite. Later it turned out he was from an old
samurai family, which was mostly wiped out by assassins some 400 years ago.

~~~
alltakendamned
Talk about holding a grudge...

I don’t understand people who somehow feel involved in things that happened
literally 100s of years ago, it does neither impact nor reflect on them in any
way.

~~~
eigenloss
History matters. Where can anyone draw the line?

~~~
jacquesm
We draw the line at personal involvement. If not for that no German would walk
the streets abroad safe in Europe.

~~~
gentaro
This is a ridiculous comparison. A proper analogy would be someone with a
swastika symbol on their shirt talking to a Jewish person. I think we can all
agree that wouldn't go well.

~~~
jacquesm
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Old people here (80 and
up) still loathe the Germans and for what was done during the war. Their
personal involvement is what make it impossible for them to move on. But as
one of their children I have absolutely no grudge against Germans, old or
young, simply because I wasn't personally involved.

Jewish people come in all shapes and sizes, and I know quite a few of them.
The bulk are very well educated and are able to see history and their own part
in it quite clearly. They are definitely not going to like some one with a
swastika symbol on their shirt but the chances of that happening here in
Europe are relatively slim because there would be a lot of other people - non
Jews too - who would take offense.

That's nothing to do with personal involvement but with recognizing that those
that wish to engender a second round of Nazism in Europe need to be dealt with
before they become a problem.

~~~
gentaro
This is bizarre, you start your comment saying that I have no idea what I'm
talking about and then go on to agree with everything I wrote.

~~~
eigenloss
jacquesm's really disagreeing with the person above you, probably just replied
to the wrong comment.

------
DuskStar
> Ms Haga has been interested in ninjas - covert agents and assassins in
> medieval Japan - since watching an animated TV show as a child.

I would find it absolutely hilarious if that "animated TV show" was Naruto.

~~~
thih9
Isn’t this a popular anime with a ninja theme? Why would that be hilarious?

~~~
on_and_off
Because this anime has very little to do with "ninja".

Whether it is the black pyjama variety or the historic one, Naruto does
something very different.

There are Ninjutsu in the serie but more often than not they create large
explosions or summon a 30 meters tall creature. The whole has very little (if
anything, but I don't know all the arcs) to do with espionnage.

Which is 100% fine, but explains why it would be funny to have it as an
inspiration.

~~~
Filligree
The first season is the best, and also the most realistic. It gets
increasingly over the top from there.

If you've seen it, you'll know I don't mean to say it's realistic.

~~~
on_and_off
I have seen it an eternity ago and I really liked the Zabuza ark. It was
indeed way more grounded, at least compared to what happens afterwards.

I wonder how much of the over the topness was planned from the start and how
much is just the result of the scaling phenomenon that many shonens suffer
from and semi improvised "head above the water" weekly publications.

~~~
shostack
When I tried to jump back into the Shippuuden arc a while back I had to find a
site that gave synopsis of the episodes so I could skip watching the filler
episodes. There were... Quite a lot.

------
olalonde
Reminds me the story of the philosophy student who was asked to write an essay
about "What is courage?" and handed a single page with the words "This is.".

------
lupire
The professor didn't finish heating/reading the essay because he was saving it
for the media, which someone in class reached it to.

What's the term for this concept, where the expectation of media coverage
changes the event being covered, even though the event wasn't originally
intended for the media?

~~~
dmit
I think physicists won't mind if we extend the "observer effect" to cover this
case.

------
awillen
I have so many questions:

\- Ninja student? Is there a ninja school??

\- How do I go to ninja school?!

\- Is ninja school considered elite, and if so has there ever been an
Operation Varsity Blues type admissions scandal?

\- What is the post-ninja school career path? I mean obviously you're going to
be a ninja, but who are the dominant employers in that field? Does it make
sense to join a ninjitsu startup and get more experience but lower pay?

This article really feels like it's burying the lede...

~~~
yorwba
The "ninja student" in the article is studying ninja, not studying to become a
ninja. Yamada Yuji, her professor, does not look especially dangerous in the
"Ninja Truth" series by NHK [1]. I suppose that may be a ruse.

[1]
[https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/tag/ninja/?type=...](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/tag/ninja/?type=tvEpisode&)

~~~
thomascgalvin
Ah, so it's like the magicians in _Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_ :
students of a long-dead art that would scoff at the idea of actually
attempting any of the things they study so passionately.

~~~
sorokod
Like the "theoretical magicians" in the aforementioned book.

------
bakoo
As kids we obviously wanted to be ninjas, which was mostly about fighting
using exotic weapons and sneaking around. We learned the ropes from VHS
rentals and pirated copies of the Last Ninja games on C64.

Secret messages mostly belonged to different universes, where we wanted to be
secret agents or detectives. We sent encoded messages written in invisible
ink, usually caesar cipher variants, written using filtered lemon juice. Milk
might also have been involved, as I distinctly recall heating up and decoding
really smelly paper notes.

~~~
orblivion
I was just thinking the other day how I couldn't think of a historical analog
of our modern intelligence agencies. Now I'm realizing that the CIA is just a
modern ninja clan.

------
atum47
doesn't lemon juice display similar effect? I remember writing secret agent
letters to my friend (who lived in a house in front of mine) so he can iron
the paper and read the content.

~~~
gk1
Yes, lemon juice has the same effect. Ironing is an interesting way to do it.
I used to just hold a candle up to it, trying not to burn the whole thing up.

------
umvi
Anyone else remember the website "Real Ultimate Power"?

~~~
bryanrasmussen
[http://www.realultimatepower.net/index4.htm](http://www.realultimatepower.net/index4.htm)

------
differentView
I, too, turned in a blank piece of paper for my American Ninja Warrior class.
But I told the professor a sob story, so I got an "A".

------
ducaale
I have read when i was in fourth grade that onion juice could be used to make
invisible ink that appears when the paper is heated.

There was also a scene[0] in National Treasure film (2004) where they use
lemon and heat to reveal a hidden text

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTA7KR9-9lM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTA7KR9-9lM)

~~~
JulianMorrison
Soya juice (what she used) probably has the advantage of not smelling. Onion
and lemon would give themselves away, I feel!

~~~
alexis_fr
It looks like any organic liquid works, including milk in the case of Lenin,
soya juice in your case, lemon and onion if you want to tip off the spied ;)

I’m curious about how it bends the paper. The retractile nature of drying
juices must create visible irregularities on the surface.

------
cyberferret
I read a lot of books on Ninjutsu, and the Shinobi as a kid, and I recall that
a popular form of invisible ink that they used required the recipient to
urinate on the paper to reveal the words. Glad this student didn't utilise
that form of invisible ink...

~~~
FabHK
True story: British agents in WW I used sperm as invisible ink, approved by
Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming of the Secret Service Bureau, under
the motto "Every man his own stylo". Apparently some agents didn't use, erm,
fresh ink, but previously produced reserves (despite Captain Cummings's decree
that "fresh operation was necessary for each letter") and subsequently the
practice was discontinued because of the smell.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansfield_Smith-
Cumming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansfield_Smith-Cumming)

------
kingofpee
What I find more mindboggling is the fact that there is something as a Ninja
History Student.

~~~
lupire
It's a single class. Most colleges have slightly whimsical gen ed / liberal
arts electives.

Greendale College in Colorado has a seminar "Nicholas Cage: Good or Bad?".

------
tguvot
Lenin, while been in prison used to write in milk on shoulders of the books
that his family was bringing in for him to read. When books were returned to
family they would heat pages which made letters to appear.

~~~
brodsky
the story also goes that, since he was only given milk and bread while in
solitary confinement, he would make inkwells out of bread, in order to write
with said milk. I can't remember off the top of my head what he used as a
writing utensil.

~~~
goatinaboat
_I can 't remember off the top of my head what he used as a writing utensil._

The hair, from his back.

------
GnarfGnarf
"The words appeared when her professor heated the paper over his gas stove."

Heating super-thin paper over the stove? Wasn't the student taking a big
chance her homework would go up in flames?

~~~
kaybe
It's not that hard (after a low number of tries). You can try yourself, write
something with milk and hold it over a candle after drying.

------
failrate
Truly high marks should only go to a student, previously unknown by the
Department, who surreptitiously adds a graded report card into the midst of
their peers.

------
mcqueenjordan
> Ms Haga has been interested in ninjas - covert agents and assassins in
> medieval Japan - since watching an animated TV show as a child.

Translation: Naruto.

------
droithomme
International accolades and acclaim is a nice prize in addition to the respect
of the professor.

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em-bee
now that's one way to prevent your classmates from copying your work.

------
org3432
Works with plain old lemon juice too, the soybean process sounds over
engineered.

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PokemonNoGo
Did they use any antiplagarism system?

