A ninja history student received full marks from her impressed teacher after she passed a ‘blank’ paper that she had actually written on using invisible ink she made herself!
While other students would have receive a big zero for passing a blank piece of paper, Eimi Haga got the best grades when she passed hers, because the paper wasn’t really blank at all. It was simply inscribed with an essay that was written in invisible ink.
Photo credit: BBC News
A student at Mie University, Eimi really got the extra marks because she did her research well. While the teacher expected everyone to hand in their essays the regular way, Eimi made use of the ancient ninja technique called ‘aburidashi’ to make her assignment.
The young ninja history student spent hours soaking and crushing soybeans. After gathering the extract, she mixed this with water to create the stealthy ink. With the mixture still fresh, Eimi quickly used the ink to pen the essay, but as the ink dried up, it could no longer be seen on the paper.
Photo credit: BBC News
With her assignment ready, the young student didn’t risk getting the paper thrown away and getting zero marks, just in case her teacher wouldn’t recognize the technique. She wrote “Heat the paper” with ‘visible’ ink this time.
Needless to say, Professor Yuji Yamada was quite impressed with what Eime had done.
“I had seen such reports written in code, but never seen one done in aburidashi. To tell the truth, I had a little doubt that the words would come out clearly. But when I actually heated the paper over the gas stove in my house, the words appeared very clearly and I thought ‘Well done!’” the professor explained.
“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.”
So, what’s the essay about?
Photo credit: BBC News
Eime admitted that the essay was really nothing special, but when the Professor Yamada told them he would give a high mark for creativity, she took that at a rather literal level by writing the assignment in a creative way using the invisible ink.
“When the professor said in class that he would give a high mark for creativity, I decided that I would make my essay stand out from others. I gave a thought for a while, and hit upon the idea of aburidashi,” Eime shared.
“I was confident that the professor would at least recognize my efforts to make a creative essay. So I wasn’t really worried about getting a bad score for my essay – though the content itself was nothing special.”
What’s a Ninja?
A ninja is a person skilled in the art of ninjutsu. In feudal Japan, ninjas were covert operatives that are often seen as dishonorable and beneath the honor of the samurai.