Muffin diplomacy fail

Valentines Day is pretty big in Japan.
The kids at school were all talking about giving chocolates to one another on Friday 12th, the last day of school before the big VD.
Although we couldn’t quite work out whether it was girls giving to boys, boys giving to girls, or just the spirit of giving in general, we all decided that it would be a nice idea if Ruby and Felix baked some chocolate muffins to share with their classmates.
This turned out to be a huge no-no; you don’t eat sweet things at school, you don’t bring sweet things to school, there are no sweet things at school PERIOD. Both their teachers explained to us afterward that the muffins had been permitted as a special treat but only on this occasion, and it was clear to us that we wouldn’t be doing the muffin caper again in the future.
However it’s not just the silly foreign parents who are pushing the boundaries; the local kids are happy to try their luck bending the rules too. Ruby told us that despite the teachers searching their bags for chocolates (can you believe it? they’re not looking for drugs, alcohol or knives… just chocolates) some of the girls managed to sneak some in anyway, and one of her friends even slipped a couple in her bag to take home.
So in the interests of fairness and equity (what about all the Grades 1, 2, 4 and 5 kids who didn’t get any muffins?) we won’t be doing that again. Nevertheless it was all good PR, in the spirit of “any publicity is good publicity”, and the Grade 3 and 6 kids got a kick out of it. And deep down I suspect the teachers probably thought it was an excellent idea too, although of course they couldn’t be seen to admit as much.