Sleep

Back when I lived in Tokyo during the early 90s, I used to regard the Japanese as somehow superhuman. For a start, there was the economic miracle: how did a country so devastated by war manage to become an economic and technological powerhouse in a few short decades? Then there was the uncanny ability of Japanese commuters to fall asleep on the train (and I’m not talking eyes-shut-and-looking-relaxed asleep, I mean full-on, dribble-coming-out-of-the-mouth, head-lolling-on-your-shoulder type asleep) yet still wake up on cue at the right station and bolt off the train. Plus there was the thousands of years of history and culture. Rich country, massive population, advanced technology, lots of customs and rituals and rules and shared understandings. Everything has its place, everything works properly, the trains all run on time. To a young impressionable type from the Antipodes, it seemed that the Japanese had life totally worked out.

So it’s been nice this time around to be here as a family, putting the kids in school, filling in the forms and reading the notices and doing all the mundane everyday stuff, and finally discovering that not everything works properly, that the Japanese make mistakes too, that despite the history and culture and food and everything they haven’t actually got life totally worked out after all. Yes! They’re just like us, trying to do the best they can in this crazy mixed-up world in which we live in [Paul McCartney].

But just when I was starting to believe that the Japanese are mere mortals, it turns out that there is still one area where they’re super-human, and that’s sleep. The kids here somehow manage to get by on less sleep than seems right. Felix’s normal bed-time of 8 pm, for instance, is absolutely laughable; none of his friends would be in bed before 9, many of them later still. And yet every person I speak to—teachers especially, but parents too—will decry the trend towards later bedtimes. The other day we were given an official government pamphlet that urges children to get more sleep. Apparently 57% of Year 6 kids go to bed after 10 pm on weeknights, while a mere 6% get to bed before 9 pm. Somehow I think that pamphlet’s been wasted on us.

I remember grappling with this very issue back in Italy, where they also put their kids to bed late, but at least the Italians have a valid excuse: the afternoon siesta. Whereas here in Japan, the kids are trained to stay up late and survive on less sleep as part of the legendary toughening up process. Or is it that we misguided Westerners have trained our kids to be too sleep dependent, putting them to bed ridiculously early for years on end until their pathetic soft bodies start to think that they actually need that much rest? Perhaps it’s a bit of both. In any case, it’s clear that we’ll need to work on our two if they are to survive the next couple of years without collapsing in a heap at some point.