All Posts from the The kids Category
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The long school day
The school year finishes soon. Ruby’s graduation ceremony is coming up on March 24 (Felix has an extra day after that, much to his disgust) and that will be the end of her brief Japanese primary school career.
With the end of the school year approaching I’ve been reflecting on the Japanese school experience lately. The eight-hour day and the two hours of walking seemed ridiculously long at first, but I’ve started to come around to the idea. In a nutshell: it’s better to be busy than bored.
For instance, Felix used to play Mario Kart an awful lot back in Melbourne; now he barely gets near it. Is this a good thing (less fixation with video games) or a bad thing (less free time for playing)? After all, he still finds time to play with friends once or twice per week, either at the park or here at home, or at someone’s house. In fact, he seems to get together with friends here more than he did in Melbourne. It’s much easier to organise after-school plays since they all walk home together. Sometimes I get a call from his friend’s house: he’s dropped in for a play and won’t be home until later. Whereas in Melbourne it was often hard to fit in play dates around after-school activities: swimming, soccer, football, karate etc.
Which brings me to my other point: with the school day being so long, there’s less time for shunting kids around after school to millions of different activities. Does this make Japanese children less well-rounded? I don’t think so. And do we actually need all these activities anyway? It could be argued that we do it partly just to keep the kids engaged during the pre-dinner window, so they don’t end up playing video games all afternoon. In this sense, Japanese school does the job for you by keeping the kids occupied for a few more hours. Once they do get home there’s time for homework, dinner, bath and not much else. I used to think that this was a terrible restriction on their free time, but now I quite like the idea. (Although another half hour in the evenings wouldn’t go astray.)
And it turns out that despite the lack of time, we quite often manage to squeeze in a family game or two after dinner, something that happened only occasionally in Melbourne. (Monopoly Deal is the game of choice at the moment — thanks to the K Family!). Our days are busy, exhausting and highly organised — but never boring.
Another benefit of the Japanese schooling system is that it makes the kids more independent (as detailed here). We shove them out the door in the morning and welcome them home nine or ten hours later. They walk to and from school in their designated walking groups, unaccompanied (and unencumbered) by adults. In the process they make friends and learn both how to be independent and how to be part of a group . And this can only be a good thing in terms of self-confidence and independence (particularly in light of my propensity to be just a teeny bit over-protective).
There is a downside of course: I miss taking the kids to school and picking them up. I miss chatting with other parents in the school yard. I miss school life in general, what with all the concerts, presentations and sporting events that used to go on at Ripponlea. They do have special days where all the parents are allowed to observe a couple of designated classes, but it’s not quite the same. A couple of weeks ago Eleni and I organised with the principal to come in and watch Ruby and Felix in action, which was fun, but you can’t keep doing that all the time.
I guess I’ll just have to learn to be a bit more independent myself.
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Japanese kids are tough
And by that I don’t mean that they’re aggressive or nasty, just that they’re made of tough stuff.
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Consider this: kids as young as Grade 1 walk an hour to school and back every day with Felix and Ruby. They do this every day, rain hail or shine, in the depths of winter and through the typhoon season.
At school there is no heating except for oil heaters that sit in the middle of the classroom and are fired up only when the weather forecast is 10 degrees or below. In the refrigerator-like gymnasium, the students do PE classes in nothing more than shirts and shorts.
Needless to say there is no air-conditioning during the oppressive humidity of summer either.
And it seems to me that Japanese kids are also much more independent. Friends come over after school and when it’s time to go home, they just disappear off into the cold twilight. Sometimes they’ll get picked up by a parent, generally not. Likewise at soccer practice on Wednesday nights, most of the kids turn up on their bikes with not a parent in sight, and hang around until eight o’clock or later before heading home in the dark. Kids are used to getting around on their own. It’s not just a country thing; in Tokyo you see tiny little kids of six or seven lining up alongside commuters on the subway of a morning.
All of which means that our Western cotton-wool style of parenting (oh you poor things it’s raining, we’ll drive you to school today) just has to go. I dare say we’ve used up our quota of drop-offs already; Wednesday nights after soccer practice the kids don’t get to bed until about 9:30 pm, so on Thursday mornings we let them sleep in and drive them to school. Quite pathetic by Japanese standards, but clearly it’s going to take us a while to develop the necessary toughness. -
Valentine’s Day washup
Valentine’s Day chocolates are the gift that keeps on coming. On the weekend, a couple of Felix’s new girlfriends dropped around at different times to drop off chocolates for him, and even today (Monday) Ruby was surreptitiously slipped another two bags of chocolates from her friends. So even though our muffin effort turned out to be a violation of the school rules (read story here), I’m kind of glad we got in on the front foot; now we can just sit back and let the little gift-wrapped bags of goodies roll in without having to feel bad or anything.
At this point I should backtrack a little: Felix received his first love letter last Monday! It was from a girl whose name escapes me for the moment, but it was very cute. We have vowed to keep it in a safe place and bring it out at his 21st (with subtitles). Meanwhile, two more of his admirers came around after the school the next day and helped him to frame a response (polite and thankful without sounding too keen). I haven’t heard if there’s been any further developments or whether they are fighting amongst one another for his affections, but it’s certainly nice to see him playing with the opposite gender on equal terms.
Ruby had her induction into the local high school today (see official here ) and got measured up for her very own sailor suit. Eleni and I went along too, because we’ve got nothing better to do than hang around and embarrass our daughter. It was all rather austere and formal, but I think (I hope) that was due to the nature of the occasion; in any case, I met a few of the students afterward and they certainly seemed very happy and content and not at all austere. Actually one of them lives right near the park where we play soccer and I’ve chatted to her before, so she will be able to show Ruby the ropes from April onwards. The high school has the requisite massive gymnasium and pool (despite having just 81 students in years 7-9) and is also located further up the hill with rather lovely views of the sea. Not that Ruby will have any time for gazing out the window by the sound of it.
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Muffin diplomacy fail
Valentines Day is pretty big in Japan.
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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. -
First day at school Part 2
The first day of school went awfully well.
No sooner had the kids got back, still full of energy after their massive ten-hour day, than four of Ruby’s new best friends converged on our place for a homework party. (Just as well we had a batch of muffins ready!) Talk about instant friends. And they were wonderful too; they settled down and did their homework, snacked out, played hide and seek for a bit and had a great time. Then all of a sudden, before you know it, it was time to go. And off they trooped. No-one knows where they live and how they got home—they just disappeared into the darkness.
Meanwhile Gigi and I went to test out his new soccer ball in the local park where we were joined by some of the younger kids from the walking group. We ended up having a great time playing around until dark. So if Day 1 was anything to go by, the kids appear to be fitting in OK.Although Ruby informed us later that the girls who came around told her that she wasn’t under any circumstances to let Yu and Chika know that Rie had been around, because Yu and Chika had decreed that Rie was only to play with them, and if they were to hear about other Play Events occurring without their knowledge they would get jealous and there would be terrible scenes at school the next day. “I thought in Japan everyone was nice to one another and there wouldn’t be any of that stuff,” lamented Ruby. But there you go: proof that Japanese kids are just the same as kids elsewhere. Especially the Grade 6 girls.
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Japanese school facts
I plan to write heaps about the school experience over the next few years because it’s a subject that fascinates me. To start off with, here are some basic facts about the local primary school at Sunami.
• First of all, the official website is here (Japanese only obviously, but a nice picture of the cherry blossoms in bloom).
• The school day starts at 8:10 and finishes at 4:00, except on Wednesdays, when they finish at the outrageously early time of 3:30.
• Currently there are 131 students altogether in Years 1 through 6. Class sizes are 20-25, which is small by Japanese standards. There is also a kindergarten on the site with 20 tinies.
• The school has a huge yard covered in packed sand (Lilydale topping?) like on the Tan around the Botanical Gardens. (Grassed areas are rare at schools and in public parks in Japan.)
• There is an impressive indoor gymnasium with a stage down one end, and even an outdoor pool that will open up in about June.
• Every day after lunch the kids all have to help clean the school. Each class has allotted duties; I don’t know what Felix’s class does but Ruby’s class has to clean out the toilets!
• They get cooked school lunches every day.
• There is no such thing as playlunch, so in the morning we must feed them up properly so that they can last until the cooked lunch arrives at 12:40.
• There are six periods in the day, and between each period the kids get to run outside for ten minutes to stretch their legs.
• They don’t have to wear school uniform.
• During winter (ie now), they don’t turn on the heaters in the classrooms unless the outside temperature is below 10° C. Most of the kids wear massive fluffy coats with furry collars while studying at their desks.
• The kids have to take off their shoes at the entrance and put on special school slippers called uwabaki. At lunchtime and for outdoor sports, they put their outdoor shoes back on again.
• Felix was rapt to discover that there are enough boys of his age who like soccer to form two teams at lunchtime. There are even goals in the playground.
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First day at school
Just saw the kids off for their first full day of school this morning, following an extended initiation period.
Eleni and the kids arrived in Japan on Tuesday night. On Thursday morning, we went in to introduce ourselves to the principal and the kids were paraded in front of the whole school and did their little introductions (so brave! we were so proud!) before spending a couple of hours in their new classes.
Then on Sunday it was the annual school festival for New Year (read about it here) which finished nice and early at about 2:30. Monday was a holiday for our school (see, it’s “ours” already), to make up for the enforced attendance on Sunday (what a bonus! take part in a festival and get a day off). Tuesday was their first proper day at school, although we squibbed out a bit by driving them in and picking them up.
Today, however, they’re walking to school with the official walking group. And this is what I mean by the first full day, because it really is a loooooong day. The Japanese primary school day begins at 8:10 and finishes at around 4:00, so it’s already an eight-hour day, not six and a half like we’re used to in Australia. But because our section of Sunami is furthest away from the primary school—at least in terms of the route taken by the walking group—the kids have to be out the door at 7:00 and don’t get back until around 5:00. That’s a ten-hour day, every day.
The walking group, incidentally, is obligatory; it’s simply not the done thing to get driven to primary school. (Some parents apparently do drop their kids off on the odd occasion, but everyone has to pretend not to notice.) And it’s certainly a good way to build up fitness, hiking up and down the mountains twice every day.
But it does mean that we all have to get up at 6:15 (except Eleni who, shall we say, is not at her best in the morning). Felix is naturally an early riser so it’s not too bad for him, although 6:15 is pretty early even by his standards. Ruby is naturally unimpressed with this, the latest in a series of cross-cultural disappointments, having only recently come to terms with the fact that that we won’t have the internet on for another five weeks. (Although daily trips to Mr. Donuts have gone some way to alleviating the pain.) In any case Ruby will in a couple of months be moving up to high school, which is just 12 minutes up the road, plus there’s no walking group so she can leave when she likes. And Felix, being naturally much more active, should relish the exercise.
Nevertheless it will be interesting to see what time they collapse into bed tonight after such a long day.
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The kids
It’s probably fair to say that the kids are not particularly enthused about this Japan thing. We’ve been talking about it for at least a couple of years now so they’ve had plenty of time to get used to the idea but it’s still too hard to comprehend.
And it’s fair to say that the kids are thoroughly fed up with hearing some or all of the following from our friends and family:
• You’re so lucky!
• You’re going to have so much fun
• It’ll be such a good experience/It’ll be so good for your education
• You’ll be so fluent at Japanese
• You’ll thank your parents when you’re older
To which they are no doubt thinking:
• What about all my friends/my toys/my things?
• I don’t like Japanese food
• Do we have to?
and quite possibly:
• Are we there yet?
And I can see their point. Ruby in particular has built up a close circle of friends during her last year at primary school and she’s not too happy to be leaving them all. And it will be pretty tough at first, getting up to speed with the language. And it is a wrench, that’s for sure. Even I’m scared, and I’ve lived there for five years.
But think of all the positives: endless supplies of sushi; cute mobile phones with Kitty dolls hanging off them; vastly superior stationery materials (better even than Smiggle); new friends; guarantees of extra MSN and Facebook time to make up for the loss of old friends; and last but not least, more time together as a family (!!).
For that they’ll surely thank us when they’re older.
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This blog is about the adventures of a family of Australian barbarians spending two years in the islands of southern Japan. Stay tuned for regular updates on the food, the culture, the earthquakes, the wacky festivals, the school system and more. 
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