Sorry-ology

My young little daughter blasted at me in a rage and left scratches in my forearm.  I just let her scratch me as she needed.  I understood that as a child, when she could not control the way of her life as she wanted it to be, the nearest exist is anger. The same can be said about adults, too; especially me, since I am not that sophisticated about containing my own emotion either. People might say that I am not a good parent, and that she just needs more practice and knowledge to manage herself.  The scratches hurt in many ways. The scars look still ugly now. I wonder sometimes how I would have let others done such injury to me. Parents are the most convenient targets at which children can fire their outburst, and the targets are easy as they have to remain passive and receptive and as they are the Parents.  Parents are equally made of flesh and bones, tissue and blood, but their feelings are not as important as others. It is an extensive time of injustice that they ...

  I wish to be the Jizo, 地蔵, the guardian deity, sheltered in blossoms. 

 Today, I read Ten Eggs  in Taiwanese to a group of first-graders in the elementary school. I have read this particular book several times, especially if it is the first encounter between me and the children. I somehow improved my reciting skills every time, and managed to come up with more ideas about how to make the listening fun for the audience.  This time I used plastic eggs as props. Whenever there is an egg flying away, I threw an egg to the audience. The first-year graders were very responsive, as other mother-readers have told me, and excited about catching the flying eggs, 10 in total.  Y helped me make the last Easter egg the night before. 

In May 2025, we went to Hara Museum in Ikaho, Gumma for a family trip during the Golden Week Holiday in Japan.  The traffic on the highways from Tokyo to Ikaho was a hell since it was the prime time to travel for Japanese. Being the driver of the family, I did not mind the pain of being trapped in the traffic jam because I knew that at the end of the drive, when we finally reached the destination, it would be a entirely new experience for the children for sure. My husband does not like travel and does not enjoy natural environment, so if we ever go out on a holiday, the destination is always a city. Automobiles are probably the main culprits of global warming, but they take us to places where public transportation doesn't. I think somehow cars mean a lot to women at home when they provide precious mobility, a rare moment of being in control and therefore a rare moment of independence. I remember having a chat with my Japanese teacher, who told me that her late husband, like my part...

Around 4 pm yesterday afternoon, Y asked me if she could have snacks and watch TV. I gave her a negative answer, given that she had watched a movie with her dad in the early afternoon. Her TV allowance had been spent for the day. She was persistent, begging, nagging, complaining, and then blaming in the end. Our conversation went on and went astray as below.  -------------------------------------------------------- Y: Why can't I watch TV?  Mom: You've seen a movie with dad today, and the movie was about 2 hours. You can have snacks though.  Y: Mom is stupid!!! （ママはバカ！） M: I don't think so. I am probably the smartest in this household.  Y: Mom is stupid!　（ママは「ㄅㄨㄣˋ」（笨）蛋） M: Ok, let's see. Who can drive a car in our family?  Y: Mom. (Emphatically.) M: Who can cook in our family? Y: Mom, and sometimes dad.  M: Who can speak mandarin? Y: Mom and I and T.  M: Who takes you to ballet lessons?  Y: Mom.  M: Who takes you to piano lessons?  Y: Mo...

  Surtout N’entrez Pas Dans Le Sac In the regular events of the Reading to Kids group in the spring term 2025, one of the books that I read to children was a picture book in French, Surtout N’entrez Pas Dans Le Sac , or, Never Ever Should You Enter into the Bag , by a Togolese author, Gnimdewa Atakpama.   The story is about a lion and a goat, both of whom want to build their respective homes on the same piece of land. The two animals, one herbivorous and the other carnivorous, resolve the conflicts by some violent means in the end. A perspective lens of the illustration helps distance the dramatic moment of physical force. My audience, including the two classes of the 5th- and 6th-graders and their homeroom teachers, gasped at the resolution. Although the climax is meant to be witty, funny and surprising, each time when I read up to the moment of climax, I somehow felt that I was obliged to apologize for the development, so I made a comment, “sorry” (ごめんね!).   Why did I h...