Sorry-ology

 It had to be a short read the other day as I was working with another mother for a session of 15 minutes. I was not aware of time much in the past and just chose whatever book I wanted, but for two or three times my reading left no time for my paired partner. My late knowledge about the situation left me very embarrassed and apologetic always.  This time, I chose by length. The Wonky Donkey is a fun and simple verse to read, and its rhyme and the donkey's bray are entertaining sounds. As I had to keep the melody of the lines, I realized that my muscles quaked and my heart beat faster afterwards. I knew that my body and mind had enjoyed the excitement deriving from the process of reading, too. I have always loved rhymes. When I used to write poetry, I remember there is a period of time that finding rhymed words to put them together was a pleasure. However, rhymes seem to be considered childish and immature to "modern poets". I remember in a poetry group that I accidental...

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. 

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...

  Today is the first reading-for-kids event this academic year. I did not go to T's class but ventured into a different group.  I chose to read "Monkey Puzzle" by Julia Donaldson. The story has been a superb delight to me since I first read it. The twist in the story is a smart scientific turn.  I even gave it as a Christmas present to T's cousin, but I wonder if she and her dad appreciated the humor in the story. Just like today, every audience seemed to have followed along to know the fact that the kind butterfly continues to make mistakes, but I couldn't be sure whether the audience understood the reason behind the butterfly's mistakes.

  I had kept this mattress cover for about fifteen or sixteen years. It was acquired in a traditional market near my maiden home, when I returned to Taiwan for the first time after my partner and I purchased our house in the current place.  My mother and I went grocery shopping in the traditional market as we would do usually, if I was in Taichung. Traditional markets are wondrous places where one can get everything for his/her everyday life. It was a place where my mother would shower her love on me by answering whatever needs I had; it was also the only place where I could express my affection to her by accompanying her in the lonely journey that she made everyday.  After my partner and I were able to settle down in a house, it was the first time for us to have a double bed. My mother and I went into the market and searched for some bedding fabric to furnish the marriage bed. My mother loves exuberant colors, and we agreed to get this set of a mattress cover, a pair of ...

  24/Jan/2025 Zodiac Animals of Lunar Years , by Lai Ma I am not very sure if this was a good choice this time. Listening to an well-known oriental folklore in a new language can raise the level of comprehension of young audience. However, I think I was somehow lost in the middle of the reading event this time, forgetting what I wanted to do through the monthly reading events.  When I newly joined the group, I set the goal for myself that I would read to children in an unknown language, even if they do not understand, it is ok to just enjoy the sounds. However, when I read Lai Ma's Zodiac Animals , I was burdened with a cultural mission (the Lunar New Year was near) and constrained by the anxiety over the audience's comprehension. I added my awkward Japanese translation here and there, and I also gave a small quiz about different zodiac animals in different Asian cultures. All of these efforts went fine, but I felt quite lost and disappointed by myself somehow.  Reading i...

 6/Nov/2024 I Want My Hat Back, by Jon Klassen

  July/2024

  T began to practice calligraphy in elementary school this year, 2024. He is a third-grader now. 2024 is the year he had the homework of "the first writing" (書初め) for the new year's day.  He was more excited about choosing a case for calligraphy kit than the writing itself. The lack of patience in whatever that requires time naturally renders calligraphy a torture to him, I feel. He did not know how much I had looked forward to the day that we would sit side by side, write calligraphy together and chat like two normal human beings.  For several years in elementary school, I commuted to a calligraphy school in a home classroom near my maiden home.  I can still recall the smell of ink, the green space outside the house, and the sensory experiences of writing in a square space hearing the sound of rain drops. I remember the classroom was always quiet. It is never like the noisy chats and complaints that T made next to me. In those years when I was practicing calligraph...

  Spring in Japan is the most dreadful season to me. I have been suffering from serious hay fever since I started living in the country. If the symptoms are combined with a cold, a situation that usually occurs, it simply turns into an unescapable hell in my case. Whenever I have a cold, I will develop a persistent cough that might last as long as 3 weeks. A cold induced by hay fever, as pollen is also full of germs, makes me sick of life, especially the spring break is usually the longest vacation I can have in a year when kids still go to school and kindergarten regularly and I can finally work on research. However, coughs just prevent everything from happening.  What is worse this year is that, there has been an unbelievable shortage of cough medicine across Tokyo since last year due to the spread of COVID and influenza. Last November, I visited three pharmacies to finally get some cough pills, but it was still a substitute medicine and was only half of the amount that was ...

  Some months ago when Charles the Prince of Wales (then) succeeded Queen Elizabeth II in the throne, a friend wrote a SNS post about the ways in which royal titles are passed on and inherited in the line of succession in the royal family. The information was not particularly niche but still rarely understood. It was new to me, too. My focus here is not about the information but the last line to his post.  "That's it. Useless knowledge," he wrote in the end.  Immediately, I believed that I knew exactly that he was using the line, casual as it might have seemed, to harm himself by trashing his own specialty and profession. I know, because I have been doing the same to myself, too.   Around the time of his post, he was removed from a job, and his search for a tenured position in higher education hadn't been fruitful, just like most PhD holders in the world now. I have been one of them, for more than ten years.  My signature for my email account consists of my...

After a 3-week winter break,

T refused to enter the kindergarten this morning. He exercised his right of civil disobedience right in front of the gate. A teacher came to fetch him, and he started crying. He did something similar last Wednesday. On both days, I was the one to deposit and collect him. Although I understood that it was just a childish tantrum, I cannot help imagining that he did it to upset me on purpose.

I seriously think that I am running short of ideas for T’s lunchbox, and there are still more than 2 years to go in the kindergarten.