Purpose of Taking My Daughter to Study In Tokyo

This article was published on Financial Times Chinese website

 

It took about an hour and a half yesterday to deal with my daughter’s emotions. The cause was simple: my wife brought my daughter’s homework from her Japanese tutorial class to show me. My daughter insisted that it was hers, and was angry that her mom took it away without permission and folded it. My daughter cried like a baby and kept criticizing her mother and nagging her. Even though this didn’t seem like a big deal to us, it certainly could have seemed like a serious matter to my daughter. The problem was that her emotions came heavy and prolonged, and presumably the homework incident was just the cause and became a vent for stress. I had to be reassuring and companionable, again doing homework with her at her insistence. By the time she got better, my patience was running out. I had agreed to go out to Tokyo’s largest second-hand goods market together at this time, and somehow wasted the time. I suppressed the emotions in my heart, but still told her that I was also emotional and unhappy.

 

Of course, this passed quickly. We still went thrift shopping. When we got home, I heard my daughter humming happily, not knowing what she was singing. During this time, I have been concerned about her emotions. She seemed to be more prone to emotions than she was at home, and I often heard her say things like, “The baby is too hard,” or “I’m so bored.

 

We landed in Tokyo in mid-October, and a week later our daughter entered a local public elementary school. For an 8 year old, it’s a rare experience to live and learn in a completely different culture for a period of time. At least she can learn that there are different ways of living and different ideas in the world. But on the other hand, without familiar friends and neighbors, it can be very lonely. Sometimes I feel sorry for her, so I have to be there for her.

 

I used to watch the news and say that so-and-so parent spent a year traveling with her child, learning as she went. Another parent bicycled the Sichuan-Tibet route, pulling a small trailer behind their car with their daughter in it. I do not identify with these parents. By factory settings, humans, as primates, probably live in communities and connect with each other just like those orangutans and monkeys. Children, in particular, need the group relationships of everyday life the most until they are 10 years old. They find their own boundaries and relationships with the world in mutual collision and connection, and gain the ability to empathize and sympathize. In this sense, constant and continuous migration is not conducive to a child’s connection with the outside world.

 

We used to live on the outskirts of the countryside and had neighbors and several kids growing up together. During the epidemic, the kids were able to string each other along without delay. To put it generously, they had a much better time living through the epidemic than their peers who lived in buildings in the neighborhood. The night before we left, the neighbors ran to my house to say goodbye. We chatted as we collected our bags. The kids were flying all over the house, chattering. Listening to my daughter’s laughter, I don’t think she realized what separation was.

 

Modern migration is much more decisive than that of the ancients. In a few hours, they are able to uproot themselves from the past and suddenly settle down in a place where they are completely unfamiliar and do not speak the same language. The biggest difference between a foreign land and a homeland is that the connection to time and space, to the Other, is much weaker, and the body and mind get tired and naturally lonely. This is not easy for adults, let alone children.

 

I was looking for a B&B on the Audemars Piguet app, but I couldn’t find anything I was happy with. B&Bs are for tourists or short stays, they don’t feel like “home”. Adults can make do, but I don’t want my daughter to settle. If you stay for one day, you should live seriously for one day, and the attitude determines the state of life. We were lucky that our friends helped us find the right place to stay. The landlord is also warm.

Our home in Tokyo is far from the city, in an open and natural environment, without the hustle and bustle of the big city, much like the environment we live in at home. We used to live in Songzhuang, where there was a small river gorge outside the window and a forest across the river gorge. When the sun sets, the red clouds roam the field, which can make people drunk. I was joking when I said that my house has a house with a view of the gully. When I lived on the hill here, there was a forest outside the window, with birds chirping endlessly, and on the other side there was a hillside, with houses built on the hill, stretching all the way down to the city below the hill, with a wide view. From Songzhuang to Tokyo, life is largely seamless. I believe this is more conducive to my daughter’s integration and adaptation to her new environment.

 

When I arrived in Tokyo, I didn’t even bother to pack my bags, so I went to the local ward office to do various registration procedures, especially for my daughter’s schooling. Before I arrived, I heard two stories: one said that it was easy to do, and that it would take one day. The other said it would take a month. Either way, we want our daughter to go to school as soon as possible and have her own playmates her own age.

 

Incidentally, the bus we took to the district office drove directly to the entrance of the lobby inside the hospital when it stopped at the hospital platform. The bus also has an air pump, which allows the bus to tilt slightly to the side of the elderly when they get off the bus, making it easier for them to get on and off the bus. Later, I met a Chinese friend who said that the most important thing is to take care of the children and the elderly.

 

The process of going to school was quite cumbersome, and it actually took most of the day as we ran from counter to counter according to the instructions given by the staff. From getting a certificate of residence to applying for social security and so on, then the procedures of choosing a school and registering for school fees.

 

It’s also zoned, so you choose the right school based on where you live. The school we chose is only a 5 minute walk from where we live, which is very close. The school is famous for its music and has done very well in national music competitions. So I was kind of half-worried that the school would be “rolled”.

 

After identifying the school, the staff of the government education department left our e-mail address, saying that he would contact the school and asked us to wait for the notification. I did not wait for news in the following days and was a bit anxious. At that time neither my wife nor I realized how cumbersome this admission was.

 

On the Monday of the second week after arriving in Tokyo, we went to the school to meet the teachers and the government sent an interpreter. It was my first time in a Japanese elementary school, and I had to wear slippers to get in. First, a vice principal met with us and exchanged business cards, saying that if there was anything to be done, she could be reached at the office. However, according to the rules here, parents are not allowed to communicate with the school administration in private, so the phone number left on the card was also the school office number.

 

The interpreter then took us to the classroom to meet the teachers. The two teachers, a man and a woman, were the class teachers of two classes. They first said that they had just been organizing the school field day and were quite busy, so they had kept us waiting, and then they said that they hadn’t made it clear which class their daughter would go to, so both teachers came to talk. They introduced us to the school, the precautions to be taken, the school bag, stationery, lunch utensils and so on that the child should bring, tedious and meticulous, meticulous, specialized documents to prepare quite a lot. My reaction at the time was that they had to prepare so many documents at the same time as giving lessons to the children, so they must have worked overtime a lot in the past few days.

 

We talked for almost 3 hours that day, until 8pm. I realized later that this side of the world is very accustomed to dismantling every detail to understand it, fearing that they haven’t made it clear to you. Once I went to buy a bicycle, and when I was leaving, the staff stopped me, unscrewed the lights, and explained how to change the battery.

 

Following the rules is one of the most profound lessons I’ve learned from my days in Japan. But where there is a thing, there are rules. If there are rules, there are rules. It’s easy to do so. But there are also side effects. A friend who’s been in Japan for decades joked that staying in Japan for a long time makes you feel stupid.

 

The good news of the day was that my daughter was ready to go to school the following day. And it took us two days to almost finish the shopping for school supplies. In addition to preparing their own lunch boxes, indoor shoes and other things, the children here have to prepare their own handkerchiefs. It reminds me of when I was in elementary and junior high school. My wife and daughter spent a long time picking in the handkerchief section, and I waited impatiently, not realizing at all that I had spent no less time hanging out in the hand tent section than they had.

 

I like that the school doesn’t have to pick up the kids here, like when I was a kid. The school gives foreign children a week to get used to it. On my daughter’s third day of school, I picked her up from her classroom. As soon as she left the classroom, eight or nine kids followed in a semi-circle, staring at me. They stared at me as if they had seen a new alien species. My feelings were similar. It was as if I was halfway up a hill and a bunch of little monkeys appeared, making a lot of noise. If I can pull a bunch of snacks out of my pocket, odds are I can become the king of the mountain.

 

There was a little boy who looked like he had a lot of energy and walked with the wind, like my daughter’s childhood friend. He said something to me and the kids next to him laughed. I knew he was talking weird to me, so I made faces with him and pointed my finger at him, as if to tell him to stop being a brat, I know what you want. Then we mimicked each other and the kids next to us laughed even harder. At the end, I said goodbye in Chinese, and they followed suit.

 

After this scene, a hurdle passed through my heart. The children had a light in their eyes, and their interactions with strangers were natural and animated, exactly the way children should be. It didn’t seem like my daughter would encounter any ostracism or bullying. Later, when I talked to Japanese students at the University of Tokyo, I couldn’t feel the aura of the children.

 

Similar feelings are not uncommon. In the subway the adults are quiet and keep to themselves while the children are allowed to play with each other. I’ve also encountered three- and four-year-olds talking loudly in the children’s book section at the library, accompanied by parents who responded patiently and didn’t show the slightest sign of wanting their children to be quiet.

 

This whole thing kinda bothers me, on one side I see rules all over the place, kvetching everywhere. On the one hand, I see children at ease.

 

Another thing worth mentioning is the school epidemic prevention. A few days ago, my daughter’s domestic classmates stood at home discussing whether to take online classes or go back to school, and someone in the WeChat group threw in tidbits of information about Japan’s quarantine prevention, saying that the children were not only wearing N95 masks in class, but also clear plastic boards to separate them. I checked the source and found that it was a photo posted by a whiny Japanese person on Twitter calling for desegregation. In fact, my daughter’s school requires masks for indoor classes and voluntary for gym class. They go out on school trips, not that they need masks.

 

The first challenge for my daughter’s schooling was naturally the language issue. I specifically consulted an expert on Japanese education, Mr. Takayuki Fukuhiko. According to him, there is no problem to enroll in school up to the 3rd grade, and the children will adapt very quickly. In addition the government arranges for an interpreter to accompany them twice a week for about six months.

 

In retrospect, the exhaustive procedures and translations are helping the child to integrate and connect with the school as quickly and smoothly as possible.

 

A little over a month into our daughter’s school year, we received posters for the school fair.

 

The poster describes the theme of this annual school exhibition: Moving Heart, Expressing Body. I understand that it probably means to express moving with the body.

 

Exhibition in the school’s gymnasium, the visit has a time limit, parents of different grades each have a special time slot, limited to less than 1 hour. Into the hall, in front of the first wall like a display board, pasted with the whole school children’s collective works. Each person a small square, length and width are about 10 centimeters. Each person draws something on the paper. I’ve seen this kind of work once before, on a business trip to South Korea many years ago, when I caught a similar exhibition created by elementary school students from China, Japan, and South Korea. I made a point of taking a lot of photos at the time, thinking about doing content analysis and comparison. On that occasion, I noticed that of the three countries, China had the most paintings of grand narrative themes, followed by Korea and Japan. This time, when I looked at the works of my daughter’s classmates, there were almost no grand narratives and no politics involved. Also I don’t know why I didn’t see any Ultraman or dinosaurs, but quite a few cats.

 

My daughter is in 2nd grade and makes bento lunches out of cardboard and strips of paper. The upper grades are designing and building stores, some of which are cafes and sushi restaurants. The materials are more wooden strips, the designs have more spatial dimensions, and the elements are richer.

 

Some of the works in the gallery are realistic, but there are also wonderful abstractions, and even a large painting of a bunch of skeletons, with a dark brown background, titled War. Overall, the expressive presentation is indeed, as the theme says, feelings, not concepts or knowledge.

 

I don’t see anyone drawing the universe, the planets.

 

The richness and variety of materials used in the creation of the work seems to deliberately train the children to be aware of and use the materials, and based on this to imagine the work pursuing the connection between mind and body and reality.

 

Yes, connection. I’ve always felt that protecting a child’s connection to the world is one of the centers of basic education. At my daughter’s age, things that distort and cut off her perceptual, aware experience should be avoided. Knowledge should be learned, of course. But sometimes when knowledge is learned too early, it’s easy to cut off authenticity and replace it with some kind of routine. To give another example, I think it is dangerous for a child to learn idioms. The problem that tends to result is that the first expression a child sees of things is idioms, not the inner thoughts of his or her own mind. And it is the true inner thoughts that are the source of energy for language development. When idioms are learned and hurt, it is more of a suppression than an enhancement of Chinese language ability.

 

So, I was a bit excited to see the exhibition. I began to clearly realize that the purpose of bringing my daughter to Tokyo to study was, in the end, connection.

 

When we leave Songzhuang, we are cut off from our hometown, but we have the opportunity to connect with a larger and more diverse world.

 

The connection wasn’t easy, but that’s okay. There’s still time.