3.27.22
Changes are truly in the air…come April, I won’t be with my precious hoikuen kiddos, but rather elementary schoolers–specifically 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grades–until July. This is due to COVID restrictions making it very difficult to find and send replacees for the current ALTs, who are moving back to the US of A after teaching here six years. Of course, I see this as a valuable opportunity to have a more holistic understanding of Japanese school culture and have an actual classroom teaching experience; however, I can’t help feeling down because I finally started feeling at home with the hoikuens.
So, in recognition of this shift, I have started a list of stellar hoikuen moments that continue to make me randomly chuckle throughout the day (capital letters substitute names of my kids). Although they don’t translate fully in writing, please imagine random flourishes of limbs and excessive jumping for greater accuracy:
- At the playground, T almost ran into the slide due to his imaginary telescope–left hand around the left eye and right hand stretching in and out, as if extending an immensely long lens.
- Y comes up to me and tells me "Kai-sensei kawaii" (which means "You are cute") multiple times a day...it's so sweet of him to just randomly tug my hand and say that then walk away.
- A finally remembered "rabbit" without my help and now she often comes up to me, smiles, says "rabbit!" then skips away.
- When corndogs, which are called “american dogs” here, were served for lunch, A asked me if he’s now American because he ate the whole thing and even had seconds.
- Whenever I enter S's class, he starts doing this crazy dance move and emphatically, with an accent I can't place, bellows a "good morning!" and a "good night!" and "gorilla!" then goes back to whatever he is doing.
- I asked T how old he thought I was and he said "63." Same.
- Whenever I leave the room (even to go to the bathroom) H slowly says “see youuuu…next time!” while forming a thumbs up, then whirling the hand to a “goodbye!” salute. I kid you not, this happens about 5 times a day with him.
- When I asked S if she had any dreams after naptime, she, with huge, dreamy, rounded eyes, exclaimed she was surrounded by EVERY flavor of popcorn.
- When I asked a 5yo class what the English word for the tall animal with yellow and brown spots was, they just said the Japanese name for giraffe, "kirin" in what they thought was a western accent. Little did they know they were happily repeating the famous beer brand, Kirin, in its proper pronunciation (slightly different from the "giraffe" "kirin")
- I asked A who she’d want to marry (after reading her cookie wrapper fortune about getting proposed soon) and she said her 2 yo brother because the only other option, her dad, farts too much.
- S was happily changing into his uniform when all of a sudden he turned to me and said “PINEAPPLE” then went back to changing nonchalantly.
There are countless other hoikuen moments I can’t recall now though will try to add as they hopefully fly back into my head. But yes, I intend to conclude my hoikuen phase as best I can, of which one way will be to ensure I savor AND save these gems for when I especially miss my kiddos.
letters received from many of my Kodomo-hoikuen kiddos . I see they also noticed my constant scarf adornment
