Halloween is a very popular holiday in Japan. A big part of fall is set aside for Halloween and in every store and every nursery and kindergarten there is an abundance of pumpkins and ghosts and bats and other decorations. So also at our son’s kindergarten where we went to a little Halloween party at the Saturday play group held monthly for kids and parents. As always the Kindergarten teachers had made beautiful preparations and we were met by flying ghosts and teachers with cutely scary costumes. (I had managed to get my wife to wear a little hat and I think she was easily the prettiest witch around that day.)
We did singing and dancing and our boy made his own ghost costume with the other kids. But I also got to be a little part of the program. The teachers had asked me if I wanted to read a Swedish children’s book to the kids, and of course I wanted to. My son and I had made a Swedish flag and I had prepared to read and explain his favorite book, Pelles ficklampa (Pelle’s flashlight) to the kids. I admit I was quite nervous, not to be reading a Swedish children’s book which I do every day, but to speak Japanese in front of so many people. Thankfully my son was a good assistant and we made it through the introductory talk and the book without the kids getting to restless and I was happy to have shared a little bit of Sweden with what has now become our son’s second home.
Share this story: