I give my wife plenty of opportunities to laugh at my Japanese skills (or I should say lack thereof). I can reasonably well talk about the weather with our neighbors, speak about every day matters with my wife, sufficiently communicate with school teachers, other parents and children’s health professionals. I have also come up with […]
It feels like yesterday when my son and I were walking past the rice fields on our way home from kindergarten while looking at the little tadpoles swimming around the all but non-existent rice plants. It was late spring and there was a long hot summer lying before us, nature outings, trips to the beach,
I often feel like one of those lawn moving robots that have become so popular in Sweden. Nowadays you can see them in every other backyard, spending their days crawling around on the lawn, cutting the grass. What I do is spending all my waking hours crawling around inside a Japanese home instead, cleaning up
Maybe it was the air, its soft touch on my cheek. Maybe the light, the morning sun shining from a hazy blue sky? Maybe it was the smell of damp grass, that made me think of him. How long has it been since I last saw him? A year? No, it must be longer, but
I guess we are in the middle of a big transition phase in our family and especially so in my son’s life – from home life to Kindergarten life, from being a baby to becoming a toddler, from needing his parents’ help to being able to dress and eat by himself, from being at the
I miss them, close ones that are no longer living among us. I have missed them especially the past week when the memories of the dead take center stage in Japan during the Obon holiday, the time to remember the ancestors when their spirits are said to come home to visit living family members. There
It is the middle of summer and the vegetables in our little garden are thriving like plants in a jungle. My mother-in-law is the one who takes care of it, grows the vegetables, gives the nutrients, does the weeding and harvesting – all I have to do is giving the garden water those days when the
Summer in Japan is festival time, and especially so this year. Because of the corona pandemic many festivals have been canceled for a few years, and this summer they finally start to happen more full scale again. There are all kinds of festivals such as dance festivals, festivals celebrating local deities, and of course the
It is getting hot now. Often too hot to be outside without feeling like I have stepped into a sauna. Not a dry one, but one with high humidity that makes me want to change my clothes as soon as I step into it. The Japanese summer has arrived and I am both looking forward
About once a month, there is an open day at the kindergarten aimed at children who are not yet in daycare. The kindergarten bus, the one and only Thomas the Tank Engine school bus, picks up toddlers and parents at the nearby shopping center and takes them up the mountainside to the kindergarten for an
It has been a joyful couple of weeks for our son at his new kindergarten. He has gotten used to the place, has started to get new friends and has come to love his teachers. His parents have also been so lucky as to be able to share a few mornings at the kindergarten with
Every weekday afternoon I go and meet our son when he arrives on the kindergarten bus. It has only been a few weeks but I feel like I already know the life happening on that street corner. My new routine has been added to this piece of city, and like an observer I stand there