One step forward, one step back

My parenting is often like crab walking, achieving progress by scuttling sideways back and forth to move forward. This foreshadows the M. story that follows. Be forewarned, there is no heartwarming ending.

You’ll recall "Rug-o-nomics”, my way of imparting some financial discipline in my kids and their taking responsibility for their actions. Continuing that activity, during the Christmas holidays I finally ran out of patience waiting for Marina's promised speech and issued an ultimatum. She had to finalize her Responsibility speech text, practice it, and deliver it by the restart of school in January. If not, she'd lose the chance to recoup her old monthly allowance level. 

The days ticked by with fun and merriment aplenty. I reminded Marina about the speech deadline and she’d giggle or grimace and say, “I’m working on it, Dad.” We both knew she wasn’t. I wanted her to succeed so we spent a couple of nights working together on the text, structuring her persuasive essay and morphing into a speech text.  

But it was hard going and I had to press her to do the work and take it seriously. In the end, we pulled together a text that was 90 percent her words. She learned about structuring her thoughts and writing for her audience. A small victory and one step forward.

Finally, it came down to the last weekend of the holidays. We told her if she didn’t practice and give some effort we’d flunk her and that would be it. Upon hearing those words, she nodded as she headed out the door to play with her friends all day. Uh-oh. Marina did deliver the speech before the deadline that night. Naomi and I sat down and listened intently. It was a rote performance. We agreed it wasn’t good enough. Yet, against our better judgment, we decided to give her one more opportunity to get it right on her own. Her reprieve was five more days to practice; one last chance.

Five days later, it was Speech Day. I knew she’d read the speech aloud a few times that morning based on my suggestion. Come the evening, it was painfully clear M. hadn’t truly believed we were serious that she had to focus, practice, and convince us she had learned something about responsibility. “It’s obvious Marina didn’t do much even though we gave her an extension,” said Naomi. As she neared the end of the second attempt of her speech, Marina knew it wasn’t going to be successful. To her credit, though, M. persisted through her emotions to the end and accepted the thumbs-down outcome.

With a heavy heart but clear head, I told Marina our judgement that she hadn’t exerted herself and we wouldn’t accept this half-baked last attempt. Naomi and I promised we wouldn’t nag her again, but she had failed. I felt gloomy the rest of the evening, with a dull hurt when I saw the defeat in her reddened eyes, puffy cheeks, and hints of tears. We left her in peace and said nothing further. What’s done is done. One slip-up due to laziness--one step back.

We would not be doing Marina any favors by letting her off the hook and being overly nice or ignoring the reality that she’d been lazy.

We are not SuperParents. We do our best, and sometimes we fail. We aim to set an example how to treat others; establish boundaries; preach delayed gratification etc. And to try to turn a stumble into a lesson learned for our kid…

I am working on the next step forward.

2021 in review: Mending our Nets

When fishermen cannot go to sea, they mend their nets is an old proverb I read recently that struck a chord. I was driven to delve deeper into its meaning. Truth is I’ve been seeking a way to succinctly condense the significance of 2021’s events for the Rising Family™. The gist of this saying reminds us things happen in our lives that are far beyond our control such that we cannot live the way we have always lived, or do things we want to do. It doesn’t have to mean we're powerless, just tamed by circumstance. In this sense, this family did our best to take the power back by fighting malaise as best we could this year. Small victories, people!

Nevertheless, the COVID hangover from 2020 still required aspirin throughout 2021. We got through it.

The Big Picture is the pandemic continued to kick the ass of many people. The prospect of normalcy was repeatedly dashed against the hard facts of the Delta and Omicron variants with no endgame yet in sight. The Rising Family navigated these difficulties with resigned sangfroid, keeping in mind that so many others have lost loved ones and have been affected far more than us. 2021 remained a time of uncertainty and challenge, but we managed to scrape out a few fine memories. Here are a few images that represent the year.

January 

Optimistic beginning to 2021 with a New Year visit to a popular Shinto shrine in Yokohama. 

Photo credit KDKA TV Pittsburgh

February

Seems I never have decent photos from February. So here’s the dumpster fire amid a flood. Because it symbolizes my feelings for February in general, but especially in 2021!

March 

Sign of the times: masks and house keys together in the landing next to our front door.

April

I snuck out to a social occasion and returned home aboard a nearly deserted train at 2100. Government measures to prevent the spread of COVID were tough, so most social gatherings were prohibited. Most people supported that and followed the rules.

May

Marina started enjoying hoops—this game center fun foreshadowed her joining the basketball team.

June

This is an energetic Marina jumping down the Mt. Ogusu trail in the Miura peninsula (in January). This is a continuation of our family hikes started in Tennessee state parks.

July

The warm weather ushered in lower infection rates and open-air attractions started to open up again. Here’s M. about to be drenched by a splash boat hitting the skunky water at the FujiQ Highland Amusement Park. A bit of summer heat and children’s delighted squeals helped us forget the pandemic for a few hours.

August

Lady E. and The M. setting off Obon fireworks with their ji-chan (grandad) and baa-chan (granny) during their first get-together in two-and-a-half years.

September

The ladies at the Fushimi Inari shinto shrine in Kyoto (in August) on the way back from our summer trip to Hiroshima.

October

This was our first family movie together at a cinema since we returned to Yokohama. We saw M. Night Shyamalan’s “Old.” We were the first in the theater room; a few more people came in a bit later. It was a freaky feeling to see Elsa from Disney’s “Frozen” symbolizing “no sit” seats to keep social distancing rules.

November

I rented a motorcycle and took a day fandango tour to the Izu Skyline. It’s a famous toll highway and a fun drive that runs south of Mt Fuji. I am pointing to where Mt. Fuji is…behind the clouds that magically appeared when we wanted to snap this picture.

December

A “COVID Christmas” Zoom call with my family back home. I was full of Christmas cheer despite the time zone difference. Great to see and talk with everyone.

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Merry Christmas 2021

Yuletide greetings from our bunker in Yokohama. We had a wonderful Christmas at home, and hope you did, too. It’s our – and the world’s -- second COVID-flavored Noel! Ohmygoodness it’s an Omicron Christmas!

Credit: Agence-France Presse. Looks like a Christmas Tree ball, no?

We try to give the Rising Daughters™ a chocolate advent calendar every year. It builds anticipation before Christmas and prompts them to appreciate their general good fortune each day before December 25. This year, though, each passing day in December brought new speculation about the seriousness and trajectory of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. You’d think that might cause some resurgent anxiety, but “au contraire, Pierre.” After 21 months of pandemic life, we, along with billions of other people, seem to have learned to live with the lurking threat of the new variants as well as the sea-sawing restrictions on going out or travel. 

Omicron is out there and spreading fast. But, today, we managed to forget about it. We chose to have a carefree, Disneyesque day together filled with laughter, presents, and a food fiesta. 

Exchanging digital greetings with loved ones and friends was a big part of it.

Credit: breakingbourbon.com

A parting gift I brought with me from Tennessee also helped ease my mind.

In other words, we’re grateful to be healthy and happy. I hope your Christmas was as good as ours was. Merry Christmas and take care, all ya’ll!

Elena’s World Vol. 5 Part 2

The mists of time have clouded recollections of how early-teen me thought and felt. So I’m appreciating Lady E.’s changes with respect and curiosity. My only request for this round of Q&As was that she be genuine. One hope is the following verbal exchange provides an accurate depiction of this wonderful young person in bloom, and captures her moment in time for future enjoyment.

Courtesy of the Japan Times; typical exam hall in Japan

What is your greatest challenge now?

It’s juken (ed.:it means studying for entrance exams) to get into high school.
Q: So your challenge right now is getting into the high school you want to get into.
A: Yeah.
Q: Why is that important, because it's a tough high school to get into?
A: Yeah, but if you get into that school it’s a good thing.
Q: If you don't get into the school you aim for, what happens?
A: I’ll probably get into another school that's ranked lower.

What makes you happy about the way the world is now?
I’m in a part of the world that is relatively peaceful. And, I am not worried about the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been going for a year, things are getting normal again here now, and I’m not worried about getting it. Soon I am getting the vaccines.

So you’re not worried about getting sick from COVID?
No, because I don't go anywhere. At first, when we still living in America, I was a little worried about getting COVID are first, but it's like normal now. It's everywhere so…so people have gotten used to it. Some of my friends got COVID but they were OK afterward.

Do you believe in an afterlife?
Oh, it’s happier to think that there's heaven. Then, thinking that there's nothing left when you die... I think there's heaven.
Q: Do you think you'll go to heaven?
A: Well, I haven’t done anything particularly bad, so yes.

What makes you sad about the way the world is now?
I feel a little sad that lots of people have died because of COVID. But some people are just going around without a mask so those people, it's their own fault. But it's genuinely sad for workers who work at hospitals that get sick.

What goals are you trying to achieve these days?
Getting into certain high schools. That’s all, really, right now.

Any other questions you want to answer or any other things you want to tell your future self when you read this on the blog?
I just hope I have a stable life, enjoyable, happy life, and not in any crisis. Yeah, enjoying life and genuinely being happy with friends.

Do you think you're a good person? What makes you interesting?
I don't think I'm a bad person. So…what’s interesting so far is that I have lived in three countries.

Are you nice or are you mean?
I'm nice. I think I'm nice. Well, it depends on the person. If the person is doing a bad thing, I don't care about them, but if I care about them I'm nice. So I'm nice to you guys, my family.

And do you have many friends?
I think so. I'm not lonely; I have friends to be with. I have, like, a lot of people who I can talk to you, but not really close. When a person says, you know, they're friends with somebody, but they're not that close, I don't call them friends. I have like six… no I have like 10 close friends.
Yeah, I think I have friends. I also have friends in America, there are a lot of them.

Are you getting along with your sister?
Yes. I'm nice to her. But we fight.
Q: Do you think you fight more than other sisters in the world?
A: No, I think other sisters are as bad as us, from my friends’ stories.

Last question. How would you describe your relationship with your little sister, The M.?
Awful, terrible. And wonderful, good. And one more way--close to each other.

Are you really sure about that?
Yes, for sure.

Really the last question. Any question you want to ask me?
Q from E.: Okay, there's something I want to ask you--are you ever gonna stop drinking beer?
A: Never.
Response from E.: Okay, I hope you live long.

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Elena’s World Vol. 5 Part 1

Subtitle: Lady E. is a resident of the Mercurial Teenager Territory
This blog offers snapshots of in time of the Rising Daughters growing up. This latest round provides an overview of Elena’s current lifestyle and thinking by way of a Q&A. Her environment in Yokohama is relatively unchanged, but this kid is transforming thanks to her experiences and unique personality. She’s a work-in-progress.

A typical teenager: hormonal and icily logical. Querulous yet obedient. Apathetic but overactive in areas they shouldn’t be. And self-absorbed.

These days, society encourages dads to not describe our daughters in gender-centric, stereotypical terms like “pretty” and “my princess.” As my Lady E. teenager learns and progresses toward adulthood, things are gonna get interesting.
Without further ado...

Not her school, by the way

What's been the hardest thing to readjust to since you moved back to Yokohama?
School, especially math. Yes, school in general, but especially math, science and social studies since they’re different from what I took in America.

Anything different about your lifestyle or things that are hard to readjust to?
Something hard is to make new friends. Maybe it's not that hard because I already have friends here from four years ago. So there's nothing especially hard, but in general it’s just different, not that hard to readjust to.

What are your favorite clothes these days?
Ah, favorite clothes. I only wear my clothes two times a week, because I have my school jersey [tracksuit]. So, maybe my jeans, and my band hoodie. It's big, it's like a huge size that makes me look like it's a one-piece black hoodie. That's probably my favorite.
Sub Q: Is it the hoodie from your band days at middle school in Tennessee? 

A: Yes.

Any new hobbies or sports?

I played tennis this year as a club activity at school.

Why did you decide to play tennis?
Because I originally liked badminton but they don’t have badminton available at school. So it was either table tennis or tennis, and mom used to do tennis, and it seemed quite interesting.

What's your favorite ice cream/or candy?
I have a lot of flavors I like. I like the original flavors from Baskin Robbins, and the chocolate banana super scoop ice cream. Also, gummies, chocolate, super tough gummies. Or just gummies in general but hard gummies--stuff like that, and milk chocolate.

Who is more fun to play with, boys or girls?
Girls. Yeah, I don't have any boyfriends. It’s easier with girls and girlfriends. I don't have anything in common with the boys. We just don't talk to boys in my grade. No, no, no, none of my girlfriends have friends that are boys. There's this complete line, a wall between boys and girls in our class.

What's your average day like?
Yeah, well I go to school around 08:00 I usually have five or six classes on school days. I have lunch around 12:25.

What kind of lunch?
A bento box lunch that mommy makes. It’s usually good. It's like different every day.

Do your friends all have school lunches from their moms?
Yeah, well some of them buy lunch but most of them have bentos. Only like two people in our class buy lunch.

Tell us about the past year. What have you learned?
Yeah, we've been here over a year now. But the subjects are all new.
Math is new, I’m studying graphs, and some functions and relations, but it’s just math. We all take the same math. Okay, it's different from America so there's like no algebra and smart people classes. We are all learning the same stuff. I learned new kanji characters, and Japanese history in social studies.

What books are you reading lately?
Reading Harry Potter and this Japanese book that I find interesting. I forgot the name of the Japanese book. I read it a month ago so it's, it's something like 40 days of being somewhere like in a dream, about two people from different times, like completely different timelines. I read a lot.

What’s your favorite TV show these days?
Comedy shows.

What would you like to say to your future self, when you’re 21?
I'll probably be a university student. I hope I'm happy, and have a stable life. Yeah, I hope I'm a not rock and roll star or a TV celebrity. Just living a normal life as a university student. I want to be peaceful. I know I want to be normal. I want to travel, but don't want to do like super high spec stuff. And, I’m watching a lot of American TV shows and Japanese anime shows, so I’m becoming expert in both.

In what place are you happiest?
I'm happy talking to my friends at school or just anywhere in general because it's fun. Also, I like sleeping. So, those two. Yeah, talking to my friends just anywhere, and then doing stuff with my friends and also sleeping and relaxing.

To be continued...

Thanksoween

The Rising Family™ has been in holiday hoedown mode the last month or so. Canadian Thanksgiving on the second weekend of October was the spark. 

The traditional, and ideal, Thanksgiving meal

Our reality--and lucky to have it!

We adapted our festive feasting because we don't have an oven large enough to cook a turkey. Instead, the bird we devoured was a Costco roast chicken augmented by homemade mashed potatoes, fresh veggies, and apple pie and ice cream. Not 100% the “real thing” but tasty enough. What was the same was gratitude for our good fortune. Also unchanged was lambasting each other at the dinner table.

Now it’s Halloween. It’s another holiday that underlines Japan’s habit of absorbing and transforming cultural traditions from abroad and making them fun and unique to its own culture. All that without the drama of tradition or religious meaning. To be sure, Japan’s “Labor Thanksgiving Day”  in late November doesn’t jibe with the North American version of Thanksgiving. It’s a nondescript holiday where people say thanks to their parents for their work. Be that as it may, I’m waiting for some savvy local marketers to turn that holiday into something quirky that fits the local lifestyle. I’m sure there are many Japanese who’ve lived in the U.S. or Canada and would like to see a localized version of Thanksgiving. That would mesh well with the homespun varieties of Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day which are very popular.

I don’t recall large Halloween celebrations when I arrived in Japan over two decades ago, except for foreigners getting together to party. Then again, it’s increasingly welcomed as a good excuse to rev up the costumes and have fun in public, so why not? I suspect the geniuses at Tokyo Disneyland brought in the idea and local companies saw opportunity knocking. It probably caught on first in the Tokyo area, with its many foreign resident enclaves. The annual big cosplay/Halloween parade in Shibuya added spice to enable its further spread elsewhere.

I do recall seeing a Christmas tree festooned with pumpkins at a local mall around 2014. I duly called it the “Christmaween” period between Halloween and Christmas.

Credit/Courtesy of Eric Fell/Instagram

So why not keep that creative vibe going with a new "Thanksoween" hybrid holiday? Just merge them and keep the party going. Eat a huge feast in a costume. That could work!

The way I see it, Western culture and traditions are great and come to us naturally because we grew up with them. I try to husband them in our household so Lady E. and M. grasp the spirit, emotion and traditions of the western half of their makeup through holiday celebrations. That these holidays can sometimes veer in a kooky way when integrating with Japanese norms yields harmless and heartwarming results—for everyone. Traditions are great and it’s OK to do something different. Anything that brings people together and offers some joy is the whole point.

When I see a Japanese version of Kwanzaa or Hannukah, then I’ll know Japan has jumped the shark, holiday-wise. Wait for it! 😏

Happy Thanksoween!

Ed. notes: 

- Today is also the general election for the Japan’s House of Representatives. The vote will decide if the current LDP government will continue to lead with single-party majority, or not. Either way, democracy in action.

- It’s also the opening day of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. Let’s hope the Powers That Be continue efforts to improve our climate plans so the planet doesn’t become a horror show for future generations. Just marking the date for posterity.

 

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Rug-o-nomics and responsibility

Teaching Marina about money has been a long and winding road…with much laughter. We’ve been trying to do the right thing as parents. If we don’t teach the Rising Daughters™ how to manage money, then credit card, “E-Z Quick Loan" or "FastCashBack” companies will. That’s not a risk we want to take. Dollars and sense.

I say “we” when in reality it means “me.” Truth be told, I couldn’t find my own ass financially until my mid-twenties. The university loan repayments started to kick in and the party was over. My lovely wife, however, was born fiscally prudent and rational. I want our daughters to split the difference behaviorally between us parents. At face value, it seems Lady E. got Naomi’s “smart with money” DNA.  And -- I write this with love -- M. was left with my inital slapdash approach to managing money and saving for the future.

Library “Book-o-nomics” is the precursor to this post. It was the strategy I created to get Marina to understand that library books cost money and that lost library books will cost her money. While we were living in Tennessee, she lost a book. I made her go with me to the library to find out from the librarian what happens. We broke down the $20 book replacement cost into monthly payments subtracted from her allowance. Every month I’d remind her why she was $1.50 short of what she was supposed to receive.  I'd show the record of what she’d paid and what balance remained. She followed the plan and paid it back. Lesson learned, right?

Wrong.

More backstory. Slime is a viscous, gooey, multicolored glob that you can pound, pull apart, and do all kinds of creative kooky kid stuff. It’s also sticky and oozy as tree sap and IMPOSSIBLE to remove from carpets. For this reason, we repeatedly warned Marina not to use slime in her bedroom and, if she “forgot” and it got stuck on the carpet, she’d be responsible for fixing it.

You guess what happened next. The warnings were ignored. When moving out, even a professional carpet cleaner could not remove the hardened slime globs and stains. We had to replace the whole carpet in her room, costing north of $400.

It was time for Round 2 of taking responsibility-for-your-actions. “Rug-o-nomics” was born.

I did some math and at $2.50 per month—roughly 15% of her monthly allowance—it would take 13 years for her to pay it back. She’d be a college graduate by then. I increased the monthly payback to $7.50 per month to raise the financial pain threshold together with a new incentivized idea. I recalled Marina’s great public speaking effort back in January 2020 at the Williamson County 4H club.

Her topic: Being responsible for your actions. My idea was to get her to rehash her ideas in a long, two- or three-page formal essay about being responsible for one’s actions. Doing so would rehash the responsibility element and need some written work. Perfect combination, right?

Wrong.

She agreed to this new ploy six months ago. Yet no action. She’s still willing to take a 42% monthly drop in her allowance rather than do the essay.

To motivate her, we first showed her how much more money she’d get every month if she did the essay. Nothing happened.

Negative reinforcement though nagging and shaming didn’t work. We tried the positive route again with a tangible thing: how much candy she could buy with an extra 750 yen (about $7.50).

She's done neither research nor writing so far. What to do? We might have to go to DEFCON 1 and threaten complete allowance retraction. My preference remains the carrot over the stick, though.

I do believe that this story will end positively. Goodness knows if I could eventually get my financial act together, so can Rising Daughter #2.

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