A Little Bit Different…

A Little Bit Different

Does the scenery really change in 2021?

N— moved from the US to Japan to work from home. He shakes his head and laughs when he tells people this. What is the point, really, of moving spaces when everyone in your sphere is working remotely? The simplest explanation is inertia. We wouldn’t have chosen to move during a pandemic, but since it had already been decided, and N— was already doing the work, and I had quit my job, and the animals had been extensively tested and vaccinated, and the best apartment we could hope to find in Tokyo (with a yard!) was ready and waiting for us—it seemed better, and in some ways easier, to proceed with the move. And now N— is at least in the right time zone, even if he’s still not in the same room as his colleagues.

S— in our yard in Tokyo: high walls, trees, lots of dirt.

What’s Different

The biggest change since the move has been S— going back to preschool. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had given up her spot at the campus daycare when I left my job. For eight months after that, I spent pretty much every hour of every day at home with a toddler—a downright hysterical situation for someone who never in her life wanted to be a stay-at-home parent. Many people choose that life, pandemic or no, and I am both awed and bewildered by them.

S— is three (almost four), and I am sure her attending preschool is great for her in many ways. She’s around children again! Her teachers come up with creative activities I could never think of nor execute! She is on a schedule, something I could never manage to maintain when it was just us. (I’m not sure why, though of course it must be some personal failing on my part. I lacked the will, or the discipline, or the authority?) She’s hearing both Japanese and English, spoken by teachers and other students. She’s sampling new foods, and learning about Japanese holidays and traditions.

The hog, aka our ebike, aka the mamachari: our main form of transportation. The nice red car in the background is our neighbor’s.

Mamachari

Five days a week, either N— or I load S— into the mamachari (a colloquialism meaning “mom’s bike”) and take her to school. This is another new element of my life: ditching the family car for an electric bicycle with a large basket in the front and a child seat in the back. (Many others have written about mamachari, if you’re interested.) The mamachari was our first major purchase here in Japan. When we plunked down Y150,000 (about $1,500 USD) for purchase, I thought, Fancy! because I’ve never bought a bike—the last one I owned was a turquoise ten-speed called “Lady Luck” that my parents bought for me in junior high, probably from Toy ‘R Us (RIP)—so fifteen-hundred dollars seemed like a decent chunk of change. Plus, the bike had a battery that would help me zip up the hills and accelerate at green lights, despite hauling a child and all her accoutrements.

Turns out, mamachari, including mine, are considered anything but fancy. I’ve seen them called workhorses, and compared to station wagons, because their whole purpose is to haul stuff around: groceries, shopping bags, small-to-medium-sized humans. (Some bikes have one child seat on the front and one in the back; if you see a mother with a child in each seat plus one strapped to her chest, that’s a square on your Tokyo BINGO card.)

Konbini

After school, S—’s favorite things to do are 1) go to Family Mart, and then 2) head to the park. Family Mart is a convenience store or konbini, a fixture of Japanese life that others have written about extensively. In Seattle there is one 7-11 that we go to for propane for the grill, but otherwise I hardly ever go to convenience stores in the states. In Tokyo a stop at the konbini is a near-daily occurrence—usually to pick up lunch or an after-school snack, but I also pay our utility bills there. Really! It’s the easiest way for me, because paying online is too hard with the language barrier. Payment at the konbini must be made in cash, and utility costs are high here, so I’m usually forking over the equivalent of hundreds of US dollars to a convenience store clerk, who stamps everything and hands me a receipt. This lets me know the whole process is legit, plus our lights have stayed on.

S—’s Family Mart must-have is a small carton of milk, and it’s a bit of a lottery when it comes to her snack pick. Sometimes she chooses a banana or yogurt, other times she’ll pick a container of Chip Star. Once she picked a dessert-souffle thing that had pudding on the bottom and a mini cake on the top. She was in heaven; I felt deep shame as I sat next to her on the park bench, wondering what I had just done. What do proper Japanese mothers feed their children at snack time, I wonder.

Safety

At the park, I leave our bike parked, unlocked, next to dozens of others just like it, while S— plays. I leave our stuff in the bike too, though out of habit I usually bring my wallet with me. Once I left my purse in the basket, and it was fine. I’ve heard stories of wallets being lost on the street in Tokyo, and then returned, cash still intact. This is definitely different from Seattle, where everyone seems to have a story of theft. There, our unlocked car was combed through a few times, though we never had anything stolen from our home. (I think the fact that there’s a church next door helps—eyes of God and all that.)

Hanging out at the park with friends is similar to what we did in the US—though of course the friends are new. At five o’clock, music plays on loudspeakers placed around public spaces, and most parents and kids take that as our cue to leave. S— likes to dance every time she hears it. We head home, where much has remained the same…

Five o’clock music playing against Tokyo skyline. Video by Thomas Plewe on YouTube.