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My Brazen American Family

I spent a good part of yesterday filling out forms. Actually, Okamoto filled out the forms while I smiled nicely at the bureaucrats and occasionally signed on the little circle thingy (Japan’s equivalent of the dotted line). When I made my first signature and passed the paper down to the sweet lady at the end of the table, she took one look at my scrawl and emitted a high pitched “eehhhh?!” The piece of paper was then passed around so all the administrators could screech and marvel at my hideous rendition of my family name.

It is pretty bad. Even I’ll admit it.

I caused more commotion when I asserted that I still use my “maiden” name and that my husband and child have different last names. That can’t be, they said, the forms only allow for one family name. Okamoto and I had to drive back to my apartment to pick up a copy of my marriage certificate and Kiomye’s birth certificate to show that we were legit. When we brought the proof back to the office, the administrators complained that they were photocopies and not official stamped copies.

“Yes, that’s right..” I said. “These are the copies I made of the originals that I sent you three months ago.” Argh!

I found the whole process very amusing. Okamoto has a strong disgust for all things bureaucratic and swore and groaned through the whole day. I enjoyed watching the many times my “special circumstances” would send all the office workers into a fury of blurred action and noise, which would eventually calm. Then I’d insist on something like my name and the commotion would begin again.

The weather has cooled a few scant degrees. We’ve gone from about 91 to 87. This might not sound like much, but in this humidity and sun, it means another ten blocks that we can travel by foot without collapsing – twenty if we don’t have Kiomye with us. I am anxious for September to bring the rainy, cooler weather as promised.

As I wrote before, Asami invited Kiomye and me to an English play class for toddlers. We had a fabulous time. Kiomye kicked all the other kid’s butt’s in English. ;-) The difference between my sweetly brazen child and the other children was stark. Yes, she had an unfair advantage in the English department, but she threw herself into all the other activities as well. When the teachers emptied a bucked of Legos on the floor and asked the kids to build a house, most of the kids stayed back, a couple grabbed some blocks and held them in their laps. Not Kiomye. She pushed her way into the pile and started to sort out all the pieces. Plastic animals populated the mess so she plucked them out and lined them up to wait for their houses. By the time she’d made Lego beds for all the animals and tucked them in, the other kids were starting to creep around her and pick up some of the Lego towers she’d hastily created. (Not tower, mommy, TRAIN!)

Another funny, telling moment was when the kids got to use royal blue paint to color their “treasure boxes”. All the other kids tentatively touched the brush to the paint, then made small gentle strokes on their box lids. Then they’d look up at their mothers, who would coo and hug them and then take the brushes out of their tiny hands and fill in the empty spaces for them. Kiomye, on the other hand, freely glopped her brush into the paint and then slathered it all around her box. She loves paint. She laughed and talked the whole time. There was no paper laid down to cover the tables, but I figured they couldn’t possibly expect ten two-year-olds to paint without getting messy, so I didn’t worry much about the few stray drops and swipes of paint that Kiomye left on the table. To my horror, when we stood to put Kio’s masterpiece on the drying table, I saw that none of the other children had allowed a single teardrop of paint to fall astray. Their sections of the little white tables were perfectly clean. An aide came rushing over to our vacated spot with a rag and proceeded to smear the paint in an arc across the table. I made my apologies and tried to help, but she smiled, muttered something in Japanese and waved me away. Even when the class was over and we left, I could still see the pale blue rainbow on the table where Kiomye had been working.

The teachers loved us despite all this. Kiomye’s enthusiasm and huge smile won them over pronto. By the end of the class, Kio would have been thrilled to lead the kids in songs and games herself. All the teachers invited her back, despite the fact that the class is overfilled. We’re definitely going again. Maybe by next time they’ll know to cover Kiomye’s work spaces with paper.

Man, I love that little girl.

Today we venture out to Costco. Oh glorious civilized world that I may still buy cases of goldfish crackers and bulk bags of white crew socks even when a few thousand miles from home.

posted by Scribbler @ Friday, September 03, 2004