I love the Japanese consideration for others, but witnessing this class I was horrified at the way "morality" is taught rather than social philosophy discussed. The class of 10 year olds were bored out of their wits by the patronising and narrow tone of the story. The teacher was in a state of accute embarassment. Not sure if this was because he is shy in front of the parents or because he realised what a weak case the story provided for the lesson he was supposed to be teaching.

Absolutely zero discussion ensued despite the teacher's diffident attempts at eliciting responses. The teacher himself is very much a product of the Japanese education system where everything is systemised with only a right or wrong answer. As he was therefore only looking for the correct formularistic answers, and no hands volunteered into the stifled air, he picked on resolutely bowed figures in turn who duly mumbled what they knew the answer was supposed to be repressing any personal, or heaven forbid different, opinion. I as dying for one of them to say something provocative or funny to liven up the class, but all the children seemed to switched off to risk such anarchic behaviour. Or maybe these lovely kids (they are all really well mannered kind people) considered the feelings of their teacher who lacks the confidence to improvise under pressure. Whichever it struck me the lesson had already been learned and the class was such an obvious waste of time that all concerned would have been much better off learning a few lessons about possibilities and limits in physics and social interaction and the balance of personal interest and social responsibility by creating mutual fun with a snow ball fight in the playground. (KT)

Birthday parties are getting easier - used to have to prepare lots of games, etc. Now all I have to do is prepare a mountain of food and tell them all when it is ready so that they can take a break from playing to eat. Girls and boys seemed to split into to distinct groups - the girls all playing ball games and the like outside and the boys glued to computer games or comic books. I have got to try and impose a ban on computers going on when there is a house full of friends who could all have more fun playing together. Now that we are into teenager age maybe I should be happy the computer distracts the boys.

Kata did his usual trick of escaping the birthday party (had to go to a meeting of the Prefectural Board for Beautiful Landscape - well I know it sounds a bit airy fairy, but actully they are doing some positive research into how to preserve and restore the environment) (KT)

Last night I spent the midnight hours making two cakes and had the daft idea of making them spell 13 in Japanese. Several of the kids did seem to think there was some obscure Christian significance. Next year think I will stick to Arabic numerals or just plain squares of circles. (KT)

I had just made shepherd's pie for supper for 4 when the 5 Mukai's turned up. But the odd combination of pooled resources seemed to go down OK. Both Kata and Mr Mukai had the hangover to proove it the next morning. It was a shame Adam was not here - he would have loved the gorgeous colour of the fish and might even have been able to tell us what the 3 different types were. (Adam flies home from Tokyo tomorrow and phone in the middle of the chaos of Mukai's arriving to say goodbye) (KT)