World Moms Blog

This week we have five countries in five days!

We’re honoring World Immunization Week with Shot@Life and the GAVI Alliance!

We will start the week by running a very special social good post from a devoted reader who has attended two of our community outreach events for life-saving vaccinations for children in the developing world. It will be interesting to read Amy Pohl’s perspective from New Jersey, USA!

On Tuesday, we’re headed to Japan to hear from Hamakko Mommy. She tells us about a lovely tradition in Japan leading up to Girl’s Day, and how her plans to actually observe the tradition went awry right from the get-go.

Also on Tuesday, We also have a second social good post on Wednesday from Ghana, where the GAVI Alliance will be introducing for the first time, 2 vaccines at once in a grand effort to help save the lives of children from pneumonia and rotavirus.  Dan Thomas of the GAVI Alliance will be reporting!

Wednesday, we’re in Massachusetts with Courtney Cappallo. She talks about a day every parent dreads: a child’s first sleepover. Come read about her own experiences, and learn some very useful sleepover tips! Read more…

There is an old man who lives a couple of buildings down. He is in no way remarkable, really. I often see him walking his dog or riding his bike to and from the local supermarket.

On Sunday afternoon, though, he transforms.

He is the Kami Shibai, Paper Theater, man. He changes from his everyday clothes, drab blues and grays, into his yukata (informal kimono) and his geta( wooden sandals) and his newsy cap. He looks as if he walked right out of the Yokohama of the 1930s, the pre-war Japan of his childhood.

He makes the rounds of the supermarket, banging his hyoushigi (bamboo blocks) that same echoing sound you hear at sumo matches or on winter’s evenings when the volunteers go around the neighborhood, reminding us of hi no youjin, caution against fire.

He distributes tickets to the children. The Paper Theater starts at four. All good children will receive a present at the end, he says.

And come four o’clock, a gaggle of youngsters have gathered in the corner of the supermarket where he has spread a swatch of carpet. Read more…

Ah, New Year’ Day, the one day out of the entire year when, I, along with all the other women in Japan, do not have to cook or do laundry.

Of course, there is more to it than that, but let’s start with what’s important, right?

Tradition dictates that dirt from the old year must not enter the new one, so the last weeks of December are spent furiously cleaning and decorating the house to please the gods of the New Year. They seem to be especially fond of mikan, a kind of orange, and mocha, sticky short grained rice that has been beaten with a mallet until it is the consistency of silly putty, and most houses offer this on the family altar.

(My in-laws are Christian so they don’t have an altar, but like most Japanese they cover all the religious bases just in case and set out the mochi and mikan on top of the TV. Seems like a logical enough place for the god’s to stop, I suppose.)

On New Year’s Eve, we eat long noodles in soup. This is supposed to bring luck in the year to come. Many people visit the shrine or temple at midnight. For the next several days, one can see a steady stream of Japanese, young and old, in fur-trimmed kimono unsteadily approaching places of worship, slowed down by the traditional flip-flop type shoes they wear. This is about the only time one sees people from so many different walks of life in their traditional finery. Kimono are reserved now mostly for highly ceremonious occasions. Read more…

Christmas in Japan is pretty much an unadulterated Gimmee Fest. Santa is everywhere, baby Jesus? って誰？Who’s that? I like to call it Christmas, Inc.

A good comparison would probably be the American version of Valentine’s Day. I mean, sure, there’s a religious tradition in there somewhere, but it’s been so warped that now it’s really just a chance for kids to exchange cards and yours truly to eat too much chocolate. (Valentine’s Day in Japan is totally backwards, but I’ll save that for February.)

Here most people celebrate Christmas on the evening of the 24th. They eat fried chicken and “Christmas Cake,” which is usually a strawberry and whipped cream topped vanilla sponge.  Interestingly enough, Kentucky Fried Chicken (known in Japan simply as Kentucky) is strongly associated with Christmas. Read more…

Where in the world do you live? Are you from there?

I live in Yokohama, Japan, which is part of the greater metro-Tokyo area (but don’t tell anyone I said that! Yokohama citizens have a lot of pride.) I’ve lived in Japan for eleven years, ten of those in Yokohama.

My family moved around a bit when I was a child, but when people ask me where I’m from I say “Georgia.” It sounds pretty and it’s more or less the truth; I lived there for seven years. When Japanese people ask me where I’m from I simply say “America.”

What languages do you speak?

I speak English and Japanese. My spoken Japanese is fluent I guess, though I would never be mistaken for a native. Japanese is a notoriously difficult language to read and write, with two different phonetic alphabets consisting of 47 letters each, plus about 2000 commonly used Chinese characters (called kanji). With both alphabets down pat and a little over half the kanji, I’m proud to say I can read better than my first grader. Read more…

Where in the world do you live? And, are you from there?

I live on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.  I am from Oxford, Pennsylvania (USA).

What language(s) do you speak?

I speak English and am currently learning Spanish as a second language.  In college I minored in Japanese but I can barely speak a lick of it anymore.

When did you first become a mother?

I had my first child in June of 2005.  I had my second child in September of 2008.

Are you a stay-at-home mom or do you work? Read more…