Where are the kids?

New pictures here

(I don't know if there are issues at Google, but I can't seem to be able to add captions, I will try again later)

Ok, the title of this is a serious question I want to ask, but not about Japan, but about Long Island. Having lived in Akita for a while, I see people of all ages and families with their kids all the time. Weather its at the city, in the mall, even sometimes on campus, I always see kids. This sounds normal, until I start thinking about back home, and feel like I never see families. There is certainly a possibility that I simply never paid attention to this before, but at the same time I feel like this isn't something I could have missed. There is always something so positive about a family out with their little kids, I guess I'll find out when I come back.

Today, I spent the day at a "Community center" with my "host family" or rather just the Host mother as well as a large group of Japanese people and 6 AIU international students. We began the day by cooking lunch. I can't remember the name of the food that we made (I'll make sure to ask), apparently the food is unique to Akita. It pretty much involved taking rice, mushing it for a while. Taking a pair of chopsticks (single use, not taken apart), putting the rice on it so it in around shape so it looks like a "Rice corn dog" and then fry it. Some of the rice was then taken off, and put into a vegetable and meat soup. The Korean international student also made some "Korean Pizza" that I tried at the AIU festival

We had a very nice meal in the Tatami room (Japanese style room), before playing a bunch of I guess Japanese kids games. I'll try to remember the rules of the games we played. The first one was the one I understood the least, one person called out a number and then you had to sit in a circle with people of that number. The music then played and you did sort of a dance, and the process was repeated. If the music ended, everyone who was not in a circle (because they couldn't make one of that number of people) lost. The second game involved two circles of people, one on the inside, and one on the outside. The music would play and the people on the inside of the circle would challenge the people on the outside of the circle to "Rock, paper scissors". If the outside person won, then the inside person would have to go challenge someone else on the outside. If the inside person won, then the two switched places. This would continue for about 10 seconds, then the people on the outside would join hands walk in and sort of "playfully kick" the people on the inside. Once again the game continued while the music was on.

The third game was one I played before at an AIU ice breaking party, everyone walked around and challenged others to "Rock, paper, scissors", the loser would put their hands on the winner's shoulders and follow them around. This would continue until there was one large snake. The third game was tag in slow motion, still not quite sure how that worked, you pretty much had to run away from the person that was "it" or as they call him in Japan the "Demon", but you had to do it in exaggerated slow motion. The final game was also tag, but this time the "Demon" came up with a "walk" and everyone had to follow that. For example you had to walk on all 4's or you had to pretend that you were swimming, or you had to jump on one foot.

One interesting custom that seems to happen here, that I only thought was done in elementary school is that at the end of the day before everyone leaves, the guests are expected to give a short reflection on the day. In this case it was the 6 AIU international students. Later on the drive home, Maxwell, one of the students that was with us who talked to his "Host Mother" told me a little more about the group that we were with. They are known as the "Hippo Families" (I think) and they pretty much get together and study languages by listening to tapes. They then interact with families around the world sometimes sending their kids on exchange. Thanks to these tapes, some of the adults can speak 10-12 languages on a basic conversational level.