My daughter continues her adventures in junior high school, a place of learning and Japanese-style character building. Because her school is Christian, I know that the next few years will be interesting not only for my little girl but for my Buddhist wife, who knows as little of the history and background of Christianity as I know of the Nichiren or Shingon schools. It’s funny how we take cultural knowledge for granted, for example being able to identify that this motif or that style of architecture is Catholic or Protestant, but my wife has no such background to draw from. Another big change in our home is that my wife now makes bento for our daughter every morning, and she’s having great fun thinking of interesting ways to make the lunch more delicious and fun to eat, writing messages like ganbatte! (“Study hard and make us proud!”) in nori, and so on.
Actually, the school isn’t Catholic school or even all-girls.
