Tokyo has a much disciplined
education system. As we visited the kids at the elementary school I noticed so
many things. First of all, the kids are very happy at school. I was so
surprised at how well the kids even new English. The kids I visited were only 6
graders and though it was a little more difficult to carry on a conversation,
we were still able to talk.
The school itself was beautiful.
It was nice and open, with a lot of windows. I think the extra lighting and
windows allow the students to focus better.
Each grade was on a different floor in the school. All the classrooms
were somehow connected together.
We ate lunch with them. The
children serve lunch to each other. They also all eat all the food no matter
what it is and whether or not they like it. When I say they eat everything. I
mean they eat everything. Including every single grain of Rice. This absolutely
blows my mind. This school has almost a 0% waste production. They each drink
all the milk and stack them inside each other to reduce the empty waste. After
talking to some of the people we asked them what the kids do when they don’t
like the food. I found out that no matter what, they eat all their food
anyways. Starting when they are in kindergarten they are required to at least
try and chew all the food that is on their plate. This way they will start
acquiring the taste for it even if they don’t like the food. They do this until
the child likes it. If they don’t like it they have to try it and then they can
spit it out.
This system must be working for
them because all the kids eat everything on their plate by second grade. I
imagine the kids feel pressured to eat everything. I know when I went I felt
pressured to eat everything on my plate. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I
didn’t like it because I would’ve felt so bad. If I didn’t eat all of the food.
I even ate every grain of rice from my bowl.
The children are also very polite
and obedient. They do what they are told. For lunch we ate rice with a whole
fist stuffed with caviar and rolled in sesame seeds. Then on the side potatoes
with a sauce on them and a milk. The whole meal was around 600 kcal. They had a
good source of protein, carbohydrates and calcium. The calories in this lunch
were more than the U.S. elementary school lunches, but the Japanese children do
not snack on food like Americans do.
After eating lunch with the kids
we left and went to Sumo wrestling. Apparently sumo is still dying out. It
isn’t as popular, but it was very interesting to watch. Generally, when I think
of sumo wrestling I think of huge fat guys. Don’t get me wrong these guys are
huge, but they have tons of muscle on them. They definitely know how to use
their weight to their advantage. I liked that they still did thing the
traditional way. Each time the ref changed they would chant something and bow.
Japanese people were very respective in that manner.
Later that night we all went to
dinner. We had some kind of all you can eat style food. I believe it was called
suaki. We all got vegetables and meat and sautéed them. Then you were supposed
to dip it in raw egg. That part I definitely could not do. The whole raw egg
thing got to me. We met a boy there named Soma. He was Japanese, but spoke very
good English and did not look very Asian. He was really nice. He told us about
his family and how he grew up learning English and Japanese. He is also
planning to study abroad in Ohio for his NBA. He told us how many of the food
in Japan he did not like which surprised me because in the schools we went to
it seemed like the kids were forced to eat. Whatever they were given. Later we
went to Karaoke I loved it! It was great just to sit, relax and just be
Americans for a night. I learned that Brenden likes to dance and Chelsee knows
every song! It was good to see other people characteristics and personalities
come out.
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