Tuesday, April 3, 2007

No 1 no 2 Cuteness aka Japanese candor about the body

First cartoon cuteness with kitties, where the whole family gets in on the fun, and then a live action finish:



Onechan is probably past this stage -- no? -- while your family will be back in the USofA by the time imoto needs this kind of instruction and encouragement.

2 comments:

The Constructivist said...

Spot on, bill! For onechan we used a couple of toilet training books by authors of other books she liked as a toddler. She basically was using the toilet that summer in the States but completed the toilet training during our first month in Japan, with baba and gigi and the cousins in Chiba last August. We switched her over to big girl pants in Japan and except for the usual accidents never looked back in 2006.

Since then we've accumulated a pair of free Shimajiro DVDs, the latter of which is probably the source of this clip. (I didn't even know that the songs we had taught her about sharing (han bun ko de ureshi ee na) and waiting in line/taking turns (jun ban ko de ureshi ee na) came from Shimajiro until we got that first DVD.) One of the best times we had outside baba's house that month was taking all the kids (our two girls and their three boys) to a Shimajiro playland in a local mall.

I think every kid in Japan knows Shimajiro. It certainly helps make the case for expanding but not getting rid of E.D. Hirsch's concept of "cultural literacy."

The Constructivist said...

Man, my stomach is on the fritz again. (Wonder what the source of that phrase is.) Probably Shimajiro induced. Only time it ever felt worse was that one night in Chiba last August after eating bad shellfish sashimi. This one comes back, though. Still not getting much sympathy from the lady who gave birth twice. We're going to try to go cherry blossom spotting to distract me....