School Shoes

うちの息子は1人っ子で日本人とアメリカ人のハーフ。家では英語、外では日本語を話す。見た感じは日本人にも見えないがガイジン顏でもない。そんな彼だが名字がカタカナの為、日本人社会ではかなり目立ってしまう。自分が何人かと言うアイデンティティトラブルが少しずつ出て、だんだん悩みを抱えるようになってしまった。悩んだ末、親子で話し合い、私達親もとから離れてアメリカ、テキサスのおじいちゃんの家に1年間滞在してもらうことにした。当時彼は8才だったが、この経験は子供だけでなく、私達夫婦にも非常にいい影響を与えた。
さて、子供がアメリカの学校初日の
話。子供は英語で生活しているので、言語はまったく問題ない。学校に到着後、履いていた靴を手に持って、靴箱を探し回ったらしい。授業に間にあわず、結局事務所に行き靴箱を尋ねると、「ない」と言う返事が。
アメリカの学校に上履きがないから、靴箱の必要がない。日本の学校では、生徒による掃除があるが、アメリカの学校ではない。だんなは、日本の学校で英語を教えていたので、生徒による掃除の習慣は素晴らしいと大絶賛。
うちの息子は日本にいた時は自分がアメリカ人だと思っていたらしいが、アメリカに行き、両国の文化の違いを体験し、自分の中の日本人を見つけたようだ。

Eiji went to Dallas for his third grade year, as much for the school experience as for the cultural. As much as we'd have liked to have gone with him, we had to stay here for the business. But in his time over there, he had a number of interesting discoveries. Among them, school etiquette where footwear is concerned.

In Japanese schools, you take off your outdoor shoes at the entry chamber, put them in cubbies or lockers, and change into indoor shoes. You do this just as surely as you would wash your hands after cleaning out the cat box or flush the toilet after doing your business. This keeps the school floors clean, and follows the Japanese customs of not wearing outdoor shoes indoors as is also observed in homes as well as clinics, temples, and some offices. It's strictly observed, as students and staff clean their own floors in Japan (janitors are a rarity).

On Eiji's first day at Lake Highlands Elementary, he walked into the school with all the other kids, more excited than most at his first adventure in English-language, American academia. Well-raised and eager to make a good impression, he stopped just inside the entry, removed his shoes and looked around for the shoe lockers. As you can imagine, he didn't find any. He spent 15 minutes trudging around in his socks, bags and shoes in hand, looking diligently for shoe lockers. He went to the principal's office and asked her, "excuse me, where are the shoe boxes?" Busy and otherwise occupied, she thought he was making some kind of joke and dismissed him. Why would anyone there guess for a minute what he was talking about, even if they knew where he was coming from? The bell rang. The halls emptied. A teacher scolded him for wandering the halls. He made a second attempt to explain his dilemma. This teacher, Ms. White, didn't quite understand the situation either, but she made a cognitive leap and told him that he should wear his outdoor shoes inside, and get to class! He did, but he was a little shocked. For him, after three years of kindergarten and two and a half years of elementary in Japan, wearing outside shoes inside school felt about as weird as wearing them into the bathtub.