Autumn is perhaps the best time for kids to have fun in the nature. My son enjoys walking on the fallen leaves, finding acorns and chestnuts in the woods. So the heroine of this book is.
This Japanese book I found in my favourite library in Bologna features a story of this girl enjoys walking in the autumn nature. She finds fallen leaves, acorns, bagworms, dragonflies and imitates their movement, as if to dance with them.
The joy of reading this book aloud together with my son is perhaps attributed to the many Japanese onomatopoeias to be found throughout the book. For example, to describe the sound she makes when walking on the ground covered with autumn leaves, we read, "kasa kasa kasa," and if fallen leaves are turning around slowly in the air, we say, "kuru, kuru, kururi." How about in your language?
.jpg)
I also love the warm watercolour tones of the illustration by Michiko Egashira, the author. At the end of the story, after her father joins her walk, she finds the identical autumn colours on the leaf and in the evening sky, saying, "look daddy, the sky is imitating the colours of the leaf." (Note that the translation is my improvisation: In the original Japanese the way she says it is a typical innocent expression by three or four year olds.) I cannot wait for the day my son starts chatting like her!
.jpg)
When I found this book in the library, my son was also there for the first time. We were attending a Japanese children's book reading event for kids under three years old. He enjoyed listening to Japanese play songs demonstrated along the books. However, his concentration did not last for the entire session. Soon enough he was scatenato (an Italian word for "unleashed," a way to express a typical "terrible-two" who goes wild and out of control) to the playroom outside of the venue where they stock a number of books for his age in several different languages, and that is where I found this book while I was chasing after him.
Do you see the little room far behind? That's where he was supposed to sit and listen!
Anyway, it was nice to be there as I also met a few other Japanese participants. (I thought there would be more Japanese audience but the majority were Italian mums and their babies, and they seemed to enjoy a lot listening to their first Japanese stories and songs!) I was actually looking for an opportunity to make some Japanese friends live in Bologna, as I have none until that day. And that probably made me even more prone to feel stressed about not being able to speak as much Japanese as I would have liked to with my son.
When I used to be an expat student in Bologna without a child, I was rather willing to communicate in Italian for improving my speaking comprehension. However, my life changed after I made a family here and was likely destined to live in Italy for good. I started to miss my mother tongue more. It is perhaps because no matter how well I came to speak English and Italian, I feel like I am being who I really am when I speak Japanese. In other words, if I cannot express myself in my mother tongue when I want to, I feel like I am losing my identity. Have you ever had a similar experience?
So now, I am in this dilemma of not successfully following the "one person, one language" approach as I talked about in my previous post. For example, at a dinner table where family and friends enjoy having mutual conversation, it would feel awkward to suddenly say something to my son in Japanese. Perhaps it is because doing so makes me feel like we suddenly exit from the conversation and go inside our closed world, or because I simply want to be polite to other Italian speakers (although no one says speaking Japanese in their presence is rude).
Here is other example that happens almost everyday; if my son cries or throws tantrums in public or in front of my Italian parents-in-law, I cannot help using Italian to soothe him so that they understand how I am going to cope with the messy situation. But who cares? After all, when my son needs my attention, I should answer to that in the first language I want him to learn to speak with me. I should do that more in Japanese.
On the other hand, there is one place where I am not hesitant to speak Italian to my son; a playground. Since my son is not yet enrolled in the kindergarten, it is basically the only place where he can meet and play with other children. Suppose I continuously speak Japanese to him in front of other Italian kids and parents, it would be far possible to get sociable with them. Because I want to break the ice and not to be isolated, I forget about Japanese in the park unless we are alone.
When I talk about such dilemmas to other Japanese mums live in Italy, they usually reply, "Yes, I totally understand that!!" if they have similar experiences. However, the other day one mother whose son is already in high school encouraged me not to care too much about it and try to thoroughly speak Japanese, except some situation where it obviously would hurt to do so.
Having written so far, I also came to realize that perhaps I have overly been reserved or timid about speaking Japanese to my son in Italy, and notice that what is important is to select the better language to speak to depending on the circumstances. Having everyday conversation in Japanese with my son is absolutely important and I don't need to hold it back too much, but it is also okay if I occasionally have to.
That's all for today. Thanks for reading. Before I go, I share with you this cherry tree beautifully turned gold-yellow in one of my favourite parks in Bologna, and wish you a nice week ahead!
About today's book
Akizora Sanpo (meaning "Walking under the Autumn Sky")
Written and Illustrated by Michiko Egashira
Published in Autust 2018 by Kodansha
The book is only available in Japanese as of October 2022
Did you like it? To stay tuned, follow me on Instagram!