The Other Side of the Table

Any native Japanese would have known.  We three, in our eagerness to make a good impression, looked carefully around before heading to a wall framed in cubbies housing shoes of all sizes. Surely this was where you paused to remove your shoes before entering the building. I mean, just look at all these shoes! As we stooped to the task of removing our footwear, a flurry of hand-waving and a frantic scurry to retrieve slippers indicated our failure to choose correctly.  We had walked where we shouldn't have walked and were now stooping where we shouldn't be stooping. And so began our formal meeting for enrollment in Patrick's kindergarten.  Sigh!  Silly gaikokujin!

We headed for one of the classrooms, my one-size-fits-all slippers shooting forward off my foot with every other step or so, causing me to chase the slipper in stocking feet, reuniting my foot with the slipper in a corrected gait resembling more of a shuffle.  Can I just say silly, awkward gaikokujin?!

While Patrick and Evelyn played for the following hour and a half, I was neatly taco shelled into a child-sized chair around a child-sized table along with four other adults, similarly seated.  With my stomach a-flutter, I tried in earnest to follow the spirited and lively conversation conducted almost entirely in Japanese. From time to time I was mercifully rescued with a brief explanation by one of the two interpreters kind enough to attend the meeting on my behalf.  With big smiles, enthusiastic nods, and earnest attempts at explaining the requirements of the program, the Director gradually tamed the butterflies.  The meeting shed its awkward beginnings, and suddenly we were laughing and anticipating and making plans.  Some words need no translation: warmth and reassurance are two of them!

Oh, how many times in my career have I been on the other side of the table, rapidly chatting away as a parent sat in stupefied silence, nervous and unsure across from me?!  Were their butterflies any different than mine?  I have a new appreciation for those many parents...Mexican, Russian, Ukranian...neatly taco shelled into a child-size chair around a child-sized table, an interpreter rescuing them from time to time with a  brief explanation.  If I could hope for one thing, it would be that I, too, included words needing no translation. :-)