where cider meets condensed milk: Cow with guns? No, kids with knives...

where cider meets condensed milk

Friday, July 21, 2006

Cow with guns? No, kids with knives...

For all the ridiculous safety precautions here, where "Abunai, yo!" ("Danger! Watch yo'self!") is one of the most common phrases you'll ever hear, and entire SAFETY DAY afternoons are devoted to making kids ride around cones in the parking lot in helmets and reflector sashes, there are some surprises. For example, 6-year-olds are set free in a room full of large, sharp knives and dangerously rollable melons and pumpkins while the teachers do other things and the ALT screams "ABUNAI! ABUNAI!" silently in her head. These are first-term first graders, and many have yet to fully master the art of using a spoon, but oddly they can use huge knives with spherical vegetables, and there was neither loss of limb nor digit.

This was the second of two Vegetable Parties this month, where the kids serve up what they've grown in the school garden. The first was a simple kindergarten production, and the culinary feast is known commonly as "salad." That event fell the same day as my birthday, and in addition to the "Happy Birthday Lachel!" chalkboard drawings, hearing the mangled celebratory song from children with lettuce pieces dribbling out of their mouths was perhaps the highlight of an otherwise unmemorable day. My birthday falls on July 7, which is an auspicious holiday called Tanabata. It's a romantic story about 2 lovers banished to opposite ends of the galaxy and only reconvening on this one day, but the significance of the date is boiled down as "Lucky 7! Lucky 7!" by my future-gambling-addict kids. My vice-principal gave me some heavenly Tanabata mochi (pun intended, sorry...), and I also got a cucumber. And an egg from the school chicken coop. The second vegetable party was an elaborate slice 'n' dice 'n' boil 'n' blend affair, with pumpkin soup, steamed eggplant with homemade dressing, kebabs, grilled peppers, and fruit salad. It was tons of fun, and better than any lunch I would have cooked for myself. (And, if you want to know if I wore my own personal apron, the answer is yes. No headscarf or mask, though-- I still maintain some dignity.)

It seems that many schools in the US have metal detectors to keep knives OUT of schools, but here they trust even the youngest kids to use them properly, without fear of the kids going postal. Maybe the metal-detector fear-factor applies (with good reason) to urban schools, but it's nice living in the countryside, and I love how competent and independent my elementary kids are encouraged to be. However, if one of them had sliced off a finger or acted out a scene from a slasher movie, I might be singing a different tune. In reference to my blog title/theme of things that don't seem right together, Children+Knives makes about as much sense to me as Cows+Guns. (In the Cows With Guns parody song, the cows lead an uprising to fight for bovine freedom, and just before becoming Cows on Buns, they are saved by Chickens in Choppers. I know, it doesn't make much sense. Cows have no way to hold guns! And Chickens are too small for choppers. In analogy form, Cows:Guns :: Kids:Knives. I thought of this while hovering in fear around the gourd-chopping block. There is a connection and deep meaning here, or else I've been hitting the White Cider again.) But, it works out, all my paranoia to the contrary, and the food was delicious. Without Frisbee Neilu to head up the Crazy Thanksgiving festivities this year, maybe we can hire the kids at Butcher Knives 'R' Us instead?

posted by Raychaa @ 12:26 AM

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