Nyuenshiki: Japanese Children Starting School

Yesterday was my daughter's "nyuenshiki" (means: Entering Yochien Ceremony). A yochien is a Japanese preschool. As a father, it's hard to put in words the wonder of seeing a child grow up. It's been a great week! As a bonus, I had the opportunity to take lots and lots of pictures.

The Nyuenshiki included introductions, group photos and some classroom experiences for everyone to see what's coming. The top two pictures above are from the classroom time. I mentioned in an earlier post that all the moms had to sew bags for their kids. They also prepared straw baskets by carefully inserting fabric linings. You can see my daughter standing next to the bags and pointing to her's. The boy's bags were almost all blue (with two exceptions, one green and one yellow), and the girl's bags were all pink. In the last picture, some proud moms are lined up behind their kids for the group photo.

Click here to see my Nyuenshiki Gallery with more great pictures and a fuller description of the day. I don't want to repeat everything that I wrote there, so please take a look. I'll post more pictures of individual kids here in the next day or two.

Posted by jw at April 11, 2004 01:38 AM