The Strawberry Milk Acid Test:
A Child’s Development and a Parent’s
Cultural Conditioning
Donald C. Wood
(Copyright 2001 American Anthropological Association)
Acculturation is an ongoing
process. At the beginning, nearly any mistake – and they do occur
frequently – can easily be dismissed as a “cultural
misunderstanding.” On the other hand, those who are experiencing
it every day over the long term may eventually find themselves guilty
of complacency – or is it just me? I recently learned a lesson
about cultural adaptation from my four year-old daughter.
My daughter’s last day of
preschool was March twenty-eighth of this year. We had been
sending her to a small school in the back of the Komaba campus of the
University of Tokyo since May of last year. It is really just a
little wooden shack – about thirty years old – with one main room for
the children to play in, a small kitchen, and a long porch with a
narrow yard in front. Twenty-eight children were spending their
days at the school during the 2000 academic year (early April 2000 to
late March 2001.) My daughter was going on Mondays and
Wednesdays. When she was new to the school, she often cried when
I dropped her off. Tears ran down her three-year old face as she
vainly called out “Papa!” when I turned and ran back toward the train
station.
On Mondays and Wednesdays I would
pick her up after I had finished my business at the department of
cultural anthropology and head home. On the way to the station
from the school, we always passed the front of the student cooperative
store – featuring a large family of vending machines lined up along the
façade. One machine offers small cartons of dairy
products, including my daughter’s favorite: strawberry milk.
She noticed the strawberry milk
fairly early in our history of trekking through the campus together,
and she insisted on drinking a small carton one evening. Since I
wanted to get home as fast as possible, I allowed her to hold the
carton in one hand and drink while walking home. This became our
regular ritual. The first time, I knew it was not a good idea for
two reasons. First of all, it is generally considered bad manners
in Japan to eat or drink while walking – although one can sometimes see
people doing so. Second, the chance of falling down is increased
by diverting one’s attention to food, drinks, cellular telephones,
electronic notebooks, two-way Dick Tracy wrist radios, and the
like. As someone who has a Japanese wife and who has spent a fair
number of years in Japan, and probably also simply as a parent, I ought
to have known better then to let her make a cultural faux pas on a
regular basis!
I actually thought nothing of my
cultural crime, however, until the day of the school’s farewell party
one Saturday at the end of March. When we were walking back to
the station from the school, we passed the inviting row of vending
machines. Of course, my daughter wanted to drink strawberry
milk. I handed her a 100 yen coin and we watched happily as she
inserted it into the machine and pushed the button under the strawberry
milk carton. Mommy was impressed. She cheered, and my
daughter’s face beamed as she came running back with her much-loved
elixir in hand. (By this time, she regularly bought the drink by
herself with the coins I handed her.) Then, I sealed my fate by
putting the straw in the carton and handing it to her before sitting
down. By the time we reached the bench the under the freshly
blooming cherry trees she had drunk every drop of the beverage.
Mommy wasn’t happy. At first I didn’t even realize I had done
anything wrong: how quickly I had been able to dismiss by prior
cultural training for my own convenience!
Perhaps acculturation does not
necessarily come more easily with time. After all, the same kind
of mistake is also made by those who are new to a particular cultural
environment. For example, young foreign guests in Japanese hotels
often wear their cotton robes and slippers in the hallways and lobby
even after having been instructed not to once they have seen a single
Japanese person doing so. It is inappropriate just the
same. So regarding my offence, I can see the headlines:
“Would-Be Cultural Anthropologist Commits Etiquette Faux Pas,” or
“These Anthropologists Really Don’t Know Nothin’,” or possibly even
“Death of an Anthropologist: Graduate Student Sentenced for
Treason.” Someone might have a field day with this. My wife
certainly made sure I saw the error of my ways. On top of that,
my lesson was further reinforced only one week later when we visited a
nearby park with a family friend and her children – both in their
twenties – to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom. As we sat
under the trees drinking hot tea from cans, our friend’s daughter
wisely made the timely remark that one must sit before starting to eat
and drink. She then ruthlessly drove the point home when she
reflected upon being scolded by her mother for ignoring the rule as a
child. I must have shrunk several centimeters!
In the end, I found my redemption
on the afternoon when we picked up Seiko from school after her last day
there. Once again we passed that row of vending machines that had
nearly brought about my social downfall. They invited me to take
the challenge again and seemed to loom menacingly over my daughter’s
small figure. She wanted strawberry milk again. I watched
with pride as she bought her precious drink and reflected on how much
she and I had learned over the past year on the university
campus. She came running back to us with her pink milk. We
sat on the bench under the falling cherry blossoms and enjoyed being
together on that sunny spring day – BEFORE putting the straw into the
carton!
The Vending Machines
