Sotsuen-shiki

There were a couple of things I didn't get around to writing about last month - my trip to Dallas and Sanae's sudden enrollment in Gamblers Anonymous delayed things. One of these neglected events was Cian's 'graduation' from nursery school.
In Japan they like to mark the various educational milestones with 'graduation' ceremonies as opposed to say, achievement tests. 'Completion' ceremonies would be more apt as the term 'graduation' usually implies a sense of academic achievement, which would be a tad implausible for a 6 year old boy - though Cian would very much justify a combined honours degree in 'messing' and 'annoying his Daddy'.
Japan likes these ceremonies; Monday will see Cian participate in his primary school 'entrance ceremony', and subsequently there will be an ongoing combination of entrance and graduation ceremonies as he moves from one level of the educational system to the next, right up to the end of university.
Coming from Ireland where 'ceremony' tends to be most associated with weddings and funerals, I find this all a bit bemusing, unlike Sanae who (so far) finds them deeply moving. Nor is she alone. Cian's graduation ceremony was marked by some fantastically left-field fashion displays from the kids (and don't get me started on Cian's Little Lord Fauntleroy look. I disown it completely - planned, sought, and bought while I was in Dallas); and floods of tears from the parents. There's a lot of emotional button-pushing at these occasions; the kids make emotionally fraught speeches about nursery school being the best days of their little lives so far, how they'll never forget it, their friends, teachers, school lunches, earthquake drills, etc. Then each of the children individually presents their mothers with a small bunch of flowers and thanks her for 'making delicious rice lunches', or 'taking them to school', or 'making them wear shorts and girly knee socks'. There's a lot of gender stereotyping going on here with only the mothers being thanked. The fathers, it seems, are presumed to have been too busy working to have much part in their child's upbringing. Which in the case of the Gaynor-Takahashi family at least, is completely the opposite case.
And yes, I am bitter about that.
So when Cian got up on the dais and embarrassedly thanked Mammy for "making him delicious rice", I'd like to think his chagrin arose from knowing that what he was saying wasn't honest, that in fact he was engaging in a ritual designed to reinforce traditional Japanese gender roles rather than convey the emotional truth.

Then again maybe he was just embarrassed by those girly knee socks.