We have been able to make some arrangements to help out with Maia's care, and I learned some more about Japanese daycare in the process. Through web searches, and even a PDF document on the Kyoto municipal website, I found a number of small daycare centers that are outside the system run by the Welfare Office. These might be considered unlicensed , or as an article about them calls them "unapproved"(muninka/ninkagai). Some places are in this category because they don't pass certain standards, but most because they want to operate outside the public system and provide services that the "approved" centers do not. Daycare operated by a company would also fall in this category, as they determine their own admissions and do not accept kids via the welfare office application system. Some parents don't qualify for the public daycare system if they are not both working or studying full time, and they may use this as an alternative. There is not a strong tradition of babysitting here either, so you can not usually hire a local high school student cheaply - this provides an alternative to that. The city posts the PDF of ninkagai centers, but did not mention them to me, even when I asked if there might be any alternatives for me while I waited to get into a registered hoikuen.

I visited a couple places on the list of centers that had registered with the city, and chose one with the nicely redundant name of Chiisai peti (Little Petit) near here. They have a lot of flexible plans, and I chose to buy a block of 50 hours for about 45,000 yen. Those can be used over the next three months. That's around 8/hour, so pretty reasonable by Boston standards, and the ratio is three children to one adult. The regular kids there are all close to her age, a lot from 12-15 months, so a nice fit. Though there was also one lonely looking boy about eight years old who must be going there after school.

In exploring this category of care centers, I avoided those marked as "baby hotels" (beebi hoteru). These are places that take babies overnight and have a lot of irregular users. They received a lot of bad press on low-end news and expose programs in the 90s. There were some injuries to children but the focus was on criticizing mothers who used them. I expect most of these have some useful role to play, but I am just a little too put off by the expression.

For October and November she can go to the Center for Women Researchers at Kyoto University which has a system to help women faculty and students who are waiting for spots for their children in the hoikuen system. It's only for two months, but I will use it. The location is halfway between my office and classroom, which is only a seven minutes walk total. I can pick her up three minutes after my LONG afternoon of classes ends on Monday at 6PM. And it's only 50,000/month (about $450) for full-time quality care, provided by one of the companies I researched for temporary care this month. That company runs the daycare center at the Hotel Okura and other such posh locations where there are many temporary and non-Japanese visitors (this is different from "baby hotels"! But since they provide quite late night babysitting at the hotels, they are rather like baby hotels for the rich).

You might ask why this is only for women faculty and students and not all parents. The Center's pamphlet provides some impressive and disheartening statistics about the percentage of faculty who are women at Kyoto University, which is one of the top few universities in the country. Women comprise only 4.2% of full professors, 10.7% of associate professors, and 8.7% of assistant professors. That means the percentage of women full professors at Kyoto University as a whole is half that of tenured women in the natural sciences at Harvard, ie not very high. This center is supposed to help improve that through daycare and elder care support, back-up care when a child is sick and can't be cared for in daycare, as well as research and analyze the obstacles for women scholars. I am not sure what services they provide, but I think the inclusion of elder-care is novel and important as that is a huge burden everywhere, and which women especially are expected by many to bear. This center seems like a pleasant and much-needed facility, so I hope Maia's short stay there will not be too much of a burden since I am only tangentially affiliated with the school. But since Gender Equality and International Relations are both listed among the top six priorities for the university I think I fit.

Kid Conveniences

It has been interesting to see what conveniences for kids there are and what are lacking. The biggest challenge with Maia has been restaurants and seating. Many places have a high chair type seat, and this is great. But they almost never have a belt of any sort, and so really are more for an older child who might stay put, along the lines of a booster seat. Luckily we had some experience with this back in Tokyo when we were staying with a belt maker - Mr. Nagata fashioned a cloth belt with big Velcro patches. This was meant just for one chair they were giving us, but we have ended up traveling with it at all times. Another option in a lot of restaurants is to use a zashiki room where you sit on tatami and she can crawl around.


There are sometimes some great things in bathrooms and so on. Anyone who has ever taken an infant to a public toilet can appreciate this product. These were installed in the bathroom stalls at a big electronics store, Bic Camera, at Kyoto Station.

Unfortunately these are not so widespread, but I've seen them here and there. The children's floors of department stores have great facilities for dealing with a baby. The baby care and nursing areas are separate from the bathrooms. They are large and have a big open area with cushioned changing tables, a microwave for heating up baby food (which is generally available for sale nearby if you want it), seats for feeding solid food, and some port-a-cribs. Both men and women can use that area. Beyond that there are double curtains into a private nursing area where men aren't allowed and the chairs are arranged for a degree of privacy from each other.

Our area of Kyoto seems to be low on outdoor playgrounds. The closest park seems to be getting a facelift and has a long way to go before anyone can go inside. But a long walk or short train ride away there is the Kodomo no miraikan, a wonderful free indoor and outdoor playspace. It's open every day except Tuesday from 9-5 or 9-6 and has great stuff for 0-6. Some things remind me of the Children's Museum of Boston and the space for smaller kids there. The pool of wooden balls was really popular with Sam. And Maia had some admirers as usual.

Week one Yochien - wakatta yo!

Sam's first week at yochien went pretty well all in all. But I doubt it will be forgotten soon.

This week three of the days were half days, so it was a pretty good way to ease in. Most of the stuff I had labeled was fine, though several new Mama homework projects developed for me by the end of the week as I am now on the "Game Corner" committee for a November 1 event.

Most things went pretty well. He seemed to basically understand what was going on, whether he followed directions or not. Each day he spoke a little more Japanese Every morning he said that he wanted to go to yochien and cheerfully put on his uniform, mostly by himself and was willing to pass up his favorite green Crocs for the white sneakers. Sam has an imaginary cat friend named Jiji. The name is based on the cat in the movie Majo no takkyubin (Kiki's Delivery Service), but he prefers his invisible one to any stuffed animal version of the one in the film. Jiji is the arbiter of all things for Sam and apparently he likes yochien too. He rides to school on Sam's hat. He reports that he "talked Japanese to the other boy" at school, and he is speaking more and more Japanese at home every day. He says "dame da" (no! no!) to his toy fish in the bath and used his first Kansai region tinged expression "wakaran" (I don't understand). And his favorite is an expression very appropriate for a 3-5 year old, or really for anyone with parents, "wakatta yo!" "I understood you!" (implied, "I get it, so leave me alone already!").

He said "wakatta yo!"a lot this week as I tried to correct any of his behaviors that seemed to be a problem at school - please don't forget use the toilet, please don't run around on the alter, don't spit, don't throw toys, and so on. Meaning that he did all these things. But his teacher and classmates were all very tolerant and said at least he seemed to be having a good time.

Usually the students wear their uniforms just for commuting and then change into a different exercise uniform for the day. Sam got the part about taking off the commuting uniform but resisted putting on any other clothes. He's supposed to be wearing white underpants, but he happened to be wearing red ones that he picked out in the morning. So just picture him tearing around the school in his underpants, like the nightmare people have about being at school in pajamas. I guess it was just not enough for him to stand out as the only non-Japanese child in the school! Some Japanese preschools practice something called "hadaka kyoiku" (lit. "naked education"), so I get he was after that? Everyone thought it was pretty funny, but also asked that I try bringing him to school in his play clothes for awhile...

Hoikuen

Now that Sam has started up school, I have had a little bit of time to work harder on finding some daycare for Maia. Chris can watch her a lot, but he is supposed to be doing some research this year too. He's doing all the cooking and most of the cleaning so we'd like to find some help with the increasingly mobile and mischievous Maia.

The good news is that daycare in Japan falls under the department of welfare and has regulated pricing. The cost is based on income, but even in the highest income bracket it is considerably cheaper than Boston. And many facilities have options of extended hours when needed for work reasons (not for going out to dinner and a movie though). In Kyoto the officer in your ward is supposed to consider the severity of the parents' need for help and find a spot for those most needy, putting those with, for example, a sick parent ahead of someone who might have happened to sign up earlier. It's open to any resident of the city where both parents are working or otherwise unable to care for their child full time. All in all, this seems great.

But how to get in---

Since this is well regulated you have to fill out a lot of forms. I spent several evenings working on this and then submitting forms to my ward office. Staff at my program tried to inquire about this before we came. They had luck with the yochien and found Sam's. But with daycare officially you have to be here and fill out these forms yourselves before you can arrange anything. Since the centers have to report their spaces to the City, I had hoped that once I submitted materials the Kyoto could tell me where there were spaces, and we could find one for Maia somewhere. But it turns out that it is not that simple. First, there are almost no spaces at this time of year. The school year is from April and most spaces open then when daycare students move into yochien or elementary school. August and September are lousy times, especially if you haven't been here to arrange it earlier. Also, although you are allowed to used centers anywhere in the city, information about them is held only at the ward office where that center is located. I registered in my own ward office, but they don't think they even will have information about where there are spaces until October. They suggested I ask at the other wards, so today I went to three ward offices, making a sort of non-scenic bus tour of Kyoto (it was a little scenic, but not very!). Chris mapped out the locations and a bus route for me, so that after dropping off Sam at Youchien I could make a loop through the central wards of Kyoto (any places where we could actually commute to a daycare). Mostly what I learned is 1.) they are pretty full everywhere 2.) the ward offices don't really have as much information or control over the centers as it would seem. In fact what people seem to do is to call every daycare center they might be interested in and convince the center to help them out -- and THEN ask the ward office to enter that one. So as much as convincing the ward office of need, I have to convince the few daycare centers that have any spaces that they would like to have Maia there -- based on the questions asked on the phone, I need to convince them that 1.) I am actually willing to do the commute to that place 2.) not being Japanese won't be a problem - i.e. that my Japanese is good enough for them to deal with me 3.) that I really need help. Anyway, a system that is potentially very fair is not quite working that way. They all think the commute is too inconvenient for me, but since I've only found two places that admit to having any spaces, that hardly seems a concern. There is also an occasional care system, but any given center only has three or so days a month. Maia has gone for one day to a center under that system and is signed up for three more days there next month. Tomorrow I'm going to try to convince one center that they want to take her, but they usually only take students longer term, keeping them right up to elementary school.

Kyoto University has just set up a facility that is designed to help women students and researchers waiting for public daycare slots, so hopefully that will work out.
They have at that center something I've always thought we needed at my own university - a space on campus where graduate students and professors can have a babysitter watching their child. Especially on a college campus where there a large number of willing and well-qualified caregivers, it's too bad not to be able to use them (unless you want your baby crawling around a college dorm room and getting premature intro to college life. Since Maia already seems to have an uncanny ability to find empty beer bottles in any space she visits, this would be pretty frightening).

Anyway, for now Maia is always with us exploring our home and flirting with people on the street. With baby in tow, her father is quickly picking such Japanese phrases as "ningyo-san mitai" (she looks like a doll) "tenshi ya na: (she's an angel - in Kyoto speech), matsuge ga nagai (what long eyelashes), and so on. We hear these all day, along with the usual "kawaii" (cute).
She has just learned to clap and wave -- kawaii indeed!

Yochien

Well, I've been pretty busy. I should have been busy getting ready for the teaching semester the impending start of which I am trying forget. Instead I have been preparing Master Samuel for the beginning of HIS semester which was Monday. Sam is attending the nursery school at the Nishi Honganji temple. Nishi Honganji is the center of the Nishi Honganji sect of Jodo Shinshu (True Pure Land) Buddhism. Within their huge complex is included a yochien, Nishi Honganji Chuo Yochien.

Youchien is sort of preschool and kindergarten combined for ages 3-6. Sam is young by a bit, but they let him in. Most Japanese people my age that I have talked to are quite nostalgic about Yochien, including the school lunches, special events, and gear. And the gear has kept me busy.

First there were the things I should make - some I could buy, but in homemade is preferred. Then buying parts of the uniform that I couldn't borrow from the school and the things I wasn't up for making. Then everything needed labeling, down to the marker pens and caps. I made 1.) a rosary bag 2.) more masculine cover for his disaster protection (防災）cushion (the one I inherited was very pink. They said it was OK for me to buy the cup bag and tote bag so I did. Here's my cushion cover and photos of many of the things I labeled with his name written out in hiragana script.


And he's off!