Bazar bizarre

Having a child at kindergarten in Japan is proving an eye-opening experience. Both boys have attended daycare from the age of one, so you'd think I'd be used to it by now. But daycare is officially a welfare service, set up to assist working parents, so with the exception of having to send in the occasional spare set of clothes, lunchbox, or Halloween costume it was generally a pretty laid-back affair.

Not so kindergarten. While daycare offers support to harrassed working mothers, kindergarten gives them a whole new set of hoops to jump through. Dan's first two weeks were a maelstrom of rush-ordering custom-made bags to the kindergarten's exact size specifications, naming about 80 different items in exactly the correct spot and format, apologizing for missed buses and forgotten nametags, and frantically checking and double-checking each morning that I'd filled in all the right forms, sent the right money in the right envelope, and remembered to put both a hankerchief *and* a miniature pack of tissues in his uniform pocket. But however hard I tried, every day something else was wrong. Friday it was forgetting to stamp our name seal on the receipt for his custom-made rush slippers for the summer dance. I'd correctly named and dated the form, signed it, and sent it back on the right day - but sure enough back it came in his bag that evening, with a little note from his teacher regretting that it hadn't been properly completed. (His teacher has also offered to correct the Japanese in the notes I write her ... I think she believes I need taking thoroughly in hand if I'm to become an acceptable kindergarten mother!)

But the bazar preparations beat everything so far. Thursday I went to my first class mothers' meeting. After a swift run-through of the gate-duty rota, we were told that for the bazar in October each class has to provide a certain number of hand-made items for sale. No problem, you might think - if you're good at handicrafts, make lots; if you're not, cheat by buying hand-made things somewhere else and passing them off as your own. (Shades of the heroine of I Don't Know How She Does It distressing mince pies the night before the Christmas bake sale...) But you can't get away with that at Dan's kindergarten. At our meeting next week, we were informed, each of the 24 mothers has to come up with one proposed craft, providing either a sample or detailed pictures and instructions. We then have to choose seven of these proposals, which will be submitted to the Bazar Committee for their consideration. The Committee will select three of them, which must then be made by hand BY THE ENTIRE CLASS OF MOTHERS TOGETHER. No pleading that I can't sew or crochet, that I haven't knitted anything for years, that I can't draw or paint for nuts and that I'm utterly challenged when it comes to beautifully crafted pictures in seventeen shades of kimono silk. No, whatever the group decides is what everyone HAS to do. Together.

There are two or three other working mothers in our class, and none of them was at the class meeting. I wonder how they manage this stuff? I was able to go last week because my translation workload was fairly low, and should really be able to attend the next meeting too (though it's due to last the entire kindergarten day, from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., I guess becuase they expect it to take that long for us to make a decision!). But now I'm in a quandary. Do I show willing and attend, suggest a craft that I can actually make (I'm thinking lavender bags, in which case I could do something simple like stuffing in the lavender while others do the actual sewing), and then actually have to direct the other mothers should it make the final selection? Or plead work, and let the keener mothers select crafts that are completely beyond my meagre abilities?

A friend told me that at one kindergarten she knows, mothers are allowed to buy their way out of contributing handicrafts by making a donation instead. Corruption has never sounded so good.