Playdate for Juhee

On May 30th, Juhee's Kindergarten was closed for the day (can't remember why) so I invited a few friends over for a playdate. One couldn't come 'cause her son was sick, but the other two girls came. One, Y-chan, has been a good friend of Juhee's from right before the start of Kindergarten as she's the daughter of one of the pastors that we're working with. The other girl, M-chan, is more like an acquaintance than a friend so my hope was that they would become friends after the playdate. The two girls are the same age as Juhee but all three are in different classes. However, all three are on the same bus, so they see each other every day. Y-chan's bus stop is one before Juhee's and M-chan's is the same as ours.

Y-chan and her mom arrived first at 10:30am and Juhee and her had fun playing together. They play well together so I was very happy that they could have some additional playtime. :) The dynamics changed though when M-chan arrived around 11:00am. M-chan is shy and so when she arrived, the playing temporarily stopped and the moms had to help a bit to try and get them to play together. Juhee was really excited about playing dress-up so she wanted to share her dress-up dresses, tiaras, crowns, etc but M-chan didn't want to play dress-up and refused to receive the things that Juhee was giving her. Y-chan watched and then copied M-chan. Juhee was already in her blue Ariel dress so was sad that they didn't want to play dress-up with her. She became even more sad when the two girls started running away from her. When she started to get upset, I explained that they didn't want to play dress-up and so that maybe if she took off her dress and played what they wanted to play, they would play with her. So she took off her dress and said, "let's play together!" again (in perfect Japanese). M-chan had brought a coloring book and colored pencils so they ended up coloring together.

Around noon the kids ate lunch together, a simple curry meal that I'd prepared the night before with Korean mixed grain rice. I wasn't sure the kids would eat the mixed grain rice, but they enjoyed "purple rice" (black grain rice makes the rice look purple). :) They don't have black grain rice in Japan so it was the first time for both the moms and kids.

Both moms had brought dessert so we had chocolate cake with strawberries and raisin pound cake for dessert. Juhee's not a big chocolate fan so I had to finish her chocolate cake but she ate her strawberry and loved the pound cake. Sungjae did too! :) Japanese women love making desserts and often bring desserts when they come over. They're usually very delicious too and not just a simple cake but things like strawberry mousse, jello with fruit inside, some sort of yogurt-type cake, etc. I think they're much more delicious than those sold in bakeries! :)

After lunch, the two Japanese kids and Juhee were having a hard time playing together again. While the moms were eating, I could hear Juhee getting upset again and so when I went to see what was going on, the two Japanese girls were coloring and it looked like they weren't letting her color with them this time. Juhee kept on saying "let's play" but they weren't budging. When I went to explain to Juhee that they don't want to play, they just want to color, she asked if she could watch a DVD with them. Normally, I wouldn't say yes, but as the playdate wasn't turning into much of a "play"date anyway, I said yes. She chose Peter Pan, a DVD she'd just received from the US, and excitedly asked them if they wanted to watch with her. With faces like stone, they shook their heads and just continued coloring. I set up our small DVD player for Juhee and told her she can just watch on her own and that maybe they'll join her later. They did for a bit and then they played with her toys while she watched Peter Pan. Sigh... It was a hard hard morning...

Sungjae had been throwing up 3-4 days and had thrown up that morning too so I wasn't sure if I should even have the playdate, but I was so excited for Juhee and Juhee was so super excited about her friends coming over that I didn't have the heart to cancel. It was an upsetting morning but Juhee still smiled when she was waving bye to her friends and gave M-chan a present. She also asked if her friends could come over again. Of course, I said yes, in the hopes that next time, things will be better...

One cool thing that happened during the playdate was that I got to show them the scrapbook album that my mommy friends from our home church gave me as a present the last time I met them. The moms were both very impressed and they made lots of comments on how different things were in America. The very last page is one that has SAYONARA in really pretty letters, sakura blossoms and a Bible verse. Y-chan's mom, the pastor's wife, tried reading it and she couldn't understand so I tried to explain to her in Japanese. She understood and said the verse in Japanese for M-chan's mom. During the morning, together with Y-chan's mom, we were able to explain a bit about our work here and about a mutual friend who is a member of one of the Japanese churches that we're helping with. It wasn't much, but I think M-chan's mom learned more about Christianity / Christians / churches that morning than she had her whole life.

Later that evening, while I was telling Peter about the playdate, I cried. I cried 'cause it was so hard, so disappointing, and I felt SO super bad for Juhee. She made such a huge effort to try and play with them and they just wouldn't. It didn't matter that she looks like them (she probably looks more Japanese than they do :)) and it didn't matter that she was speaking to them in Japanese or that it was her house. Ah... We tried. And we'll keep trying... It's so hard for Juhee though and my heart broke thinking that she might be going through situations like this everyday at school, situations that she doesn't understand, situations where she's excluded and left on the outside... :( The play culture is different here and she obviously can't speak or understand a whole lot of Japanese yet so it's, well, difficult.

This is the Bible verse, a verse that I need to remind myself of daily: I can do everything through him who gives me strength (Philipians 4:13).