We've uprooted our four small kids and moved across the world to Japan. Stay tuned for adventures, great and small!
Speech Contest
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Last year, Keane and Holland got...sortta...roped into...doing a speech competition. The competition consists of native Japanese speakers giving a speech in English, and native English speakers giving a speech in Japanese. While we tried to get them ready for it, all of us were WILDLY unprepared for what the expectation actually was.
For starters, the night before the competition, I received an email stating that the speeches were to be under one minute long. I, for some reason, thought they were supposed to be 3 minutes long. So we spent the evening frantically chopping their notes into pieces and putting them back together again so they wouldn't be too long. Then, the first thing that we realized upon arrival was that Keane and Holland were the only ones that hadn't memorized their presentations. Immediately they were panicking. I told them they were to just do their best, and that's all we could ask for.
And they did.
And they lost.
And they were sad.
Pre-competition, November 2021
BUT!
We had a much better idea of what was expected and how the competition ran, and both Keane and Holland made plans right then, to participate the following year. (Truth be told, they were jealous of the winners who got a pretty cool prize bag. These two are definitely highly motivated by external factors)
Post-competition, November 2021, happy to be done
Fast forward to this year, I got them all signed up for the competition and they decided their topics. They wrote their own speeches, both wanting them to be funny and animated because the winners last year were pretty outgoing personalities.
They then each took an entire tutoring session with their Japanese tutor (shout out to Haruka-San who is so good and flexible to work around all our stuff!) to edit and fix grammatical and minor wording errors.
And finally, THEY MEMORIZED THE SPEECHES! They added a few things to jazz them up, and they practiced and practiced and practiced. And then I made them practice some more. There were plenty of "UGH MOM, I know it already!" moments. Which obviously I responded with, "Yeah sure, but when you are on that big stage with the lights, and all those eyes are on you, you don't want to forget the words! So practice some more!"
Yesterday we showed up to the Iwakuni Cultural Center Auditorium and I could tell they both started to panic. Suddenly, my making them pracitce about 8000 times each felt like a super parenting WIN!
Pre-competition November 2022, with their friend Sam who also participated
When those kids got on the stage, while they looked so nervous, and Holland almost turned around and walked off the stage, they delivered their speeches wonderfully. Each of them ended up getting 1st place in their age division, and their hard work paid off.
We, of course, talk to them constantly about how it's not about winning (Keane's soccer team this fall won exactly zero games this season so he knows this principle well). But sometimes it's nice to have just a little win. Especially these kids, where every aspect of their life feels, to them, like a huge mountain to climb. Sometimes I get frustrated that they don't see how incredibly privileged they are to live the lives that they do. I then have to remind myself that they are just children. And they do have special challenges that have been tossed their way, and sometimes it's nice to catch the bone. It's amazing how infrequently that happens when the language is not your own, the culture is not your own. and you spend most of your days walking around wondering what the heck is going on, and trying so hard to just not screw everything up. So I'm proud of them. Incredibly, amazingly, and wonderfully proud of how hard they worked for this win.
Post-competition November 2022
Below is the video of their speeches.
Some notes: as soon as Holland got the first laugh, so loosened up, talked louder and was much more confident.
Keane was literally shaking uncontrollably the entire time and continued shaking as he sat back down in the audience.
I literally sobbed while I watched this. Seeing Holland walking to the stage so scared my heart melted and my tears just fell. And oh my goodness she did mug!! Ha ha - I had no idea that is how you sounded "no candy!" hahahahha. She was darling. And Keane - his Nihongo was so beautiful, his voice so steady over the shaking, getting taller and more handsome. I cried as they received their certificates and then zoomed in on their loot on the IG pictures. What a haul. They have come SO far!!!
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I literally sobbed while I watched this. Seeing Holland walking to the stage so scared my heart melted and my tears just fell. And oh my goodness she did mug!! Ha ha - I had no idea that is how you sounded "no candy!" hahahahha. She was darling. And Keane - his Nihongo was so beautiful, his voice so steady over the shaking, getting taller and more handsome. I cried as they received their certificates and then zoomed in on their loot on the IG pictures. What a haul. They have come SO far!!!
ReplyDeleteThe kids may not realize NOW "how incredibly privileged they are to live the lives that they do" ...... but they will - Trust me I know
ReplyDeleteLike we do and did -- You will look back on this experience and realize it was the best thing you could have done for your children (and yourselves).
Love you all more than you know