I was doing my work and suddenly my son came home. Already!

In Japan, Elementary School kids are expected to walk to school by themselves. All the kids in a neighborhood will meet in the morning and will then walk to school as a group. There will be parents stationed at various points along the way to watch them, so things are safer than they might appear. Also all the kids wear bright yellow caps so everyone can easily identify them and help out if somethihng happens. They also walk home in the same manner. Sometimes this distance can be pretty long. My oldest walks 40 minutes to get to his school.

It’s a pretty good system. It teaches self-reliance and also helping each other out, but it’s also fairly safe as parents are around if something goes wrong. I think this is one of the things Japan does very well.

The other day I was focused very intently on my work and didn’t notice the time. If you had asked me, I would have told you that it was still morning. For this reason, I was completely taken by surprise when my son showed up, home from school. What what what—whoa, it’s 15:30 already?!

Time flies.

After my shock subsided, I did what all good haiku poets do and I wrote a haiku about it.

	David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.

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