Japan Musings (shhhh)

This country is quiet. Everyone is quiet in public. I assume in private as well. Walking down the street in broad daylight, airports, buses, restaurants, trains, it is as quiet as a U.S. library or funeral. The loudest children in Japan are mine. And I am doing everything I can to help them learn the “when in Rome” … but I am 7 years too late teaching my children to whisper and be quiet, especially when they they are excited, upset, or hurt (they are at least one of these things about 80% of the time, -Jem). The best we can do is tell them, and we have, is “shush – don’t yell; you can sob quietly.”