Leaning to Shop

My 3 year-old son, Ray, goes to a small, country daycare center near our house. Usual activities are walks through the rice fields, playing in the sandbox, or running and screaming in the playground. Yesterday the kids had a special excursion and rode the bus down to the city to learn how to shop. My wife and I were surprised. Japanese seem to shop for the heady joy of it. Was this introduction to consumerism for tots? We were instructed to make sure our kids were equipped with kleenex. a handkerchief and 350 yen ($3.50). They went to a 100 -yen store, where everything , as you may have already concluded, goes for the low price of just 100 yen. This way the kids had plenty of options and were able to get maximum bang for their yen. After shopping the kids did lunch at a restaurant in a hotel, hamburgers and orange juice, and returned to the daycare. Ray came home with the largest haul by volume: a child-sized, blue plastic chair, a Hello Kitty thermos, and a toy cooking set that provided all the requisites for serving up plastic fried eggs with sausage, corn on the cob, and cucumbers on the side.