In the late 1980s, I noticed what westerners might regard as benign neglect amongst Japanese parents in my Fukui neighborhood. I posited that it was based on the low crime rate in Japan, and also the fact that most people apparently lived in the same place their entire lives. This seemed to result in an ACTUAL village raising children, i.e., a lot of older children as well as adult eyes on little ones.

But, two incidences have rattled me. When I visited India in 1986, two Japanese tourist children were stolen from right outside the hotel where they were staying with their parents. It broke my heart, because I knew no one would ever see those children again and I shuddered to think what might become of them. Of course, I also wondered, as most western parents would, “What were their parents THINKING letting them play alone outside on the street in a strange country?!”

Then, in the early 1990s, after I’d moved back to California, one of my dearest Japanese friends came to visit me with a large party consisting of her family and friends. We met to have lunch in the Wharf area. I told her, “San Francisco is not like Japan, you have to keep a close eye on your little girls,” and, “Children get stolen here.” She utterly ignored me, and her two small girls repeatedly ran off, way out of sight and hearing. I nearly had a nervous breakdown. The adults in the party were completely oblivious.

On the one hand, western parents tend to spend a lot time watching, wondering and worrying about their children’s safety because children ARE less safe in the west. Japanese parents don’t appear to do these things, or perhaps to a much lesser degree. For the most part, the behavior of each group matches their environment. (Although the same Japanese friend and mother told me about a serial child murderer in Japan…) The disconnect comes when parents do not seem to act APPROPRIATELY = as WE act. But our parenting “style” is based in different histories, different cultures, personal experience, and perhaps something as basic as they number of guns in private hands in Japan vs. in most western countries.

I am most sad to say that the likelihood is that the number of western children who are harmed will continue to out pace Japan, despite the vigilance of their parents because of the differences mentioned above.

I wouldn’t have been worried for a child’s safety in this respect in the ski situation…. the only exit from the ski area involved a long, slow gondola ride. Nature (snow to freeze in, cliffs to fall from), on the other hand, is a great equalizer, and children could be dearly punished for their parents’ inattention. But if nothing, common sense in this society would have the parent apologizing profusely for the trouble their lost child had caused others. I feel sorry for the kid to have a parent like that. —Jeffrey

Magnificent photographs. Think of your childhood; did you have the opportunity to try to ski in such magnificent surroundings?

Now as to the lost child different a parenting technique is in place. Suspect your background has much to do with your concern; your son is different as he is a result of a union between a Japanese lady and a North American gentleman. And as such child-rearing from both cultures might clash.

Fear not though, you’re a good Dad, and to lose a child of your own would be heart-breaking.

Best keep your child on a short leash, and as to the three year old and the perhaps fourteen year old Ski Patrol teen, maybe think of what might have happened, otherwise. Scary eh?

You may well be able to contact said objects and results of your search with the photographs of that day in hand… It may well be an exercise in frustration however perhaps try?

I can’t explain the dad’s nonchalance at losing his kid, but I have noticed that people in Japan just don’t care as much about strangers as people in the States. This is of course a gross generalization, and there are exceptions on either side, but the more time I spend in Japan the more evidence I see for a complete lack of concern for anyone who is not mi-uchi, or “one of your own.”

The way I think of it is, if in the States one out of 10 people would stop to help a lost child, in Japan that number is one out of 100. Or 1,000.