Translated…
On the various occasions, we’d bought our daughter new toys, but after she’d played with it for a short while, she’d gotten, bored with them one by one. And the toys which were, ignored, would only get played with when there were, younger guests who’d come to visit us. And, after awhile, the toys stacked up, sky high in the house, and, it’d given us, headaches.
I can’t help but recall before my daughter was four-and-a-half, when we were still living in Japan, the availability of the complete system of “Toy Libraries”. In Japan, the toys are like the books, can be checked out. It’d not only saved up a ton of money for the parents, it also gave new life to the older toys. Plus, the Japanese are very cleanly, and the toys were always able to, remain all brand new, there were, rarely, any wear and tear on them.
an assortment of toys your children can play with, and you don’t even NEED to spend any money, maybe just the membership card for the libraries!!! Photo from online…
Back then, I’d seen some Japanese elderly ladies who were, sewing up the dolls in the libraries, or helping kids check them out, some elderly men had, quietly, fixed up the toys that were broken by the children, they’re all volunteers, they all looked very loving and kind, it was, moving for me to see this.
As for the toys that were checked out, after the kids played with them, and, they drained out the batteries, the parents in Japan would actively buy the new batteries to put them back in, then, return the toys back to the libraries, and their “thinking on behalf of others” value was visible to all.
Before we’d moved back to Taiwan, we’d often borrowed the toys for our daughter to play with, and not bought any items, and, in my memories, the cooking game set, the toy karaoke systems, the children’s drum sets, the Anpanman cars, the children’s kitchen sets, etc., etc., etc., even the walking car she’d used to learn to walk, we’d, borrowed them from the toy libraries too.
children playing with toys, that may not even belong to them, photo from online…
This experience of living in Japan allowed me to understand deeply that, loving and taking care of the things we owned, can be passed down by example, by the adults to the young.
So, this, is a great value that a mother had observed and picked up, living abroad, and, it’s rare to see, how people are actually, cherishing what they have, because there’s an influx of resources being produced, and, there are rarely any more hand-me-downs, and, in Japan, there’s this system of giving new life to old toys, this would NOT only help the parents save up the money on toys they buy to their young, it can also teach the kids, to take care of the things that they owned, because you might be able to, pass it down to someone else after you’re done playing with it…
Life, the Obstacle Course 