NETWORK 2011 1 No.657
平 成 四 年 四 の 開 校 に 向 け て
家 庭 教 育 を 考 え よ う!
Every year around the winter holiday the Japanese custom of cleaning out your office space is performed. Everyone gets together and cleans their area. I think that it is a great idea. I never participated in anything like this when I worked for a department store in America. I never heard anything about cleaning while my father was working for his company. This end of the year cleaning seems to be a Japanese custom. I don t want you to get the wrong idea about Americans. We clean, we clean often, some of us do anyway. There is an American tradition that resembles this Japanese custom. It is known as Spring Cleaning. Over the long winter hours things tend to accumulate. When that happens, it is a sign that one must begin with their cleaning. It is not an official holiday, because there is no set day in which it needs to be done. However as the name suggests it is usually done in the spring. The Japanese mindset is, with the New Year comes a clean new start. The American mindset is similar except it is thought with spring comes a clean new start. Spring is a time when the snow is melting, the birds are chirping and the leaves are beginning to bloom. Each culture has a similar idea of starting fresh and new. The difference is that different cultures associate this renewal with different times of the year. So this spring put away those skies and get out your rubber gloves. It is time for a little Spring Cleaning.