Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Sukiyaki, mochi in sukiyaki, and magic for really young kids


When I visit my relatives in Saitama, we usually have sukiyaki one night. This time was no exception. Sukiyaki is very good. You boil all kinds of things (tofu, vegetables, mushrooms, meat, noodles) in a sweet broth, and then dip them in raw eggs.


My brother's father-in-law does not eat much sukiyaki, but he loves adding mochi and boiling these a bit in the sukiyaki broth after everyone else has finished eating. Mochi are gooey rice cakes that do not have much flavor in themselves, so they soak up the good parts of the broth pretty well.

I was asked to show some simple to understand magic trick to our three year old relative. When kids are only three years old, they do not know enough of the world to understand that something strange is happening. Every day still has so many surprising things for them, so magic is just business as usual, kind of. When things that should not disappear disappear, or when things appear out of nowhere, even young kids can find it strange and interesting. So I did a trick where lots and lots of small toy rabbits appeared out of his hands.


He seemed to find that trick entertaining. He also asked me what these tiny sponges were normally used to wipe, since apparently he already knows what you (normally) use sponges for. He wiped the table with some of the rabbits. He played with the rabbits for 20 minutes or so, repeating the trick for himself. So I guess the magic was a success.

3 comments:

  1. Så gulligt!! :-) Att du förstår dig på barn så bra, var en överraskning!! :-) Du kanske borde ha ett gäng!! Jag gillade din förklaring om att livet själv mer eller mindre är magi för små barn!! :-)

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    1. Jag trollar för barn lite då och då, så en del snappar man ju upp bara på grund av lång exponering. Jag gillar barn, men det är nog för att jag mest träffar dem under de roligare omständigheterna. Det verkar ju vara en hel del jobbigt inblandat också om man ska ta hand om egna barn dygnet runt i en massa år.

      Ja, jag har en hel del historier om hur barn reagerar på andra sätt än vuxna när man trollar för dem. Bland annat verkar små barn efter att ha sett något konstigt eller oväntat därefter inte tycka att det är konstigt att samma sak händer igen, oavsett hur konstigt det egenligen är. "Jaha, så fungerar tydligen de där grejerna", typ :-)

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