20 April, 2016

Are aprons a Japanese thing?

It's CAJ's Thrift Shop week again. One of two weeks in the school year that we turn the school gym into a second-hand shop for just two days (set-up takes 2 ½ days before that and take-down just a few hours). I'm just sneaking a blog post into my lunch break.

I've been in Japan too long to know now, but is wearing an apron while doing work like this (not kitchen work) a Japanese thing? You frequently see kindergarten teachers wearing them all the time, and various other employees, like reception staff at the doctor's clinic.
We have PTA aprons identifying us as volunteers. Most are blue, mine is red because I have a couple of specific jobs associated with Thrift Shop (which means I must work the whole four and a half days). Here I am walking home from school in my apron, I couldn't be bothered taking it off for that short 300m walk.


It's a gorgeous day today, and a real a pity to be stuck inside a gym. Look at these amazing cherry blossoms. Not the most popular ones and blooming a couple of weeks later, but absolutely gorgeous at the kindergarten just down the road from our house. 

Can you see me? I'm in that road-mirror. I finally got a sakura-selfie this season.




2 comments:

Georgia said...

My mom wore an apron everyday while working around the house/cooking/cleaning. It never caught on with my generation. Maybe because we girls had to make an apron as our first Home Ec. project; many of those did not go well.

We wore them at lunchtime when working at school with Special Needs children, but other than that...

Wendy said...

Yeah, didn't think of the generational thing. My mum doesn't wear an apron. I almost never cook without one now, I'm so sloppy! I see it as preventative laundry.
The apron was very useful at Thrift Shop. Not only did it identify for our customers who the workers were, but there were two great pockets for all the extra stuff you carry around when you're working in an environment like that.