I recently took the children to the "Toys' Kingdom," a sort-of children's museum that offers a very Japanese approach to child's play.
It was near Tokyo Dome, where the Yomiuri Giants play baseball, in a place called
Tokyo Dome City. We went with Emily, who is in Lucinda's class at Nishimachi, and her younger sister Elizabeth and their mom.
We popped out of the subway to see the futuristic Dome and an amusement park wedged next door.
We walked past a line of people buying baseball tickets and a bunch of restaurants to get to this:
It's 1000 yen ($10) for adults and 700 yen ($7) for children - that's $24 for us - for 3 hours of playtime. The Kingdom has two open floors connected by a short stairway, and older children - i.e. kindergarteners - walk freely from room to room without their parents. (Not something you'd see much in a US city.)
I thought this was a very Japanese play environment because (1) it wasn't noisy, even with 100+ children floating around; (2) the kids weren't jumping, running or shouting - except for my children; and (3) nearly every activity was task-oriented, so children could quietly practice skills by themselves - which is basically something my children never do.
On the big main floor, aside from a playground set that wasn't getting much action, half the room was dedicated to Lego-like blocks and the other half to train sets.
It obviously works for some parents who read the newspaper while their children fixate on Legos or trains. But the place really bugged me.
For one thing, the Toys' Kingdom usually provides sample creations for children to copy. For example, behind Arno in this shot, you can see sample Lego animals to build with blocks from that particular station. Multiply by 10 stations, and that's the Toys' Kingdom. (Arno and I built a
Power Ranger.)
Or with these tile boards or this (actually very cool) set of wooden blocks. It's not a free-thinking mentality.
What's relevant here is that the Japanese education system, which used to be considered the world's best, is now often criticized for its cookie-cutter approach that emphasizes fact-memorization and cram schools rather than analysis, discussion or debate. Sort of like this?
Upstairs, we found a doll room (Emily is sitting next to Lucinda), a dollhouse room, and a computer-game room (Arno loved the
Power Rangers' video game - notice the theme?) Focus, focus, focus!
There were collections of other task-oriented toys, mainly for preschoolers:
(On the plus side: The Kingdom also had some great German wooden toy sets that cost $200 that I'm too cheap to buy.)
The Toys' Kingdom totally wore me out - partly because Arno asked me 50 times to buy the
Power Rangers gun from the toy shop located conveniently next to the lunch tables. I dragged the kids out when we hit our 3-hour limit.
We did see one amusing thing, though: these senbei (rice crackers) printed with a Power Ranger face.
