さすがに
坊ばは
One has to admire these children. Oblivious to their father's fretting over their futures, they're happily eating breakfast. Lil gal, however, is a bit out of hand. She'll be turning three this year, and her mother, thinking ahead, has equipped her with an age-appropriate small set of chopsticks and small bowl. Lil gal, though, is having none of it. Having seized her older sister's bowl and grabbed her older sister's chopsticks, her little hands struggle to wield them. In the world in general, it's the pettiest of men, lacking in talent or abilities, who strive hardest to force their way into positions of influence for which they're patently unqualified. This tendency is alreadly evident in Lil gal's conduct. Given how deap-seated it is, it can't be remedied through education or training, and any attempt to do so is in vain.
Lil gal, with the large bowl and full-length chopsticks plundered from her neighbor, is a force to be reckoned with. Determined to use these sticks that are too big for her little hands, the inevitable outcome is unbridled havoc. Gripping both sticks together in a single fist, her first move is to thrust them down to the bottom of the bowl. In said bowl is a solid layer of rice beneath a floating surface of miso soup. As the sticks hit their mark, the bowl, until now holding its own, is suddenly tilted some thirty degrees by the impact. As it tilts, soup splashes and streams down Lil gal's front. Such occurrence does little to deter her. She unleashes her next assault, this time striking deep and rooting up rice. As the rice comes up, she brings her small mouth to the bowl's brim, capturing a number of grains in the process. Those grains she doesn't capture, along with the amber broth, jump free and cling to the tip of her nose, the sides of her cheeks, and the front of her chin. Additional grains, failing to cling anywhere, end up out of play on the tatami mat. As methods of eating rice go, it's highly inefficient. A respectful note of caution here, if I may be so indulged, for Kaneda and other men of influence in this world. If such leaders work their fellow men the way Lil gal works this bowl and chopsticks, most all flying grains will escape their open mouths. What they do take in will be not by design or force of will, but merely by random happenstance. Due reflection is in order here. To be truly capable men, wise in the ways of the world, they'll have to devise a better approach.