I thought much like everyone else when I lived in the United States. When I was a tyke, I was always outside getting dirty. My mom hated how her little princess would come home covered in dirt and scabs. To this day, my favorite place is outside, doing outdoorsy things. My imagination runs rampant. But, that's me, a child of a time when technology was just beginning to get enmeshed into our lives. Now, I look at kids sitting at home in front of the TV when the sun's shining and there's birds singing and think to myself, "What kind of child doesn't want to roll in the grass?!"
But then I moved to Japan and realized kids are different here. Kids love the outdoors, and although Japan is thought to be this big technologically-dependent entity, it's not. I see kids running around at parks, no cell phones or iPods in sight. They tumble through the dirt, pretend to be superheroes and villains, play hide and seek, climb trees, and generally have a great time. Such a change from America.