National Jandals Day

Flip Flop! Flip Flop! I wore WE's sized 13 Japanese slippers to school. I was very conscious. When I was in school in Borneo, only proper white school shoes were allowed. A boy was suspended for wearing a pair of "TOA SHIA" aka Japanese slippers during the march past on Sports Day. The chairman of the BoT aka board of Trustees or management mentioned it in his speech about the boy who wore the "TOA SHIA" and subsequently the principal announced that the boy was suspended and let that be a warning to other students.

So why was I wearing a pair of jandals, as is known in New Zealand, a compound word for Japanese Sandals to school, and so were also all the staff from the principal to the youngest child. Jandals are considered so Kiwi that 90 per cent of us even consider them a national icon. No, it is not the reason that we were making a fashion statement.

New Zealand celebrates its first-ever Jandal Day on Friday December 7th. The Life guards were raising funds for public education, expanding services to increase our beach access and meeting the demand for more equipment and training for our lifeguards.

My friend J is very involved in the Life surfers, her daughter had been a volunteer life guard. She tells me that during the weekend, all the life surfers are volunteers. So our school was one of those organisations who togged their throngs aka jandals and pledged our support.

Cheers to old the people who donated on National Jandals day, and cheers to the surf savers who risks their lives so we can swim in peace.

Going back to why I was wearing WE's jandals, that is a story of "Finder's Keepers".
One afternoon, after spending the day at the beach, we all stopped at Western Spring's Park so the kids could stretch their legs and play in the playground. Sam had worn my jandals and he took them off to play in "climb the wall" and other games. When he had enough "scaling the mountain", he couldn't find my pair of jandals. They had gone walking.

I think it is rather terrible of that person to steal a pair of cheap old jandals that I bought from the $2 Korean shop. It was an adults pair, so it was unlikely that a child could have stolen it.