When my little brother and I were still very young, my mom was pretty strict about the things we ate or did at home. There were a bunch of rules we had to obey.
My mom was very concerned about chemical additives, so the only sweets we were allowed to eat were homemade cookies and cakes. Looking back on that now, I appreciate her being so thoughtful, but as a kid, my brother and I hated this rule. As much as we wanted to eat "regular" sweets from the shop, we weren't allowed to. And the only time we could eat "regular" sweets was when we visited our grandmother in Tokyo.
The sweet sections in the Tokyo supermarkets were like heaven to us, and our grandmother let us pick anything we wanted. And it wasn't just the sweets. My brother and I shared our first cup of instant ramen courtesy of our grandmother, because at home, instant food products were banned as well. That cup was one of the most delicious things I tasted in my whole childhood.
Another rule my mom had was to do with the hours we could watch TV and the programs we could watch. So, as soon as our mom was out of the house, my brother and I would race into the living room, where the TV was. We would watch whatever was on, usually something like a "Mitokomon" rerun because it was on when our mom went shopping.
Even if it didn't make much sense to us, we had so much fun watching TV, carefully moving our heads as close to the screen as possible, because another one of our mom's rules was that we had to watch TV from a distance. Then, when we heard her car in the drive, we would switch off the TV and fly back to our desks, pretending we were doing our homework. We would even make sure that when the TV was switched on again later in the evening, it would be set on NHK.
Anyway, like today's proverb says, there is something so attractive, so irresistible and so fun about doing things we aren't permitted to do. Take, for example, Adam and Eve, from whose story this proverb comes. Eve couldn't resist eating the fruit that God had forbidden her to eat.
Curiously, now my brother and I are adults and we can eat anything we want, junk food has lost its appeal and TV doesn't have the attraction that it used to, which is a shame in a way, because I'll never forget the taste of that forbidden cup of instant ramen.
Q1 When Kana was young, her mother banned her from eating:
A1) Homemade cookies
A2) Sweets sold at shops
A3) Sweets her grandmother made
正解： A2) Sweets sold at shops
Q2 What did Kana and her brother do each time their mother went shopping?
A1) Watch NHK
A2) Watch tv with their faces close to the screen
A3) Eat instant ramen
正解： A2) Watch tv with their faces close to the screen
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