【＃de4335】About Scarlet - why am I called「Scarlet」？？

Hello everyone

How do you spend your weekend and holiday? I am Scarlet, Chief of Inzai Child Laboratory.

 

From today, I would like to talk about our lab and the background of our interview as Scarlet Interview Memo＃de4335. I hope you enjoy reading my stories about what I feel through interactions with parenting families.

 

It's been a month since Inzai Child Laboratory opened on 28th Aug. We have been able to update our articles smoothly, so that all of us at the lab are relieved. We worried what if nobody checks our website. However, many people gave us their hands for support. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

 

Have you read the page introducing our lab researchers on this site? We are a group of people from different backgrounds, ages, or jobs, so the first issue we had when creating this introduction page was "how much should we disclose our personal information to readers?

 

What we always keep in our minds to operate this site is to want readers to feel close to us. If people find something in common with them, they feel comfortable and close in all things. 

I thought that it's necessary to disclose our information as much as we can for readers to feel close and read our site more. At the same time, everyone has different values and ways of thinking when it comes to what's private and what's not because it may be involved with their families. Therefore, after much deliberation, I decided to use "nicknames" instead of our real names.

 

We don't regularly use those nicknames like "hey, what's up Pouse!" in real life.

It should be ok to use those nicknames when we chat on LINE but if we call each other "Rose" or "Samantha" in public, we'll be embarrassed because English nicknames are not popular to use among Japanese. So nicknames of our researchers are only for this lab site.

 

Each researcher picked its own nickname for the site. Usually nicknames are given by others like family and/or friends. Even though English nicknames are familiar with people in different countries for both private and business, it sounds a bit weird or very rare to hear if Japanese call each other with English nicknames. Moreover, it's not common for Japanese to ask others to call ourselves a certain way including English nicknames unless it's for business purposes, especially foreign companies. Therefore, we usually won't say like "Could you call me''Rose"?. If we heard such, we must be strongly curious "WHY?"

Every researcher was in a bit of trouble, thinking of its nickname to use, so that they texted me often for days.

 

However, I didn't have much time to worry about others. I had to think of my own nickname. If I asked someone what a good nickname of mine would be, I would have given them trouble. Even if they come up with a good nickname, you know, sometimes nicknames are given with love and/or malice.

Then, I decided to let my only son decide. I asked him "what do you think would be a perfect nickname for your mother?"

 

Surprisingly he immediately replied to me "I think Scarlet is the one for you"

What do you have in your mind when hearing "Scarlet"? Katie Scarlett O'Hara from the film "Gone With the Wind" and Scarlett Johansson, actress in the United States, came to my mind. Besides, both are great actresses and above that, Scarlett sounds beautiful. If someone tells you "you look like Scarlet, you have no reason to feel uncomfortable, right? My son, you're a genius! I got excited!

 

''Why did you think "Scarlet" suits me?" I asked him in a voice full of joy.

"Well, there was a champion of Villain convention, the world-famous supervillain in a film I watched before. Her name was Scarlet Overkill. She looks like you, mom"

oh… it's about "Minions"...

I'm ashamed of myself for only thinking of the beautiful Scarlet. I didn't imagine at all that it was Scarlet Overkill, the villain of villains, who had a husband who looks just like Japanese comedian Ungirls (Mr.)Yamane. 

"I couldn't decide whether to say Scarlet or Maleficent," said my son.

Both are villains... 

This was how my nickname was picked to be "Scarlet".

 

How about other researchers' nicknames…

Daughter's favorite Pokemon

Kenji Miyazaki picture book series4 "The Twin Stars" - Chunse and Pose 

Pet's name

They picked their own nicknames in various ways.

"Rose" was the only nickname I selected for snack bar Lemon Lime owner

I'll talk about it some other time at Lemon Lime.

 

Even a villain, my son selected the name for me, so I like it. One of the researchers, Ai, was the only person who calmly said " is it really okay that the chief of this lab is the villain of villains…"

You know that I pretended not to hear ...

 

It was the day I clearly realized that my son sees me as a villain. This brings me doubts of my educational policy towards him in the past years.

But oh well… he is not a toddler anymore. He is already a junior high school student. I am grateful that my adolescent son faithfully answered my outlandish question, "Hey, give me a nickname for your mother. I kind of accepted why I looked like Scarlet Overkill to him, seeing myself being up and down with a bit of stupidness.