Real Life Crayon Shing Chan

James Jiang

In fictional Kasukabe, Japan—set in the children’s show Crayon Shin-Chan—five-year-old Shinnosuke faces his greatest challenge yet: dinner. As he picks up his superhero-themed chopsticks, he inspects the dining table. Burgers? Check. Miso Soup? Check. White rice? Check. Green peppers and onions? No, thanks! Shinnosuke bickers with his mom and pulls childish tricks to evade his vegetable-filled doom—continuing this picky-eater gag throughout the rest of the show. 

A few years ago, in British Columbia, Canada, a real-life Shinnosuke was sitting excitedly in the uncomfortable corners of his family’s minivan. It was a long-awaited summer, which signaled the start of his annual road trip, and this time, grandma and grandpa joined along. 

Since forever, this Shinnosuke had childish eating habits: he passionately hated onions, tomatoes, and countless other foods. Rather than his stomach, these foods always headed for the garbage can. 

During the trip, every night at every dinner, this trend continued. Nit-picky as ever, he wouldn’t eat the onions on his burger, the tomatoes in his pasta, nor the black beans in his Chipotle order. But for every morsel of wasted food, grandpa silently ate it up. With his wilted, 75-year-old body, he would eat everything, leaving no crumb untouched. 

Eventually, real-life Shinnosuke mind’s brewed with curiosity. He foolishly thought, “Why did grandpa want my leftovers? Was he hungry? Or maybe did grandma scold him into doing it?” 

On the last night of the trip, he ended up asking his mother why. That night, two things were ingrained in his mind: his mom’s intense scolding and the realization that he was still a child, even though he was already 16-years-old of age. He learned stories about grandpa’s past—about how he spent malnourished years in prison for practicing Falun Gong, about how he starved as a child and during the wars—all while feeling the wrath of his mother. 

After the talk, Shinnosuke felt dumb. He felt that he severely disrespected his grandpa. But at that moment he recognized how ridiculous it was to waste food and how ridiculous he was for doing so.

Shinnosuke adopted his grandpa’s “no food wasted” policy. Eating well was something he had taken for granted. And as he ate with those around him, it became all the more apparent how people just do not realize this fact. People don’t realize how lucky it is to have those hated foods on the dinner table, to be able to be a picky eater. When Shinnosuke came to terms with this realization, he couldn’t dare waste food. 

And each new time he sits at the dinner table alongside his grandpa and a plate of his least favorite foods, with a crooked smile on his face, he happily eats his green peppers and onions.