the middle class, and bagels

Most of Japanese people seemed to consider ourselves to be in the middle class, but these days it's changing some people worries which class we belong to.
Of course , I know, "Live and let live".


So, some people don't mind such a tiny thing.



BUT ----


I'm one of usual people who mind outfits, rumors.
These days I sometimes think about the meaning of "the middle class".
Does it mean just our income? or our academic backgrounds????
Or, our work places?
Well, probably in my case, I'm a housewife, so "our work place" means the place where my husband works.



Last week, I went to a "small" bagel shop, it took 20 minutes from here by car. For me, it seems to be a quite a long trip, but the place belongs to this city, though it is completely in the country side.

I was driving on an "usual" road to the country side, and according to the map, I turned left, and I had to drive on a really "narrow" road, and climb up on another "narrow " road. If you know my house, you can guess the "narrow" roads were more narrow than the road in front of my house.

Suddenly a small old residential area appeared. The atmosphere of it was actually "showa". (It's difficult to express the atmosphere specifically, anyway it looked like a retro area. It reminded me of the time when I was a little girl)
And in the area there was a small bagel shop. A family (a husband and a wife and a new-born baby) owns a shop.



They sell only "bagels". Not so many. Now the shop is becoming famous via web, and by word-of-mouth. So usually all bagels get sold out in a few hours. And probably they baked some bread for some contact restaurants.

But anyway it's small.

Can they get by on their bread???


I suspected their life without reason.

The owner, a young man, was really kind, and nice. They must be enjoy their life. The baby must grow up freely and spontaneously.



On the other hand, some parents are really eager to get their kids high education.
And actually I seemed to be a kind of "grade-conscious" mother.
--- For me, it was natural, because I grow up like the way.



Now, my daughters probably got "middle" academic backgrounds. (Unfortunately or fortunately not the highest)
I thought they would be able to get by on their lives.





Of course the bagels were very delicious.
Can you see two spread-paste. One is YUKI's souvenir. It's Harrods lemon cream.
He came back safely from an oversea business trip.