The Japanese Preschool’s Pedagogy of Feeling: Cultural Strategies for Supporting Young Children’s Emotional Development Akiko Hayashi, Mayumi Karasawa, and Joseph Tobin Abstract Among the lessons to be learned in Japanese preschool is how to experience, present, and respond to feelings. We suggest that the feeling most emphasized in Japanese preschools is sabishiisa (loneliness). Japanese preschool educators draw attention to feelings of sabishiisa, or loneliness, to promote a desire in young children for social connection. This social connection is built on a foundation of amae (expressions of dependency needs) and omoiyari (responding empathically to expressions of amae). Using examples from everyday life in a Japanese preschool, we argue that the Japanese preschool’s pedagogy of feeling emphasizes learning to respond empathetically to loneliness and other expressions of need. Our analysis suggests that sabishiisa, amae, and omoiyari (loneliness, dependence, and empathy) form a triad of emotional exchange, which, although not unique to Japan or to the Japanese preschool, have a particular cultural patterning and salience in Japan and in the Japanese approach to the socialization of emotions in early childhood. [emotion, feeling, Japan, preschool, amae] Preface: Sad Fish and Lonely Carrots In a preschool in Kyoto a teacher stands in front of her class of four-year-olds and holds up brightly colored sheets of origami paper: ‘‘We’re going to make fish today. First we make a triangle. And then fold in both sides, just like when you make a tulip. Then fold the two end points in, like this. And one more fold, like this. Got it? Good! Now it looks like a fish. But it looks so sad and lonely (sabishii) without a mouth or eyes. What should we do? I’ll take a marker, and draw an eye on my fish, like this.’’ At lunchtime, a teacher notices that many of the children have finished their meat and rice and dessert, but left their carrots untouched. Speaking to a boy in a theatrical voice loud enough for the whole class to hear, the teacher says ‘‘ Poor Mister Carrot! You ate Mr. Hamburger, Mr. Rice, and Mr. Orange, but you haven’t eaten any of Mr. Carrot. Don’t you think he feels lonely (sabishii)?’’ On one level, the teachers’ actions here are easy to understand and seem to require no ethnographic explanation. In the first example the teacher encourages her students to Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology 32 ETHOS ETHOS, Vol. 37, Issue 1, pp. 32–49, ISSN 0091-2131 online ISSN 1548-1352. & 2009 by the American Anthropological Asso- ciation. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1352.2009.01030.x.