In the manner of a river

I recently learned of a beautiful Japanese phrase. Kawa no ji mitai -- "in the manner of a river". The wider context is kawa no ji mitai nemasu, meaning "to sleep in the manner of a river". How on earth does one sleep like a river?

Like this. The kanji for kawa (river) is:

The two outer lines represent the riverbanks and the middle line is the river itself. Sleeping in this manner refers to co-sleeping; the river is the child, the banks are the parents. Isn't that a wonderful image?

I learned of this because Craig told me about a conversation he had with one of his work colleagues. They were talking about Elliott, within the context of how often he's waking at night, and it naturally came out that Elliott's in bed with us. Craig's colleague then explained that sleeping with babies is such a common practice in Japan that they even have this phrase for it.

Curious to find out if this was true or just what one person was saying, I did a little googling. I found this article which affirms it. It's a sociology essay comparing American and Japanese infant sleeping practices and how they reflect wider values of their respective cultures. And it mentions kawa:

The Japanese... emphasize the value of dependence as the primary socializing experience. The Japanese word for a common cosleeping arrangement demonstrates this value. "The custom of the child sleeping between the parents is referred to as kawa. Kawa is the Japanese character for a river flowing between 2 banks and kawa is therefore used to refer to the child sleeping between the protective support of the 2 parents."

And then I found this blog post which says pretty much exactly the same thing as the essay, only in a much more readable form. I just think that's cool.