Hi lost people. I've moved to www.geisha-interrupted.typepad.com, (among many other places I've gone in the past few years.) Race you there!
~me~ at 2:47 AM
It’s impossible to hate someone you never look at...
When I first started living with Nariyaki, the 23 year old son of my host parents (yes there is a large gap between him and Aoi), I was absolutely sure that he was on drugs. He usually mumbled instead of speaking, but what got me most is that he never looked up at the dinner table and barely rested his eyes on any moving creature. I dreamed about the future, in which we would get to know each other and he would tell me the number of his dealer.
But I have not gotten to know him. Instead, by reading about and noticing how the japanese never make eye contact with one another, experiencing the cool social situations at work and at home, and hearing many Japanese friends and acquaintances discuss their family lives, it has dawned on me that Nariyaki is not tripping his way through dinner after all. He is perfectly normal.
If you can’t beat ‘em…
I also hear that Japanese housewives are notoriously annoying for their pickiness, perfectionism, and overextended hospitality. My own host mother is particularly so. An interesting idea came to me yesterday on the train home from having dinner with a Japanese co-worker and her strikingly similar family. Maybe the only way to tolerate and live peacefully with an annoying Japanese mother, is to become a stoic Japanese child. I tried out this new theory tonight at dinner. It felt disturbingly natural to make conversation in Japanese while staring at a table. If I keep my eyes down I don’t grow angry with her as quicly as I usually do.
Yeah that’s right, join ‘em…
As for Nariyaki, I don’t think he’s said a word to me in about a month. I am growing to dislike him so perhaps I should avoid looking at him as well.
~me~ at 5:17 AM
Talk about yr date from hell…
Ok I will. I had a date on Saturday with this guy I had met at a dark and noisy club in Tokyo the weekend before. The good news is that he is absolutely gorgeous. But now for the bad. I’ve dated a couple of guys whom I had trouble talking to openly, but this was just ridiculous. I couldn’t talk to him at all. Literally. I knew that he didn’t speak English, which was ok cuz I’ve been on dates with Japanese men before and have gotten by fine, but my mistake was in thinking that he spoke Japanese. As it turned out, he is from Singapore and has only been in Japan for 6 months. I soon realized that the reason he wouldn’t send text messages to my cell phone (though I asked him too) is because he can’t read or write Japanese. I’m sure he could have been very nice, and maybe if we met at some other time and place where we spoke the same language it would’ve been different, but the other good news about this date is that it’s over now.
~me~ at 11:04 PM
I’m usually not afraid of bugs, but this was not a bug…
It was a monster. Ok, story time. I was lying in bed the other night, talking on the phone (in Japanese) to this guy I met at a club last weekend. I was trying desperately to sound cool, which as you may imagine, is difficult when Japanese isn’t my language. Enter monster-bug, crawling across my bed. I screamed and ran the guy must have thought I was hit by a bus or something. I yelled so loudly that my homestay mother came upstairs and caught the bug for me. Very uncool indeed. Afterwards, my entire homestay family had a great laugh at my expense. What did the bug look like? Well, it’s pretty accurate to say that Japanese insects look sort of like North American ones, except they are about 10 times bigger and some are poisonous. Enough said. I slept on the couch that night.
Who u gonna call?…
I meticulously cleaned my room the next day after work. “I ain’t afraid of no bugs!” was my motivational theme song.
P.S…
I would say I’m sorry for not updating recently, but I’m not.
~me~ at 5:52 PM
The snail says woof…
or at least today it did. Ok, so I’m teaching this rhyme to one of my kindergarden classes, and they have to memorize it perfectly for my school’s upcoming speech contest. Iy goes:
The hen has a chick
What does it say?
Cheep cheep cheep
All the day
The cat has a kitten
What does it say?
Moew meow meow
All the day
The dog as a puppy
What does it say?
Woof woof woof
All the day.
The snail has a baby
What does it say?
It doesn’t sat anything
All the day.
Right, so today it was time for them to stand up individually and start reciting it themselves. They seemed quite proficient at it as a group, so I figured they could do likewise alone. It was silly assumption on my part. They remembered the words all right, only their order was a bit off, creating scientific miracles such as: “The Hen has a puppy,” “The dog has a baby,” and “The snail has a kitten”. As the snails barked and the hens said meow, I could not keep a straight face. Ok that is an understatement, it took all the energy I had to keep from rolling on the floor. You know as tired as I get at the end of the day, I really am glad I work with children. Life in Japan is so strict and serious sometimes, but they keep me laughing.
~me~ at 5:35 AM
Well on the night of the 4th…
I went out to Yokosuka city, near a big US Navy base. I hit it off “quite well” with an attractive navy boy from Texas. If you know me then this is surprising being as I am notoriously anti-American militarism, anti-navy boys, and anti-Texas. I should clarify. So I am a peace activist, I think Navy boys are trouble because they are sailors (not to mention annoying because they’re republicans), and Texas, well. I just think that if Texas were to succeed from the United States and George W. was be the big gun there instead, the world may be better off for it.
Sunday…
I went to the hot springs in Hakone again. After visiting there I will never be able to say that the Japanese don’t know how to relax. My favorite part of the trip was the “nap room” where we went for relaxing naps between dips in the hot baths. I needed the rest.
And Today…
I put my hair in pigtails with two red ribbons on each side. I wore a red skirt and my aggressive Emily T-shirt that reads “fight like a girl” across the front. I figure that I am going for the Post-everything look. Either that, or the baby-doll-pierced-her-nose style. Oh whatever, I think I just want attention.
~me~ at 7:54 AM
Why tissue boxes shouldn't speak...
"What feeling do you need the best in your lifestyle? Trendy feeling, natural feeling and traditional feeling. We'll lead a tasteful life to find your personal style. Mild and tenderness are basic of our living life."
-deep thoughts, courtesy of the tissue box in front of me (for more crazy Japanese English see engrish.com, link at left.)
~me~ at 8:56 PM
The pierced nose chronicle...
is up and down. The Japanese are subtile. When I first showed up at the office with it my supervisorss told me that my peircing was very nice and they liked it. The next day they politely asked me to take it out during class. I said that I couldn't (obviously) because the hole would close. As a compromise, they asked me to wear a bandaid over my nose. Hahaha, like that is much less likely to freak out little children than a small stud. I compromised by putting a round yellow happy face sticker over the stud that day. My kindergardeners responded by putting stickers on their noses as well; it was classic. But as of this writing I am out of those stickers and am not wearing them anymore because my nose needs to breathe in order to heal. We'll see what happens. The other day, an 11 year old boy in my class told me to "please take that out". "You little shit," I said under my breath. You know, I should really stop cursing my students out under the assumption that they don't uderstand me.
~me~ at 2:53 PM
Ok so maybe...
The Japanese aren't all that bad. Take today. I was substituting for another teacher in a classroom that also happens to be part of someone's house. The inhabitant at the time was so impressed that I asked her where the bathroom is in japanese (terrifically challenging, as you might know) that she invited me for tea after my last class. I got some great practice speaking my 'polite japanese' using all the "masu" verb forms and stuff.
Yeah, it's kinda nice..
the way strangers are so polite to you sometimes. What bugs me is when friends put up an identical facade. Oh well. Oh well because meanwhile, I am developing some particularly strong affinities for a few of my Japanese co-workers. There is so much I want to ask them about their lives but I feel like it might be too personal and thereby faux pas 'round these parts. When I wonder what it might like to communicate with these people without pausing to think of words or missing out on slang or cultural connotations entirely, if my japanese skills could ever reach that level, then I know that until that's possible I have to stay here.
~me~ at 8:01 AM
Oh yeah, and...
I pierced my nose. Sunday night in Shibuya. So, I guess an appropriate question right now would be: AM I TRYING TO GET MYSELF FIRED FROM MY JOB??? Ok so it is getting to me. Japan is getting to me. The littlest things are bugging me now, for example, this "over-packaging" phenomenon. I just went to the store and they put three layers of paper and plastic packaging around a small book before I was allowed to take it home. My host mother is known to call my office to complain that I return my lunchbox to her without a napkin wrapper PROPERLY around it. But I guess this bothers me so much because the excessive packaging seems not only to effect merchandise but also people, who wear all these layers of protective-politeness-armor around who they really are. And the plastic wrapped around so tight that nothing can breathe.
Or at least I can't.
(i really do apologize for these generalizatons, i am feeling rather than thinking today.)
~me~ at 3:26 AM
At a diner by the beach…
I sat in a corner with a Japanese co-worker. I needed to talk to someone after a hard day at work. The two of us have gotten very close lately, mostly because of my emotional instability as of late, and she started telling me about some pretty intense problems she’s been having. I told her that I want to help her, and that I can always listen to her, but it would be hard for me to give her good advice because we have a language barrier, a cultural barrier, and a generation gap between us. “At least,” I commented, “I hope that you have Japanese friends whom you can talk to honestly about this”. She gave me a strange look and said: “no, no one, I can’t”. I tried to explain my belief that secrets weigh a person down, but it was of no use. “No one talks about such things here.” I keep forgetting that honest communication is very much not ‘the Japanese way’. Though the people here are often packed together in narrow streets, crowded stores, small living spaces and rush-hour trains, I wonder if they might get lonely sometimes.
sleepiness and skates…
I am feeling seriously overworked. Especially since I’ve been asked to substitute for another teacher a lot lately with no extra pay. On Thursday I had an hour break after driving from one classroom to another and I accidentally fell deeply asleep on the floor until my students’ parents knocked on the door and woke me up. I have funny ways of rebelling against the system though. Like yesterday I was teaching a lesson to two kids, and it vaguely involved sentences such as “do you know how to rollerskate?” So, I decided to bring in my rollerblades and have each of my 10-year-old students try them on and skate around the classroom. Then the classroom wasn’t big enough so we had to turn the halls of the building into mini skating rinks. Just when I thought my teaching style couldn’t get more eccentric…
~me~ at 10:32 AM
The funny thing is…
That I thought that I’d have more time to update my blog while I was away from my homestay. I left my homestay because I was tired, but I’ve come back exhausted due to heavy partying in the absence of House Rules. So I spent the past two weeks at a teachers’ residence, where I happily drank orange juice out of the carton, sat at the table improperly, drank copious amounts of beer, played vulgar drinking games, burped, and left my underwear all around my room. But I also missed Aoi fiercely, so now I am back at home in this cult of rules. I admit that all these Japanese rules about dressing, eating, acting etc. still don’t make sense to me because I wasn’t brought up in this culture, but at the same time I believe that all people cling to norms and old-fashioned values for a sense of stability in an otherwise chaotic environment. I can identify with chaos well enough, which ironically brings me much closer to understanding the orderliness of Japanese society.
Later
~me~ at 5:36 AM
The liquification of my life (otherwise known as yesterday)…
“Strange and mysterious things, though, aren’t they- earthquakes? We take it for granted that the earth beneath our feet is solid and stationary…But someday we see that it isn’t true. The earth, the boulders, that are supposed to be so solid, all of a sudden turn as mushy as liquid”.
-Haruki Murakami, After the Quake
Everything was very sudden, and I left my homestay today.
The Battle Over Underwear…
My homestay mother came into my room to tell me that I have to hide my underwear on on the bottom of my laundry basket. She said that women’s underwear and stockings are very shameful things in Japan. Meanwhile, I have to fold her husband’s underwear, her 23-year-old son walks around in his underwear all the time which makes me quite uncomfortable, but I can’t leave my underwear on the top of my laundry basket in my own room. (Her explanation was that someone might see in through the window.) I snapped. In probably my most daring act, I spoke to my host mother in English for the first time I can remember. I said: “That’s so stupid,” turned around, and left. She exclaimed “ehh?” I said nanimonai (nothing) as I was already halfway up the stairs to my room. She appeared at my door 10 minutes later holding my electronic Japanese-English dictionary, which read the Japanese translation of stupid. We fought about underwear. I told her I wanted to leave.
But I don’t really…
I’ve made arrangements to stay for two weeks at a teacher’s residence at my school (during which time I will happily and spitefully string my underwear around my room as I please), then I will take a deep breath, gather my patience, and go back. The family really is very good to me, I just seem to have lost myself this week. There is a point where “accepting other cultures” ends, and the universality of gender oppression begins. I just can’t put my finger on it yet.
Other news…
Keanu has yet to call me
~me~ at 5:12 AM
Bursting the gaijin bubble…
Right, so Saturday night was Astrid’s birthday party in Harajuku and Roppongi. Sometimes I feel like Astrid and I are living entirely different post-university lives with the exception that we both managed to end up in or around Tokyo. I mean, she is a part of this distinct subculture of English teachers in Tokyo who are not exactly in Kansas anymore but are not quite immersed in things Japanese either due to the prevalence of each other. They’ve built intensely close relationships with one another, probably because it gives a sense of stability and helps ease homesickness all the way over here. I am very much not a part of that clique, as I live in a homestay and have limited contact with other foreigners due to my strong desire to learn Japanese. I sometimes envy Astrid and I wish I could have good friends here whom I can just call when I’m upset or whatever, but this is what I wanted. The good news though, is that I think that I’ve done my time with the books by now, and can study instead by going out and trying to make Japanese friends. Actually, I met a Japanese guy who looks like Keanu Reeves on Saturday night, and gave him my phone number. I’m not sure if I should expect him to call…
~me~ at 6:26 AM
Back from the beach. I am sunburned. About 10 12-year-old boys decided to gang up on me with water balloons, but I am dry now. The picture below was taken a month ago at the hot springs in hakone, and is courtesy of the mysterious Jonathan who makes everything around here possible until I learn some things about html. I am on the left, aoi's in the middle, and my friend astrid is on the right. Astrid, whose birthday party in Roppongi I am off to right now...
~me~ at 1:05 AM
Lea, Astrid, and Aoi at the hot springs
~me~ at 4:05 PM
All work and no play makes lea a dull girl…
I’m annoyed that I have to work on my day off tomorrow. Or maybe it’s that I won’t be paid overtime. When I signed my soul over to this English school, working at a day camp on some weekends without extra pay was in the fine print. So I get to spend my Saturday at the beach with a bunch of adolescents many of whom are too cool even for me (and I am quite cool, for the record). The last day camp I attended was a month ago, when I lead groups of 5-year-olds around the zoo, teaching them useful phrases such as “It’s an Ainu,” or “It’s an African Bongo”. But most of the time I was trying not to lose them, near impossible when you remember we don’t speak the same language.
I am being bitter. I am sorry.
Linking these complaints to my other favorite topic: the crappy weather, I recently read an essay stating that: “The climate of Japan has high temperatures and humidity. In addition, geographical conditions are really difficult, for there are a lot of disasters such as floods, typhoons and earthquakes…these challenging geographical conditions never give the Japanese a sense of calm and leisure; on the contrary, they make people restless and diligent.” That said, it is supposed to rain here for the entire month of June (the rainy season. I’m not sure if I’ll emerge from it a more diligent person, or just wet.
I consider myself a pretty hard worker but I don’t think I’ll ever adjust to this type of ask-no-questions-as your-soul-is-sucked-away-by-major-corporation-because-that’s-just-the-way-it-is work ethic. When I finish my contract here I think I could get by on a part time job instead. Then I will have more time to study Japanese, drink tea, take calligraphy, learn karate, create stuff, and other little things such as living.
~me~ at 7:00 AM
I teach a class on Tuesdays in a room adjacent to a popular fast food chain called MOS Burger (or mosubaagaa, as it’s called). Yesterday was exceptionally hot and I had a food and drink related lesson planned, so I started class by bringing in a large milkshake from MOS Burger and 7 straws for the 7 kids I teach. I’m almost positive that this was not proper etiquette for a teacher in Japan. I mean, considering that one of the parents recently complained about my “style of sitting” because I sometimes sit on the floor to be at eye level with my kindergarteners, abnormal is pretty much synonymous with bad. Still, I am a strange teacher. There is a shortage of mops in my office because I am using them as limbo sticks in my classes. I just feel bad for my students because the compulsory education here is so rigorous and stressful. The kids have to come to my English conversation class after school, so the least I can do is make the lesson partially fun.
I’m convinced that the Japanese educational system is a Darwinian utopia designed specifically to weed out the weak members of society. Take your average kid: to get into kindergarten, there is an entrance exam. To go to elementary school, there is another entrance exam. From elementary school, many kids start going to an exam prep class after school where they memorize many facts so as to pass the exam to enter middle school. In middle school, there is a slightly more rigorous routine in order to enter high school. In high school nobody sleeps. There are entrance exams to get into some prestigious entrance exam prep schools. College entrance exams are notoriously difficult, but once you enter university you are virtually guaranteed a white collar job at a Japanese corporation. In college you catch up on sleep and drink. I have a friend who recently graduated university to begin such a career. I asked him if the corporation he’s joining has anything to do with his major in university. He said not at all, and laughed as if I had been telling a joke.
As for today, I have a hangover. Last night was a co-worker’s birthday and we went to a karaoke bar. Work today went slowly. The god of lesson plans seems to think it’s funny to have me teach and sing “the hokie pokie” to my little students on mornings after I drank too much. Not amused.
~me~ at 12:45 PM
Yesterday afternoon my host mother and father took a trip to the temple to pray for their new car. I wouldn’t consider them a spiritual bunch, as this is only the second time they’ve visited a temple/shrine since I moved in with them 6 months ago (the first was on new years’ day). However, it was really important for them to go ask the gods that this new car of theirs never has any problems. And considering that the car they replaced ran without a glitch for 10 years, it is not my place to have doubts. Right, so now we know why Japanese cars run so much better than American ones. Really though, I traveled to Japan for the first time when I was 16 and I came home with a “charm against traffic accidents” that I bought at a temple in Kyoto as a souvenir. I quickly tied it around the mirror of my new (used) car, and never got into any accidents as a crazy teenaged driver. A few years later though, I passed the car down to my younger brother who disposed of the charm due to its lack of coolness (sigh). He has since crashed this car four times, the last time for good (if you know my brother, or knew me in high school, you are laughing). Anyway, the moral of this story is that you’re never too cool to pray for your car.
~me~ at 5:00 AM
Tonight Aoi tried to color my hair black with a calligraphy pen.
Again.
Aoi is the brilliant 5-year-old Japanese girl at my homestay who learned to speak English fluently by watching Disney movies. But brilliance is relative, as she also believes that by coloring my hair black she can single-handedly make me Japanese. One of the funnier episodes involving her developing concept of race happened when she thought about bringing me to her youchen (kindergarten), but then decided against it because “it is only for Japanese people”. But soon she added “wait! you could come if you wear a wig!”.
Well I guess it makes sense. While her parents are teaching me how to abide by Japanese customs and speak Japanese, Aoi is doing her part by coloring my hair black. I suppose someone could tell her that there are many gaijin (foreigners) who also have black hair, but that would spoil the humor for all involved.
~me~ at 6:37 AM
I am working on a three-part poem about traffic. My field work is done every weekday morning without exception, for about an hour (depending on traffic). This project came about some months ago when I began taking deep meditation-style breaths while caught in traffic jams to avoid succumbing to utter madness, and discovered that there is a rhythm to it all.
Around the same time, during cherry blossom season at the end of March, I was driving down a narrow street with my homestay mother and she mentioned that the scene is so aesthetically pleasing to the Japanese because of the many many flowers that are clustered together in a tiny place. Hmm…kind of like the Japanese themselves, I thought to myself as images of the incredibly crowded streets of Shibuya or Shinjuku, packed Tokyo subways and the congested roads I experience every day, went through my head.
I suppose it is nice when nature recreates your own experience; even more so when it portrays something that is usually dirty, smelly and frustrating in an attractive light. Shows that everything has its beauty I guess.
~me~ at 2:58 AM
Speaking of crappy weather, there is a typhoon coming tomorrow afternoon. Fucking figures.
Today at work one of the office ladies decided to gasp when I reached for something on the top of my shelf because she got a glimpse of my bare back. She told me that my shirt is too short and I bluntly responded: “no, it’s not”. That is the kind of day I’m having.
Meanwhile, there is a regular feature on the game show I’m watching right now in which 6 or seven women get on stage in string bikinis and the contestants guess which one has fake boobs. It seems that the Japanese like to keep their women either fully covered or wearing nothing at all, no in between. Any ambiguity would make women seem too human I suppose; god forbid.
~me~ at 5:59 AM
I don’t understand it. Everyone here says that little earthquakes from time to time are good because they release the tension in the ground, but lately it seems like these “little earthquakes” just keep getting bigger and longer and more frequent. I was teaching a class during the big earthquake on Monday, and all of my students had to get under the table. It was really scary to be in a position of authority in such a situation seeing that I know as much about “earthquake safety” as any other New Yorker who’d never felt the ground shake before leaving the continent.
I was with my family at a temple in Kyoto last weekend, when we passed a statue of the “weather god”. With his arms flailing wildly, his appearance was such that he could have seemed quite at home in Dante’s Inferno. I joked with my brother that the god of weather is portrayed in such a way because Japan is such a haven for natural disasters. With all the earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunami, typhoons, etc. it’s a wonder this place is actually inhabited. However, with all Japan’s mountains, valleys, volcanos, and oceans, the natural scenery here is also breathtakingly beautiful. There is a poetic sense of beauty in destruction that people sometimes talk about. I am only beginning to understand it.
~me~ at 4:55 AM
Ok I’m back. Like for real. Why was I gone? Well, I’ve been traveling around the country with my parents and lately I’ve been commuting two hours to work from my parents’ hotel in Tokyo. Also, I have been drunk a lot (my family is Irish). No need for excuses though, I just didn’t feel like writing…
The Simpsons Go To Japan, part II (i.e. observations by Lea’s family)
“I think that the Japanese need to lighten up, and forget about 80% of their rules. Like changing into separate slippers for the bathroom: sure, your bathroom floor stays nice and clean but my feet to go in these germ filled shoes that everyone in the building puts on…”
-my mother
“It’s anti-pants day! I’ve been lobbying for this at home forever!”
-my brother, at a festival last week in Asakusa where many traditionally dressed men were curiously not wearing pants.
“I’m almost relieved that the Japanese drink so much; at least they have fun sometimes.”
-my mother
“It’s crazy that in a country that’s so technologically advanced, the housewife is still centuries behind the rest of the world. You’d assume that they’d at least have a dishwasher or a drier or be able to drive a car…”
-my mother, discussing my homestay mother at dinner one night
“It’s crazy that in a country that’s so technologically advanced, they still eat with two sticks.”
-my brother, in response (as he happened to be having difficulty with chopsticks at the time)
~me~ at 2:59 AM
There was a new teacher at work today. I always get excited to meet new people. She came to some of my classes to observe today, so we got to talk a bit in my car. She seems quite cool and down to earth. Having lived in Japan for the past 11 years, she seems to know a lot about the Japanese and their culture. She told me that living in Japan changes you; that at first you don’t understand why they abide by so many traditions, but by the end you can’t see why anyone wouldn’t. Westerners tendto do things because they make sense rather than because it’s tradition, whereas Japan is the opposite. There is just a certain way things are done and everyone conforms. So as you may expect, I’ve become somewhat worried that Japan is changing me in that respect. I’ve been too busy working full time (which is Japanese for all the time) and studying Japanese whenever I can to be the opinionated rebel I remember myself as at home. At the same time though, my new acquaintance also said that the Japanese lifestyle makes you a more patient person, and I could always use a lesson in patience, so it can’t be all that bad. Still.
~me~ at 6:14 AM
I’m writing this post on the shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto, where I will meet my family for the sequel of “The Simpsons Go To Japan”. This train is moving so fast that it is giving me a head rush. It feels cool.
So last week was parent observation week in all of my classes, and today I got to look at some of the teacher evaluations that the students and parents filled out. The papers are supposed to be handed directly to my boss, but since I can read Japanese I have the unique privilege of reading them over first. Well the good news is that most of my students said that they liked me (‘do you like this teacher’ is asked directly on the questionnaire) and that the lessons are fun. The bad news is that tendency of mine to get hung up over the one kid who says that his pronunciation hasn’t improved or that the lesson is hard to understand. I’ve never been judged in this way before, and there is something quite strange about it. It’s like, ever since I read those papers whenever I interact with people I wonder about what they would write if given a questionnaire about me reading “do you like this person”. It’s really freaking me out.
~me~ at 5:43 AM
Today I am proud of myself because I finally managed to pay my Japanese health insurance. Terribly exciting, I know. This is such an accomplishment because I tend to treat bills the way I would treat a spider on my wall: tell the spider that I will close my eyes and give it ten seconds to get out of my sight for its own good. And if when I open my eyes it hasn’t run away, I will close my eyes again. Needless to say, the payment I speak of is two months late. I have yet to become responsible about responsibility. Who let me grow up, anyway?
~me~ at 5:06 AM
I feel like I’ve definitely changed since I’ve been in Japan. For one, I’m very worried that I’ve become apathetic. During my time as a university student, I read and wrote passionately about politics and society. My classes at school dealt primarily with sexism and racism, and I got drunk with my roommates and we prophesized a green party-led revolution. Now, by contrast, four out of my six English speaking co-workers have husbands in the military so I don’t express my anti-war arguments to keep the office peaceful. Better yet, Japan has yet to encounter feminism and the family I live with is extremely “old fashioned” with regard to gender roles. Thrust into the real world, I have sexism, inequality and militarism staring me blankly in the face, but I have no idea what to do about it. To be fair, this is largely because I am not Japanese so I don’t feel it’s my place to do anything about it here. Imposing western activism on the Japanese, I’d feel like a missionary of sorts (everyone comes with good intentions, after all). Not really my thing.
~me~ at 5:10 AM
My family is so dysfunctional and I absolutely love them for it. One of the things that freaks me out about my host family is that they almost never raise their voices at each other. Now that my real family is here, it is refreshing to be able to yell at my mother to get out of the bathroom as my little way of saying good morning. As avoiding conflict at all costs is characteristically Japanese, I really wonder where they store all of their pissed offedness. One night my host mother told me that Japanese hardly ever express what they’re really feeling when they speak; in fact, they often say the opposite of what they’re thinking. At which point I’m like: “oh great, I finally feel like I can understand some of the language and now you tell me that people never mean what they say”. (I sometimes feel like Japan was specifically designed to keep people like me out, but I digress.) When some Japanese staff members at my job get into disagreements with me or my co-workers, they often gloss over confrontations with giggles. I think to myself: “Ok, I’m pissed off at you, you’re pissed off at me, can we at least not smile about it??” Due to complex and universal social codes, I’m sure that the Japanese can understand each other’s sentiments much more clearly than I can. If nothing else is certain, I have a lot more to learn about this society.
~me~ at 5:40 AM
The Simpsons Go to Japan, Part I (i.e. Lea's family is here)
My family arrived on Friday night and we went to Kamakura (the ancient capital of Japan) yesterday. I’m not really as awed by the sights here as I was when I arrived in Japan 7 months ago, but some of my parents’ culture shock is rubbing off on me. Staying with my host family, my real family is encountering obstacles with the smallest nuances of living. My mother panicked when she couldn’t turn off the automatic flaucet (which turns itself off), the doorknobs and light switches take some time to master, and my brother took a picture of the heated toilet seat. Oh yes, and speaking. Being a constant translator is taking its toll on me, but in a somewhat evil way I enjoy being able to censor the conversation. For example, my ever tactful brother will sat something like: “I can’t eat this raw fish because it’s making me sick,” and I will translate it as “This raw fish is delicious, but I’m feeling a little sick from the jet lag so I can’t eat anymore”. Then my father will ask me to tell them the story about “funny” things I said and did when I was a baby, and I reply that it’s too difficult to say in Japanese. Lea laughs demonically to herself…
~me~ at 3:41 PM
My parents are flying in from New York tomorrow to visit me. Yay! They will stay with my host family for a couple nights before traveling elsewhere, so my American family is about to meet my newly adopted Japanese family. I am a bit apprehensive about the culture shock involved. Here is an excerpt from an email I just sent my parents:
List of rules for staying at my house
1)You will eat EVERYTHING that is served to you. My homestay mother will put a lot of effort into your food, and because she is a housewife cooking is her entire livelihood. Not eating what you’re served is not a direct insult to her, but she will probably feel sad.
2)Try not to blow your nose, especially not in public or at the dinner table.
3)When you first arrive my homestay mother will try to coerce Aoi (the 5-year-old I live with) to show off her English to you and to jump through hoops and the like. Aoi, who is very shy at first in front of strangers, will not be impressed and might run away.
4) Next, my mother will show you how our dog chappy can do things like turn around, speak, heel and fetch different objects in the room. You will say: “SUGOI” (su as in suit, go as in go, I as in mi amigo), which means “outstanding” or “really cool”.
5) When you eat here you will say “OISHII” (o as in go, I as in mi amigo), which means “tastes good”.
6) I’m not sure how sociable the father and brother will be. Sometimes Japanese men grunt instead of talking. This is perfectly normal.
7) Try not to use too much hot water and never let water run unnecessarily. Such things are incredibly expensive here.
8) Don’t talk too loudly. Also, don’t raise your voices at each other or yell.
9) After dinner is tea time. This is not optional.
~me~ at 2:45 PM
I’ve taken to watching this ridiculous game show (called “iitomo” for anyone who might know) during my lunch hour. Today’s program was especially peculiar. The 5 guests on the show, apparently visitors from Africa, were dressed in full tribal gear including shields and swords. Before the start of the show the Africans had sampled 8 varieties of authentic Japanese cuisine, and the task of the 7 or so contestants was to guess which food the guests liked the best. Right. I’ve heard that you can understand a lot more about a culture if you can grasp its sense of humor. That said, I am as lost as ever.
But next on the show, the contestants took turns sucking helium and yelling into a microphone. Ok ok, I laughed, I admit it. Perhaps I am turning Japanese.
~me~ at 2:34 AM
Friggin’ earthquakes woke me up at 1 am this morning. I have come to know them in the past few months. Yes, there is nothing quite like having the ground shake on you when you’re feeling unstable enough as it is in an unfamiliar country. I was awake for over an hour afterwards thinking about the way my room shook. It felt like a house of cards almost, like everything could have just collapsed if rubbed the wrong way. The walls here really are paper-thin.
Japan is often touted for its rapid regeneration and growth after severe natural disasters or wars. In fact, a house was recently erected in my neighborhood in about a week’s time. However, you only have to spend one winter here to know that these buildings go up so quickly because they have no insulation. I read once in a course on eastern religion that many Japanese believe everything they build could easily get swept away by the next tsunami or bomb, and therefore integrate a sense of impermanence into their architecture. That sounded fascinating on paper until I felt my house shake.
~me~ at 6:17 AM
ehem...
Ode To Jonathan (a poem)
He fixed up my sight
so it looks this way.
Jonathan rules,
horray!! horray!!
~me~ at 3:06 PM
A redesign! WOW! And with comments too!
~me~ at 11:20 AM
I don’t understand why Pinky and The Brain have to keep making voyages to Japan. Or more specifically, why they have to keep going to Japan on the international cartoon network while I eat breakfast with my Japanese host family. This is such a problem cuz there are no Japanese translations available for the American programming, and the family I’m living with keeps asking me to translate (with my limited Japanese no less) why the two mice have traveled here, and why this country and its people are parodied as such. The first time this happened The Brain dressed up as a Japanese businessman to achieve world domination through the corporate ladder. Ok, it is silly enough for me to explain in Japanese the story of two lab mice in a persistent yet ill-fated quest for global domination, let alone why they had to become Japanese businessmen in order to do so. I said something about Japan’s global image as an economic superpower (though I suppose that’s no longer true). I paused to look up the translation for “pretend” in my dictionary. In retrospect, that seems rather silly because of I’m sure everyone could deduce as much, seeing as The Brain was a mouse in a fucking business suit. The second time, Brain dressed up as an elite sumo wrestler in order to obtain some powerful strengthening potion or something. This episode promised to be considerably more difficult to explain. Luckily for me however, the father of the family recognized Brain’s sumo gear which launched him into another of the lectures on Japanese culture he kindly provides from time to time. I wish I could tell you if he approved of The Brain’s guise or not, but the truth is that I barely understood him. I can understand most of what my host mother says to me in Japanese, but when the father starts educating me on Japanese history or politics, I only smile and nod as if I comprehend. Oh well, it will come with time I suppose.
~me~ at 12:28 AM
I was teaching a conversation involving the sentences: "what is your phone number?" and "my phone number is..." to my english class today, when some of my more enthusiastic students pulled out their cellular phones to act out the dialogue. The rest of the class quickly followed suit and soon I was staring at a classroom full of colorful phones decorated with sparkly stickers and decals of cartoon characters.
If you're wondering about the stickers, it's because this is a second grade class.
Ok, ok, information age and all, but 8-year-olds?? Well to a degree, cellular phones are just more necessary in Japan. Like, I can't seem to meet my friend at a busy train station in Tokyo without constant communiaction on our cell phones; this is due to the vastness of the place and the unbelievable crowds. Japanese cell phones are also more fun than those at home. That is to say that they have large screens (yet easily fit in your pocket), take pictures, easily send and receive email and cmail (cmail is sent from one cell phone to another), browse the internet, organize your schedule, and do karaoke.
The one issue I take with these advanced devices is that they, be it extremely paradoxically, are conducive to less interaction with people sometimes. Like for example, I was at a friend's house for dinner recently and the friend had invited over her boyfriend and his roomate as well. Neither the boyfriend nor his companion could speak English very well, so to avoid the effort they played with their cell phones all night. The two must have emailed and cmailed everyone the knew that night judging from the amount of time they spent glued to those devices. It is almost commonplace here to begin fiddling with your cell phone if you feel the slightest bit awkward in a social situation. Now that there is cell phone to cell phone email, i get "cmails" from my acquaintences far more often than actual phone calls. Could it be that as a direct result of communication technology, people are actually communcating less and less?
~me~ at 5:07 AM
Well at least I am not bored. Being a foreigner in Japan, otherwise mundane experiences take on an adventurous quality. Take today: The Drug Store. Yes, the drug store is the place where, due to unfamiliar brands and an indecipherably complex writing system, I almost blindly stroll the isles looking for what I need. My last drug-store-related mishap involved the purchase of saline solution made for hard contact lenses instead of soft ones (who the hell still wears hard contact lenses?). In a word: OUCH! My eyes burned for about a day. So today, with that behind me, I set out to walk the isles pretending to know where I was going and evaluate products I was familiar with. Bear in mind that all the while everyone in the store is aware of my cluelessness due to my not being Japanese. Maybe one day I will swallow my pride (or anxiety over speaking Japanese to strangers) and ask for help. Well anyway, I think that I’ve returned home bearing shampoo. I’ll let you know.
Here begins my blog.
~me~ at 5:21 AM