Culture - bits and pieces

I've been here over a year now, and I still don't think I know Japan that well. It's because I don't speak the language; I'm not really immersed in the way people actually think and express themselves. I do learn a lot through hearsay and reading books and blogs. But there are lots of things that are visible to me, and most of them I now take for granted and don't really notice. Yet it certainly is different to Australia, so I thought I'd try to think of some examples.

If I repeat myself, sorry... sometimes I don't remember what I've written in the past.

***

Buying food

I was reading a book ("Welcome to Sawanoya") by an old Japanese guy who ran an inn where lots of foreigners stayed. He writes:
'One day, a neighbor who runs a sweets shop related the following story: "Sawa-san, your customers come to my shop asking to buy one piece of sembei [crackers] or one manju [a type of sweet]. That sounds rather strange to me, but I'm happy to sell treats by the piece to these people who've come all the way from abroad.' No Japanese would by such small quantities nowadays, as they naturally expect to buy an entire package.

I had never heard such a sentiment from a Japanese point of view before. To me it seems completely natural to go to a store and buy a single, very small snack. I have also bought a single rice cracker or whatever (rice crackers are bigger here). But I realise it is unusual. Today I went to 36 Sticks. They sell little thin cakes and desserts (36 different kinds). I bought a cheesecake stick. It was nice, and at 180yen, a nice cheap snack. While I was there, someone next to me was selecting several; another seemed to be ordered a whole cake, rather than a stick.

I remember my sister observing, when she was here, that when she bought an item in a bakery, everyone around her was ladening their trays with stuff. This is very true, actually. I often only buy one bakery item (bakeries here specialise less in loaves of bread, more in little snack items like croissants, curry bread, melon bread, little sandwiches, pizzas, etc etc). But I've very, very rarely seen a Japanese customer with only one item on their tray.

My sister also observed, when she went to the mini croissant shop, that while she bought a couple of mini croissants, all the people before her were getting at least 10 or 20, and most customers were getting several bags of croissants. This is also true. When I go there I usually get 100g (4 or 5 minis) and I still feel like I'm ordering a ridiculously tiny amount.

Sometimes I do feel funny about buying only one of an item, if only because packaging here often entails some effort, and I feel rather sad for the staff wrapping and putting my single bread roll in multiple bags. (I suppose I feel more sorry for them when they are individually wrapping each of fifteen bakery items in individual plastic bags, even if they are killing the environment.)

For example, if you buy any kind of fresh dessert, you will usually be asked 'how many hours until you return home?' Your answer will determine how many little ice packages they put in your box.

I do wonder, though, what people do with all that stuff. Sure, a lot of people are buying for families, a lot of people are buying gifts, and a lot of people buy for their offices or meetings, but surely some people must buy for themselves?! What do they DO with all these items?!

***

Anthrax scare

Okay, no anthrax scare. But that's what some foreigners think when they first see Japanese people wearing white surgical masks over their nose and mouth. Usually there's one of two reasons for it:

1. the person has an allergy and is trying to protect themselves against breathing in allergens;
   
2. the person has a cold and is trying to protect the populace from their own germs

As a result, you see a lot of masks in winter (cold season) and spring (hayfever season). Large numbers of people seem to suffer allergies. It's astonishing. For months people are mostly fine, then suddenly half your students are answering 'so-so' when you ask 'how are you', and looking red-eyed.

My own opinion is that a lot of the masks are quite unnecessary, and probably have a detrimental effect on your health as you spend all day breathing in your own germs. However, I have to say, I did cave in and wear my first face mask last week, while riding the trains.

I have had colds before and not worn them (as a teacher, it's not good to wear one anyone, though many people do wear them all day at work). But last week I had a cough, and a somewhat nasty one, and I didn't want to share it with all the passengers nearby. I have to concede, the masks can be socially responsible when you see how crowded the trains are.

***

People do bow a lot. Various store clerks bow to show politeness; people bow when they meet; people bow at the end of the day saying goodbye to each other; people bow to apologise, etc. At my job, the Japanese staff sometimes bow to students or potential students.

As a foreigner I don't bow and it doesn't feel natural to me - I've only done it three or four times. I have developed what I call the 'chicken jerk', where you kind of bob your head briefly like a chicken pecking... hahah... I'm not the only foreigner to pick up this habit. I do the nod a lot in a day - when I walk past someone who works in the same building as me, when I leave a store, when I meet someone or say goodbye to them, etc.

Store clerks do it in varying degrees; I was amused when my sister came and entered a particularly exclusive department store (I've been to a different branch of it so I can confirm), and was a bit bemused to find that wherever she walked, she was following a gauntlet of staff who would bow as she passed. It's kind of unsettling to have a whole line of people, bowing one after the other, as you walk down the corridor.

Though I see bowing a lot, I am often amused at the train station on Friday or Saturday nights, when hordes of businessmen who've been out drinking together, are saying goodbye. There's always a constant series of bows - one person bows, the other bows, the first person has to bow again, then the second... I don't know the unwritten rule for when you can politely break the cycle and actually leave. You'll see these little knots of people all standing in a circle and bowing to each other. It always makes me smile.

Bowing is such an intrinsic part of communication here that they even put it on signs. For example, if there's a sign saying 'construction work - sorry for the inconvenience', it will often be accompanied by a cartoon picture of a construction worker bowing apologetically. Or, if you go to a ticket machine at the train station, a picture of a woman will bow and say 'irrashaimase' (welcome - they say this in stores), before presenting you with your choices.

Teaching kids

[By the way, I've mentioned before that I never use people's real names on this blog, so that co-workers and students will be less likely to find it. But I haven't yet made up a name for myself. So I'll call myself... Anne. ^_^]

So, teaching kids... I've complained about it; my three kids' classes take more preparatory work than all my adult classes combined. My little kids (aged 2-3) can be challenging. I have four of them, and sometimes running the class is like herding cats. I'm not very good at getting all of them to pay attention to one thing at the same time. But there are some good things about teaching kids, and sometimes they are just cute.

The kids often mimic what I say and do. The other day, all my little kids started giving the thumbs-up (a bad habit of mine) and saying 'good!'

One mum said her daughter, 3-year-old Mina, would get excited the day before class and say 'tomorrow I'm going to Anne-sensei's class!!'

One little boy's mum said that since he started taking my class, whenever he sees a foreign person on the street, he calls out 'hello!!'

When I come up to the lobby where my little kids are waiting, they all run up to me and give me things (whatever toy they're holding, etc). The other day, Mina called 'Anne-sensei!!' when I appeared. It's the first time a little kid has called me by my name. ^_^

Sometimes I get excited about their minor breakthroughs. For example, I'm always saying colours to them when we're colouring in. But usually they don't seem to notice. Suddenly, last week, the boy started identifying crayon colours (in English) without prompting. I was so proud!

Most of the kids will spontaneously break into song at some point during the lesson. (Songs in English, that is.)

My older kids are sweet too. Last week my 9-year-old gave me a Christmas card. She wrote:
To Anne: I Love Anne from Ayu

Last week I was sick and my oldest kid's class was cancelled. I taught her today. I left the room a few moments before she did. Later, when I went back to clean up the room, I saw she'd secretly left a letter on the desk. It was addressed to 'Anne teacher' and it was a cute little note, in English and Japanese, saying she hoped I was feeling better and I should take care of myself. So sweet! I went around showing everyone because it was such a cute note.

It made me realise that teaching kids does have some rewards after all.

Updates

11am and it's 7 degrees outside... iya da... :(

I was sick for about two weeks but am feeling pretty well better now. I even took a day off work, which I've not done before.

Yesterday was my big Japanese Proficiency Test. I think I did quite well. I'm fairly sure I at least passed. But I'm a perfectionist and I want to get a Good Score...

I got my visa updated. (Pain... -_-). Today I have to go to the ward office. I get sick of all this... the annoying thing is they only gave me a 1-year visa, so if I *do* decide to stay longer, I'll have to go back to immigration *again*... Other people at this company have gotten 3-year visas, and we specifically requested one. But I heard it's pretty well random which one they give you... oh well...

This is a grand time of year, with lots of parties. A lot of companies have big 'bonenkai' (year-end parties). Our school's gonna have a big Christmas party. I'm hoping for a karaoke after-party, personally. Next week we're gonna have a couple of get-togethers because Jim, my old co-worker, is back in Japan for a couple of weeks! ^_^ On Saturday I'm going to a party with a co-worker, so that's three parties next week, hahaha. Unfortunately I missed our building's Christmas party - I was really looking forward to it too -_- - because I was sick.

I really love living in a big metropolis. You can finish work, and walk outside, and you've got loads of restaurants and bars to choose from. It makes socialising so easy. Or, any weekend you can go into Tokyo or somewhere, where it's all happening. Also, I think karaoke makes a really nice addition to socialising choices. After you've finished dinner, sometimes you don't want to spend the whole night in a bar or club.

Japanese food

It occurred to me that when I write about Japanese food in this blog, I tend to give a lot more press to the Japanese food I have not enjoyed. That is probably because it is more fun to report whatever latest monstrosity I have consumed, and sounds more impressive.

That said, there is a lot of food I like here too, both Japanese and international. I am not always eating horrible things. In my first three months or so, I was always trying new things, just to see what they were like. Now, if a variety of dishes are on the table, I don't feel any need to try them all. I established there are several things I Just Don't Like (offal, fatty meat, most sashimi, wasabi, pickles, and all Japanese sweets) so now I'm rarely in a situation where I need to eat them.


Basashi (raw horse)

Actually, Japanese people are great foodies, and I've actually become quite astonished to realise how many different types of Japanese food there are. In Australia I tended to think of Japan as having Japanese food - perhaps twenty or thirty main dishes that comprised their national cuisine. But no, there are dozens of styles of cuisine, and many, many thousands of specific dishes.

What's more, each area has its own specialties, regional varieties, favoured ingredients and special cooking styles, and each season has its preferred dishes or ingredients. Japan's also famous for presenting its food with care.

As an example, I went to Nagano a couple of weeks ago, and ate oyaki (a kind of fried little vegetable pancakey thing), a Nagano specialty. We also had rice with chestnuts, since that area of Nagano was famous for chestnuts. There are apples for sale everywhere as souvenirs, as Nagano is also famous for apples. Nagano is also famous for grapes, and there were lots of other various special foods I didn't recognise or understand.

We tried some vegetable that 'is very rare and grows in this area'. We had mushrooms because they were in season. We had apple wine. While we were eating, downstairs, hordes of people were buying Japanese 'omiyage' (souvenir) sweets specific to that town. On the train on the way back we got a very famous type of 'ekiben' (train lunch box) called 'kamameshi', these ekiben are unique to specific train stations - ours was rice topped with seasonal vegetables in a ceramic bowl.


Kamameshi ekiben

(These ekiben are a perfect example of how staggeringly large Japan's food culture seems to be. I mean, there are so many types, some of which are famous; there are even ekiben aficionados who will go around eating as many different ekiben as they can... Just check out this website. This is the Kanto area (around Tokyo) alone!! If you click on any of the starred links it will show you that place's ekiben.)

Specialised restaurants

If you are going to eat out in Japan, a lot of restaurants specialise in a particular cooking style. You can find restaurants that serve lots of different types of food, but they're less common.


Shabu-shabu (hot pot)

You might go to an okonomiyaki restaurant, for example, where you can make okonomiyaki (fried vegetable pancakes with various constituents), yakisoba (fried noodles with vegetables) or monjayaki (a lame, watery version of okonomiyaki) on the hot plate at your table.

Or you might go to a soba, udon or ramen restaurant. These different types of noodles (mostly like a big bowl of soup with noodles and various other bits and pieces) are popular as fast food too. There are a lot of small soba/udon/ramen places around train stations, where patrons stand to eat, and you'd be astonished how fast a salaryman can scarf down a huge bowl of noodles. No wonder some of the world champion eaters have come from Japan...


Soba

There are sushi and sashimi restaurants, tonkatsu (fried breaded pork cutlets, often other fried breaded meats too) restaurants, horumon (offal) restaurants, shabu-shabu or sukiyaki (hotpot) restaurants, Okinawan restaurants...


Okinawan food

Virtually every department store building has a 'restaurant floor', full of lots of these little restaurants.

There are also 'izakaya', which I've mentioned before. They're friendly, casual eating places with a small cover charge, people go there to drink and eat lots of shared dishes, various things including deep-fried chicken, sashimi, takoyaki (octopus balls), tempura, nabe, edamame (soy beans in their pod; a common finger food snack here), yakitori (grilled chicken), etc. These places are a good choice for large groups.

Renewal

Incidentally, just to keep you posted, I did renew for another three months. Which would mean I'm due to finish in August.
However, I realised my offer said that if I renew for "less than 3 months" I won't get a re-offer; but I am renewing for 3. This means I may well get another contract offer next year.
If they do offer me another, well, it will be nice to be able to keep my options open. Also, it would be nice to be able to make a decision *after* going back to Australia for a visit. My feelings (as to whether I want to leave or stay) tend to vary with the weeks. Right now I'm very happy with everything.
If they don't offer me another, well, at least I don't have to spend weeks agonising over a decision again. ^_^

Thanksgiving

Today (well, yesterday - it's now 1:20am) was Thanksgiving Day. American Thanksgiving, anyway. (And come to think of it, I suppose it's still Thanksgiving Day in America, due to the time difference.)

Anyway, it was my first time to celebrate Thanksgiving. A bunch of us - mostly teachers from various schools, and a few friends of friends - met at the Hard Rock Cafe in Roppongi. I'd never been to a Hard Rock cafe before. We had a turkey dinner with cranberry sauce (admittedly, the turkey and vegetables came served with rice. It seemed somehow a fitting blend of cultures...)

We were quite an international group. There were ten of us, including 2 Aussies, 1 Pom, 2 Canadians, 1 Japanese guy, and 4 Americans.

We went around the table and said what we were thankful for.

Actually, I am thankful for a lot of things. I'm thankful to be here, in Japan. I'm thankful for a job I mostly like. I'm thankful for really nice co-workers. I'm thankful I'm starting to make more friends. I'm thankful for my social life - it's actually been really good the last few months. I get to do lots of interesting things; it seems like every weekend I'm having a blast.

I'm thankful for my friends back home. I'm thankful for my family, who are great. I'm thankful I can go to Australia next month and see everyone (thanks Mum and Dad!). I'm thankful I can enjoy my life so much and there are so many nice people around me everywhere.

Weird sickness

I'm slightly sick but I've never experienced this before.

So, on Saturday I woke up feeling nauseous, threw up a few times before going to work. Worked a full day, felt nauseous for some of it. Had many moments of feeling extremely strange, kind of feverish. In one class I thought I was going to faint.
Felt totally normal Sunday and Monday.

Tuesday, I mostly felt normal but this evening started getting some weird symptoms again and again with the dizziness/nausea and strange feelings.

By strange feelings, I mean... well, you know when you have a fever, and you think in a strange way? For example, you get one particular thought or idea stuck in your head, and you can't get it out? Or you remember - or think you remember - some long-forgotten event or story you once read, and it seems incredibly important and profound, and yet you had no memory of it before you got the fever?

On Saturday the weird thing was deja vu. I had indeed taught all those lessons before, but I felt extremely acute deja vu. I actually felt as if I had already experienced everything on that day - I heard the exact same questions, I replied using exactly the same words, we went onto exactly the same tangents, students made exactly the same points. Even when I talked to a staff member about a student report, I felt as if we'd had an identical discussion - right down to the exact sentences we were using - a few weeks earlier.

Apart from sudden attacks of nausea and dizziness, which have never lasted more than a few minutes, I've felt fine apart from moments of slight headache or sore throat. Today I again had a couple of moments of panic where I felt so dizzy that I wondered if I was going to throw up or have to lie down on the street.

Any thoughts on this? I'd peg it down to some kind of weird virus and a touch of fever, but it seems very strange to me that I should feel totally fine on the weekend and then sick before and after it. Right now I feel pretty normal except for a very slight headache.

I had an awesome weekend, incidentally. I must post about it soon. ^_^