Awkward Moments, Part 2

Maybe you noticed Awkward Moments Part 2 was missing.  I never published it.  Well sit back and get ready to laugh at my misfortune and numbskullery.

In Japan, convenience stores really are just convenience stores.  In America they usually are associated with gas stations.  Not here.  They are distinct things.  Here you don't even get out of your car to get gas.  You tell them how many liters you want and while they pump it, they hand you a damp washcloth to wipe down your dash.

Convenience stores really are convenient.  Here utility bills have a little bar code on them.  You can take them to the nearest convenience store and pay them there.  It rocks.  No stamps. No envelopes.  Just show up with cash, the bill, and grab some Doritos, and you are on your way.

Most men don't wear shorts, but Kelli and I go running in shorts.  One day we decided to run to the nearest convenience store to pay a a couple of bills.  I counted out the cash.  I needed some coins so I went in the other room and grabbed them.  I dropped the coins in the envelop with the bills, and away we went.

One more piece of context before I go further: Japanese clerks and waiters are very polite as a rule.  They are always helpful and usually apologize for your mistakes for you.  Here, the costomer is always right.  Okay, back to the story.

We got to the store (Sunkus, pronounced "sanks" which is their approximate pronunciation of "thanks") and I pulled out the bills.  I'm sure we stuck out.  Not only are we white, but we were sweaty and wearing running clothes.  I handed the clerk the bills and he scanned the first one.  I looked in the envelope and I realized I had left the cash on the table when I went to get the coins!  I gestured to the clerk to stop and I apologized (I'm sorry, gomennasai) and asked him to cancel the transaction.  He just stared at me.  He never said a word.

We ran home, grabbed the cash, and ran back.  This time he scanned both bills and when I saw the total I realized I had forgotten to carry the one when I had added the bills!  I apologized again and asked him to cancel one bill.  Again, Mr. Stony-face did as I asked.  We ran home again, got the cash, and then did what any man would do.  We went to a different convenience store.

The lady at Family Mart was much more sympathetic.

Awkward moments are just part of travel.

Flowers

The Japanese word for flower is hana. They are everywhere. Kelli and I took a stroll around our neighborhood taking pictures of the flowers. Enjoy the show.

Kelli took all the pictures.  She wanted to catch the details that you miss when you just glance.

That bee was at least two inches long.  It must've been built by Sikorsky Helecopters

This is an evergreen tree.

These were only about an inch across.

Japanese gardens are beautiful.  If you want to see landscaping done right, come here!

Unbelievable

Sometimes thing in Japan strike me as foreign.  Sometimes things are different or funny.  Sometimes, things are just plain weird.

Today I was driving home and saw a man with a leash.  I thought it was just a leash because I couldn't see the animal on the end.  As I approached I saw what must be the smallest dog ever.  Is that a chihuahua?  No.

...

On the end of that leash was a guinea pig!  I can't believe I saw a Japanese man walking his speckled guinea pig. On a leash.  I laughed so hard I almost got in a car wreck.  Living in a foreign country you try to expect the unexpected.  Once in a while you still get surprised.  Thank goodness for the pleasant surprises.

The Performance

I need to start a list of things I never thought I would do that now I've done.  I'll start that list with "Perform in a taiko performance at a musical event in Japan."

The language barrier is an ever present monolith, overshadowing every interaction.  We thought we performed at 10:00am and the event went until 2:00.  No.  We played at ten and at two.  Guess who the open act was.  I'll give you a hint: it wasn't the Rolling Stones.

We showed up an hour early to don our traditional apparel.  Kelli and I wore white robes with black trim.  We wore black belts tied over it and black headbands.  I'd show you pictures, but as always, we forgot to take a camera.  Everyone else wore a different outfit; it was more of a white apron with a white headband.  We all wore cool ninja shoes, where your big toe goes in it's own pocket.  The whole time I was wearing the outfit, I had a nearly overwhelming desire to karate chop something.  I was holding big wooden drumsticks too, which didn't pacify the urge either.

The curtain on stage was down while we set up our drums.  The announcer talked for ever.  The head drummer nodded for us to kneel behind our drum.  Then we stood up.  Then we knelt.  He was talking for an awfully long time and we just wanted to get this over with.  As he kept talking we caught the word gaijin.  Our whole band broke out laughing. We've never been called gaijin in our hearing, because it is pretty rude to call someone a foreigner.  Well, now we were just called gaijin to an entire crowd of mostly traditional, reserved, elderly people.  After seeing the demographic of the crowd I developed a theory: He said it so the geriatric ward wasn't shocked to death by our appearance.

Eventually the curtain went up.  And we did our best to keep up, keep the beat, keep from feeling like a doofus.  We succeeded only moderately at all three.  It wasn't until we heard the audience clapping that it sunk in just how good our head drummer and club leader is.  She is rockin'.  It was hard not to lose the beat and just watch.

As a whole, our group did great.  After the song, we changed and went to watch the other acts.  There were fan dances and sword dances and singing and shamisen and flutes.  For lunch we all went outside and ate sushi.

Our club is awesome.  These people take the time to try and talk with us.  I get the sense that some of them are a little outside the Japanese norm, but I'm not sure.  Maybe once you get to know them, they let their guard down and become more animated.  We are grateful for them either way.  We feel welcome.

The only other male member of our band is a buff 58 year old.  He is a flute teacher, like his father before him.  He makes flutes, teaches flute, directs a high school band and is a ski instructor.  He drums like a maniac too.

To be honest, you can only take so much foreign singing in one day.  We were all relieved when the time came to suit up for the closing act.  The lead drummer's daughter, a cute nine year old, played her koto with us.  She wore her purple kimono with a dark purple and red obi.

Things didn't go much  better for Kelli and I this time, but what an experience.  The concussions of our drums filled the auditorium, our beats all moving together and then apart.  Whenever everyone was in unison it was a rush.  Maybe our drums added to the music.  Maybe they didn't.  Maybe we were more of a novelty.  Who cares?  We got to hear the music.

We have a couple weeks off from practice.  Maybe they were hoping to scare us away, but we're going back for more.

Taiko

So..... Tomorrow we have a taiko performance.  Stay tuned.  I'll write about the details tomorrow.  If the embarassment doesn't kill me.

Haircut

For the first two months every situation was overwhelming.  The first day of work: terrifying.  Buying groceries: here's my wallet, reach in and take what you need.  Gradually things have become easier.

Some people have a personality like a bulldozer; they dive in and make a way.  For those of you who know me, my personality is more like a wet kitten.  I'm not by nature a bold man.

Today, it was time for a haircut.  There are salons that are a lot like the ones back in the States, but there are also a plethora of mom-and-pop barbershops.  If you walk for more than 5 blocks on any street, you will see a barber pole.  Feeling venturous, I walked to the nearest barber, walked in and went for it.  I walked in, sat down and told her I wanted the usual.

Not really.

When I opened the door a buzzer went off.  By buzzer I mean a klaxon to warn that the submarines were attacking.  And the buzzer was attached to the door at ear level.  I heard scurrying at the side of the house.  A little old woman ran up to the side window and looked in.  "Eeeeh,"  she said, "Chotto matte kudasai."  Oh, wait just a moment please.

She must have been in her garden.  She came in and asked what I wanted.  I tried to explain.  We laughed at my lack of Japanese.  We decided to dive right in.

She said she would shampoo my hair.  Okay, but where are the sinks?  Oh, they fold down and you lean forward over them, okay.  That's different.

Pause for a minute and think about how many questions your barber asks you.....Uh, huh.  A lot.  Do you want that to taper? How long do you want it? How much do you want me to leave? How much do you want me to take off?

If you noticed, those last three are variations of the same question.  that was the biggest misunderstanding we had.  I wanted her to leave about half an inch.  She thought I wanted her to cut half an inch off.  Once she started cutting, the misunderstanding was apparent.  She asked me a question I didn't understand.  She had a great sense of humor about it and was able to laugh.  She grabbed a piece of paper and drew what she meant.  Apparently here, a "sports-cut" is a flat top.  Thankfully we cleared up THAT misunderstanding in time.

She rubbed some gunk in my hair and went to work cutting.  I looked around.  There weren't clippers anywhere.  How was she going to do the back?  How was she going to do around my ears and the back of my neck?  It was too late for second thoughts.  I'd just have to ride it out and see.

She finished the cut and said, "Moichido shampoo."  One more shampoo. Okay.

After that she said something about a shave.  "Keko desu," I said pointing to my beard, "Uchi."  No thanks, I'll do it at home.  She laughed and grabbed a mustache cup and a shaving cream brush.  Apparently I was about to say goodbye to my beard.  She pulled out her straight razor (huh?!??!) and brushed shaving cream on the back of my neck and around my ears.  The first thought that popped into my mind was "I don't have peroxide or rubbing alcohol at home, so if she nicks me I'm in trouble."  Never have I held so still in the barber's chair.  She folded down one ear, carefully shaving the edge of my hair line, working her way around my head.

After the shave she gave me a little shoulder massage.  It couldn't have been more than 45 seconds but it was the best shoulder massage I've ever had.

"Ikura desu ka (How much is it)," I asked.
"Sanzen en."  Three thousand yen.  Thirty dollars!  Ouch.  I paid and she gave me some complimentary tissues.

It was expensive, but what a great experience.  Even a haircut can be foreign. Everyday things can be cultural experiences.  Fortunately I picked a barber with a sense of humor.  We both laughed at our inability to communicate.

The Small Things

Never underestimate what a kind word can do for somebody.

As I explained about garbage, it's a chore.  Styrofoam with printing on it is burnable (I think).  Here, the good instant ramen comes in a Styrofoam bowl.

One day I woke up to realize that we hadn't bought bread.  No bread meant no sandwich for lunch.  I'm the odd man out at school because I don't eat school lunch.  Everyone thinks I'm crazy for just eating a sandwich every day; cup ramen would surely be even more shocking.  It was.

It was  a particularly difficult day.  None of the classes I had helped teach had went well.  I was ready to give up.  Thankfully it was lunch time.  I poured hot water over my instant noodles and waited for them to cook.  Staring at the bowl, it hit me; I can't throw that bowl away here!  I was going to have to wash the bowl and take it home.  I ate slowly, silently contemplating what to do.

There was no way out of it.  After I finished eating every last particle of noodle and vegetable, I slunk back to the sink.  While I washed my bowl, a teacher who looked to be in her forties came to the kitchenette.  In her broken English she asked how old I was.  In my even more broken Japanese, I replied.  She has a son my age.  He is away in college.  She is about my mother's age.  She gave me the milk from her lunch and said, "my son."  I took the milk, bowed and said, "my okaasan."

Work had been rotten.  Lunch had been embarrassing.  But the kind gesture of someone redeemed the day.  The warm kindness she showed me is much stronger in my memory than the day's failures.  Just when someone thinks "Who cares?" maybe you can be the voice who says, "I care."

Every day since then she gives me her milk, and every day I make it a point to stick my head into her office and say good morning.  I've never looked at a box of milk as a gesture of love before, but never underestimate the small things.

Awkward Moments, Part 3

As you probably know, Kelli and I are here teaching English.  We always introduce ourselves to new classes and tell them a little bit about where we are from.  In elementary schools the students are just beginning to learn English--other than the words they have picked up in life.  Their teachers have studied English in school, but that doesn't mean they speak or understand very well either.

I explained to every class that in Colorado this year the snow (yuki) was waste deep.  They were very impressed.  I told them that many people ski.  For whatever reason, in one class I said that "we ski."  I believe it was a fifth grade class.  A boy in the back yells "Whiskey!"

Oh, no.  Not good.  It was my first week on the job and I was already wondering how much plane tickets home would be.

I tried to explain.  Most kids know the word "ski" so I motioned skiing, saying "We" pointing to myself "ski."

"Whiskey!" I hear in reply, now a chorus.  Everyone was laughing.  I snuck a peak at the teacher, wondering if he was already on the way to the teachers' room to tell the principal an alcoholic American was teaching the fifth graders about booze.  He was chuckling.

I should've dropped it but instead, I drew  a bottle on the chalkboard and said "Whiskey."  Then I drew two stick figures skiing and said, "WEEEEE........SKI."

They got the point well enough, but the chuckles continued for a while.

Sometimes, out of the blue, the language barrier will catch you.  Sometimes it doesn't so much catch you with your pants down as it does give you a pantsing, then point and laugh.

So that's the story of how I ended up drawing a whiskey bottle on the blackboard in an elementary school.

Trash

When I was a kid, dealing with trash was easy.  You put it in the trash can.  When the can was full, you took the bag to the burn barrel and burned it.  End of story.

Pretty soon we started recycling and sent our trash to the dump.  Oh man, I have to sort my trash now!?  What is this?

American garbage collection has nothing on Japan.  Here there are systems for dealing with trash.  That's right, i said systems.  Plural.  More than one.  Never, in all of my life, have I spent so much time dealing with trash.

First off, there are several types of trash: burnable, non-burnable, recyclable, burnable recyclable, and non-burnable non-recyclable.  Paper and food scraps: burnable.  Old bicycle tubes and dark plastics: non-burnable.  Aluminum cans, steel cans, tin cans, and plastic bottles: recyclable.  Thin clear plastics: burnable or recyclable.  Non-burnable non-recyclables are things like old appliances, furniture, bedding and so on.

Let's take care of the burnable stuff first.  For starters, you have to buy special trash bags.  Each town has it's own bags.  There is even a line for you to write your name on your bag.  The community club (like the neighborhood watch) is in charge of policing the trash.  Okay, so you bought your bags with red writing for burnable and your blue bags for non-burnables while you were at the grocery store.   After throwing a dinner party you have filled up a bag with burnable gunk.  You tie up the bag, carry it to the front door and..... set it in the genkan.  Burnable trash is collected on Monday and Thursday mornings before 9:00am.  If you don't get your trash to the designated drop-off site before they shut it down, you get to hold onto that garbage.

What happens if Monday or Thursday is a holiday?  They must not collect, right?  Wrong.  If Thursday is a holiday, they won't collect.  Usually they do collect on Monday even if it is a holiday.  Why?  The best guess I've heard is because it is a courtesy.  They figure if Monday is a holiday you probably partied all weekend and made a lot of trash.  It's as good a theory as any I guess.

Now, all your white, unlabeled Styrofoam, cans, cardboard and other recyclables are piled up at home.  When do they collect those?  They don't.  You have to drop them off at the recycling center.  The only time the recycling center is open that we have free time is Sunday before 10:00am.  And it is polite to wash all your recyclables so they won't stink.  In Japan, polite isn't an option like it is in the States.  You don't buck social convention here.  The Japanese are nothing if not polite.  So, every so often on Sunday we graciously drop off our clean trash and bow to the people supervising the recycling center.

Last there are the non-burnables.  What do you do with those.  That's a great question.  I'm still not sure.  You can't drop them on Mondays or Thursdays.  You can't drop them at the recycling center.  Someone told us that they changed the schedule around but there should be scheduled pick-up days.  We might have found the schedule posted at a trash collection spot in a nearby neighbor hood, but we're not sure because the schedule was written in Japanese.  If it was a schedule, then non-burnables are collected every third Thursday.

So, that is a quick summary of the trash collecting systems.  It only took me six weeks to get comfortable with it.

Shaken, not Stirred

I mentioned an earthquake a few days ago.

I have always wanted to feel an earthquake.  I hoped to feel one when I travelled in New Zealand.  No luck.  Whenever I visit southern California I hope it'll be like a scene from....well any disaster movie based in California.

Now I have felt an earthquake.  We felt one the first week we were here, but it was tiny. Like, was that an earthquake, or did someone upstairs drop a book?  There was no sound, so it must've been an earthquake.

According to one teacher, the bigger earthquake was about a 3 on the Richter scale.  According to the USGS it was bigger than that at the center.

It was a weird experience.  There was a creak from the ceiling and then everything shook for four or five seconds.  Then it felt like everything was bobbing a little bit.  You know the feeling after you spin around for a while and then stop, but it feels like the room keeps spinning?  It was kind of like that.  It felt like everything was sitting on Jello.

So, now I've experienced an earthquake.  I don't really care to feel a stronger one.

Awkward Moments, Part 1

If you are ever bold enough or stupid enough to move to a foreign country be prepared for awkward moments.  They will happen.  They'll happen frequently.  Here is one such story.

A little background first.  I doubt any place on earth is much more culturally different from the US than Japan.  For instance, here it is polite to honk at someone.  A quick honk is like saying "please," or "thank you."  On top of that, people are polite drivers!  They always try to let you in, sometimes an oncoming car will flash its lights and slow down so you can make that right turn.

Last night I was driving home and the driver in front of me had left her trunk open.  I politely honked.  My horn said, "Please look in your rear view mirror and see the trunk bouncing around."  Or maybe it just said, "beep."  At the next stop light I gave to quick honks. No reaction.  I opened my door to jump out and....do what?  It would've been a huge breach of etiquette to touch her car, so I couldn't just shut it for her.  I couldn't run up to her window and tell her.  So far my Japanese doesn't cover words like "open" or "trunk" or "Don't call the cops, I'm not a mugger."  I'd have to jump out into the turn lane and Japanese roads are pretty narrow and this was a busy street.

So there I was.  I knew I had her attention.  My door was open.  One foot was out the door.  And then I did what any sane person would do.  I rationalized.  "It'll be fine," I thought, "She'll notice soon.  We're going so slow anyway it'll be alright."  I closed my door and waited for the light, figuring I'd just leave extra room between our cars just in case something fell out her trunk, like some trash or a dead body.

Less than half a block later, it started pouring rain.

I followed that car for ten miles.  She never did notice her trunk was bouncing around like a toddler on a sugar high.

I've resigned myself to these sorts of things.  What constitutes polite behavior and conversation in Japan is very different from back home.  Here's a little travel tip.  The first two phrases you should learn in any language are "Excuse me" and "I'm sorry."  In Japanese you say "Sumimasen," and "Gomennasai." So wherever you are, lady in the white Toyota with a wet spare tire, gomennasai.

Our New Club

I can't remember if I mentioned that in Japan, everyone is part of different communities.  Everyone takes part in clubs and community panels.  As with Sports Day, it is about the collective and not the individual.

Well, I think maybe Kelli and I have found a club.  Taiko drumming.  That's right, drumming. 

There are a couple of videos here and here to give you an idea of what it sounds like.  The club is small--only five people--but they enjoy it.  The club leader is a woman in her thirties.  The man who plays the flute and is the other main drummer is in his fifties.  The youngest is a seventh grade girl.

 (Side note--While I'm writing this we just had an earthquake.......Okay, everything is fine.  It was just a little one.  Wheeeeee!)

The girl has a big smile and the group is friendly.  Everyone was welcoming when we walked in.  Once the drumming started, it was down to business.  No one was smiling.  (If you watched the videos (you did watch the videos didn't you!?) you saw that it is very physical.  Everyone was sweating after the warm-up.  The young girl with the big smile grimaced with concentration and being swept away in the beats.  Every nook and cranny of the gym was filled with the rhythm.  The flourescent light above my head rattled in its socket.

We warmed up with them and then watched the next routine.  I thought we would probably just watch for the rest of the time, but they brought us back in, taught us some form and the basic beat for the next song, and asked us to join in.

Maybe we aren't the most musical people.  Maybe we're gaijin.  But it felt nice to be part of a group.  And if we get good at drumming, we'll be cool.  Drummers are always cool.

They asked us to come to practice on Saturday.  Oh yeah.