So I have returned from my trip to America, and this is a post I have been looking forward to making. I made many notes while I was away so I would leave you with an entertaining read that I bet you never thought about nor knew before. Here is my list of things I never noticed, about America/Arizona.
Americans are rather friendly. I knew we were nice in that you could approach anyone and have a polite conversation with them, but I just didn’t know how friendly we were until I had been living in Japan for over a year. Americans were also greeting each other with a smile, always happy to answer questions, and generally just being nice to one another. Don’t get me wrong, Japanese are also very nice and friendly, but on our commute to work or travel, Japanese don’t tend to smile, wave, or say a hello as they pass one another along the way. They very much keep to themselves. They also don’t really engage in conversation when at the checkout counter. In America, I noticed that almost every single person had a conversation with me during check out. Never really got that in Japan. Maybe once in a while to ask about where I am from but that was it. This might be something Arizona specific, but there were a lot of blue skies. As soon as I landed it was one of the first things I noticed. The skies were so blue. I don’t remember the last time I saw blue skies in Gunma if not for a brief moment. There are very few times that the sky is clear in Gunma. Very very few. It is usually quite cloudy. All the time. I always get confused and think it is going to rain, because in Arizona, clouds mean rain. It doesn’t mean that in Japan. Nope. On the same clear skies topic, I also don’t remember the last time I saw the moon in Japan. I saw it so many times while I was visiting my family. I kept staring at it in awe because it was so wonderful and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen it in so long. It was like finally getting the world’s best imported candy, and tasting it for the first time. There are sidewalks. I didn’t really notice this before, but Japan doesn’t have any concrete sidewalks. The US is filled with them, but Japan just uses asphalt and sometimes brick tiles. There also really isn’t a very clear path to walk on, it is just a section of the road blocked off my either a curb or trees for pedestrians. I think I prefer sidewalks though. They are much more smooth to walk on. The roads are huge. I mean, I knew we have more space because we are a larger country, but my goodness are we wide. On a similar note, there are no pickup trucks in Japan. Absolutely none. I think we saw one once but it was a Ford that was imported and it wasn’t here for very long. I didn’t know many many Americans have large SUVs or pickups. Homes have grass. Actually, just grass in general. No one has grass planted in Japan. If they do have something that looks like grass, it isn’t. It is fake grass. Nowhere has grass. Japan just doesn’t like grass or something I guess. I don’t know why I was surprised by this, it was just something I noticed. Chick-fil-A. More specifically, Chick-fil-A sauce. I took one bite of that and oh my gosh!!!! It was amazing. My mouth had forgotten what it was like to behold something so glorious. I could have eaten that all day! We seriously need Chick-fil-As in Japan. We have KFC. They use the same chicken. It wouldn’t be so hard to just open a Chick-fil-A in Japan. Seriously, what’s up with that? This is the only negative one I noticed, but we are very wasteful. We have paper for things that shouldn’t require paper. We use extra food when it isn’t required. I went out to dinner and ordered a burrito at a restaurant, and the portion size I got was enough to feed a family of 4! Why the heck is it so big? And people wonder why there is a health and weight problem in the country. Even if you take the food home to eat later, there is no guarantee that it will be eaten, because it may get soggy, or you may have more dinners and completely forget about it. What a waste! Water is also wasted. At a restaurant, I am glad that they give you complimentary glasses of water, but is it really necessary to refill my glass after every sip? What if I only want to drink just that one glass and nothing more? The amount of water that they just poor down the drains bothers me only in the ironic sense. I personally believe that it is literally impossible to waste water because the Earth just naturally reproduces it, but there are many places, in Arizona especially, that claim there is a water shortage, yet they allow restaurants the ability to waste more water than people would at home brushing their teeth or flushing the toilet. We also use too much paper. Restaurants give you 30 napkins to go with your to go burger, and bathrooms just use way too much paper. I like what Japan does much better with the bathrooms. They just eliminate anyway for you to dry off your hands unless you bring your own hand towel. I also think this is more sanitary. You have to touch less things while in the bathroom, and you always use a clean towel to try your hands that no germs have touched. The paper towels just sit there, collecting all the germs from flushing toilets, and coughing sick people, but your personal hand towel sits nice and safe in your secure purse, and is only taken out after you have washed your hands. I think we need to get rid of blow driers and paper towels in the bathrooms in America, and force people to just use their own towels. It would save paper. On a related note, although I was happy to throw something away without having to think about which trash bin it belonged, I did feel a tad guilty about not having a place for my bottles or cans. I didn’t care too much about plastic and paper mixing together, but for some reason, bottles and cans going in the same bin just bothered me. Anyway, this was my list of things that I had never noticed before, while I was visiting my family. They short of shocked me but it was fun to figure them out. I felt that I had learned new things about my culture, and new things to tell my students. So all in all, it was a wonderful learning experience.
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So, it has been a year now, of living in Japan, and I thought I would talk about somethings I have gotten used to and somethings I haven’t gotten used to. I will also touch on identity as well.
Let’s start off with something that no matter how many decades I end up living here, I will just never come to terms with. There is no way you are going to make me accept that this is a thing here, and I cannot get used to it ever. The garbage. What is so wrong with throwing things away? It wouldn’t be so bad if Japan didn’t wrap everything at least 3 times. You can’t just buy a box of cookies. You have to buy a box of individually wrapped discs of baked sugar. Not only has Japan made your gluttony apparent by having the numerous emptied plastic packages stare back at you in shame, but Japan has also caused you to waste trees by creating more trash. You also cannot just buy any old trash bag either. No. You have to buy your area specific bags. They are really small, and don’t stretch. If you get a package, you have to use more than one bag to throw away all the garbage. You have to throw things away in plastics, then you have both plastic and glass bottles, you have cans, you have clothing, you have paper, you have milk cartons, you have burnable, you have non-burnable, and you also have those items that just do not fit in a stupid bag so you can’t throw it away! For the items that don’t fit in a bag, you have to call someone to come pick it up, pay them, then wait for them to tell you if you called the right company or not, because not all companies collect the same type of items. We have a broken suitcase that just cannot be tossed. I don’t want to pay someone to get rid of it, so it is just staying in our place, useless, and broken. Well now that you understand that everything must be separated and that every day is a different trash day (and I do mean everyday), let’s talk about exactly how you throw away your junk. You aren’t able to toss it into the correct bin, no. You have to wash it first. Why?! It’s garbage! Who cares! Someone does, because if you don’t throw away your garbage correctly, it gets returned to you. It actually gets returned to you! I am not joking. So you have to wash all your garbage, and once it is all nice and clean, you then have to separate it according to category. I will admit, I am getting to the point of not caring anymore, and if it is small enough, I will shove things inside or between something else so that it can be thrown away without cleaning it or separating it. (Our trash bags are transparent). Let us take a plastic bottle for example. You have to clean out the inside and make sure it is spotless, then you have to throw away the caps (some cities require that you have a separate trash bin for just the bottle caps) then you have to take off the label. Then, and only then, is your bottle ready for bottles day. Which only comes once every 2 weeks. Great. You know what? Just smash it down really good and shove it inside an empty cereal box. I am not having a plastic bottle sit around here waiting for the right trash day. The reason they actually started separating trash and have removed all publish trash cans is actually because of a crazy movement in the mid-90s. There was a group of people (I don’t remember what they were called) that really wanted to end the world, so they would plant bombs in public trash bins. Many people were killed or injured because of these bombs. The psycho people from this movement were eventually taken care of and to prevent something like this from happening again, they removed all public trash bins from existence. Which makes sense. I am totally ok with that if it means my safety. However, they took it one step further and decided to have every human separate their trash so that there could never be a possibility of bombs being planted. Seriously though? You need to have people separate garbage so strictly in their own homes for fear of them planting a bomb on themselves? I think that is a little too far with that one. Now that I have thoroughly upset myself by talking about that, let’s talk about something that I absolutely love about Japan. This is something that is just not in the US yet. I have heard that they are in very random parts of California, but as I have not witnessed them for myself, they do not exist. Electric toilets. And not just any electric toilet, but the electric toilets, that use the water to fill up the tank as a sink. That is so innovative and a great use of water. With America being into a conservation mindset, I am surprised that we don’t have them there. It saves space, and money. You don’t have to pay twice to use water. You just flush and wash your hands with the same water used to fill up the toilet. You don’t have to flush, then turn on the sink to wash your hands. I think it is awesome. Plus, with the electric toilets, the seat is warmed. So when you sit on it, it feels nice and cozy. Wouldn’t you rather have a pleasant toilet experience than an uncomfortable cold one? In the winter time especially the heated toilet seat is a dream. Your butt is not assaulted with an ice cold seat when all you are trying to do is your business. When the seat is really cold, it causes you to hurry, and makes going to the bathroom feel like a hated chore. Shouldn’t using the toilet not be so difficult? That is why the Japanese electric toilets are the greatest feat of all time. After being in another country for so long, you start to develop a new sense of self. I know that when I go back to the US soon, I won’t be the same. There are of course going to be annoying things that just pop up all the time because I have been in Japanese culture, but there are other things that cannot be seen that will be different. I identify with the Japanese culture much more so than I identify with my Arizonan culture. Americans are very flamboyant and loud, and quite often rude. When I think back on the people of America, I most often first think about how rude and loud they are. Japanese people are more down to earth. And if you tell them something that they don’t necessarily agree with, they don’t show their offense by hurling insults at you. They simply respect your opinion and go about their day. I have had many debates with my JTEs here, and never had we ever ended a conversation in anger or hurt feelings. We all just respect that we have different views and move on. Japanese people are much more respectful and polite. They are also not so loud. Which, since I am an introvert, I value quite a lot. It takes a lot out of me when I have to constantly interact with loud people on their level of energy. I can’t constantly keep it up. At least in Japan, I can keep up. My love language is gifts, and I am in the perfect country. All they do is shower each other with gifts. I went on vacation, here is a gift, I am moving soon, here is a gift, you waited for 30 minutes to talk with someone at our company, here is a gift, you forgot to pay your bill, here is a gift. Everything and anything has a gift attached to it. Sometimes, I give a gift, just to get one back. That is also something that they do here. If they want you to give them something, you have to give first. My desk has a bunch of pennies in it, and randomly, I will give a penny to someone. They are big on good luck charms here, so I tell them the phrase “find a penny, pick it up. All day long you’ll have good luck.” Then they think I have given them a great talisman because it is good luck from America and gratefully accept the penny. Of course I also teach them that Abraham Lincoln is inside his memorial. Then they get out their magnifying glasses and stare at the back of it in amazement. All I have to do is wait about 20 minutes, and there will be a gift at my desk. It is always equal in value to how they felt about receiving my penny. I also like that Japanese are very much into traditions, and not so much into modernity. They value their history and heritage and don’t see the need to change something if it works. I like innovations of course, but I don’t see the constant need for them like most of Americans do. Japan has wonderful inventions, but they only use them if they absolutely need them or find them useful. Such as the electric toilets. That is really useful. (see above^) In my experience, they don’t go crazy over the next best car, or the next best TV or phone, not even computers. Half of my students don’t even own a computer in their home. They use the school’s computers to study if they need to. (They have their electronic dictionaries they don’t really need a computer). Their philosophy is that if it’s not broken, then don’t fix it. America’s philosophy is that if can be more exciting, then do it. That is just not something I agree with. Of course there are things that I don’t agree with such as causing students a great amount of unnecessary stress with their studies, or being so freaking strict on millitarianism, for the most part, I identify more with the culture than I do with American/Arizonan culture. This is not something that can be understood unless you have spent a lengthy time abroad. Anyone who has spent quite a bit of time abroad will agree with me, that other cultures influence and change you. Before this post gets headed to the dark side, I think I shall end it here. I look forward to another year in Japan, and I feel extremely blessed to be here now, doing my dream. Some days I wake up and cannot believe that this is real and that this has actually happened to me. I live everyday with praise and thanksgiving to God for allowing me to be here, and for placing me in the most perfect location I could have ever asked for. I can’t wait to see what the next year holds. |
AuthorJeny B Archives
August 2021
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