Some Superficial, Some Less So

Things I like about Japan:

- My microwave and washing machine that automatically sense how long and how high to run based on what you put in them – AND THEY’RE ALWAYS RIGHT!!

- The hand gesture for gyaku, "opposite" - bend at the elbow, make your forearm/hand vertical, make a monster claw, fold in your pinky and ring fingers in, and rotate at the wrist over and over).

- That schools are the primary hangout place for kids.

- The noise people make when they are in disbelief or amazement, “HeeEEEEEEeee.”

- The constant flow of goods and services - especially the ones of the food persuasion that result in me getting manjyuu.

- That working at a gas station, McDonald's, or anywhere else in the service industry is not shameful so long as you work hard - oh, and they all genuinely want to help you.

- That there are always 2 weird specialty flavored foods/drinks for every one normal one - says the girl who always opts for cherry coke over coke and smurfberry over vanilla.

Adventures in Happyland

ZOMG I'm blogging about things that happened 10 days ago. HOWEVER the comments have been fixed, so you can comment on my entries even if you don't have a Dreamwidth account. In fact, I wish you would comment because then I can get an idea of whether anyone's actually reading or not ;P

Let's go back in time to August 4th.

That's the day after I met Taiku-sensei, which was a big accomplishment because she was one of the first teachers I met on my own accord. She's a gym teacher and she'd just been in Nara from which she brought manjyuu as omiyage :D Omiyage are the little presents people bring back to their officemates/friends after traveling. For example, I'm bringing chocolate covered pretzels as omiyage from America to say, "Please welcome me into your work environment!" Taiku-sensei brought wonderful delicious manjyuu, which is a famous bean paste filled bun, and these buns had the most adorable little faces on them ^.^ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manj%C5%AB)

Then when I went to leave for the day, I said the ritual Japanese goodbyes to K-Sen and he paused, looked at me thoughtfully, and said, "Your Japanese. It's beautiful. Your pronunciation is really...it's really wonderful." People tend to say things like that a lot, but it was the pause and thoughtful choice of words that really touched me. I skipped home from work that day - it really makes a difference getting validated in something you've worked to hard at.

Speaking of which, I finished my first Japanese textbook since I've been here, and now I'm moving on to my second and I couldn't be more excited!

And then I went and got a Japanese haircut! The Pred and her hubby were going, so I figured I might as well go while I had a hand to hold. We went to a metropolitan place and it was one of the first times I'd gone into a task completely clueless about any vocabulary or culture and The Pred didn't help me. Talk about the ultimate troubleshooting activity!

I found one picture of a girl with long hair that I wanted for style and one picture of a short haired girl with bangs I liked. I don't think the woman understood, or maybe she was just too excited by my patronage, but I ended up not only getting a haircut in Japan, but getting a Japanese haircut. In fact, I'm sure you could find this style on the television if you watch the NHK. It's not short, but it's shorter than I wanted, and a little bothersome for me because she cut my hair like Japanese hair, so before I realized what the special scissors did, it had been thinning my hair by clumps for about 5 minutes. When I finally asked her to stop, even then she said "well, just off the bottom? is that okay?" D: The Pred's hair dresser was the one familiar with curly foreign hair, so she scolded the Pred's husband's hair dresser for thinning it. I wasn't so lucky. It looks ok, it's cute, but it's perhaps a little more Japanese than I would like for my kind of hair. The hair dresser was very nice though.

The young woman washing hair and sweeping up was wide-eyed starring at me, and finally she worked up the nerve to come over and ask some questions about me. She was VERY excited to hear that I was only one year older than her. Of course, in traditional Japanese youth style, her next question was whether I had a boyfriend. When I said that I didn't, they did the "heeeEEEEeee" noise that I love so much, and she started saying in English: "Japanese boyfriend??? Maybe Japanese boyfriend??" lol but that was immediately followed by her switching back to Japanese and saying: "No. Japanese men are mean. Get an American boyfriend."