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I'm getting really bad at blogging, aren't I?
In short, things are coming together and falling apart, in the usual fashion of life.
The air is slowly being taken over by the familiar scents of summer, or "the scents of my arrival in Japan." This goes for all the sensations - humidity, lighting, food flavors, inconveniences...it all takes me back to the first month of my stay in Japan. It's quite a trip, perspective-wise. Mostly it's encouraging, because summer is easier and more exciting in Japan, just like back home. It's nice to see things come full circle too, though it makes me sick to my stomach to think about the next knote in the circle: another winter.
Seeing things come full circle means clarity. Feeling the same things all over again draws attention to the things I don't feel. The anxiety, the foreigness of my surroundings, and everything else. All the stuff I've gotten over. Overall I'm much better acclimmated, which is awesome, but this sucks too. Life feels better, but also less lustrous now that the day-to-day is not rewarding, it's normal. I have to try a lot harder to get satisfaction. Yet on the other side of the same coin, I don't have to try as hard to avoid distress. This is no longer a trip or an adventure. This is life.
On a side note, it's a little weird having school in the summer, I suspect I'll feel like I never got a summer when it's all over.
In other news of daily life and acclimation, timelines are something I'll never get used to. Ever. As much as it embarasses me to be late, I just can't wake up in the mornings. I am always late, and usually wet. Often it's because it rains 4 days a week, but even on the other 3 days, I don't have time to blowdry my hair after a shower. I know it's kind of unprofessional, and I suspect it might be even less professional in Japan since no one takes showers in the morning, and yet it's a habit I can't shake.
As far as other pleasantries go, I also realized today that I never bow. Like never. If I meet someone or if someone bows to me other than the service industry bow, I reciprocate, but probably there too I am lacking in grace. And it's probably not like, "She never bows, that is disrespectful," it's probably the more dangerous, "I get the feeling she is proud and not grateful." It's one of the subtle forms of communication that a culture takes for granted and doesn't even think to allow for exceptions in foreigners. Like how we feel about eye contact, always allowing a little independence, and sharing personal information as a form of bonding. I should address the bowing issue...though I think it's not so bad, because I usually stay out of bow-worthy situations. My life as of late has been largely very casual and/or foreigner oriented.
Speaking of cultural differences, hipocracy is not one of them. That's universal. I think I've mentioned the trash system, and I've also mentioned how everything in Japan comes in a million layers of wrapping. I mean, each culture is allowed their pitfall or two to cancel out all their good eco-movement behaviors, I'll admit that. What I don't like is when people chastise me for doing something "wasteful" then turn around and be even more wasteful.
Some of my Japanese friends were cooking at my house, and when the onions were being cut we could hardly breathe for the sharpness in the air. So I turned on the faucet. I heard that running cold water helps while cutting onions. After about two seconds they just turned it off and sneered at me, saying it was wasteful. Didn't ask me, didn't hint, just turned it off and made a blunt comment. Very un-Japanese. But then when it came to drying the dishes, they used papertowels! They used almost a whole roll of papertowels to dry the dishes. And when I told them that was the last of the paper towels, they switched to kleenex. Kleenex! They also used plastic forks, a separate fork for every dish, AND they dried THE LETTUCE with paper towels after washing it. 1) Must you dry lettuce? 2) With paper towels and kleenex? That's just absurd, especially when you consider the fuzz they leave behind!
In hindsight, I should've said something. I was just too dumbfounded to do so!
I guess that's another cultural observation - in Japan people are really fussy about wasting water (except for onsens and running both a bath and a shower every night - though multiple people use the same bath). However, they put about a million plastic and paper wrappings on everything. If you buy a sweet, it usually has at least 2-3 wrappings. If it's expensive it could have as many as 8. Snacks are always individually wrapped in different portions and sometimes they're even bagged in multiple different groups after being bagged individually. I'll admit that sometimes it's really convenient, and I can see why someone would want a wrapping in some situations (the wrapper that keeps the rice away from the seaweed so it doesn't get soggy? kind of nice) but most of the time it's like "I don't even know what this wrapping was for, and now that I've unwrapped the damn thing there is more plastic wrapping than my lap can hold."
I'm sure the U.S. is not winning any awards for combating wastefulness, so I think what really bothers me is how everyone is so quick to judge me first...I only judge now out of defensiveness lol
In short, things are coming together and falling apart, in the usual fashion of life.
The air is slowly being taken over by the familiar scents of summer, or "the scents of my arrival in Japan." This goes for all the sensations - humidity, lighting, food flavors, inconveniences...it all takes me back to the first month of my stay in Japan. It's quite a trip, perspective-wise. Mostly it's encouraging, because summer is easier and more exciting in Japan, just like back home. It's nice to see things come full circle too, though it makes me sick to my stomach to think about the next knote in the circle: another winter.
Seeing things come full circle means clarity. Feeling the same things all over again draws attention to the things I don't feel. The anxiety, the foreigness of my surroundings, and everything else. All the stuff I've gotten over. Overall I'm much better acclimmated, which is awesome, but this sucks too. Life feels better, but also less lustrous now that the day-to-day is not rewarding, it's normal. I have to try a lot harder to get satisfaction. Yet on the other side of the same coin, I don't have to try as hard to avoid distress. This is no longer a trip or an adventure. This is life.
On a side note, it's a little weird having school in the summer, I suspect I'll feel like I never got a summer when it's all over.
In other news of daily life and acclimation, timelines are something I'll never get used to. Ever. As much as it embarasses me to be late, I just can't wake up in the mornings. I am always late, and usually wet. Often it's because it rains 4 days a week, but even on the other 3 days, I don't have time to blowdry my hair after a shower. I know it's kind of unprofessional, and I suspect it might be even less professional in Japan since no one takes showers in the morning, and yet it's a habit I can't shake.
As far as other pleasantries go, I also realized today that I never bow. Like never. If I meet someone or if someone bows to me other than the service industry bow, I reciprocate, but probably there too I am lacking in grace. And it's probably not like, "She never bows, that is disrespectful," it's probably the more dangerous, "I get the feeling she is proud and not grateful." It's one of the subtle forms of communication that a culture takes for granted and doesn't even think to allow for exceptions in foreigners. Like how we feel about eye contact, always allowing a little independence, and sharing personal information as a form of bonding. I should address the bowing issue...though I think it's not so bad, because I usually stay out of bow-worthy situations. My life as of late has been largely very casual and/or foreigner oriented.
Speaking of cultural differences, hipocracy is not one of them. That's universal. I think I've mentioned the trash system, and I've also mentioned how everything in Japan comes in a million layers of wrapping. I mean, each culture is allowed their pitfall or two to cancel out all their good eco-movement behaviors, I'll admit that. What I don't like is when people chastise me for doing something "wasteful" then turn around and be even more wasteful.
Some of my Japanese friends were cooking at my house, and when the onions were being cut we could hardly breathe for the sharpness in the air. So I turned on the faucet. I heard that running cold water helps while cutting onions. After about two seconds they just turned it off and sneered at me, saying it was wasteful. Didn't ask me, didn't hint, just turned it off and made a blunt comment. Very un-Japanese. But then when it came to drying the dishes, they used papertowels! They used almost a whole roll of papertowels to dry the dishes. And when I told them that was the last of the paper towels, they switched to kleenex. Kleenex! They also used plastic forks, a separate fork for every dish, AND they dried THE LETTUCE with paper towels after washing it. 1) Must you dry lettuce? 2) With paper towels and kleenex? That's just absurd, especially when you consider the fuzz they leave behind!
In hindsight, I should've said something. I was just too dumbfounded to do so!
I guess that's another cultural observation - in Japan people are really fussy about wasting water (except for onsens and running both a bath and a shower every night - though multiple people use the same bath). However, they put about a million plastic and paper wrappings on everything. If you buy a sweet, it usually has at least 2-3 wrappings. If it's expensive it could have as many as 8. Snacks are always individually wrapped in different portions and sometimes they're even bagged in multiple different groups after being bagged individually. I'll admit that sometimes it's really convenient, and I can see why someone would want a wrapping in some situations (the wrapper that keeps the rice away from the seaweed so it doesn't get soggy? kind of nice) but most of the time it's like "I don't even know what this wrapping was for, and now that I've unwrapped the damn thing there is more plastic wrapping than my lap can hold."
I'm sure the U.S. is not winning any awards for combating wastefulness, so I think what really bothers me is how everyone is so quick to judge me first...I only judge now out of defensiveness lol
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