Category Archives: Japan

That Which Must Not Be Answered

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The other day She Who Must Be Obeyed walked into my home office (aka The Temple of Half-Finished Projects) and asked “Do you want to see a bunch of high school girls?”

My first reaction was a silent “It’s a trap!” followed by a quick scroll through my file of standard responses to traps “You look great.” “It looks beautiful.” “You look beautiful in everything.” “No, they make you look too sexy.” “I’m sorry, did you say something? Wow, your butt looks great in those jeans!”

Unfortunately none of the standard responses seemed suitable to the situation.

Then I realized I might be walking into a different trap. One of the things the Japanese do that sets foreigners on edge is ask questions that seem like traps. The classic example is:

Japanese Person: Are you doing anything this weekend?
Foreign Person: No, I’m just hanging out doing nothing until pay day.
Japanese Person: Do you want to help us set up for sports day this weekend?
Foreign Person: I’m sorry did you say something? Wow, your butt looks great in those jeans!

To the Western mind we’ve been set up and walked into a clever trap. Now that I’ve confided in you and given away any chance of saying I’m busy, you ask me if I want to do something. Damn you, trappy and clever Japanese person.

In truth, the Japanese person is doing the opposite. To their way of thinking, they are being courteous. They don’t want you to feel obligated to do something, especially if you are already doing something. If you’re not doing anything, then they offer you something to do. (I hope that makes sense.) (I also hope you realize it doesn’t make the situation that much less infuriating even if it does make sense.)

In the case of She Who Must Be Obeyed’s question I had to decide if it somehow involved our oldest who will be attending high school next year–she’s a 9th grader which, in Japan, is junior high school–or if it would somehow involve the reading group SWMBO volunteers with, which occasionally reads at schools. If I wasn’t careful, I could be turning down the chance to help her out with something.

Or, she could be walking me into a clever trap.

I opted for the latter and said “Of course not” and then added “unless it’s really, really necessary and I totally won’t take a camera.”

It turns out it did involve our daughter, who is visiting possible high schools. She Who Must Be Obeyed, I suspect, didn’t want to play escort and was trying to get me to do it. In the end, our oldest went with her friend and both of us got to stay home.

The funny part is that if I’d gone, I’d probably have had to take a camera.

The Autumn People in Summer

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Shirley Jackson has a famous story called “The Summer People” about a couple who decide to stay in their summer home past the end of summer and find the town folks’ attitude toward them has changed in very sinister ways. That’s kind of how I felt today when I went to the school where I work.

I mostly stopped in to pick up a folder I needed so that I show up to work on time next week. I also used it as an excuse to get 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) of walking in on a reasonably cool day. (This turned out to be a trap, but more on that later.)

When I got to the school I noticed that most of the lights were out and no students were roaming around. Since I was dressed business sub-casual this was probably for the best. I saw one teacher from a different department who was dressed up in a tie. He gave me a funny look. Then I saw a teacher from my department whose reaction was more like this:

Suddenly feeling a bit unnerved, and desperately trying not to fall asleep, I checked my mailbox and was surprised to find a stack of changes to my  high school class rolls.

 

In the office I said hello to two colleagues who reacted with little more than grunts and I had to put on glasses to make sure I wasn’t home talking to our oldest. (I wasn’t.)

I asked one of the colleagues if the changes meant that I had students going overseas and we then had a conversation that was straight out of a Samuel Beckett play where each of us was having a different conversation. He told me we don’t change high school classes, which was not what I’d asked because I already knew that which led to me asking about specific students which led to him reading the Japanese next to their names and telling me what it meant which I already knew which lead to me thanking him and going about my business.

When I left, I said a goodbye and didn’t even get a grunt.

In his defense, it was warm in the office as the cool weather has almost certainly led the school to set the air conditioner to “maintain humidity”. Although it was cool outside, it was muggy which made moving around and working less pleasant.

I’ll go back next week when it’s probably safe to do so. Until then, I’ll try to get some sleep.

 

Note: you can get the “The Summer People” and other stories here. 

Out and About But Not Ready

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The weather was cool again today which means I actually left the house. Before that two remarkable things happened 1) I shaved and 2) I showered. Unfortunately I didn’t fully wake up and was unable to complete all my chores.

I left the girls with specific yet reasonable instructions about what was to be accomplished while I was gone (She Who Must Be Obeyed was at work) and made a personal bet it wouldn’t get done.

The plan was to go one station away and do some shopping on a busy shopping street and while I was there see about getting my new glasses modified to bifocals and/or get a second pair for carrying around.

Unfortunately, as I arrived at the shop and started to look at back up frames, I realized I’d left all the information I needed to do what i wanted to do at home.

But it was cool so I was cool about all that.

Instead I headed farther down the shopping street to do some window shopping at one of the best department store pen shops in the area. (I didn’t buy anything.)

I would have done more than window shop except that my shopping list was with the information about my glasses. (Never, ever, ever leave stuff out where you won’t forget it. Stuff it in your bag and then spend an hour looking for it at home before you leave.)

Once again, it was cool so I was cool.

I had a meal at “Denny’s But Not Really”. (I call it this because, although it possesses both the name “Denny’s” and the Denny’s logo, it doesn’t have the Grand Slam breakfast or actual hamburgers and is therefore not real.) This decision gave me a long time to ponder life because it was a remarkably slow Denny’s.

After that, I headed a couple stops away for a haircut. I arrived and found the one barber I didn’t want–the place I go is first come, first served by first available barber–but I managed to explain what I wanted and, surprise of surprises, she actually cut my hair that way. (I attribute this to the cool air.)

Then I got home and won my bet that my specific yet reasonable instructions had not been followed and therefore nothing had been done.

That wasn’t quite as cool.

Get Cool Be Cool Stay Cool

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Everybody in the house was surprisingly upbeat today. This means either drugs or pleasant weather was involved.

Today the temperature maxed out at 26 Celsius or 78.8 Fahrenheit. This is rare for August in Japan, especially with a typhoon on the way. Typhoons usually announce their presence with humidity levels reaching liquid and temperatures approaching “acetylene torch”. (Scorched Earth temperatures and lack of all hope are usually achieved after the typhoon passes.)

Because of the cool weather, we were able to leave the windows open and the air conditioner off. Luckily, the cool breeze lasted all day and I actually found rereading and marking up my latest typescript to be pleasant. (This may actually mean that drugs are involved and I’ve just blacked out on what I took.) Stuff I was worried about actually works better than I remembered and stuff that I cut turned out to be good cuts. All of it is currently out of order but that’s because I was adding stuff in a frenzy as it came to me.

It still needs to be 20,000 words longer but today that didn’t bother me. (Yep, drugs.)

The girls didn’t fight much (except for one small morning battle between the 10 year old the “29 year old” about continuing rhythmic gymnastics lessons). Later, I even managed to do some exercise. (More on that in another post.)

Tomorrow promises to be even cooler, which means I may have to get on the computer and start doing the actual rewrite of the book while adding 20,000 words still seems manageable (that’s about 80-100 pages depending on how you count the words and how much dialogue I use).

First, though, I’ll test things out in the morning by telling one of the girls to do dishes. If she doesn’t argue much I’ll check her stuff for drugs and then sit down and start working. Hopefully with the window open.

 

Something I Can Do Even When I’m Not Prepared

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When I was at the in-laws last week I had one of those chances you get every now and then to prove yourself either worthy or completely useless. The legitimacy of one of my hobbies was also involved.

I’ve mentioned before how the earthquake and tsunami in 2011 indirectly rekindled my interest in knives. Because of this one of the things I notice, especially at the in-laws, is the knives people use at home.

What I noticed about my in-laws’ knives wasn’t that positive

They have a couple Usaba-style knives that looked as if they’d been left out in a field for a couple months. They were rusted (common with the carbon steel in the blades) and were dull. Oddly, one of them was chipped badly enough that it kind of, sort of worked as a bread knife, if you didn’t mind a glaze of rust on your toast.

In the past I’ve mentioned to She Who Must Be Obeyed that “next time we visit” I’d bring some cleaning stuff and a couple sharpening stones and fix up the knives for them. Every “next time” though, we’d always set off without the stones and, except for a couple “next time” promises, I never got a chance to work on the knives.

This time, though, Mother of She Who Must Be Obeyed complained enough that She Who Must Be Obeyed mentioned my promise to her.

Because of that mention, I suddenly found myself in the middle of a  “put up or shut up” moment. The conversation went something like:

SWMBO: Can you sharpen these knives?
Me: Um, er, uh, yeah, sure.
SWMBO: Put up or shut up.
Me: Um, er, uh, yeah, sure.

A couple diamond sharpening steels suddenly appeared. They were about as badly designed as possible for the job at hand. The had six inch steels that were shaped like daggers. They were flat on one side and round on the other and were clearly intended for mower blades and oddly shaped tools. They were not intended for 7 inch blades.

However, because I was trapped, and had an audience, I had to perform which meant the dagger-shaped steels were perfect. They had rubber grips, though, which mean I had to hold them with one hand and sharpen the blades with the other. The tricky part was keeping the blades at the proper angle on steels without cutting off parts of my own body. (Which would at least prove how sharp the knives were.)

In the end, I took steel wool and cleaning powder to the blades to clean off the rust. I removed as much of the chipped edge as possible and got the edges where they could at least cut paper and not just rip it to shreds.

Mother of She Who Must Be Obeyed reported the knives were very good and gave me a compliment for doing a good job.

The problem is, now I’ll have to do it again next time I’m at their house. Now that they know what I can do, they’ll expect me to do it.

 

Cardboard and Duct Tape

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We used to own a washing machine that only worked with cardboard. Now we have a fan that only works with cardboard.

The washing machine in our house gets a serious workout. Our apartment is small and we don’t have a dryer (which is why we are able to afford the things like the apartment and clothes) which means we have to hang dry our clothes which subjects us to the perils of rain, snow, wind and yellow dust and pollution from China. This means She Who Must Be Obeyed does laundry almost every day.

(Note: I do not think this is necessary but refer you to She Who Must Be Obeyed’s name.)

(Second Note: As to why our daughters have not been taught how to do this task, well, that’s another post.)

Eventually, as a result of constant wear and tear, the on/off button on our old washing machine broke. If you depressed it, nothing happened. For a while we were able to force it into place but eventually even that stopped working.

Somehow, and I still don’t understand how or why, SWMBO figured out a way to insert a thin piece of cardboard alongside and under the button to make it work. The problem is, if it failed, you had to insert a new piece of cardboard. Getting it set correctly could take a lot of time (prompting me to go to the laundromat a couple times instead).

Eventually, even that stopped working and we broke down and bought a new washing machine.

Everything was fine until this week when our floor fan, which is at least 12 years old, finally started to break. (Actually, this was the second thing to break: the neck stopped extending last year.) This year, the joint holding the fan at the proper angle gave up prompting the fan to point its face toward the floor like a little kid getting a stern scolding.

It still works and it still oscillates and I planned on taking it apart today and seeing if it could be patched with duct tape. (Or, barring that, I planned to ruin it enough to force the purchase of a new one.)

However, She Who Must Be Obeyed instinctively went for the cardboard and figured out a way to wedge the face up a little higher. (Now it looks like a teenager taking a scolding and/or rolling her eyes.)

When SWMBO realized this was her second cardboard repair, she started laughing.

I still plan on “fixing” the fan well enough to require a new one. The cardboard wedges hold it up higher, but they fall out if you move the fan. (I might be able to fix that with duct tape, though.)

It’s our new washing machine that worries me the most. If something goes wrong, there’s no way to insert cardboard under the power button.

Storms and Traffic and Mild Disappointment

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The only thing I have to report about today’s trip is that there is nothing to report. The Japanese press must be kind of upset, too. The most exciting part happened at the end, and that was more weird than exciting.

We planned to start our journey home at 7:00 a.m. which means the girls were loaded and ready and we departed at 7:40.

We made good time but were worried that we encountered a lot of traffic early. It wasn’t a traffic jam, just busy. Since we’d left early to avoid such things we were worried. There were also illuminated signs explaining that near a couple interchanges traffic was moving at less than 10 km per hour (6.3 miles per hour).

I had my smart phone charged and had a map open with “real time” traffic status updates, but all the roads appeared to be green. Luckily, the big delay was in a different direction.

Then, when we got  into the mountains, we hit the rain which was annoying but didn’t slow us down much.

At one point we stopped for a coffee and restroom break that went surprisingly smoothly except for our oldest deciding she didn’t need to go. An argument ensued until she went. We kept emphasizing we didn’t know what traffic was like up ahead.

Finally, about 50 miles from home we hit a red zone in the six lane section and had to stop a few times. As I was getting ready to tell our oldest “see I told you so”, the traffic suddenly disappeared and we made good time all the way home.

The only glitch happened when our NaviBitch led us through the most crowded street and intersection in town. (I suspect this was the NaviBitch’s revenge for me becoming Mr. Positive and complimenting She Who Must Be Obeyed for successfully following NaviBitch’s orders. NaviBitch seems to consider this interference.)

As we were waiting for a light a car passed us on the right to try to get to a right hand turn lane. As he did so his mirror clipped our mirror. He turned on his hazard lights and waited. Sort of. As we came in behind him to “discuss” his being an idiot, he suddenly pulled away and we couldn’t follow. We’re still not sure if he cared or if he was even aware something had happened.

Luckily, there was no damage and we got home in record time–it took 4 hours to go 300 kilometers (186ish miles) through the mountains and the traffic. Did the NaviBitch compliment us for that? No, but I taught She Who Must Be Obeyed a few words she could use during future trips.

 

Preparing for and Reporting on the Mess

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After a few days at the in-laws, we are getting ready to return home. This means we are doing everything we can to avoid packing. I’m working on meditation and breathing exercises and trying to teach She Who Must Be Obeyed the proper swear words to use for the drive home.

I’ve mentioned before how one of the traditions of Japanese news is to report on the vacation rush and the U-Turn rush every time there’s a major holiday.

Part of the purpose of this seems to be to find a use for the dozens of tower and traffic cameras that have been set up around the country. This means we are subjected to dozens of images of expressways with one half packed and the other barren. The news reports include details about how many kilometers long the traffic jam is and how long it will take to get from Interchange A to Interchange B (not their real names). The reports are usually along the lines of “The line to Interchange B is 42 kilometers long. If you leave now you will reach Interchange B in four days and will have to eat one of your children or find a child to eat. If you are traveling the opposite direction, from Interchange B to Interchange A you will reach Interchange A in 17 minutes.”

(Note to the uninitiated: Probably 98% of Japanese expressways are toll roads. The interchanges are the only places to enter and exit the toll roads.)

The networks also send reporters in cars into the heart of the mess as if we won’t believe the traffic jam is bad unless we see the traffic jam from the inside. It never occurs to them that by doing so they are contributing to the mess. It also never occurs to them they could get the same effect by carefully filming in a parking lot. (This is the same mentality that convinces reporters to don expensive rain gear and stand along the coast in the middle of hurricanes so they can tell us not to go near the coast during a hurricane.)

I also suspect the news programs are struggling to stay relevant. In the smart phone age we can get up to date traffic information as we drive. We don’t really need the news reports. We can see the red lines on Google maps and get our swear words ready. We can also pick which child we love the least and prepare her for cooking. (Something like that.)

Getting the Grilling Wrong

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Today would have been a perfect day for a barbecue except for the random rain and the fact that the Japanese don’t quite know how to do a proper barbecue.

It was 80 degrees with a nice breeze and it was cool enough for us to leave the windows open and the air conditioner off. It rained in the morning but by lunch time it was partly sunny and we didn’t get a rush of humidity.

I imagined, mostly because I was bored (long story) breaking out a grill and introducing a couple steaks to it and then starting the coals to cook the hamburger patties, the chicken and the sausages. (The introduction to the grill counts as properly cooking the steaks. Actually, just stabbing the animal counts as properly cooking the steak. But I’m weird that way.)

Then we got the torrential rain which washed away the last hope for a proper barbecue.

The real problem is that although the Japanese love to have “barbecues” near the river and on the beach, one of the first things they cook is noodles. That’s followed by vegetables. More specifically, they make yakisoba (fried noodles with cabbage, green peppers and pork). That is followed by other vegetables and the occasional hot dogs and bits of steak.

At no point do they ever grill a proper hamburger. (This, I feel, is one of the things keeping Japan from being truly great rather than just awesome.

For supper, though, we did come close to proper barbecue by stealing, sort of from Korea. My in-laws set a large electric griddle in the middle of the table and we fried various forms a meat and random vegetables in a fried interpretation of Korean barbecue. (For those who may not know: Imagine an indoor table with a flaming pot of coals on it and you grill your meal yourself.)

The meal, though, ended with egg fried rice stir-fried on the griddle. Awesome, but not truly great.

The Festival of the Dead

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I spent part of the day visiting dead people in the forest, which is kind of odd since most them are already in the house.

Today I joined the in-laws and She Who Must Be Obeyed to celebrate Obon, or the Festival of the Dead. Obon is an ancient Bhuddist tradition that’s been celebrated in Japan for 500 years. Over time it has grown into a traditional family reunion time which isn’t that unusual–including departed ancestors, though, is a little unusual, at least to someone from the West.

We drove about five minutes away to a small, old cemetery in the woods. My father-in-law and mother-in-law cleaned the family tombstone, put fresh flowers and lit candles and incense. Several tombstones representing other families had already been visited and had fresh flowers and lit candles.

After the cleaning we said a short prayer and then departed.

Every house I’ve visited in Japan also has a shrine where the ashes of the departed are held for a while before being deposited in the family plot.  Portraits of ancestors are kept nearby. One ancient tradition is that during Obon the spirits of the ancestors return to the shrines to take part in the reunion which is why the shrines always have a cup of sake and, in some cases, a box of sweets and a pack of cigarettes. (Whatever you may or may not believe, I think it’s awesome the spirits of the dead expect booze and smokes when they visit.)

Other than that, there’s not many other traditions in Obon (well, there are the crowded trains and highways but that happens before and after the reunion, not during).

The cemetery. She Who Must Be Obeyed's family shrine is above the concrete slab on the left.

The cemetery. She Who Must Be Obeyed’s family shrine is above the concrete slab on the left.

This was my second visit to the family memorial as it is also a tradition to introduce new family members to the spirits of the ancestors. Both our girls were taken to the shrine, too.

To this day I feel lucky that no ancestral spirits at either shrine started yelling “NOOOO! NOOOO! NOOOO!” while the building shook and a more sinister voice said, in English “GET OUUUUT!”

The walls did start bleeding, though, but that may have more to do with humidity this time of year.

Note: Edited August 16, 2015 to provide clarity about the remains and the shrines in the house.