Summer Training Is Oishii (Yummy)!

Today we completed our final day of summer training. While there were many great presentations throughout its eight days, the cultural aspects of training were most enjoyable for me. This year we made pottery, learned how to write our addresses in kanji (Chinese characters), made potato stamps, learned about old ways of maintaining the home, and made desserts. (No, N.P. and I didn't plan to be matchy-matchy for our cooking lesson.) If you've been reading my blog for the past year, then you remember that last year's food lesson was making sushi rolls, something most of us had never done. This year we again learned how to make something new -- traditional Japanese sweets made with anko (red bean paste). While anko is unappealing to many foreigners, I actually like it. It's an indescribable flavor, since it's unlike anything I'd eaten prior to moving to Japan. But it's only slightly sweet, since Japanese sweets contain much less sugar than American and European sweets. And it's found in a variety of desserts.

The first sweet that we made was a flower blossom. While the pink of the flower was not supposed to be variegated as mine ended up, I was quite pleased with my first attempt.

Unfortunately, my second sweet was less successful than my flower. Don't you think it looks more like a turtle than a maple leaf?

Until next time...

Backhanded compliment or just backhanded?

One day last year when I was sick for the seemingly gazillionth time and decided that perhaps wearing a mask was the appropriate thing to do, I decided to go au naturel in the makeup department, since everything but my forehead, eyes, and sides of my face would be covered by the mask. Unfortunately, I forgot that I would need to remove the mask in order to eat lunch. So when I took off my mask, the teacher of the class with whom I was eating kyuushoku (school lunch) told me how horrible I looked. Since eyes are supposedly the window to the soul, I decided to be charitable and think that she noticed the beating my soul was taking from all the new Japanese germs. However, I also avowed I'd never go without makeup again.

This summer, while not as hot as last summer, has been a scorcher nonetheless. So I decided to break my vow and have been wearing makeup off and on during these days when I don't have to teach. So imagine how taken aback I was today when this same teacher said loudly in the shokuinshitsu (teachers' room), "Rebecca, hisashiburi makeup!" (literally, "Rebecca, it's been a long time since makeup!"). I laughed along with a couple other teachers and replied to her, "You or me?" However, I was mortified. Is my "before and after" as horrible as that of the news anchors from Batman (1989) who look downright hideous in their makeup-free broadcast thanks to The Joker's scare-inducing cosmetics tampering?

The juxtaposition of today's comment following Wednesday's blog post referencing Japanese politeness is not lost on me.

Until next time...

Yatta! (I did it!)

Going to the doctor whether sick or well, even in the States, has never been a fun task for me. But going to the doctor in Japan is mendoukusai (a downright pain). Since making the decision to switch from an English-speaking-yet-condescending doctor to a Japanese-speaking-yet-kind one, I've been more inclined to go to the doctor when I'm sick. However, it usually requires that I take someone with me to serve as my translator, which is not an easy thing to do. So early last week, when I needed to go to the eye clinic in order replacement contact lenses, I thought that since I was healthy, I might be mentally with-it enough to manage on my own. My Japanese proficieincy is still low. But I know how to say, "up, down, left, right" -- the only words necessary to take a Japanese eye test. I can say how many boxes of lenses I want to order for each eye. And I can discern the gist of many conversations based on situational clues, even if I don't actually understand the words that are being said. Not the best language skill set to have for seeing a doctor on one's own; but you do what you gotta do.

But as I was driving my scooter to the clinic, I began to think about how presumptuous I was going to appear. I had two boxes from my old contact lenses and my glasses with me so that they would know what my prescriptions were the last time I had my vision checked. And I knew that I planned to speak as much Japanese as possible. But I hadn’t thought about how the appearance of my translator-less self (when I’ve always had a translator for previous visits) might set things off on the wrong foot. And how horrible would it be if I had to stop the technician in the midst of our “conversation” to call a co-worker and have her translate for me via keitai (cell phone). I made plenty of mistakes in communicating with the technicians, including mishearing the name that was called and presenting myself as Kikuchi-san. And because the technician either was frustrated with my low Japanese level or was kind, the doctor whom I saw later immediately spoke with me in English, which I simultaneously appreciated and disliked. 

If this situation were reversed and a non-English-speaking Japanese woman were to go to the eye doctor in the U.S. without a translator, I know that she would not be treated with nearly as much gentleness as I received at the clinic. Living in Japan these past 16 months has been quite challenging. There are things here that frustrate me on a regular basis. And Japanese people have faults just as Americans have. Yet the value that is placed on politeness here will be a practice I miss greatly whenever I return to the States. In that area as well as in as-of-yet unconsidered areas, I know my reverse culture stress will be great.

Until next time…