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| Moonlight Cookies grant me the power of 100 cold, lifeless, space rocks. And the power to write. |
If you're wondering
what Sports Day is, I'm going to write a full post on it later after I get to
experience it firsthand tomorrow, but basically, it's a day when all of the
students at a junior high school participate in various athletic events and
their parents come to watch. Also, the part about the Sports Day Tengu is
entirely fabricated...as far as I know.
The Story Thus Far
In the 21st Century, in the year 2016, when the kingdom was in turmoil due to battling factions of buttholes fighting for political control and their cadres of mindless worshipers turning things as mundane as carpeting into a volatile debate, one person who is currently writing about himself in the 3rd person thought, "I wonder what Japan's like." Albeit, this thought was unrelated to the aforementioned troubles.
Like some kind of xenophilic Pinocchio, he always wanted to transform from his own dull, hollow ethnicity and become a real Japanese boy (and also wanted to befriend a giant, talking insect and join a cruel traveling circus that exploited and mistreated its employees, but those stories are yet to be told). Plus, he kind of has a big, phallic nose despite being a pretty honest person.
Having developed
his charm and kindness skills growing up in Illinois, improving his toughness
and grit stats living in Michigan, and learning whatever traits come from
living in California (maybe it's just good to NOT lose skill points
there), he had absolutely no qualities on his skill tree that would normally
allow him to be able to survive in Japan. He just simply hadn't leveled
up enough.
Cue deus ex machina: Can you speak English? Yes? Do you want to come live in Japan, teach English to students, and get paid? Yes? Okay, see you in a few weeks.
And that is more or less the story of how I got to Japan, but here's some more details about my first few weeks trying to figure out how to live in an entirely new country where I couldn't speak the language:
Traveling
Not too much notable. Slept a lot. Flew from Chicago to Los Angeles to Taiwan and finally to Japan. Looked in all kinds of duty free shops during my long layovers. Slept some more. Watched two dragons fight in the sky from my window seat. The red one killed the green one and then promised a peaceful millennium. You know, typical trip to Japan stuff.
Arrival & Training
Landed at Narita airport. Got my shiny new Yen with numbers so large on each bill that it made me nervous to even hold one at first for fear accidentally dropping the money or losing it somewhere. Seriously, the smallest paper bill is 1,000 yen, which is actually a little less than $10. My wallet at any time has between like 10,000 and 30,000 yen, which just sounds scary though.
Training was a looooong and at times, exhausting 4-5 day experience in a hotel, made fun by meeting a bunch of other new people who came to Japan to teach and drinking beers bought from 7/11 in the hotel at night with them. And also finding out I'm kind of old compared to most of the other teachers 😑.
Moving In
Here are the basic details. I live in a city of about 150,000 called Tsuchiura about 45 miles Northeast of Tokyo. So that's awesome! There are also two other teachers I met at training that live in my city, and one lives in the same apartment complex, which has been great.
The wheel of the car I drive is on the right, and I drive on the left side of the road. The first few days driving were a little scary, but I got pretty comfortable with the driving after about a week or so.
I buy most things based on the picture on the package, because I don't know the Kanji that says what it is. I have definitely had a few surprises, buying what looked like a snack that would taste like one thing, only to taste completely different because I can't read.
I teach English at a Junior High School in Kasumigaura 5 days a week to students who were almost all born after I finished Junior High School myself.
My apartment is probably a little smaller than an average American studio apartment. The bedroom is its own closed off space and at least the same size of any typical apartment bedroom. The toilet and shower are in separate small rooms.
I was strongly encouraged (more like forced) into purchasing bathroom slippers. From what I understood, to Japanese people, the bathroom is the dirtiest room in your home and you should not walk in there in your socks or bare feet. So instead, I now have a dedicated pair of slippers that stay solely in bathroom for people to use when they need to do their business. (Sssshhhh...sometimes I put on my bathroom slippers and use them when I have to go back into the shower room to brush my teeth or put in my contacts after I shower in the morning and already have my socks on so they won't get wet; I'm not about to take off my socks and have to put them on again)
I live within walking distance of stores that have all my basic necessities. There's also a McDonald's and KFC about 5-10 minutes away on foot and of course a few donburi (rice bowls typically with beef or pork meat) and ramen shops even closer.
Top 3 Least Favorite Things About Japan So Far
3. TV/Radio (tie) – When I imagined what Japanese TV and radio would be like, I imagined channels that showed nonstop anime where the girls wore revealing clothes and were total waifu material and guys had awesome hair and bad attitudes, and I imagined radio stations that played the sugariest sounding J-Pop imaginable. Instead, what I got is what seems like 12 channels of essentially America's Funniest Home Videos mixed with Youtube reaction videos and radio stations that sound like all morning talk shows, all day long.
As far as the radio goes, the best station I found probably plays one or two songs every 20 minutes it feels like. And even when they do play songs, it's never the full song. Maybe about 75% of it. But at least there's an alternative to the radio situation: buying CDs to play in my car. Yes, it's 2017 and I bought three CDs. I bought Saosin's first self-titled CD, Pierce the Veil's newest CD Misadventures (apparently, I'm still an emo kid), and a three CD set of Nat King Cole's hits. I need to get a Japanese group's CD though. I'm leaning towards either BABYMETAL or SexyZone right now. Check out "Rock Tha Party" by SexyZone or anything by BABYMETAL, as it is probably exactly what you think it is and is only something that they would come up with in Japan.
Japanese TV is probably worse, because I don't have an alternative (don't have Netflix or whatever else is out there). The first problem with Japanese TV is there seems to be no regular schedule of programs, at least as far as I can tell. But this could be because I don't understand what's going on in the shows and can't tell if it's a show with characters I've seen before or not.
The second problem is the one show that seems to be on all the time and on every channel is one where a few Japanese people are in a studio, a video of something else is played, like a clip where a person is being interviewed, and either you watch the faces of the people who are in the studio in little circles on the screen to see how they react or they pause video for a few minutes, cut back to the studio where each person tries to guess what comes next, and the video resumes and they all laugh at how wrong they were. Compelling television for some, but not my cup of tea.
2. Laundry – Nobody likes doing the laundry. But it's even a little more inconvenient in Japan. First, the washing machine's settings are all in Japanese. So I kind of had to guess or look up translations to make sure I was selecting the right thing. But that's not so bad once you figure out the right combination of buttons to hit. It's essentially playing the light up Simon game from back in the day.
What really sucks is that my apartment has no dryer. And most people in Japan don't use dryers. Instead, clothes are hung outside to dry. Which wouldn't be too bad if you're living in California, but it rains quite frequently in Japan (it rained pretty much all day today). Not to mention, it's pretty windy too. And while the laundry pole I bought to hang outside of my apartment window is good for setting clothes out on to dry, I once left to run errands while my clothes were drying only to come back and find the hangers had been blown off the pole and my white dress shirts were lying around in the parking lot.
It's safe to say doing laundry isn't going to jump into my top things to do any time soon.
1. Garbage – Nobody really likes garbage either. But Japan takes sorting garbage to the next level. First there's a bag for combustibles, like paper products. Then there's a bag for non-combustibles, like plastics. A bag for food waste, like fruit rinds, egg shells, etc. Cans and bottles usually go in their own bags. Recyclables, I guess. I have no idea what to do with electronics, but I know they have their own special disposal rules, along with other large items, like furniture.
Honestly, it's been almost two months, and I still am not sure if what I'm saying is right, because different cities also use different sorting methods. Some may only use the combustible and non-combustible bags. But then the lawyer in me would panic: what does that mean for food waste or recyclables? Can I place them in either bag? Am I not allowed to dispose of them at all unless I take them to a special disposal facility for those things? Seriously...these garbage rules are an attorney's nightmare, or maybe dream come true depending on how sick of a person you are, you statutory interpreter.
The worst part is, if you put the wrong garbage in the wrong bag and they know it's yours, they will put the bag back in front of your place with a note in Japanese that you can't read, but says "re-sort this garbage or else we will no longer pick up your garbage and you'll have to arrange to have your garbage picked up at your own cost." No joke.
For the first few weeks, having my garbage rejected was easily my biggest fear. I'm still a little worried I'm not sorting it exactly right, but I try to sneak out to place it in the garbage collection area when nobody will see me and then try check to see if that foreigner's garbage was sorted correctly after I toss the bag out.
It's the worst.
Top 3 Favorite Things About Japan So Far:
3. Japanese – While this is obviously the biggest hurdle facing me on a daily basis, one of my primary goals while I am here is to learn as much Japanese as possible.
With many resources available, having purchased some textbooks, free Japanese listening practice anytime I step outside, and weekly lessons offered by my city, I am already getting fairly comfortable with some basic Japanese. It's a blast to learn, and I am really excited to hopefully carry on conversations in Japanese in the near future.
Super goal for the future: Write a blog post entirely in Japanese.
2. Safety – Imagine this scenario: You're walking around on a small side street that doesn't have a lot of people out or cars on the road. You pass by an apartment complex and see bicycles. A bunch of bicycles. Just sitting out there. Not locked up or chained to any bike rack. You see some umbrellas just chilling outside too. And you even see a pair of shoes outside. Nobody around. Nobody watching over this stuff.
If this were in America, my first thought would be that something's up. This is definitely a set up to see if I'm a bad person and will steal one of these things left unattended. And even as I stand here and consider what the hell is going on, a squad of officers will come out and violently detain me for my thought crime, my mugshot will look terrible and will become some embarrassing viral meme, and all of that will lead me to a life of criminal thievery. I will habitually steal every umbrella I see, because the act attempts to satisfy the part of my brain that needs to have some justification for why I was arrested that fateful night or perhaps as if actually stealing the umbrella now could undo the past outcome. And my exploits will lead to me becoming known as the Parasol Purloiner.
But nothing to worry about in Japan, because this is normal. The things being left unattended, that is. Maybe Japanese people are more worried about the consequences of getting caught, but so far, Japan seems like a very safe country by any standards.
Everybody walks around with tons of cash in their wallets, because Japan is like "Psh...credit cards? Uh...hackers, duh. No thanks." I frequently walk around alone at night, which I'm not sure I would do in another country where I didn't speak the language, and I still feel safe. Although maybe it's just blissful ignorance of Japanese, and I just can't understand that group of guys following at an inconspicuous distance are talking about how they're gonna jump me later.
But either way, whether through sheer ignorance of the threats being made against me or the fact that people are much more trusting, the sense that people here aren't out to do bad things to others just because they might be able to get away with it is nice.
1. Vending Machines – If given a death sentence and offered the choice before I was killed to either have a gourmet, five star meal of my choosing but only get tap water to drink, or choose any drink I want, but only get some bland food, I'm taking the latter every time.
I fucking love drinks. Specifically pop. Soda. Whatever you call it. Every time I see a Starbucks in America, I just think how sad it is that there's not some kind of soda pop shop in its place there. What's one less Starbucks in the grand scheme of things when one store dedicated to selling fountain drinks would bring me all the joy in the world. Seriously, the discrepancy between the ability to get your caffeine fix in America via hot coffee that most people have to add some other liquid to just to be able to tolerate or having the caffeine mainlined into your system through cold, sweet, satisfying pop is disturbing to me.
But Japan has my back. There are probably at least 10 vending machines within a 100 yard circumference of where I live. And that is not uncommon for anywhere in Japan. Vending machines that sell water, Coke, sports drinks, and teas are everywhere. And most vending machines also distribute hot coffee drinks too. Yeah, a single vending machine here can give out hot and cold drinks. Suck on that, America.
Japan's drink situation is not without some flaws though. One, citrus sodas like Mt. Dew pretty much do not exist. I say pretty much, because there are a few vending machines where I've seen Mt. Dew, but it's never in grocery stores or anything. Two, aside from beer, drinks are not sold in multi-packs here. I'm pretty sure that goes for water and tea too, not just pop. You can either buy several individual sized bottles/cans or like a 1.5/2 liter bottle. But anybody who likes pop as much as I do knows that buying a 2 liter for just yourself puts you in a lose-lose situation. Either you try to ration out your drinking so the 2 liter lasts a few days, however the pop loses its carbonation and becomes stale after a few days and at that point, what even is the point of drinking it anymore, OR you unhealthily drink a full two liter of Coke in a 24 hour period and wonder why your heart feels funny. And then you have nothing to drink and have to go buy another 2 liter. It's a vicious cycle man.
There are two bonus points I want to give to Japan's drink situation though. One, melon sodas are what I see as the citrus soda equivalent in Japan and are quite popular. Fanta Melon Soda, Suntory Melon Pop, and Gabunomi Melon Cream Soda are all really good and are at least making up for the lack of Mello Yello, Sun Drop, Moon Mist, Mt. Dew, et. al. Two, the sports drinks here are also pretty good. Pocari Sweat and Aquarius are my favorite two right now and stand in as good Gatorade or Powerade substitutes.
I'm planning on running a bit of a blog post series where I review some of the drinks here in Japan, so I'll have more on all those mentioned above in the future.
That's all for now. おやすみなさい(Oyasuminasai)/Good night. Don't let the Tengus bite.
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