Will Miss #536 - having a laundry hook-up in the apartment

The beige tray on the left (under the water spigot) was the home of my machine for more than two decades. You can see that there are disadvantages - mold developed on the walls behind and in front of it from moisture (both from the machine and the bathing area behind that door). Those trash bags were the things we were tossing out when we were vacating the apartment. It's not garbage so much as possessions that weren't worth carrying back to the U.S.

Prior to spending most of my adulthood in Japan, I had not lived in a truly independent fashion. I spent 23 years in my parent's house and then a year in California in my husband's best friend's house. The ease of living in a house was something that I took for granted. I had never rented my own place in the U.S. so I had no idea how that all tended to work when I returned to the U.S. at the age of 48. One of the surprises in store for me was that most apartments, at least in the Bay Area, don't have their own laundry facilities or a space in which one can set up a machine.* You have to rely on public or communal apartment (pay laundry) machines. Though the apartments here are bigger inside, people seem to prefer filling that space up with their crap instead of having the convenience of on-site laundry capability.

In Japan, there was space in my apartment for a washing machine. It had a plastic shell and a built-in drain. It was in the space next to the area with the tub and shower so I could recycle water from the tub if I wanted to by putting it in the washing machine. After spending some time back home dealing with the hassles of public laundry facilities which often consume my quarters without offering full service (either because the machines malfunction or the dryers are anemic), I truly miss having the ability to just toss my clothes into a machine any time I want. 

*Note: I know I can buy a portable washing machine and manually hook it up to a sink. However, this is not the same as having a dedicated space with a drain and water faucet. Lugging a machine back and forth and connecting it to the sink is not something I want to be doing - not to mention I'd still have to use the laundry room's dryer since there's no space for hanging clothes up to dry in most of the apartments here.

Will Miss #39 - dressing up for the girls (reflection)

Last weekend, my husband and I walked around a local mall and I made a conscious effort to not sleepwalk through the experience. When we first returned, I took note of people and what they did and how they looked because I was trying to acclimate to the culture again. Over time, I've come to do what most people do - tune everyone out.

I'm not sure why I decided to attend to what I was seeing, but it was fortuitous because I am reviewing this particular post this week and can say something about how different this particular cultural aspect is. In Japan, I always knew when my female students were meeting their girlfriends for shopping when they had lessons because they often dressed to the nines. They often dressed up more for the girls than for the boys in their lives.

In America, I have noticed that women do dress up, but not for each other. They tend to do it when they are with men or when they are doing something formal or public. Even then, the level of dress in public in the U.S. is decidedly lower than that in Japan. The people here just tend to dress down more often than not. There, they tend to dress up more often than not.

I do miss the way in which women took greater pride in their appearance, particularly when they were with other women. It says something about values in the U.S. when women dress well for men and not for other people. You can reach your own conclusions about that. 

Will Miss #518 - few or no tacky clothes

Maybe making them "cute" makes them seem less tacky? Or maybe I've lost my mind.

Perhaps this is my imagination, or I don't frequent nice enough stores in the U.S., but I see a lot of profoundly ugly clothes in America. In fact, in some stores, the styles and types of designs that I see are almost painful to look at. Even the strange T-shirts in Japan didn't look as stupid as the T-shirts here. They're full of the sort of contrived "jokes" and sayings which are far less clever than the writer seems to believe they are. I'm talking about shirts which say, "pobody's nerfect," or "think ahea..." with the "d" not fitting on the line and being crammed off to the side. The designs are also ugly as hell most of the time compared to those I saw in Japan.

It seems that the Japanese aesthetic influenced even their cheap clothes in this regard and kept designs that might be cheesy out of public view most of the time. That's not to say that there were never any tacky clothes, but it was always my sense that those were intentionally tacky. I really miss the clothing designs in Japan.

Won't Miss #422 - Japanese fitting rooms

I can't speak for every single fitting room in Japan, just the ones I've tried. Since clothes here aren't exactly made for my foreign body, I am not exactly the most experienced person in this regard. That being said, I can say that at least some of them require you to remove your shoes before entering them. In fact, that is the way in which you indicate the room is occupied in some cases. If you see a pair of shoes outside, someone is in there. Considering that some of them are covered with nothing more than curtains (as is also the case back home at times, or so I'm told), I guess this is better than nothing at stopping people from barging in on your partially naked form. 

Taking your shoes off and putting them back on just adds one more step to the cumbersome task of trying on clothes and I won't miss it when going into a Japanese fitting room. 

Will Miss #393 - "akapantsu"

I'm not a big subscriber to the "weird Japan" mentality. One of the reasons I don't get so into it is that so much of it is clearly manufactured to be novel (e.g., maid cafes) and is little different than similarly generated oddness in other cultures which links not to human nature, but calculated commercial interests. However, when the weirdness manifests as a small component of a larger "normal" aspect of culture, my interest is piqued, and that is where we arrive at "akapantsu" or "red underpants". Sugamo is an area of Tokyo with a shopping district, Jizo Dori, which is described as an old folks Harajuku. The shops carry items of interest to the grey-haired set, but they also sell red underwear which is popular because the color red has positive associations in Buddhism. In particular, it wards off disease. So, many elderly flock to the red undies store and purchase over a million of them a year in order to gird their loins with red hot undergarments.

I will miss this odd contradiction in the conservative nature of older Japanese people and the way they dress and behave with an attraction to buying colorful and flashy underwear.

Won't Miss #330 - having to wear pajamas

I'm going to confess that I preferred to sleep in the buff back home. I'm not some free-thinking anarchist or a hippy. I just prefer not to have to have clothes bunched up under me, tangled or giving me a wedgie when I sleep. It's simply easier to wear nothing, especially when it's hot or warm during the 5 months of summer or 2 months of rainy season in Tokyo. During the other 4 months of coldness, nothing is warmer than two nekkid bodies under a blanket. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself. Anyway, in Tokyo (and many other areas), it is monumentally imprudent to sleep au naturale because of quakes. You never know when the unlikely becomes reality and you'll have to make a mad dash for the street or have to climb out the window of the shaky remains of your dwelling.

I won't missing having to wear clothes to bed "just in case" there's a big earthquake.

Won't Miss #208 - finding bras that fit

This item should come as no surprise to most people. Given that Japanese women are petite, and not known worldwide for their ample bosoms, it's easy to imagine that getting the right size bra if you are a foreign woman of ample endowment can be difficult. For the record, the average cup size in Japan is "B" and the largest size that is generally available is 90 cm. (35.4 in.). The average in England, as a point of comparison, is "D". That's not to say that there are no Japanese women with a jumbo endowment, but the foundation garment market largely caters to averages, not to people who are a few deviations away from the majority. While it is probably not absolutely impossible to locate a proper bra for a foreign woman who is a "D" cup or "better", it's not exactly trivial. You also have the issue of staff who are a bit strange about dealing with you and your big Western breasts. Frankly, I just order my bras from Land's End in the U.S. because it's so much easier and less hassle. That being said, I'd much rather have the chance to make sure the fit is good because a poorly fitted bra is a recipe for back and shoulder pain.

I won't miss finding it difficult or nearly impossible to get a bra that fits.

Will Miss #153 - adult pajama costumes

On holidays and at festivals (and sometimes during sales at shops), I see people wearing a particular type of adult pajama costume. The one in the picture above is Stitch from Lilo and Stitch, but I've seen people wearing dragons, eggplants, and other weird things. I imagine there is some company in Japan that makes this particular kind of costume which resembles a baby's sleeper. I don't know if they were designed for people to sleep in or to look silly in when promoting things in public, but it's always amusing when I see someone out wearing one.


I'll miss seeing grown-ups in clothes that look like they were made for a baby.

Will Miss #148 - yukata

In the summer, Japanese people sometimes wear a light robe made of cotton. It's often worn to festivals, but people also wear them casually. They're comfortable and quite cheap. You can buy them for nearly every size person from children to somewhat hefty adults. Sumo wrestlers can be seen wearing them around Ryogoku, where the national stadium is located.

I'll miss seeing and having access to these light, attractive, summer robes.

Won't Miss #126 Clothes that don't fit right

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this is about size and tiny Japanese women's clothes and hulking foreign women who can't squeeze their fat bodies into them. That's actually not what this is about. Even if you are a petite foreign person who can fit into Japanese sizes (which is far from a sure bet), there are other issues. One of my students works in the fashion industry and told me that the bigger problems related to selling clothing designed for one market in the other are linked to body variations. Japanese people have flatter bodies and longer torsos with shorter legs. Merely taking a tape measure and comparing your girth to the girth a pair of pants is designed to fit won't ensure a good fit because of these differences.

I won't miss not being able to go clothes shopping and finding clothes that will fit.