Will Miss #358 - "mata haris"

I associate the name "Mata Hari" with spies, who generally don't want to be recognized for who they are. For that reason, I call women in Japan who are so fearful of sun exposure that they cover nearly every inch of exposed flesh by this name. The first time I saw such a woman, I thought that the desire for "creamy white skin" in Japan gives celebrities an ideal manner in which to disguise themselves should they want to remain anonymous, but I see them in the most mundane places and doubt that fame has anything to do with it.

These women take all of the means by which Japanese women try to avoid sun exposure and pile them on into one ridiculous get-up, and I'll miss seeing them go to such extremes.

Will Miss #185 - architectural accommodation

Sometimes there are cultural difference clues right in front of you, and you either don't notice them or understand what they mean. Take the design of the house in the picture above. You can see that it has a third floor with an extreme slope such that the room at the top is quite small (and certainly oddly shaped). The reason for this is the focus on sunlight in Japan is very high. Everyone has to worry about how they built their homes so that their neighbor's light isn't blocked. You see a lot of houses like that one when you see three-story homes. The extreme slant allows light to hit the windows of the house behind it when the sun is high in the sky.

I'll miss these interesting architectural elements that accommodate the priorities of ones neighbors.