Won't Miss #48 - instant dust (reflection)

When I was growing up, my family lived in the boonies. Well, speaking more accurately, we lived in the midst of strip mines. I mean that quite literally. There was a coal tipple about a five-minute walk in one direction and sludge ponds and processing machinery as well as a cargo train loading area about a ten-minute walk in the other direction. Enormous coal trucks rumbled up and down the dirt road next to our house all day, nearly every single day.

This situation kicked up loads of dust. My sister had asthma and my mother was constantly calling the people in charge and yelling at them to oil or water the road to keep the dust down. Our house, when the windows were open, was always instantly covered in dust from the kick-up. Eventually, the roads were paved, which brought on a whole other problem in winter when they became icy and slick and our cars couldn't get out of the driveway without sliding down the steep hill that our house was situated on.

In Tokyo, it wasn't quite as bad as it was at my home, but I recall more than one day in which I dusted and could run my finger through a fresh layer of dust by the end of the day. Part of this was the pollution in the air, but another part of it was the construction of the apartment and living on the first floor. The entire place was made with materials that seemed to be deteriorating at a rapid pace, and the not infrequent earthquakes were just making it worse.

Where I'm living now, it actually takes days for dust to appear. It's the first time in my life that I've lived in a place in which I'm not having to wipe down surfaces on a daily basis or risk a thick blanket of dust forming in a short time. I still don't miss the "instant dust" that I experienced while living in Tokyo.

Won't Miss #444 - dani bugs

Obviously, this is a spider, not a dani bug. Strangely enough, they didn't feature animatronic dani bugs at the local tanabata festival. This was the closest I could come to a picture of an annoying insect that infests your living space and bites you.

When I was a kid, we had problems with certain types of insects, but never bed bugs or things that lived where we slept. Of course, it helps that my home culture didn't have a tradition of sleeping on the floor and that our floor wasn't made of straw. The creepy-crawlies creep and crawl less at higher spaces than lower ones, especially when you're talking about things which enjoy living in the flooring. In Japan, one of the things that loves to live in the traditional tatami mats is dani bugs. The dung (dust) from them causes allergic reactions and the bugs themselves can literally nip at your heels. They leave little red bites behind in pairs. Dani bugs are the reason why you see people beating the hell out of their futon and hanging them in the sun. One of the reasons that you have to vacuum (rather than simply sweep) tatami is to suck out these mites. They also require toxic sprays and bug bombs at regular intervals to keep them at bay.

I won't miss all of the activities that go along with keeping the dani bugs at bay. 

Won't Miss #298 - Japanese way of washing dishes

It's odd how it's the little things that really hit you sometimes about life in a different culture. One of my students went to Germany and said that she was really bothered because they didn't rinse the soapy water off of their dishes after cleaning them, but just put them on the rack to dry.* In Japan, the sinks are designed differently than back in the U.S. There, we had a sink with two sections and a little plug in each so you could fill each side with water. You washed the dishes in one half and put them in clean water to rinse on the other side. This allowed you to save water and was generally faster than the Japanese way in which you have to leave the water running constantly and rinse each item separately in the running water or use a basin (which is too small for any but the smallest dishes in the smallest quantities and never works for someone like me who cooks a lot). The Japanese sinks I've encountered are designed not only with one section, but also without a drain plug because landlords are afraid you're so stupid that you'll leave the water running and flood the kitchen.

This way of doing dishes is very wasteful in terms of water usage and takes longer, and I won't miss it.

*I do not know if this is true or not of all German people or if she even misunderstood what she witnessed. I merely report what she said.

Won't Miss #252 - Japanese paper towels

I don't know why these seem to be named for cow usage.

Yes, I know paper towels are the spawn of ecological evil and I shouldn't use them. That being said, considering the fact that I can only do laundry in cold water, I'm not exactly in a position to be cleaning greasy rags or getting germy ones clean and sanitary. I really have little choice but to use paper towels for things like cleaning a cast iron skillet or the toilet. Without hot water washing, life without paper towels is a good deal more difficult. For many years, my husband has been in charge of paper towel procurement and he always bought the cheap store-brand Costco ones (Kirkland). Until we ran out between Costco runs, I never realized what utter crap Japanese paper towels are. The sheets are smaller and thinner than the cheapest American paper towels. They're closer to newspaper than "towels". You need to use two for nearly any job so you end up going through a roll in no time flat.

I won't miss the poor quality of Japanese paper towels.