Will Miss #283 - no big deal birthdays

In Japan, people don't make a big deal about birthdays, particularly when it comes to adults. Often, celebration extends only so far as taking a friend out to dinner and/or serving up a "surprise" cake. It's very rare for people to give each other actual gifts except perhaps something very modest like a bit of chocolate or a small cake from a designer shop. In America, adults often feel burdened by birthdays as they are obliged once a year to conjure up an appropriate gift for someone who doesn't need anything or who they don't know particularly well.

While I'm happy to convey birthday wishes and give gifts when I really want to, I'm happier living in a culture without the expectation that presents will be proffered on adult birthdays, and I'll miss that.

Won't Miss #275 - New Year's postcards

Every year, my students, foreign and Japanese acquaintances, and blog buddies complain about having to write New Year's postcards... well, "write" isn't really correct. Most of them just print a sheaf of them en masse from their color printers. I have never met one person who likes sending them out, and few who care much about even receiving them. It's a tradition which is even worse than sending Christmas cards because the messages are shorter and hollower than the boring, mass produced yearly holiday letters that people cram in them. They're really just something people do out of obligation or for business purposes. The tradition seems to exist mainly so that people can get the equivalent of an entry into the postal lottery which comes along with certain types of cards and stamps. Most people don't win anything (or at best, win some stamps), but it is pretty much the only reason they care about getting the cards since the messages are so brief and perfunctory.

I won't miss getting these cards knowing that they're sent out of obligation and I won't miss feeling guilty that I don't send any myself in return out of similar obligation.

Won't Miss #135 - "giri choco"

On Valentine's Day, women are expected to give men chocolates. They don't give them to the men they love or even like, but rather out of obligation ("giri"). As a foreign woman, I was never expected to observe this dubious custom, but I heard plenty of complaints from women in our office who had to do it until the president finally outlawed the practice (likely out of fear of full-fledged rebellion by his female staff). My husband still gets these chocolates from female students, and while I get to enjoy the booty he receives, I still feel that the whole thing is unfair to women. I find it particularly troubling that the women who are most expected to hand over chocolates to coworkers are office ladies who are the lowest paid. There is a made-up reciprocal holiday called "White Day", but men tend to fall down on the job when it comes to returning the favor.

I won't miss the custom of obliging women to give men chocolates.