Won't Miss #58 - pachinko (reflection)

I'm not particularly good at tuning out loud and obnoxious stimuli. When I walk by something that smells bad, is very bright, or is loud, it's difficult for me to ignore it in the moment that I pass it. Pachinko was a nasty surprise package of all three of these things. It offended the eyes, the ears, and the nose (the cigarette smoke, not the unwashed masses therein). The only way it could have been worse was if someone was standing outside smacking me as I walked by.

Before I reflected back on this topic, I thought about whether or not a similarly annoying experience occurred to me in the U.S. The closest I think I can come is being in a car at night, but, even then, the issues are much more intermittent. There has to be a bit of a perfect storm for smelly exhaust, honking horns, and high beams to converge at the same time.

Whatever experiences may exist in the U.S. that can assault multiple senses at once, they're ones that I don't encounter on a regular basis. It was a daily occurrence for me to walk by Pachinko places (as they're near stations) and I definitely don't miss the assault that accompanied the brief stroll by one. 

Won't Miss #57 - drunkenness as an excuse (reflection)

This topic is one that has been on my mind for other reasons as of late. There are several things that have inspired thoughts about drinking and behavioral control, not the least of which has been the national debate about rape and alcohol in college culture. I took a graduate course in addiction last summer so I have a deep understanding of the effects of alcohol on the brain. It lowers inhibitions, it reduces sensory capacity (you can't hear, feel, see, etc. as well), and it impairs memory. It inhibits bodily control as well as mental control. Alcohol has a profound impact on control. That means that, technically speaking, being drunk is actually an "excuse" or reason for doing things that you wouldn't do if you weren't intoxicated.

That being said, most people know these things on certain levels already. In the U.S., we have drunk driver checkpoints and a judicial system that does not offer more lenient sentences because an offender was intoxicated. In fact, the system tends to be harsher on people who hurt others while drunk. The opposite continues to be so in Japan and, in my opinion, all this does is continue to encourage people not to control their drinking. As long as "he was drunk" means "he was less responsible for his actions," people have no incentive to be cautious about their alcohol consumption. I still don't miss a culture in which drunkenness is considered an reasonable excuse for bad or even criminal behavior.

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A little reminder that my previous post contains a contest to win a free (and beautiful) book about Japan. Check out the last paragraph or so and leave a comment to enter. The contest will end on July 25, 2014. I will announce winners (Tuttle has generously offer two books) based on comment order using a random number generator.

Will Miss #56 - surgical masks (reflection)

One thing I have realized since coming back to the U.S. is that cultural context truly matters. This is something I've pondered in relationship to the debate over face-obscuring hijab or burkas being worn by women in the name of their native culture. In America, a country in which there is a fair bit of crime, covering ones face in a manner which obscures identity is a very different kettle of fish than it is in cultures in which there is less crime or crime in which identity is obscured.

In Japan, people wore surgical masks regularly to protect themselves from the flu or colds or to prevent allergens from getting through during certain seasons. In the context of Japanese society, which has little crime and people rarely rob and cover their faces to hide their identities, the wearing of such masks seems cute, quirky, and endearingly paranoid (if paranoia can be seen as "endearing"). Everything I read framed it as less than "useful", but I think the jury is still out on that.

I find that I not only miss how seeing the masks made me smile a little inside, but also knowing that I lived in a society in which covering one's face in this fashion was not seen as any sort of problem as it did not link potential criminal behavior. 

Won't Miss #56 - slow payers (reflection)

During my twenty-three-year absence from the U.S., a new way of doing business popped up. It became possible for people to do something which I never imagined that they'd allow them to do. That is, they could check themselves out at the register. In fact, there are some places which only do self-check-out ("Fresh & Easy"). At first, I found the prospect intimidating. Now, I wish every store had that option.

The reason that I love self-checking out is that it means I don't have to wait behind some granny or grampy who doesn't seem to understand the fact that money will have to exchange hands at the end of the transaction. The idea that the logical conclusion of events should also be preceded by the removing of ones wallet from a bag or pocket also seemed to come as a shock to many customers in Japan as they only reached for their cash when the checker had his or her hand (or cash tray) out and asked for it.

There are still slow payers in the U.S., but the use of debit and credit cards as well as self-check-out makes it less frequent and offers a way to get around such people. I certainly don't miss the slow paying people who seemed to always be in line in front of me in Tokyo. 

Will Miss #55 - mochi (reflection)

When I was 24 years old, I thought I was as smart as I was going to get. Seriously. I thought I'd had a lot of experiences, grown beyond a lot of my psychological issues, and that I had pretty much worked everything out. As I got older, I didn't get dumber, but I did come to realize that I wasn't nearly as worldly and knowledgeable as I believed myself to be.

One of the conceits that we tend to have when we're young, and many continue to have when they're older, is that they can understand the world from their particular perch. I learned in Japan that how you view the world, what you know and don't know, and the opportunities you have in life are influenced heavily by where you are. It's not enough to read about things. It's not enough to think or write or learn. Living it is always different.

When I wrote this blog originally, my conceptualization of my future life in the U.S. was based on the limited view of life in America that I had up to age 24. I didn't know that there were places in the U.S. which would afford me continues and copious access to Japanese food of various sorts. That possibility wasn't even on my radar, let alone living within a reasonable drive of a "Japantown". It turns out that I don't have to miss mochi, or a lot of types of Japanese food, because I can still get it here. I'm sure that, if I lived somewhere else, I'm sure I'd feel differently because my worldview would be colored by the limits I'd experience elsewhere. 

Won't Miss #55 - hanko (reflection)

For those who don't know, a "hanko" (or inkan), which used to be referred to as a "chop" by Western folks, is a little seal that you apply ink to and use instead of a signature. In Japan, many families use them to "sign" official documents instead of writing their names. You can get them made for fun, but to use them for banking or contracts, you have to have a registered hanko (jitsuin). They're more expensive and you have to go through some bureaucratic rigmarole to get it squared away... and who needs more of that, especially in the land of red tape?

Every time my husband and I did something official (banking, money exchange, work or rent contracts), we were asked to present our hanko. We never had a hanko and refused to have one because we viewed it as a security risk. It was rare, but it did happen that people's bank books and hanko were stolen on occasion. If someone has these two items, they can go to a bank and take out money from your account. The idea that I could lose or have my "signature" stolen was one I couldn't overcome.

I tried hard to see the value of all aspects of Japanese culture. My guess is that the use of hanko was something that made sense as a way of allowing all family members to manage official documents, not to mention that it probably allowed for a uniform comparison of seals and permitted illiterates to still apply their mark to papers back when more people could not read or write. It no longer makes a great deal sense to use them, but they are still used. Sure, there's a certain "cool" factor because of the novelty in Western minds, but would you really want to have something which would function as your official legal sanction rolling around in a desk drawer or at the bottom of your handbag?

I still don't miss being asked if I have a hanko, and having to sign my name in the tiny little circle where the stamp was supposed to be made when I revealed that I didn't have one. 

Will Miss #54 - harsh no smoking rules (reflection)

As I mentioned in the original post, Japan used to be a smoker's paradise, but they cracked down pretty hard and now you aren't even allowed to smoke in the streets. I figured that, while there are fewer smokers in the U.S., there are no restrictions on smoking outside so it would be worse here.

Since I'm living in California now, and smoking is not allowed in restaurants where I'm at, I don't have to worry about that at all. The question is whether or not I have to put up with it in the streets or other public spaces. Fortunately, generally speaking, it's uncommon to run across anyone smoking... except apparently around my no-smoking apartment complex at which people seem to smoke very far from my apartment, but I smell it anyway.

I think if I lived in a place where there were more smokers walking on the streets, I'd miss the restrictions in Japan against walking and smoking more. As it is, it seems the number of smokers in my area is low enough that it's not really an issue most of the time. 

Won't Miss #54 - washing my trash (reflection)

Times have changed since I lived in the U.S. and I'm also living in a different area. I grew up in a rural area and the way we handled our garbage tended to be to either burn it in a trash pile some distance from our house or to haul it to the local dump. I never thought about who owned/managed the town dump, but I'm guessing our taxes rented the space for everyone to leave their unwanted junk. The benefits of our system was that getting rid of trash was easy. The down side was that there were rats in our trash pile in warmer times.

Japan, as everyone has heard, has a highly diversified recycling system and I had to keep seven different trash receptacles in my tiny apartment in Tokyo. That was hassle enough, but we were also required to wash everything well before getting rid of it. This was no small hassle, especially given my limited kitchen space and how long it takes something like a milk carton to dry once it has been washed.

In the area that I'm in now, there is what is called "single stream" recycling. That means I don't have to have an elaborate array of separate receptacles, but I do have to separate what can be recycled and what cannot. We don't have to wash things, but I have read that it is encouraged. It's my guess that it may become mandatory at one point, but the local governments are taking this recycling thing one step at a time. First, they have to get people to separate trash, then they'll worry about washing it.

I'm somewhat torn about the trash washing now. I know America's handling of recycling is sloppy and substandard, but the Japanese way was enormously complex and troublesome. In the end though, I'm the type of person who will opt for the good of the many over my own good. I'd trade having to meticulously separate and wash my trash again for a better and more thorough recycling system in the U.S. despite the hassle for me personally.

Will Miss #53 - getting around by bike (reflection)

America is well-known as a country in which car use is the norm. A lot of people criticize this as wasteful, indulgent, and selfish. However, it's important to know how geography and history dictate how people get from place to place. In New York City, for example, many people don't have or use cars because there is adequate public transportation and high population density. The rest of America doesn't have cars because they want them so much as they live in circumstances which offer them little reasonable option. That is, they either have no or terrible public transport and/or things are too spread out. Americans didn't plan things this way. It has to do with how our history unfolded.

In my current situation, I'm in between the "must have a car" and "can live without a car" life. There is some public transport, though it is expensive, inconvenient, not particularly reliable, and painfully infrequent. It is, surprisingly, pretty good about trying to accommodate cyclists. Many roads have lanes for cyclists and motorists are supposed to share lanes with them. For a suburb, it's probably more cyclist friendly than other areas.

Unfortunately, all of this really isn't "enough". This is mainly due to geography. Everything is still pretty far apart and riding even in bicycle lanes is not easy. There have been many cases where cyclists have had to move with the flow of traffic in a way that makes me nervous as a passenger in a car and I couldn't imagine feeling comfortable with as a cyclist. The irony is that, in CA, it's illegal to ride on sidewalks, but there are very few pedestrians and wider areas in which to negotiate a bike. There is every reason to allow cycles on sidewalks, yet you have to be in the street.

In Japan, I felt a lot more comfortable with the prospect of cycling and I still miss having that particular atmosphere and those riding conditions despite the drawbacks of limited parking and sometimes crowded sidewalks.

Won't Miss #52 - bicycle parking problems (reflection)

Bikes being taken away for illegal parking. To retrieve them, you had to wait several weeks and then pay $25-$30 to get your bike back.

For many years during my time in Japan, I suffered from severe back pain. I'm not talking about the type of thing where you exert yourself and your back hurts later. I'm talking about the thing where you wake up every morning, walk for a minute and agony sets in. If you walk or stand for too long, you suffer burning, agonizing pain during every moment that you are sitting. There was a time when I'd get up in the morning, go to work in pain, and sit there for 6 of my 8 hours in horrific pain. This ended in my taking two months off and working from home in bed.

During this time period, which lasted, oh, about 9 of my 12 years at the company I was at, using a bicycle was my salvation. I even rode the bike to work rather than endure the suffering of walking 15 minutes from the local train station to the office. Even forty minutes of sweating through the Tokyo summer (one-way) was better than the pain I endured. Unfortunately, my ability to use a bike to mitigate my pain was monumentally undercut by the increasingly limited and difficult bicycle parking situation. As I mentioned in my original post, it went from a situation in which I could park nearly anywhere for any length of time to nowhere for niggling amounts of time. Eventually, the parking situation became so hard that I took to struggling to walk the 9 minutes to the subway (stopping three times to rest to reduce some of the agony as it got worse the longer I walked).

I don't miss how owning a bicycle turned into a nearly useless thing because someone decided that having bicycles parked along the street in Tokyo was too troublesome or aesthetically displeasing to permit it. 

Will Miss #51 - shoe removal culture (reflection)

One of my friends recently introduced me to the term "Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon" (aka the "frequency illusion"). This is when something is brought to your attention and then, coincidentally, something else of a similar nature occurs. For example, I was walking to a store recently and noticed that several cars parked along the street had solar-powered bobbing plastic flowers in pots. Later that same day, I was looking through my stash of (literally) thousands upon thousands of Japan photos (for pictures for this blog) and stumbled on a photo of exactly those plastic flowers as a prize in a UFO Catcher (claw game) machine.

In regards to this post's topic, I had a Baader-Meinhof experience that related to it within the last week or so. The number of this post for review came up shortly after an occasion in which someone had to come into my home, but refused to remove his shoes. Our apartment is strictly a "no shoes" zone because we want to keep the floors clean and not have our bare feet turn black when we walk on it (which is what happens in American apartments/homes in which you wear shoes).

In this case, an inspector was reviewing the apartments and a photographer was taking pictures of the interior of select places including ours. I was fine with them coming in, but the photographer claimed he was wearing orthopedic sneakers and couldn't walk on flat floors and refused to take off his shoes. Incidentally, I think this was a big, fat lie and he just didn't want to have to fuss for the short time he'd be walking around our apartment.

This incident made me think about how I appreciated the fact that it would not even be a question in Japan that the shoes would come off. In fact, refusing or putting up a fuss in any way would be considered an egregious lack of manners and respect. So, yes, I still have good reason to miss the shoe removal culture.

Won't Miss #50 - anime-style advertising (reflection)

I have to admit that I have an enormous personal bias when it comes to the sort of animation that is all over the otaku (geek/nerd) parts of Japan like Akihabara. The infantilized and sexualized imagery really irritates me. It's not only freaky, but creepy. If real people looked like the women in that artwork, they'd look like hideous alien creatures. It's so distorted that I view it not as art, but as a form of advertising/recruiting for body dysmorphic disorder. The fact that girls in Japan will do cosplay to look like such characters including freaky contact lenses to make their eyes look enormous only supports my sense that this is so. That Ukranian "living Barbie" woman only strengthens my sense that there is a toxic nature underlying what appears to be innocent "art".

This is my issue. Maybe I'm an old fuddy-duddy. Maybe I just don't "get it" (though I can say that my brain is open-minded enough to "get" most modern art). However, I still don't miss anime-style advertising and dislike seeing it in the U.S. when it sneaks up on me on occasion.

Won't Miss #42 - Disney obsession (reflection)

It's interesting how, the presence of something annoying can be grating, but it's absence not appreciated. This isn't a thought which came to me over the memories of Disney bags and small dangling Mickey figures on cell phones. It came to me a long time ago when I was suffering from chronic and oppressive pain. When you don't have pain, you don't think about its absence or appreciate being free of it. When you have it, all you can think about is how badly you'd like it to go away.

While being exposed daily to a bizarre Disney obsession (among adults, no less) is nowhere near the same as being in pain, I've found that its absense has simply meant that I just don't think about it at all (much as I don't think about pain when I'm not in it). Honestly, I've found that America has its fair share of childish or neurotic omnipresent bits of flotsam that people use to boast their affiliations as well (sports teams, "Hello Kitty", etc.). I could do without both of them. I don't miss the Disney obsession in Japan, though I can't say that I've given it much thought over the two years since we left Japan.

Will Miss #41 - no tipping (reflection)

I read several blogs devoted to food and cooking and little is more contentious than the custom of tipping in the U.S. One side claims it is a system designed to allow restaurants to justify grossly underpaying their employees. The other side says it allows the customer to be empowered in a fashion the promotes good service. My reply is, "can't it be both?" I am also only too aware that there are wait staff in some restaurants who make a good deal more in wages due to tipping than they would if they were paid minimum wage or even above it. It is a complex situation which has room for both abuse of and benefits to employees. There is nothing out there which does not have a good and a bad side, as this blog has endeavored to show for the years it has been in existence.

All arguments aside, the bottom line is that tipping is a pain. While the math doesn't trouble me, the need to calculate a tip after paying the bill adds this layer of hassle at the end of a meal which detracts from the overall experience of dining. It causes you to reflect not on the experience, but on the quality of service and how much you will want to "reward" the server for a job done well or poorly. It's simply not the way to finish a special evening in which you're not cooking and cleaning. I miss the fact that there is no tipping in Japan.

Won't Miss #41 - willy nilly food serving (reflection)

I can't say that I have eaten in a lot of restaurants in America, but I have eaten out about once every month and a half for the past two years. In all but one case, everyone at the table was served their food at the same time, and, unsurprisingly, that was at a Japanese place. For a culture in which people do everything together, I'm surprised that nobody cares if everyone gets to eat at the same time at the table. Food is served whenever it is convenient for the servers and the kitchen rather than in accord with the customers' needs or desires.

I don't miss sitting down to eat a meal at a restaurant and finding that I was eating 20 minutes before my seatmates because the kitchen and wait staff couldn't be bothered to coordinate. 

Will Miss #40 - people doing their own thing (reflection)

If this guy were in America instead of Akihabara, he wouldn't bother wearing headphones, he'd just blast that music aloud.

At some point within this past week, my husband and I were crossing a street and a guy on a skateboard crossing in the opposite direction was loudly and theatrically singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." After he had passed, my husband asked me if I thought he was mentally ill (as a lot of such unfortunate souls are conversing with unseen parties) or if he was just unaware of how inappropriate his behavior was. My answer was that it was a case of neither and that, in my experience, he was just being a not atypical American.

I'm sometimes floored by how people behave in public spaces as if they were private. I'm not talking about people who hug or kiss in public in moments of unrestrained passion (also, hugging in public is a greeting in the U.S. so it's not so strange). I'm talking about people who seem mentally well who will sing aloud or talk to themselves aloud - without any sort of phone - I've seen people discuss the contents of their shopping cart with themselves. America has either really changed since I left it in 1989 or the Bay Area is vastly different from where I grew up, but people really seem quite unrestrained now in these areas.

In Japan, the people who did their own thing rarely sang or conversed to themselves (though it did happen). They, more often than not, would dance, do golf  or baseball swings, or some sort of movement which seemed unusual in public. Americans tend to be verbal about it. Japanese tended to be physical. Frankly, the latter was less disturbing because you could just not look. It's hard to not "hear" someone who is being loud.

I can't say that I miss people "doing their own thing" in public since it happens so often here, but I can say that I found the way in which it happened in Japan less disruptive and charming. That's a biased I've formed, no doubt, but I'm being honest.

Won't Miss #49 - frozen construction (reflection)

As I mentioned in the original post, my issue with construction which took forever to complete was that areas that I had to walk through were often obstructed by it. In particular, it seemed to take forever for any work being done on stations to be completed. The question as I look back on that situation is, "does it take forever in America, too?" The answer to that is definitely "no". In the U.S., the problem isn't that construction never gets done, but that it seems to recur quite often, especially on roads. 

So, while I might have to walk through a taped-off, walled-off, narrow space for over a year in Tokyo while construction seemed to proceed at a crawl, I didn't tend to have to do it more than once in a long span of time. Nonetheless, I don't miss having to walk around or work around glacially paced work.

Will Miss #48 - sleep anywhere (reflection)

Shortly after we moved to the Bay Area in the late spring/early summer of 2012, my husband remarked that he thought it was nice that some people felt free to just sack out on a picnic bench somewhere. It wasn't something that we saw often, but, on occasion, people would sleep in public after a hard day or during lunch. This is the uncommon sort of sleeping in public that I see here in the U.S.

The more common type of "sleep anywhere" in America is homeless people. Sometimes they are stretched out in parks (which also happened in Japan) and sometimes just slumbering in front of the local library or even on a street near a shopping area. More often than not, the vibe from public snoozers is not a happy one.

In Japan, most of the people sleeping in strange places, and the range of areas was far greater than it is here, are clearly employed and homed. The vibe you get is a curious one, perhaps even a little amusing. I miss seeing people sleeping anywhere they're too tired to go on and feeling like it's actually kind of cute rather than sad. 

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.

Will Miss #47 - tiny watermelons (reflection)

I've had mixed experiences with fruit in general since coming to America. I've found that the prices, in general, are similar to those in America, but you get a lot more for your money here. If you have a family or are a big fruit eater, this is a good thing. If you're the only person who eats a particular fruit, such as, watermelon in my case, then paying $5 for a big one means that you're either throwing away some of it or force-feeding it to yourself for an extremely long time.

The truth is that the sizes of food in Japan tended to suit me better. I guess that, if I didn't mind wasting food or cramming enormous melons into my refrigerator, I'd be happier with the size of fruit in the U.S. As it is, managing the (usually) mammoth melons is annoying enough that I rarely buy them at all. I miss those compact little melons.