Won't Miss #408 - fear of America

I've said before and I'm sure I'll say it again and again; context is everything. I've been in Japan a long time and haven't been home for 20 years. As a result of this, I've started to absorb a lot of the negative, skewed and distorted perspectives about life in America that the Japanese have. They talk incessantly about guns, violence, crime, and safety as if you risk getting mugged on every street corner and every person is packing heat (which is only true in Arizona). Though I never experienced crime when I lived in my tiny rural home or during the year I spent in Silicon Valley, it's hard to keep the collective fears of everyone around me from thinking that going home might not be such a great idea. Frankly, a little bit of what has kept me here so long is concern that my home is as bad as people keep saying it is. I am actually scared of life back home after years of viewing it through Japanese eyes.

I don't like how the fears of people who have limited experience in the United States have colored my view of my home and will not miss being surrounded by the uninformed perceptions of people with limited or no actual experience. 

Will Miss #407 - sea mail and small packet

A box sent to us from a friend which had to be sent by airmail parcel post which cost a whopping $69. The value of the contents was likely lower than the cost of the shipping. I imagine our fate once we leave Japan will be to be relegated to such exorbitant fees or to not send anything to friends abroad.

Because my husband and I got together as penpals, and he spent a year alone in Japan during our "courtship", we are both intimately familiar with the respective postal services in Japan and the U.S. I sent no less than 200 parcels to him during our separation and he likely sent as many or more back to me. Back in those days, I could use a postal rate called "small packet" to more cheaply send my cassette tapes to him and I used sea mail to send hefty goody boxes to see him through the long months without Western junk food and reading material. Both of these rates are extremely important in keeping postal rates at a level that average folks can afford. Unfortunately, last time my husband tried to mail things from the U.S. to Japan (2-3 years ago), he got a rude awakening. The USPS eliminated both sea mail and small packet so now it costs a bundle to mail anything outside of the U.S. I can't imagine how our snail mail relationship would have gone without the existence of these rates back when we got together, but it wouldn't have been good. 

Japan still embraces both sea mail and small packet and it has made it much more reasonable to sell things by eBay to countries outside of the U.S. and to send things to friends or family. I will miss the option of these reasonable rates at the post office. 

Won't Miss #407 - bicycle/bike confusion

Neighborhood kitty doesn't care what word I use. It just wants a place to sleep.

Sometimes the simplest conversations get tangled in a web of confusion and the use of the word "bike" in Japan always seems to spin this web. When I'm speaking in English with a Japanese person and ask, "have you ever had your bike stolen," and the answer will be, "I don't have a bike." That same person may have mentioned previously that he or she indeed has a bicycle, but this is a Japanese-English problem. In Japan, "bike" means "motorbike" or motorized scooter. You may not think bicycles are going to be discussed all that much, but, in Tokyo, more people use bicycles than cars by a huge margin. It becomes very frustrating and tiresome having to modify my natural and absolutely correct English to suit the manner in which Japanese-English works.

No matter how many times I tell students that, in English, "bike" and "bicycle" are one and the same, there will be a miscommunication any time this simple topic is broached and I won't miss it.

Will Miss #406 - missionary results

As someone who grew up in a small town with small minds and a white bread Christian mentality, I'm very familiar with the negative aspects of Christianity. It's also easy to point an accusing finger at a lot of societal turmoil, war and suffering and hang the blame on Christian fundamentalism. However, not all Christians are militant and many do a lot of good in the world. Back home, this seemed to be limited to local help for the hungry, homeless, or poor on a temporary basis. If you live abroad and pay attention, you can see that it's more than bake sales, free soup, and bible school. In Japan, I've seen the fruit of missionary efforts planted a long time ago. I'm not talking about conversion or conformity to Christian morality, but rather about things which are concrete and beneficial to everyone in society regardless of spiritual beliefs. There are many hospitals and educational institutions which exist in Japan as a result of missionary work. While Japan is now a wealthy country that seems fully capable of organizing such things themselves, the current institutions were put in place when the situation was very much the opposite. What is more, many of those institutions support continuing education of Japanese people on the church's dime in whole or in part. This includes, but is not limited to sending doctors to the United States to learn new techniques.

I will miss seeing the concrete evidence of the positive side of missionary activities and witnessing first hand that they are not all about converting the local heathens. 

Won't Miss #406 - proselytizers outside of shrines

I've said before that the Japanese aren't particularly religious, though they do go through the motions (visiting shrines and temples, praying, etc.) a lot for a non-religious people, and they aren't uptight about religion and tend to ignore proselytizers. During New Year's holidays, Christians stand in front of the entrance of Meiji shrine, the most popular shrine for hatsumode (first prayer of the new year) in Tokyo, and encourage people to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior. The Japanese aren't really bothered by this, but as a person from an overwhelmingly Christian nation, I find it disrespectful. During Japan's most important religious holiday in front of their capital's most popular site, they try to convert people. This is tantamount to Hare Krishna's or Moslems standing outside of a church on Christmas trying to persuade Christians to change religions as they go in for services. My guess is that they wouldn't put up with it, yet they don't see anything wrong with doing this to the Japanese. I don't mind that they do it in crowded places like train stations, but in front of shrines seems just wrong, especially at such a special time of year.

I won't miss seeing proselytizers shamelessly trying to convert the natives to their religion in front of Japanese religious structures. It doesn't bother the Japanese, but it bothers me because it has more than a whiff of hypocrisy.

Will Miss #405 - playing Auld Lang Syne for shop closing

A crowded department store during New Year's sales. I'd love to see this bunch cleared out with a song.

When shops are about to close back home, announcements are often made which are the polite equivalent of "we're closing soon so finish what you're doing and get out." In Japan, they handle it in a gentler way. When the time for the shop to close is coming up, they start playing Auld Lang Syne. The funny thing about this is that they don't play this New Year's classic during the actual holiday, but many shops play it every day to bid their customer's farewell. 

I think this is a gentle way of ushering customer's out of shops and I imagine that, for the rest of my life no matter where I am or what the situation, I will always associate this song with Japanese stores offering a genteel goodbye to their patrons. 

Won't Miss #405 - skin care advice (that is ignored)

Nine times out of ten, when a Japanese woman says she has bought "cosmetics", she has picked up a plethora of skin care products (not make-up). In fact, most women under 50 have a "skin care regime" that they go through which costs them a pretty penny. Because my skin is clear and pale, I'm often asked what I do to maintain it. The answer is, "nothing." I buy soap which is 3 bars for 98 yen ($1.22) and I wash my face once, sometimes twice a day. Other than that, I apply cheap moisturizer (bought at the 100 yen shop) after I shower because I'm getting older and my skin is thinner around my eyes. I don't use sun screen or a parasol either. I tell my Japanese acquaintances who ask that it's not what you put on your face that matters, but what you put in your body. Good skin comes from eating (preferably, cooked) tomatoes, carrots, and citrus, and from drinking plenty of water. I get nods and proclamations that they, too, will do these things, but they never do it. Japanese women drink plain water very rarely, if at all, and the promise of better skin at no cost isn't enough to compel them to start doing so.

I won't miss wasting my breath talking about skin care basics with women who'd rather throw money ineffectively at their issues than do what works.

Will Miss #404 - the blue forest

Worldwide, there are a lot of incredible places with illumination. Sometimes they are ostentatious and ridiculous and sometimes beautiful. I'm not a huge fan of the gigantic over-the-top displays and am more of a fan of places which manage to generate a mood. For me, the most magical display in Tokyo is the Blue Forest in front of the Caretta building in Shiodome. During the day, it's a bunch of metal and wires that resemble modern sculpture. At night, it's a magical field with trees. The atmosphere after dark when the lights go on is incredible. The care with which the lights are strung to create a perfect illusion of  hedges of light surrounding trees all made up of electronic glows is something I also associate with Japanese meticulousness. 

I will miss being able to see this magic made by strings of light and electricity. 

Won't Miss #404 - the superiority thing

The flip-side to the lingering inferiority complex that the Japanese people have about their position relative to Western cultures and China is the superiority complex about Asia. There is an interesting contradiction displayed in regards to China in particular. The Japanese frequently criticize all things Chinese from the lack of order as demonstrated by not lining up to the rudeness to the food quality and safety to the cleanliness yet they fear China is going to eclipse Japan economically. The sense that Japan is not even a part of Asia and is above other Asian countries has become somewhat muted as the economy has behaved like a slowly sinking ship since the bubble burst, but it is still there.

I won't miss the superiority complex that some Japanese people display when speaking of other Asian countries. 

Will Miss #403 - the slo-mo hang-up

Politeness in Japan can sometimes be carried to ridiculous levels, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the slow motion hang up of phones. In my former office, when a salesman called a client, he put the receiver back in the cradle as if he were settling a sleeping baby into its bed and trying not to make the least little move that would jar it awake. I asked why salesmen took about 5 minutes to perform the simple act of putting down the phone. It's not like the person on the other end can see their gentle cessation of a call. I was told that they didn't want anyone to think they were "slamming" down the phone. By the time that receiver actually touched the cradle, the person on the other end was on his way home at the end of the day.

I'll miss the slo-mo hang-up that people used to do as an absurd tip of the hat to customer service and excessive politeness.

Won't Miss #403 - the inferiority thing

Japan has the third largest economy in the world with the 10th largest population. Tokyo leads the world's major cities in patent applications. The country is known for its superior technology. Their cars dominate the automobile market. Japan is a very small country with almost no natural resources. The fact that their food, pop culture, and products are known and desired and that they are an economic force to be reckoned with is amazing in light of their size and circumstances. Despite all of this, Japanese people, by and large, have an enormous inferiority complex. They fret about being eclipsed by China economically. They talk how they have shorter legs than Westerners and flatter noses as if these were signs of some sort of inadequacy on their part. They note every loss in an international athletic event as an indication of their inferiority. I encounter a steady stream of people who think Japan is weak and inadequate to every Western nation and China.

Japan is an amazing country that has accomplished a great deal with many disadvantages and I won't miss the lingering inferiority complex that people display despite their many achievements. 

Will Miss #402 -the AFLAC duck, Japan-style

Not one, not two, but 3 variants on the duck, and they're all decked out for Halloween!

In the U.S., the AFLAC duck mascot is shown as a real duck. This makes sense since insurance is serious business, well, except for the part where ducks aren't exactly representative of maturity and responsibility. In Japan, the duck gets the same makeover as everything else. It is "cutified" and most of the AFLAC storefronts that I saw included an enormous and utterly adorable stuffed toy version of said duck.

Seeing it there made the whole sense that buying insurance was this adult thing which addressed the need to be secure in cases of death or destruction a little less daunting, and I miss the way that this soft toy softened the feeling associated with something like insurance.