Bonus Footage

I think it's time for some pictures and videos!
Colleen, here is the goth shop I mentioned:

This is a shop called "Baby the Stars Shine Bright." They sell "lolita" style clothing, which is basically dressing up like a porcelain doll, with a poofy dress, lacy stockings, a bonnet, the works. Everything with lots of lace and bows. I've wanted to see this shop for a long time, so I was really happy when I found it in Nagoya! I would totally buy one and use it as a Halloween costume, but they're too expensive. Unfortunately the employees (who were just so cute in their little dresses) told me I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside the shop, so this blurry photo will have to do!

Lunch at my favorite bakery:

Soft-serve ice cream cones you can buy at the store and keep in your freezer for later! Why doesn't America have these??

The Nagoya station on a weekend!

Crazy Questions

American exchange students get a lot of funny questions from Japanese people. Examples friends and I have been asked:
"Do you eat vegetables in America?"
"Does everyone in America own guns?"
"Do you eat rice in America?"
"Do you have kaleidoscopes in America?"
Japan is pretty isolated, and although they're intelligent and well educated, Japanese people can be very ignorant about life in foreign countries. I told Origami Boy that we don't have snow in California (at least not in my town) and he asked if we have winter at all.
My host mom said, "I heard there's a Mexican exchange student at your university." I confirmed that there was, his name was Jose. "What are Mexicans like?" My host mom asked. "Are they interesting people? Is their skin kind of dark?" Not questions you ever hear in California.
The first day I had dinner with my host family, they saw me using chopsticks with my left hand. "Are most Americans left-handed?" They asked.
I'm starting to get used to this nativete, so these questions are amusing but no longer surprising. But the other day a Japanese really threw me for a loop.
On certain Sundays my church serves lunch after the service, so I was eating and chatting with people, once again using chopsticks with my left hand.
"Oh! You're left handed!" Said the pastor. A guy sitting next to me replied,
"Everyone in the southern hemisphere is left handed."

Say what?

I didn't even know where to begin with that one. Everyone? Southern Hemisphere??? Left handed? Unsfs90u3nf? Seriously, I mean seriously...America isn't even in the...everyone...illogical. Illogical. Norman coordinate. Does not compute.

Then the guy smiled at me and said, "Just kidding."

I think this country is actually trying to confuse me.

Culture Slap

Whiney and Origami Boy are not very well behaved. And that's not just from my American point of view, their parents have readily admitted it, somewhat apologetically.
Whiney, as you might guess, is the biggest crybaby I've ever seen. I don't care if he's only six years old. He cries when he doesn't get what he wants, when he gets what he doesn't want, when he's tired or even when people disagree with him. He's the master of the fake "I'm trying my very hardest to put up a convincing cry" cry. Hence the name.
Origami Boy doesn't cry, but he's still not very well behaved or respectful to his parents. Occasionally he seems to enjoy making life miserable for Whiney, such as kicking him under the table or stealing his food, which of course Whiney uses as an excuse to cry.
For all their irritating behavior and their parents awareness of it, I haven't seen either my host mom or dad ever punish their sons or take away a privilege. They don't even threaten to do so; they just scold them. Stop it, you're making a mess. Stop it, you're being so noisy. But of course, the sons don't really care. They get scolded so much they're probably used to it. "So what if it makes Mom mad, as long as I get another 10 minutes of Saturday morning anime?" This causes my host Mom or Dad to repeat the command, using a louder and more threatening and ugly voice. So the routine goes, several times a day:
"Whiney, turn the TV off and get in the bathtub. Whiney, TV. Off. Get in the tub! Whiney, did you not hear me? I said get in the tub! Listen to your mother! BATHTUB! NOW! WHINEY. GET IN! GET IN THE TUB THIS VERY INSTANT!" And so on and so forth until Whiney decides that he's ready to turn off the TV and get in the bathtub in his own sweet time. Combined with Whiney's whining, it's a lovely sound to wake up to in the morning.
I said that I've never seen the children punished. That's not entirely true. When one of the boys is being particularly rebellious, the parents will actually slap them on the head remarkably hard. Unlike most Americans these days, I'm not against the idea of spanking. But this head slapping makes my jaw hit the floor every time. I have never seen anyone hit a child so hard before. It's not that my host parents are physically abusive; I think head smacking is actually normal in Japanese culture, although used as a last resort. A quick Google search revealed that I am not the only visitor to Japan to have seen or be astonished by this behavior.
They don't tell you about this kind of stuff in the study abroad brochures.

Everything is Illuminated

Today I went on a school field trip to Nagoya Castle. It was really amazing, and I think that monotonous classes and long train rides help me appreciate doing fun stuff like this. If I was here as a tourist and was seeing the local sights all the time, I imagine they'd all start to look the same after a while.
The center keep in the picture below was actually burned down during the bombing in WWII. (Remember: wood and paper.) This is a reconstruction and the inside is like a museum, containing artifacts, photographs, models, and the like. The stone foundation, however, is the original. Notice the golden fish statues on the top of the roof. Those are very famous and are a symbol of Nagoya. In souvenier shops you can buy golden fish keychains, washcloths, air fresheners, purses, everything. I've even seen pastries made to look like these fish.


This was one of the exhibits inside the castle, showing how the huge stone foundations were built: by guys in loincloths.

During WWII the area around this castle was used as a district army headquarters. These small corner towers survived the bombing. Here's one of them with the old moat. If someone had visited the castle during WWII, I think this view might have been the same.


This evening my host mom said something really odd. Origami boy was whistling in the kitchen before dinner.
"Origami boy, stop that. It's evening." Host mom said.
"...what?" I said.
"Don't you know?" She replied. "Do you not have this saying in America too? Whistling at night attracts snakes."

...what?

Has anyone else heard this saying before?

Masagi

Tonight my host family and I all went out to dinner, and I am happy to say that it was much, much more enjoyable than the last dinner I wrote about, partially due to some clever jokes made by yours truly. Yes, yes, I'm amazing, I know.
Everyone seemed to be in a good mood. Even Whiney (the name I have secretly given to my youngest host brother) was well-behaved. I got a good laugh out of my host family by telling them about the random guy who hit on me at the station. He used the classic Japanese pick up line, "How about some tea?" I brushed him off with something like, "sorry, I'm busy, excuse me..." My host Dad said I was far too polite and next time to just tell the guy to get the **** away from me.
Whiney's older brother, the 8-year-old, entertained himself by making animal-shaped chopstick rests out of the chopstick wrappers. Yes, you read that right. Animal-shaped chopstick rests. A-like so:

My host mom said that he made up these designs all by himself.
"No way!" I said. "Here's my wrapper, can you make me a rabbit?" That kept him busy for quite a while. In the end he came up with this little creation, which I dubbed a "Masagi," which is a combination of his name and "usagi," which means "rabbit.

Sure, it doesn't look much like a rabbit, but not too bad for an 8-year-old coming up with something on the spot, right? From here on he shall now be referred to as Origami Boy.

The joys of living in a foreign country

Today there was a long line leading to the girls' bathroom at school. When I got to the front of the line, a stall became vacant, but to my despair it contained a Japanese-style toilet. And I don't mean a toilet with a lot of mysterious buttons, I mean this:


Why do they have these? From what I've heard, some Japanese regard sitting on the same toilet seat someone else has used as dirty and gross. In my opinion, kneeing on the bathroom floor is even grosser, so up to this point I have avoided these asian toilets successfully. But today a lot of girls were behind me waiting, so I decided that I didn't have time to wait for a stall with a Western-style toilet to open up. Thus was my first attempt at using a Japanese-style toilet. I knew that using it involved squatting but I wasn't sure exactly how, so...believe me you don't want any further details. Lets just say it was a pretty unpleasant experience, and I hope I never have to try it again.
They don't tell you about this kind of thing on the study abroad brochures.