Memoirs of a Gaijin

Too tired to write about this. I'll explain later.

And other American activities

The other day my host mom offered me some gum.
Me: No thank you.
Host mom: Okay. You don't chew gum much, do you?
Me: Nope.
Host mom: It's funny, we Japanese think of chewing gum as a very American thing.
Me: Why's that?
Host mom: Well you always see American baseball players chewing gum.
Me: Uhh...I don't think that's gum...I think it's tobacco.
Host mom: REALLY??

It was funny. Maybe you just had to be there though.

Grey

Lately I've been noticing how the area I'm in is pretty ugly. Both Nagoya, the town my host family lives in, and all the towns I commute through in between. They're just so...grey.

1. For one thing, they seem so haphazardly thrown together. I don't know if there's zoning laws here, but it kind of doesn't seem like it. Walking down the street, I'll pass a Mom and Pop hardware store, three houses, a bicycle parking lot, a Japanese-style house, a tiny community center, a Western-style house, a sparkly Pachinko parlor, two more houses, a barber shop, etc.

2. Where are the trees? I live in the countryside in a town with less than 40,000 in the population, and where are the freaking trees???

3. Where is the grass??? Why isn't there any grass here??

4. Next, people don't have much in the way of front yards; their front doors are often adjacent to the sidewalk. If they have any at all, a lot of people don't seem to take especially good care of them. Front yards often have bicycles and random junk strewn all over them. Like curb appeal just isn't a big deal here.

5. Japan doesn't bury power lines, as you can see in the photos above.

6. It seems like some people who live in traditional-style Japanese houses can't afford the upkeep. I see a lot of the old-fashioned wooden houses that must have been lovely forty years ago...but need a major overhaul now. There's tape over the windows and wires running along the outside of the walls and the rain gutters are falling off the roof. I don't think I live in a ghetto area...but I kind of see a lot of these houses...

I'm not saying that Japan is an ugly country. I've seen some of its beauty first-hand.

But basically, a lot of the Japan that I see every day...just seems like no attention was given to aesthetics whatsoever. There's no loveliness anywhere except for the occasional temple or shrine which retains its traditional style. Everything is grey, efficient concrete, slapped down wherever the closest open spot was and squished as close together as possible. I have yet to see an apartment building in Japan that doesn't look like it was made from grey legos. Far away is my suburban hometown where houses in spacious neighborhoods sit on neat front lawns and people play basketball in their driveways. Or *gasp* in their backyards!!