Experiencing Japanese family life?

Sometimes I wonder why my host family isn't embarrassed to act the way they do around me. The children throw tantrums, my host mom emasculates and henpecks my host dad, the host dad blatantly ignores my host mom. And that's just a few examples. Meanwhile, I'll just be sitting there at the dinner table thinking, "aren't they ashamed of themselves?"

Perhaps they're trying to treat me as part of the family, not as a guest. So sometimes I feel bad that I don't spend more time with them. But seriously, if they wanted me to be part of their family, maybe they should have made their family life more appealing.

One thing that really frustrates me is the way Origami Boy is allowed to treat his little brother. Origami Boy has serious anger problems. I truly worry about him. I think he inherited them from his mom because the actions he takes and the voice he uses when he's angry is an obvious imitation of hers. When Origami Boy is angry with Whiney for whatever reason, he screams at him and hits him mercilessly. If Whiney is doing something Origami Boy doesn't like, Origami Boy will physically force him to stop. One day he was particularly angry and was torturing Whiney so relentlessly that Whiney locked himself in the bathroom just to escape.

And the weird thing is, my host parents don't do a thing about this! I don't know why. Today Origami Boy screamed at Whiney, hit him on the head and kicked him in the stomach. My host mom saw it all and didn't do a thing. I think this explains why Whiney cries so dramatically. He's trying to get someone to notice and stick up for him. I'd do the same if I was in his situation.

I'm only here for a semester. Of the exchange students who are studying for a whole year in Japan, a surprising amount of them have applied to move out of host families and live in dormitories instead. If I was here for another semester, I think I would do the same. Luckily I only have one more week with my host family.

Memiors of a Gaijin, cont.

I promised that I would explain the photo of me dressed up as a geisha. I've been putting it off because I kind of doubt whether anyone besides my parents is interested.

It was probably one of the most awesome Saturdays of my life. My good friend Saki offered to show me around Kyoto in order to make the most of my ever-diminishing time left in the Land of the Rising Sun. Kyoto is about 2 and a half hours away by bus, so we left on a Friday evening and stayed in a hotel. We got up early the next morning and headed out towards Gion, an old district of the city and perhaps the only place in Japan where real geisha and maiko (a geisha-in-training) can still be seen.

We had made reservations at a shop where you can pay to dress up like a maiko, with the fancy kimono, makeup and hair. About eight other women and one man were doing it as well. It was quite a process. Saki described it as kind of "a maiko factory" because the employees' efficient system of transforming customers into maiko was much like an assembly line. Makeup. Next. Wig. Next. Kimono. Next. At the end we had professional pictures taken. For a higher price you could take a walk outside in your costume, but Saki and I chose not to. I think that was a good idea, as our kimonos were a little old and, well, I just looked...extremely unusual. Maybe a little scary. Saki was barely recognizable.

It was a super fun experience. I will never get tired of playing dress-ups. Never. Getting all that white makeup off wasn't easy though.
Saki and I did a lot of things that day, and I'm sure you probably don't want to hear every detail. But I'll tell you about Kiyomizu-dera because I've got some awesome pictures I want to show off, like this one of high schoolers on a field trip lining up for a picture. Little did they know of their impending doom.

Kiyomizu-dera, being one of Kyoto's biggest attractions, was very crowded! There was at least one high school field trip going on at the time. Kiyomizu-dera is a huge old temple constructed of wood on the side of a hill. Thus it commands a wonderful view of the city, and must be truly packed when the cherry blossoms or fall foilage is in full bloom. You can see in the picture below that the very large building has a roof made of thatched grasses.

Interestingly, behind the Buddhist temple lies a Shinto shrine. This shrine seemed to be particularly dedicated to the spirit of love and relationships, with amulets and fortunes to buy for luck in love, marriage, and conception. There were two special boulders set a couple yards away from each other. I saw a group of high school girls giggling as they lead their blindfolded friend through the crowds from one rock to the other. Apparently this is a ritual believed to bring luck in love or something. The whole area was packed with women of all ages, which just goes to show that girls are the same all over the world.

On our way home, we picked up some freshly-baked soymilk donuts, which were hot and fluffy and light and delicious. I wish we had them in the US.

Saki and I returned home that evening, and I was very tired but very happy too.

Thank you Saki!

Makes a good wallpaper:

Is the semester over yet?

Next week is finals week, and thank goodness. I think everyone, students and teachers alike, are sick and tired of Japanese class. Eight hours a week together is just too many. Blazer Sensei's fuse was particularly short today- and it was first period! Usually it takes us at least two periods to wear her down.

This morning I walked into the classroom.

The bell rang.

Knowing that 2 out of 10 total homework points hung precariously in the balance, I positioned myself squarely in front of the Pink Box of Doom and set my backpack in front of it so the professor would understand that I was in the process of submitting my homework and would mercifully keep the box open five seconds longer.

And as I opened my backpack to get out my homework, Blazer Sensei closes the Box right in front of me.

Dirty little...

In a move of unabashed rebellion, I opened the Pink Box and slipped my homework inside. Blazer Sensei undoubtedly saw it, and will probably mark my homework as late nonetheless. Sayonara, 2 homework points.

I guess it serves me right for being late to class.

Oh wait.

I WASN'T.

Yes, I think everyone needs winter vacation badly.

Dragons, ganbatte!

You really have to hand it to Nagoya.
They've solved one of the world's oldest questions: how do you get girls interested in baseball?
Nagoya's plan is so deceptively simple. Every time the local baseball team, the Chunichi Dragons, win a game, nearly every store holds a victory sale. So the Dragons have all the girls in town rooting for them, including me.

Brilliant.

Unfortunately the Dragons don't seem to win very often.

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!!