After 3.5 Months

Well everyone, I have been in Japan now for just over 3.5 months. My time here so far has been a great adventure thus far. I have come across many things that I want to tell everyone about; some that I like and some that I don't, but all have made for great stories, and I am excited to let you all know about them. In this post, I will try to list as many events and strange occurances as possible to hopefully give you a better understanding of the world I am involved in here.


--The Beginning--

When I first stepped out of the Narita Airport, just outside of Tokyo, I knew that things were going to be different. This was 100% expected, but in some ways I didn't take into account how drastic things would change for me. I boarded a bus and headed in toward the city, and that is when I really felt excited, and at the same time I felt very nervous, and that things were quite strange. For starters, I climed onto the bus from the "wrong side", and headed down a big freeway on the "wrong side of the road". The cars weren't the same anymore either. Here, the cars tend to be very small and almost box shapped. I now typically refer to them as milk cartons on wheels. Even the "Semi-trucks" were strange, having all flat noses. Still to this day i haven't seen a truck with an extended nose like back home. This is for everything; gas tankers, goods trucks, even your typical pick-up truck; all flat nosed. As we drove (mind you, this was the beginning of september) basically all of the leaves on trees were completely green and had no signs of changing color yet or falling off. (the leaves eventually fell off completely nearly half way through December!) Then, we arrived in Tokyo, the biggest city I have ever seen, or stayed time in.

This is when I came across a problem, also forseen before leaving, that I still have to deal with 3.5 months later on an every day basis; The language barrier. This idea, although known about, has never impacted me before and took a long time to adjust to. In America, we expect everyone to speak English, and when they don't they will have alot of troubles. I was thrown into those shoes. If I want to order a meal at a restaurant, I have to work by seraching my brain for the right words. And then if I want a second glass of water, work again. Now I know how to say most of these daily necessities, but at the beginning, life was hell when it came to using the language. I had all of a sudden been put in a situation where I could no longer complete the simplest of tasks, and for a few months, I would feel quite helpless, much like a small child. Now though, 3.5 months in, these feeling have started to go away slowly but surely, as I learn more and more language, and get comfortable using what i have learned. Sometimes, I like to go out alone, and with no help from another person, try to accomplish something. Up till now, they have been small things. For instance, one day I needed a bike shop owner to help me fix my bike. before I left, I looked up some critical vocab that I would need, and set out. All alone, I had my bike fixed, and also my ego. This might sound a little dramatic, but that is one of the best feelings I have come across here; just knowing that I can help myself, in the same way that I would at home, and feel comfortable with it. There are many, many things that I can still not do on my own, but each week I try something else that will test me.

Now, I would like to make a list and description of things I have been strange to me here.

1. Surgical Masks - Yes, surgical masks. Some days, when you walk down the street you feel like you just entered an episode of Doogie Howser or something. Due to the extreme politeness here, people where these when they are sick, to keep others from catching the sickness. But, it's strait up wierd to me. We joke about it all the time like "if I wore one of those i'd draw a vampire face on it or something!" Or "what, are they trying to be Ninja's?!"

2. opening a soda bottle - This still gets me every time I get myslef a coke. At home, when you crack that sucker open you hear this "tttsssssssssss" and the gas escapes nice and slowly; I'm sure you can all imagine. However, in Japan, when you crack it open, after about a 1/8 inch turn, you will hear a "POP". The first time this happened to me I jumped, and everytime since, it still gets me.

3. Water faucet handels - In America, if your kictchen sink has a handel instead of knobs, you will push it up in order to turn on the water, and down to turn it off. In Japan, have fun soaking yourself with water bouncing from the bottom of the sink when you push it down to turn the water off and make it go to full pressure. I have one like this in my room, and for the first month I did that every flippin time. Now, still nearly once or twice a week. Its a horrible 21 year habbit to have to break, let me tell ya!

4. Where's the toilet flush level?! - Yeah, it's typically on the right side here, rather than the left. I felt real dumb after looking for it for about 30 seconds one day. Also, they have a lever many times that can be pushed up or down. One direction is for "big" and the other for "small" labeled with Kanji. This is the amount of water that will rush through.

5. wait, I gotta push a button to order? - I would say that 90% of sit in restaurants have a little button on the table to push in order to get your waiter to come over. Sometimes this is useful, and other times totally ridiculous. They wont come until you press it, and sometimes you press it and they are 5 feet away behind the counter or something. Also, you press it to get your bill.

6. Japanese Friends - These are really hard to come by. We exchange students, especially from western countires, complain about it all the time. I have been here 3.5 months and have only made one Japanese friend. The rest are more like acquaintances, that never call you to go do things. It's a very big sore spot for us. In america, the exchange students would have many friends with the natives, and would be shown all kinds of things around the area. We somewhat have to fend for oursleves. I have made some new life long friends here in Japan, all of which are exchange students.

7. Party like you're a rockstar - The Japanese know how to impress 21 year old American guy with this to say the least. They have created an establishment called an "Izakaya". Here, you can get really, really, REALLY drunk for a very affordable price. You walk in, get a seat, ask for 2 hours of time, and then drink all you want in those two hours, for only around 20 or so bucks. It's magical... I think. (can't always remember if it was a good time, but i guess that means it must have been eh?!) The Japanese use these for a different reason though. They tend to do an all you can eat thing along with their drinking, and so it doesn't cause massive drunk shinanigins. We on the other hand stick to the saying "If you're eatin, You're cheatin" and leave pretty messed up. It's quite the expirience to ride a bike 2 miles when your trashed too! It's obviously illegal, but....SHHHH!

People don't realy go to actaul bars here much, which is a real big oddity for me. I Don't know why.
Beer is unreasonbly priced. Something like $9 for a six pack! American liquor is dirt cheap. The Japanese are real light weights, so they don't like liquor much, and actually have no concept of the word "shot". This is a gold mine for us however, as we can get our favorite bottles for only about a $15 average. Also, they sell 4 Liter bottles of whiskey here. I haven't bought one yet, and maybe I wont beacuse that's a bit insane, but you can get them. Can you imagine if those were possible to get in America?! Kids would be dead on the streets!

8. Don't need to be single to go on a date - Yes, you read that right. I was really shocked when I expirienced this first hand. I'll explain. I asked a Japanese girl out for dinner about a month or so into my trip. She said yes, and I got excited about it. My good Japanese friend Nori did some behind my back recon on her, and found that she had a boy friend! He told me this just hours before we were to go out. I confronted here about the issue and this is what she said..."when I said yes, I didn't realize that "dinner" meant a date, I just thought we would go out and talk and hang out". I thought to myslef "WHAT?!?!" In america, and all of you know this, that if a guy asks a girl out for dinner, and she says yes, it is obviously a date. The person who doesn't realize this would be a true idiot. I have talked to other people from western cultures, and they all agree with me. They couldn't believe it either. I would say that has been on of the biggest culture shocks I have come across.

9. You've got to own a bike - On my first day here, I was instructed by my tutor to go out the next day and buy a bike. Everyone in Japan has one, as it is the biggest means of transporation outside of the real big cities. I haven't owned one in nearly 10 years so it was strange to get used to saying "where did I park my bike" rather than "My car". My legs are becoming really strong and fit now though, due to riding it an average of around 15 miles a week or so.

10. Gotta love rice - I had never used a rice cooker before, now I use one 5 times a week. I had never eatin rice on a daily basis, now it's hard to go a day without nearly being forced to eat it. I have become so accustomed to it, that I can eat it plain. On my first day, I asked my tutor "is there anything to put on the rice?" expecting him to say something about soy sauce, and he gave me a very strange look. In Japan, the rice is the meal. The meat and veggies are the toppings.

11. ATMs - There are ATMs all over just like at home, but the the thing about them is this.. They stop giving you money between the hours of 9PM and 9AM. Try being drunk, and wanting to get out some more cash when the ATM says "NOPE! You have to wait till tomorrow morning". That was an unhappy night.

12. Mcdonalds - Here, the burgers actaully look like the pictures.. go figure. Japan takes great pride in the freshness of thier food products. All food that is meant to be fresh, is fresh. The super markets stop stocking new meat and produce a few hours before closing, so that they wont be bad the next day. It's wonderful, and I have found that American food is pretty crappy quality.

13. So polite, It's impolite - With this, I am mostly speaking about how the Japanese feel about correcting spoken language mistakes. When speaking, if you are to make a mistake, it will go on without being corrected, unless of course it's by a teacher. The Japanese seem to think that they will hurt your feelings by correcting you, which of course, for a learner, it is very crucial to be corrected. By not correcting you, they will avoid some sort of awkward feeling, and this is thier way of being nice. To me however, this is the opposite of nice. I need to be corrected, or I will keep making the same mistake over and over, thinking it is right. So in the long run, they have been impolite, by not helping you, and making you look like an ass farther on down the road, when it could have been solved very simply.

14. Too much English! - One thing that many Americans down realize is that basically everyone in the world learns English from around the 4th or 5th grade, and they typically have a good knowledge of it. Here in Japan, the college students are forced to take English language classes. This is a sore point for use forigners. The Japanese students see us as a very good opportunity to practice thier English, but we think it should be the other way around. Beacuse when I first arrived, my Japanese was very poor, I had to establish relationships through English. Even though this wasn't really my fault, it has come full circle to bite me in the rear. Now, my language has imporved drastically, and yet, they insist on speaking English. Even if I ask a question in Japanese, a reply is given in English. I know I didn't come 6,000 miles to help with and learn my language, rather to learn Japanese, so this is one of the things I dislike the most about being here. Agian, this comes back to politness on thier part. They feel it's nicer to speak in English to make me feel comfortable, which at first was nice, but now, it's become troublesome. I rarely get to practice my Japanese, and am learning at a much slower rate that I would like to.

Well, so far, these are some things that I have found here, that I thought people might want to hear about. All-in-all, I am enjoying my time here quite a bit. It is worth my time, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Thank you all for reading this! More posts to come so stay tuned.