My Basket

Since we've been here, we've collected about ten times more plastic grocery bags than we need to line our trash cans. Recently, however, our grocery store solved that problem for us as they started to charge 5 yen (about 5 cents) per plastic bag in order to be more environmentally friendly. So we decided to do our part and buy a "My Basket" from the store.

With a "My Basket" you go to the store and do your shopping in a regular cart or basket, storing your "My Basket" underneath. When you get to the cash register, you hand the cashier your basket and they then load all your groceries into the basket, rather than into bags. When everything is in the basket, the cashier tapes a paper over the top to indicate the groceries inside have been paid for and you're on your way.

The biggest problem with the basket so far is that even though everything fits inside, it is too heavy for me to carry. So I usually end up taking a backpack or tote bags in addition to distribute the weight. I also can't help wondering how many plastic bags went into making my pink plastic basket.

Point Cards

It may be that I've forgotten a lot about everyday life in America, but I'm pretty sure we don't use these like the Japanese do. What we have here are point cards, or cards that you have stamped when purchasing goods or services from various establishments hoping to collect enough points to get some sort of discount or free item. Now, I know that these are used to some extent in the States because I'm fairly certain I can remember getting a stamp on a card for something somewhere at some point. The major difference, however, in my opinion, is how rampant their use is here. You can't shop anywhere without collecting a point card. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've collected more point cards than points. The above picture is a sampling of some of our cards which include haircuts, the cleaners, the movie theater, the grocery store, donuts, ice cream . . . I won't show you how many points we've collected on some of those. In some cases, instead of collecting points on a card, the establishment will keep track for you. For example, Pizza-La, our delivery pizza place will tell us every so often that we have (once again) earned free chicken nuggets or orange juice. Making use of the Japanese service industry is such a rewarding experience.

Housewarming Gifts

In the States, when someone new moves into the neighborhood, it is customary to take cookies or some other offering over and introduce ourselves. In Japan, however, the housewarming gifts come from the newly established neighborhood residents. This past Sunday we were pleasantly surprised to find a box of saran wrap in our mailbox with our new neighbor's name and apartment number written on it. I believe that it is customary for the housewife to go and introduce herself to thank the new neighbor for the gift . . . I haven't gone yet. Maybe I'll wrap some cookies in my new saran wrap and teach them how Americans move into neighborhoods. (^_^)

Our Balcony Garden

One very sunny and warm day a few weeks ago, I happened upon a display of flowers for sale outside a shop. The weather was so unusually beautiful and the flowers so cheerful that I ended up buying a few. That moment of weakness resulted in a garden that takes up most of the space on our crowded balcony. I have yet to regret it, however, as I often find myself gazing at my potted flowers and wondering why I’ve never had any before.

In addition to the flowers, we decided to attempt growing some of the vegetables that we haven’t seen since the last time we shopped at Wal-Mart. Celery was at the top of our list, but as we browsed through the different kinds of seeds available we ended up getting some radishes and zucchini as well.

Of course my love for completely green, edible plants (i.e. herbs) is ever present, as I also planted some peppermint and parsley right by the door for easy, all day access.

Our herbs and vegetables really aren't too exciting yet, as the only green they're currently sporting is my plastic grass motif. We are, however, very much looking forward to watching our tiny garden grow in deliciousness over these next few months.

Shojigami: The Art of Paper Tearing

If you hired a contractor to build you a new home and his proposal included walls, doors, and windows made of paper, you'd fire him on the spot, right? Well after you fired him, he would head over to Japan where paper architecture has been flourishing for over 2,000 years. Among the various doors and room dividers made of paper, shoji remains the most well known and is often regarded as necessary for a Japanese look. This past week, we decided to lend our guest room some of that Japanese ambiance by taking down our curtains and re-papering some shoji frames that we found in our shed.

Papering shoji turned out to be fairly simple and actually quite fun. We laid the frame down on our kitchen floor, spread glue on the wood, and then rolled shoji paper slowly over the frame as seen in this picture.


After the shoji paper was securely glued to the frame, we left it on the kitchen floor to dry. This wasn't a real brilliant move on our part, as Tyler soon put his foot through the paper. After ripping everything off and starting over, we moved the frames to a safer location and allowed them to finish drying before trimming the excess paper off the edges.

After trimming the edges, we sprayed a light mist of water on the back to shrink the paper a little and tighten it. Although this is wonderful for overall shoji aesthetics, it was also a mistake. The paper tightened so beautifully that when we were putting the doors into the window and Tyler's knee bumped against one of the panels, it ripped again. At this point Tyler was muttering things under his breath that sounded like ' . . . paper in houses . . . whose stupid idea . . . ' so we left it and went to bed.

Although I can now say that we have beautiful shoji in our guest room, I also have to wonder, as Tyler did, whose stupid idea was this? You can't say that we're just clumsy, foreign oafs because the Japanese break their shoji too. Although I've seen many fist sized or finger sized holes in shoji over the years, the best example that I've ever seen and the best case yet for not having these in the home comes from our friend's house here in Ogaki.

When their two little girls started crawling, an occasional fist or foot flew through the bottom panels. Now that the girls are walking and getting taller, they can punch the paper higher and higher and beam with pride every time their super strength tears through the doors.

And yet, despite all this, I would re-paper my shoji a thousand times for its sheer beauty, simplicity, and for the way warm sunshine filters through the paper. Shoji may not be able to withstand the playful poke of a child's finger or the gentle nudge of an adult knee, but perhaps the creation of something beautiful, yet impermanent, was what the Japanese had in mind all along.

To Television Set Owners

The Japanese have somehow managed to squeeze bribes-- er, extortion-- I mean, fees into nearly every aspect of daily life. "Key Money" is a fee (amount varies between 2 to 6 months of rent) paid to your new landlord on top of your first months rent and deposit. Not only does this money help ensure the rental, it also allows you to show your (mandatory) gratitude for being allowed to move in. ATMs charge fees for using them after their normal business hours. (I'm assuming this fee is somehow connected to paying the machine overtime wages.) And car owners beware! When buying a car in Japan, mentally add at least $10,000 to the displayed price because your insurance, inspection, and mandatory repair costs every two years can be thousands of dollars. Even though we have had time now to acquaint ourselves with these various fees, the latest addition to our monthly bills really floored us.

Last Saturday, in the middle of a snowstorm, a man arrived on our doorstop. Our conversation with him went something like this.

Man: Do you watch TV?
Us: Um . . . yes?
Man: Do you have a Broadcast Receiving Contract with NHK?
Us: A-- what?
Man: You owe us money.
Us: HUH?!
Man: Read this pamphlet.

At this point we were given a pamphlet in English with a large "To Television Set Owners" printed on the front followed by a Q&A section. Although there were many questions with very detailed answers, after reading it through very thoroughly we realized there were really only two take away points.

Q: Why should I pay the TV Receiving Fee to NHK simply because I own a TV set?
A: Because I said so.
Q: Great! Where do I sign up?
A: First give me money because I walked all the way over here in the snow. Then give me your bank account number so I can take more money out.

Feeling alarmed, I slipped away from the door and let Tyler talk to the NHK representative so I could look this up online and make sure we weren't being scammed. Unfortunately, this turned out to be quite legit. Apparently there is such as thing as "public broadcasting" paid for by the public as opposed to "commercial broadcasting" which uses advertising for funding and profit. Despite the overall legitimacy of this new fee, I am starting to understand more fully why Japan continues so happily as a cash society -- cash is highly untraceable.

Washoku

Yesterday I decided to try my hand at preparing washoku (traditional Japanese food) for dinner. Having never ventured far into this genre, I thought a good place to start was with our washoku cookbook of the same name by Elizabeth Andoh. After three hours of browsing recipes that called for fish heads and devil's tongue (I kid you not) we had chicken for dinner and "Washoku" (2005) went back on the shelf. I think I need a little longer to get used to the idea of a diet that as Tyler says, "comes from someone standing in the ocean with a butterfly net and eating whatever gets caught in it." In the meantime, however, I am very impressed with the ethos and aesthetics of washoku as presented by Andoh. Here are the five principles of washoku that can be applied to meals with or without fish heads.

Five Colors (go shiki): Every meal should include foods that are red, yellow, green, black (or dark purple/brown), and white. Vitamins and minerals will come into balance naturally if your food is colorful.

Five Tastes (go mi): Have a harmonious balance of flavors - salty, sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy -to stimulate the palate without overwhelming it.

Five Ways (go hoh): Prepare food with a variety of methods such as simmering, boiling, and steaming to limit the total amount of sugar, salt, and oil consumed.

Five Senses (go kan): Be mindful not only of taste, but also of sight, sound, smell and texture.

Five Outlooks (go kan mon): This principle is concerned with the way in which you partake of food and has its basis in Buddhism. First, respect the efforts of those who made the meal possible. Second, do good deeds worthy of nourishment. Third, come to the table without ire. Fourth, eat for spiritual and physical well-being. Fifth, be serious in the struggle to attain enlightenment.

For those of you still in doubt, here is an example offered by Andoh of a soup-and-sandwich lunch that follows these principles. "Imagine the following: pale and creamy potato-leek soup, nutritionally and aesthetically enhanced by a garnish of snipped chives and minced parsley, alongside tuna salad spread on triangles of whole-grain toast, accompanied by a lemon wedge, several cherry tomatoes, crisp radish sprouts, and pitted black olives . . . this American lunch follows the color, flavor palate, and multi-preparation guidelines of a washoku meal. Because it adheres to the five principles, this soup-and-sandwich lunch also achieves nutritional balance and visual interest" (p. 5). And there you have it! Perhaps by following these principles I will somehow eventually acquire a taste for dried sardines and kelp.

Japanese Emoticons

Recently it has been too cold to crawl out from under our kotatsu, meaning we haven't been doing much traveling outside the city. As I've sat huddled under blankets in front of our space heater I've had some time to keep in touch with a few of my Japanese friends through texts. It has been a very disturbing experience as I realized that even with my decent conversational Japanese skills I couldn't understand the texts at all. 顔文字, kaomoji, or Japanese emoticons, seem to be at the root of the problem.

Research has shown that culture is a huge factor in determining where you look when interpreting facial expressions. The Japanese are more prone to look at the eyes, whereas Americans look to the mouth to know whether someone is happy or sad, etc. This cultural phenomenon is perhaps most evident in emoticons. A typical American smiley face : ) and sad face : ( look thus. While the Japanese happy face (^_^) and sad face (;_;) look thus. In the American emoticons, the mouth changes to signal the mood, whereas in the Japanese kaomoji, the eyes change and the mouth remains the same. Here are some of the Japanese emoticons that stumped me when I first saw them:

1. (ToT)

2. m (_ _) m

3. (#^.^#)

4. ＿|￣|○

5. ヽ（´ー｀）┌

Can you match up the emotion with the emoticon?

A. depressed
B. mellow
C. crying
D. apologetic
E. shy

Go here for more fun with emoticons from the West and East alike.