- where manly teachers don “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” aprons to eat lunch with their elementary school students.
where fourth-graders school me in reading, writing, geography, and pear-peeling.
- where a junior high school choir’s crescendo darn near causes my heart to explode.
- where teachers occasionally swat disobedient/disruptive/disrespectful students on the hand/head/behind, but rarely raise their voice.
- where is it not uncommon to see junior and senior high school students in their school uniforms on week-ends. In fact, it is uncommon to see them wear much else.
- where even the punkiest and jockiest of junior high school boys lean on and drape their arms around each other affectionately, seemingly oblivious to their female counterparts.
- where fifteen-year old boys want to know if I wear a wig, their female classmates intently stroke the hair on my arms, and their elementary school-aged siblings sit behind me on the bus whispering to each other about my kiniro (golden) hair moments before surreptitiously trying to tug out a souvenir strand or two.
- where the supposedly ubiquitous “shyness” of students takes effect the moment class begins and ends, rather coincidentally, with the bell.
- where students’ periodic power-naps are sometimes permitted.
- where eight hours of sleep is a luxury. For everyone.
- where people in power lead by example, meaning that principals sweep during soji (cleaning time) and get dirty like everyone else.
- where I describe countless places, events, and objects as kire (beautiful) because I am not especially funny, intelligent, or articulate in Japanese.
- where I suspect that the reason I am perpetually described as kire is because I am not especially funny, intelligent, or articulate in Japanese.
- where a good bow is as important as a firm hand-shake back home.
- where observation is my ally, and music my super-power.
- where people professing to speak “no English” are often far more capable of carrying on a conversation in my mother tongue than I am with the minimal Japanese they praise me for knowing.
- where enkais and naked communal bathing (gender-specific, of course) are two popular and widely-accepted forms of team-building.
- where liquid courage, or nommunication**, results in one of my (otherwise non-English-speaking) bosses and I having a lengthy late-night “chat” that, I kid you not, consists solely of snippets of Simon and Garfunkel songs.
- that runs like a well-oiled machine, where public transit is tidy and timely, where everyone seems to know their place and purpose, and where every decision is discussed, considered, re-considered, and agreed upon before any action is taken.
- where the stifling of individual desires is the accepted price of universal harmony.
- where life is neatly compartmentalized into “work” and “play”, “public” and “private”.
- where, as a civil servant and one of few blue-eyed, blond-haired folk, I sometimes feel, as one sempai (upper-year ALT) put it, “like a panda in the zoo.”
- where adults go about their daily lives in such a way as to draw the least amount of attention to themselves, thereby disturbing those around them as little as possible.
- where surgical masks are worn by the sick trying to prevent spreading their contagion and by the healthy hoping to stay infection-free.
- where delicious “Christmas” mandarin oranges appear in the grocery store prior to Halloween, along with gaudy decorations and nauseatingly peppy holiday muzak.
- where spending 640 yen at the 100 yen (i.e. dollar) store can inexplicably result in a ten-pack of free eggs.
- that simultaneously clarifies and confuses, challenges and amuses, irritates and inspires, exhausts and excites, disgusts and delights, stretches and stresses and warms my heart while blowing my mind.
- where I do my best to “when in Rome”, yet still manage to unintentionally make the most awful and offensive faux-pas (commonly known as “gaijin-smashing”***) on a near-daily basis.
- where learning to trust is often smarter and always simpler than trying to understand.
- where small but significant acts of kindness never fail to occur when I least expect and most need them.
- where, every day, another aspect of life loses a little more of its mystery and makes a little more sense.
*A reminder: I live in Tottori. This is the land to which the following points refer. I make no attempt to comment on life in Tokyo or in any other place in Japan that I’ve yet to visit.
**Please visit this blog for a thorough description: http://japanconversation.blogspot.com/2009/02/nommunication.html
(I can't figure out how to link this, so please copy and paste it into the browser. For those less technologically-savvy than I, my apologies!)
***I am constantly adding to the list. The question is whether or not I want to admit to everything on it.
