Few people know that the Philippines has more English speakers than the United Kingdom. Many people know that Filipinos speak English, many people know that they speak Filipino/Tagalog as well in the Philippines–but what a lot of people don’t know is the extent that English is spoken. In Japan, as well as many other countries in Asia, English is used to puncuate or emphasize something like… “Aki no Trendy Style!” (Trendy styles for Fall) In the Philippines, they’d just flat out say “Trendy styles for the fall,”. I remember Japanese people being amazed when I told them that Filipino TV was 90% in English. To the Japanese, English is a language for Caucasian Westerners–nevermind the fact Singaporeans, Hong Kongers, Indians and Filipinos all speak English.

I remember on a trip to the Philippines one of my friends was stunned that street children could speak better English than the high school students she taught in Japan. How does that happen, we wondered? Well, it’s easy. They just use it. TV shows are often in English, not subtitled or dubbed. If they’re not fully in English, a good part of it will be. Especially if the show is about something technical like medicine or law. Hugh often understood the gist of what was going on around him simply due to liberal use of English.

Other examples? During a Filipino wedding, all the prayers and songs were in English, the priest’s sermon was also in English. During the reception, all speeches were in English despite the fact that out of the 500 guests only 5 people in the room didn’t understand Tagalog.  You would never see this stuff in Japan–not that this is the way it should be. Language is important for cultural identity, and the loss of language is something which I consider very sad. I found out that several of my cousins CANNOT speak Tagalog despite being born and raised in the Philippines. I find that very odd.

Yet, the question of how should Japanese people learn English continues to bother me. The only real way to make sure people learn it is to make it a requirement, more so than just something kids have to do to pass a test to graduate high school.

I’ve been to one in Pattaya before with my mother (very funny story for many different reasons), but this one was much more grand. It had incredible costumes and set design. One of the sets was a jungle complete with waterfall, another was a giant sphinx with King Tut’s head. The “girls” themselves varied in believability, but for the most part it was pretty good. They sang and danced to songs in multiple languages, but for some reason the vast majority of the songs were Chinese. There was only one song in Thai and it was more of a comedy routine with a very heavyset kathooey and a lanky kathooey who were both pretty obviously men doing embarassing things to the men in the audience.

At one point, Hugh and I both noticed a girl who was just so… Japanese. We couldn’t put our finger on it at first, but there was something about her actions that made her seem just like the idol/models on Japanese variety shows. She was very pretty and had this doe-eyed look on her face. Even the way she clapped her hands freaked us out. We could have brought her to Japan and everyone would have just assumed she was some sort of magazine model.

After the show I realized what it was, it wasn’t her looks necessarily since other girls were just as pretty and “Japanese-looking” (it’s a pretty trendy way of dressing/styling oneself here), but it was the excessive expression of “femininity.” Kathooey (the good ones) are believable not just because of their looks, but because they have mastered the “act” of being a woman. On Japanese TV you see an endless parade of models doing “acts” of what is considered feminine in Japan: a mix of being helpless, childlike, demure, and often dumb (or at least extremely naive), but always beautiful. They don’t just say things that convey these ideas, but it’s in the smallest detail of how you sit, how you clap your hands, etc. After three years living in Japan, I found myself picking up some of these Japanese femininity cues.

It made me realize how absolutely important certain actions and gestures are to seeming masculine or feminine and makes me wonder how much of what we consider beautiful is based on these things as well. We saw plenty of kathooey on the streets who were physically pretty, but somehow didn’t cut it as beautiful. It’s interesting how the extra gestures can increase a woman’s beauty.

There’s no pictures in this entry because I wasn’t willing to pay a $6 tip per girl for a photo. =P And trust me, the minute you try and take a photo that’s when 10 of them jump in with you. I saw a poor guy shell out about $60 just because he wanted a keepsake, when he tried to protest they got pretty aggressive. Not super lady-like, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do…

I knew she was sick, but Japanese people never talk about these things. Before I left they told me that she had cancer, but she was going to be okay. But I could always tell they were lying. Japanese people don’t like to talk about terminal illness or death.

I never got to say goodbye to her. She was too sick to come to my farewell party. People just told me she was too busy. It makes me so mad. I wish I had known. :/

Taiwan was great and felt like normalcy again (do remember Hugh and I have been in Japan for 3 years). Everything was efficient like Japan, but with 1% of the analness. I don’t think we had any real problems here except the rain one night.

No time now, but I’ll be updating this post from Vietnam with some pictures.

It took me awhile to really warm up to leggings in Japan, but several years of seeing it and one will break.  I never really thought that the look would make it to America, but then I saw this blog post about what Carrie was supposed to be wearing in the Sex And the City Movie and she looked like a Japanese teenager. Oh, and of course the Olsen Twins and Lindsay Lohan (who are apparently style icons, meh) just wear Japanese fashion 2 years later, so it was bound to happen.

Now, when America starts wearing colorful tights…then I’ll be really happy.

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- I was surprised at the drivers. I always thought, even while in Japan, that American drivers weren’t as nice as Japanese ones, but I realized that wasn’t the case. For example, we were trying to make a left turn and a man stopped to let us pass since it was a red light. Nice of him.

- Damn, everything is so spread out…and concrete. So is Japan, though (concrete, I mean). But Shimane found ways to stick vegetable patches and rice fields in whatever scrap of land they could find.

- Everyone is so…big. Either in the overweight sense, or just in the big sense. Taller, thicker. I once again felt short and that my breasts were completely inadequate.

- Food portions, good lord. I know I went to Cheesecake Factory, which is just a ridiculous place to go to see food portions for the first time, but seriously. The appetizer salad was bigger than the biggest share-size salad in Japan I’ve ever seen. The glasses were so big I couldn’t hold them in my hand. I felt like a little girl at the dinner table. The food was delicious, but it’s too much flavor for me at the moment so that might take awhile to get used to.

Perhaps I’ll have more things…but at the moment, it’s 6am in Chicago, but my body is crying at me for dinner. Time for leftovers!

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- “HEEE!!” and “UMAI!!” are considered valid forms of communication
- You’ve learned to judge a smile by the eyes and not by the mouth
- You’ve completely forgotten that you were paying $2 for a LITER of gas
- You start defending kyushoku (school lunch) as a nutritious, reasonably priced, balanced meal.
- You know that the Pyramid building, the Rocket-shaped building, and any building kind of cool looking are all pachinko parlors.
- You accept squid ink and fish egg as acceptable spaghetti sauce bases
- Words like “genki” and “keitai” have become standard words in your vocabulary, even when speaking to people who have no idea what those words mean.
- You bow at pretty much anyone and everyone and mutter “zzzmasu” or “rrrshita” when passing.
- You’ve become accustomed to saying things like, “I wouldn’t say that it’s not that I don’t want to do it, it’s just….(hanging pause)” (both Japanese or English will suffice)
- You’ve started styling your hair super spikey and host-like
- You actually knew what “host-like” meant
- You celebrate Showa Day, Constitution Memorial Day, Green Day, and Children’s Day…okay no, but damn do you love having 4 holidays in a row.
- You’ve found yourself making ridiculous generalizations like, “We Americans don’t eat rice, we eat bread.”
- There is no shock whatsoever in finding a lone vending machine on a mountain top.
- You don’t bother with umbrellas because you know you can get a clear one for $1 pretty much anywhere
- Unless of course, it’s June… then you ALWAYS have an umbrella
- You have ceased to be surprised when some horrible song from whatever the coolest new commercial actually starts charting
- You understand that “yes” often means no, but “no” tends to mean yes…
- You actually know WHICH situations I was just referring to
- At onsen, you have perfected how to publically wash the groinal area in the most discreet manner
- But you could give a damn about that because you embrace onsen culture
- You slurp your noodles without choking
- You know that even if a glass is full, there’s still room for just one more drop of beer…especially if this is a superior you want to talk to
- Statements like, “my god you’re sexy…I have a daughter your age, you know,” are no longer taken as necessarily weird, unusual, or grounds for a lawsuit.
- You get really shocked if retail employees make small talk with you…unless of course, you are in Shibuya 109 in which case that’s all they do
- Spending $50 to get into a club is not considered scandalously overpriced
- Neither is $5 for a half-glass of Coke
- You have so many point-cards you have a seperate wallet for them
- Comments like “your breasts are so big!” or “your nose is massive!” no longer cause distress
- You know that convenience stores are an excellent source for food on the go
- You know that all sports drinks will vaguely taste like grapefruit, unless otherwise noted.
- You’ve stopped taking pictures of everything and anything because instead of a wacky foreign country, Japan is now your home.

“Oppai!!” (Tits!)
“Chikubi!!” (Nipples!)
“Boku okama da!!” (I’m a tranny!)
“‘Chinko’ eigo de nan to iu no?” (How do you say penis in English)

Maybe more so than the fact the kids say it is the fact the teachers smile and laugh. I can’t help it, I’m a prudish American. I have a mouth like a drunken sailor, but I still cringe when I hear kids saying stuff like that.

Then again, I also cringe when people ask me things like, “Oshiri ga itai no?” (Does your butt hurt?) Let’s not talk about my butt, your butt, or anyone else’s butt. Japanese people are always really shocked when I tell them we don’t discuss breasts and butts in polite company, they always reply with “but…but…American TV is nothing but showing that stuff, why can’t you talk about it?”

Touche.

It seems the Japanese government would like you to first invest at least $50,000, rent/buy your property, buy all your equipment and fully stock it BEFORE they will even consider giving you a business visa. Then of course, they can still reject you and you’d be REALLY screwed. I know this is basically standard practice, but at this point in our young lives, it was simply too much of a risk to put in and be at the whim of an immigration officer. It would have also been MUCH easier if we actually LIVED in one of the cities we wanted to open in.

We’ve now returned to the original plan I’ve had since I graduated from college–we’re going to travel. At the moment the plan is to travel for 8-9 months and hit China, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, India, and possibly Nepal, Bhutan, and Malaysia. Myanmar was on the list, but any likelihood of that was eradicated with the current humanitarian disaster and the very strong possibility of civilian strife. While we travel I am going to write, as so many of my friends have urged me to do, and try to get into an MBA program (yay online application process!)

So all those people who wanted to know when the wedding is–not at least for another year.

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I was watching the Olympic torch relay go through Nagano on television when I saw the craziest thing:

Man BICYCLE KICKS police man. Seriously. Like, video game style. Come on guys, keep your kung-fu to yourselves!

On a more serious note, it looked like a bit of a mess. The Japanese police seemed vastly unprepared for the rowdy protestors, which the Japanese news makes VERY sure to note are “Chinese overseas students” and “Pro-Tibet Asian foreigners,” Though honestly, it’s extremely rare to see police doing anything in Japan except give people directions. I always feel embarrassed about asking cops how to get to some hotel–shouldn’t I leave them alone to go fight crime? Well, it’s nice thing to not live in a country where you see cops carrying M4s around.

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PEOPLE. WHAT?

A lady from one of the schools I visit was all, “ooh and we were all wondering who should congratulate you on your baby,” Wait, wait, back the hell up woman, what baby?

“I’m not pregnant!” I admonished,

“Oh really….oooh where did we hear it from? Someone said you were….”

“Why did you think I was pregnant?” I asked in my most polite voice. Just be honest and say it’s cause I’ve gotten tubby around my middle, I thought darkly, while my face showed a friendly smile and the finest in Japanese tatemae.

“Oh, I don’t know…your face seemed glowing and full, like the face of pregnancy!”

At this point I bit down my tongue and held back the urge to say, “So you mean cause I have a fat face?” Instead, I countered with this gem:

“But, but… I’m not even married!” I said shyly.

“Oh, well, you know… we thought you were being a modern woman and were going to hang in there and have one anyways.”

I give up, Japan. I get it, you think I’m fat. Yes, I will start going on an even stricter diet and start working out now. Thank you, just when I thought I was making progress with my weight.
…
Wait, wait…hold the phone! They thought I had HAD a baby already, so that must mean I AM making progress with my weight. Well, hot damn! Apparently my perfect body weight was when I was 85lbs and had twig-legs, back then all the Japanese girls complimented me on my tiny face and skinny legs. I think I’ll just stick to my bigger boobs, fuller thighs, and ghetto booty. I like it better, my boyfriend likes it better–leave me alone, Japan!

The case is interesting because the man was 18 at the time, a minor according to Japanese law, so people believe this was done to send a message to would-be youth criminals. Recently, there’s been a rash of violence committed by young people in Japan. The numbers aren’t that high comparatively, but in the US we have guns. Any idiot can kill someone with a gun, usually much to their chagrin. A knife takes some nerve, let alone skill, to hack a body to bits.

In recent news:
- a British girl was hacked to bits, her body found in a tub full of sand on the balcony.
- A young man who ran through a station with a knife stabbing people randomly
- An 18 year old who pushed another man off a train platform onto a platform
- 23 year old man buries a student alive
- Random old ladies being stabbed in Fukuoka
- Random youth picks up a child and throws him off a pedestrian walkway onto incoming traffic

You may have noticed many of these are not crimes of passion, they are random acts of violence. When asked their motive, killers have answered, “I just wanted to try killing someone.” This scares Japanese people, and rightfully so. I don’t really know what percentage of crimes are actually random, but I read a poll last year that something like 90% of Japanese people feared an attack by a random stranger. So because of all of this (and a lot of other things) Japanese people are asking, “why?” Naturally, there’s the blame on video games (the random station stabber liked ninja games, apparently), broken families, etc. The usual suspects. But we all know this stuff is not the cause, so what’s the real issues here?

I would say part of the blame is the general lack of psychology/psychiatry in Japan (though this is changing, and thank god). There are plenty of people who need serious psychiatric help out there who have nothing but the intarwebz to ruminate on. You think we have psychos in America? Try having psychos in a country where people (up till now) didn’t believe in psychos, just poor parenting.

I also think in Japan there’s a lowered empathy for other humans (stay with me here), which I don’t blame on the Japanese themselves. It’s not a cultural thing, just an aspect of modern society. Take the view towards women: no one seems to care that 50 year old men lust after pre-pubescent girls, unless of course that girl gets raped (but if she just gets felt-up in a train or dates her teacher, that’s okay). But she’s going to need to prove she wasn’t asking for it. At convenience stores little boys can see magazines of anime girls tied up with semen dripping off their breasts, they know their fathers go to strip clubs and sex clubs while their mothers cook dinner, they can watch TV shows where men stare at young girls and measure their breasts and ask them to jump up and down (we have that too, but in America it’s generally considered chauvinist). What are women other than objects then? It’s said the reason that it took until the 1990s for the birth-control pill to come to Japan is because doctors didn’t want to lose their main source of income (abortions). The bullying problem is notorious and shocking here that elementary school children threaten and commit suicide. Kids come to school obviously physically abused at home, but people just turn the other way because they don’t want to get involved. Japanese people care about what other people think of them, but a lot of people don’t really think about what other people feel.

A lot of Japanese commentators and academics see the same problems, but instead of doing anything about it they just yell at young people on tv (Hosoki Kazuko, anyone?) which makes for quality programming, but not quality society. One of my host fathers complained that Japanese young people don’t know how to empathize anymore (actually, he said that their hearts don’t feel anymore–eesh), he pointed at lack of keigo (polite language) as a surface sign–I don’t know about that, but clearly there’s something out there people are worried about.

I’ve been told by older Japanese people it’s all the fault of us god-awful young people and our lack of morals, but who teaches the morals? No one. Exactly. So many parents tell me they’re worried for the future of Japan and kids are too spoiled and bratty these days, but they do nothing to discipline their children. So for me, I blame the older generation. Nowadays, elementary schools have morality class (which they never needed before–so what changed? discipline, mostly) and the stuff they teach sounds a whole lot like Common Sense 101: “if you hit someone, it hurts them!” Teachers like to ask me, “how do Americans learn to be moral?”

Um, church? Fear of eternal damnation and being poked by goblins in hell? I’m agnostic (functionally an atheist), but I will say a *little* spirituality isn’t always such a bad thing. Is what keeps you from sleeping with a 12 year old the law, or is it the inherent belief somewhere that doing so is morally wrong? I used to believe in moral relativity and boo on religion and boo on spirituality…but after living in an extremely secular place and befriending so many people from very secular places I guess I will say that it’s made me change my mind on the importance of a strong moral compass based in SOMETHING (vegetarianism, Buddhism, Xenu–whatever).

Or maybe this is all just fear tactics? I’m fairly certain most advanced countries have a, “oh life was so much better in the 1960s!” wave of nostalgia.

Our global generation of degenerate slackers is doomed! Or maybe we’ll all be fine. I’m going to go lock the door now, anyway.

Minku Kujira…or in English, whale meat.

I’m not a vegetarian. However, I have always been bothered by the Japanese take on whale meat. They constantly claim it’s for scientific research and not primarly for consumption, as you can see in this photo it about $5.00 for about 300g. To put that in perspective, that is LESS than the cost of beef in Japan. Furthermore, this is a typical grocery store in rural Japan–not a fancy food store. I’ve actually had it for school lunch before! They must be killing a lot of whales to sustain that, and we all know that they are and it really isn’t for scientific research.

Yes, yes, I’ve had whale. No, I don’t really feel guilty for it. I don’t know what’s worse, killing the poor thing under the guise of science or me throwing out food when people are starving in the world because of my (hypocritical) moral indignation. I’ll admit it’s delicious, at least if it’s been deep fried (but what ISN’T delicious when deep fried? Okay, okay, the Midwest girl in me is coming out…)

Like I said, I am no vegetarian–and while I say I’m not that into animal rights, I didn’t mean I go kicking puppies or anything. On the contrary, I pay about $5 for six eggs because I make the effort to buy honest-to-god free range eggs (and not ones that claim to be free range and aren’t really.) I’ve made every effort to educate myself on how animals are treated in industrial farms and try and stay away from that.

At the same time, I disagree with notions that we shouldn’t eat whale because they are smart or cute. Sheep are pretty cute. Pigs are quite smart as well. In my head, there’s no hierarchy for which animals we can eat and which we can’t. Harpooning whales isn’t anymore or less horrifying or disgusting that shooting a metal bolt into a cow’s head. I think we should stop deluding ourselves and really understand how we go from cow to red cubes in white styrofoam tray. If finding out that cows get shot in the head disgusts you, then go vegetarian. The less you know about the food that goes into your body, the more dangerous that is. The reason we shouldn’t eat whale is because by most accounts they are endangered, or at the very least, threatened. On a global scale, there are far more deer and rabbits than there are whale.

I also have a problem with the guise of scientific research. Why exactly do they need to kill thousands of minke whales a year? Uh, for science? Unless of course, the scientific research is this: The Thesis Of Whether Or Not Feeding School Children Whale Will Cause Them To Be Lifelong Consumers of Whale

I am sad to admit that this year I took a very shocking amount of sick leave, on the tune of once a month on average. However, in one year did ANYONE scold me or talk to me about it? Nope. It came up during the obligatory drinking party though (search my old entries for an explanation of what an “enkai” is). My old boss (who was moved to another section) told me in a drunken haze how much he loved me and how he was so worried about me always being sick and how I must take care of myself because he reminded me of his daughter (while he was telling me I also looked sexier with my new short hair.) Drinking parties are when the criticisms, the new proposals, and any sort of productive communication happens. I can absolutely take it, I just find it sad that it can’t be done without alcohol.

Maybe it’s just me being too American, but I just really dislike how no one can tell anyone directly to do anything. The JET program would be much better if supervisors just straight up said, “Hey, stop wasting our money and playing on the internet all day!” It would save time, money, and help relations.

You know how those men’s magazines claim that women never say what they mean?  ”YOU know why I’m mad!” and “I GUESS you can go to the poker game tonight, but….” [Men's Magazine Decoder: If you go to the poker game, I'll be pissed when you come home] Imagine dealing with that every single day of your working life. I’m not really frustrated by it since I’ve gotten used to it and often use it to my advantage, but sometimes I just want to shake someone and scream, “If you want me to serve tea to the mayor, just ask me!” It takes far less energy to tell me to do it than to be all, “So, the mayor is in the guest room and….he likes tea…and….well, the tea set is over there…and, the usual tea lady is on vacation soo..(continued)”

Oh well, that’s just how it is and there’s nothing that can be done about that (how very Japanese of me to say that!)

The office is full of new faces I’ll never remember, and next week I’ll have to go to another office party and reintroduce myself to a dozen people who will all just say the same stupid shit to me: “Wow, you’re American? But you look so Asian.” “So, like, you must be half then right–half Japanese and half American?” “You want to start your own business? But why? You’re too pretty to work–just marry some guy!”

At least the dreaded “fish box” man (the guy who constantly harassed me to stop using my brain and just marry him) is now somewhere else.