Cultural Differences

Sorry it's been so long. A few interesting things have happened over the last month or so. First, I can't believe it's been a month. So crazy. I went to a big 'mall-like' place called YouMe where I found some peanut butter!! Unfortunately it was only about 8 oz for $4.98. See Image 1. Maybe one day I will get it and down it in a single sitting. Haha.


What else...? I went to a Wakako's home a few weeks ago. She taught me some Japanese and told me her husband wanted me to wait until he gets home because he wanted to meet me. It was a Sunday and he was coaching a boys baseball game that day. So, he came home and we chatted a while. What a witty fella. They invited me to stay for dinner and we had one of favorite, if not my favorite, Japanese foods to date: Oyako Donburi. The literal meaning is 'parent-child bowl.' Bowl meaning bowl of rice even though donburi is the word for an actual bowl. Wakako showed me how to make it and I promised I would show her how to make American-style pizza. The ovens are very small here so I ended up showing them how to make calzones and Better than Anything Cake. I met her daughter that night. Nice girl. Her son is finishing grad school in Australia right now. Sweeet. Wakako also came over to my apartment last Monday. I taught her to make homemade ice cream in ziplock bags. She brought Japanese children's books written in Hiragana and had me read one. I could read it alright...but had no idea what the words meant. It was about a white and black rabbit that liked to play together. The boy rabbit looked sad occasionally and the girl asked him why. He finally said he wanted to spend all his time with her and was sad that they would have to eventually stop playing. They decided to get married. You know how bunnies are. :-D It was a cute book.

Troy (my co-worker) and I have been working on a plan to restructure my bosses entire school program by program. That has been going well so we hope to present it to our boss this week sometime.

There have been some interesting experiences with culture here. Not all have been positive. I will give only a brief synopsis of those things. Japanese people are obsessed with calories. They are deathly afraid of gaining weight and getting fat. Fat being a skin crease when you touch your toes. Multiple people made comments about my weight and/or eating habits (just based on their knowledge that I'm an American) within a 24 hour period a couple weeks ago. The ignorance bothered me badly. Another is the driving. I will not try to describe the attitude with driving herein. If you want to know let me know and I will chat with you about it later. There is a pervasive attitude of lying here. They expect to be lied to and lie whenever they feel like it. That really bothers me because the world would be lost without a sense of truth and honesty! My boss has lied to me on multiple occasions. Not just yes/no lies but entire developed stories that had absolutely no truth to them. President Jackson (Bishop) says that this is because it is more important for Japanese people to 'save face' than to get a bad image for irresponsibility or mistakes. The final thing is that members of The Church here cling to socially/culturally acceptable things here over what the brethren have said. Such as talking badly about your spouse and marital situation. I tried to explain how this should be handled (work with your spouse, church leader, and possibly a counselor) to one of my students who is struggling with her husband and is a member of The Church. She didn't understand and thought it was better to talk to her friends...even if she wasn't willing to accept advice and seek change. I had to tell her I never wanted to hear about her husband again.

On a positive note, yesterday was my mommy's birthday! Yay! And there are some super adorable children here. I wish I could pack a couple in my suitcase and take them home with me but customs would be a terrible hassle. I've decided that if I'm not married by the time I'm 32 I will adopt at least one Asian child. Maybe a boy and girl whom are siblings. That would be good. Anyhew...still trying to decide if I'm moving to Texas or Utah when I get home. I'm more drawn to Texas but need to visit and see what the Lord whispers before deciding on that one. A great excuse to visit my Sarah, Chris, and Thom!! I love you guys!!

Until next time...

Famous Amerikan

On Monday, I called my visiting teacher to see if she knew someone that could go with me to the doctor. I had this terrible something going on in my throat and could barely talk for a week. I wasn't sure if I would get over it without some form of antibiotics. Also, my toe, which has been infected since December had gotten really bad. The only reason I let it go for so long was because I thought I had stubbed it and forgotten about it and that the bone was maybe bruised. Anyway. I went to a clinic, which prescribed some medicines (3 of the 4 we would just use Robitussin for but there are no over-the-counter medicines here) for my throat. They then sent me to the hospital saying they wanted a surgeon to cut my toe open to let the puss out. But they just looked at it and told me to put some cream on it twice a day and come back on Saturday. Way better than having someone cut into you. So I have to take 5 pills three times per day and put cream on my toe twice per day. I have added a lot of Vitamin C and a heavy duty multi-vitamin to that mess....at my own accord. Awesomely, I found an almost completely full super-sized bottle of Kirkland daily multi-vitamin and minerals in the apartment. Yes, God loves me. As further evidence of this fact, there was also a brand new copy of "The Prestige" in the apartment when I got here. Seth, Kurt, and I were talking about watching it before I left but didn't get to. So, two nights ago I watched it. Courtesy of God and whatever angel bought it from who knows which Walmart.

Yesterday I went to a neighboring prefecture (Ehime) for a multi-district Day Camp. It was a festival-style fundraiser to help EFY kids get to EFY. There was a beautiful porcelain Japanese doll in a kimono for only 500 yen ($5.00) but it was in a glass case and pretty big. I wasn't sure how I would get it home. I should have bought it anyway. On the way there a boy who was going to college in Takamatsu was in my car and very curious about me. He asked me questions the whole way there. It took about 2.5 hours. It looked quite overcast yesterday but he explained that what I was seeing was what is called the "Yellow Sand." It is sand that has been blown from the Kobe desert in China to Japan and it is at times so thick that it blocks out the sun. I met two Bolivians from my district while there. They are brothers. The elder brother, Luis, has been in Japan for 9 years and the younger brother, Alejandro, has been there for 7. They are both married. Luis has 2 girls (9 and 5) and Alejandro has one. They are all in Bolivia still. Louis says they are both accustomed to being away from their families. They both speak enough Japanese and English to translate for me and if they don't know what to say in English they just tell me in Spanish and I understand. Haha...it's an odd system but works. Now I know what it must have been like for my friend, Clark, on his mission when he needed to teach in Basque. By the end of the day I had eaten some great Japanese food, made great English and Spanish conversation, and attempted to make a ceramic bowl. The pottery specialist had to fix mine. Wish I had taken pics of that for y'all.

Today I went to Marugame Castle to see the Golden Week festival. There were a ton of street vendors selling food. I climbed the mountain up to the castle where I took some pics of Japanese people dressing up in historic attire. They looked so honored to have an Amerikan taking a  picture of them. Some even took pictures of me...and I wasn't even dressed up. I suppose I was the highlight of some of their days. They are all so eager to see and say hello to the Amerikan. I would have taken more pictures but my batteries ran out. While at the castle I heard a lot of banging that sounded like a band warming up...with no structure or musical desirability. When I got back down to the street I found out why. Every 40 feet or so there was a group playing drums and chimes to people doing dragon dances. Each group was playing a different song so put together it sounded terrible. But each group had a definite beat and song.

New Friends=New Experiences

This has been a kind of slow week for me. I didn't have to go to the elementary schools which feels like a huge relief and break to me at the moment. On Friday, Amy, Fox, Cash, Coset, and I went to a mall in Takamatsu to support a mutual friend and English student, Miwa. She is a great lady and has volunteered to be my Japanese mom while I'm here. Miwa is in a gospel choir that was involved in the music festival celebrating the national holiday on Friday. That national holiday celebrates the birthday of one of their past emperors. There were different music groups performing throughout the mall. The one performing just before Miwa's gospel choir was comprised of 4 people: a female vocalist, an electric pianist, a base guitarist, and a drummer. We got their toward the end of their show. They sang/played a couple of songs by The Carpenters. The Carpenters are really big in Japan.

After the performance, we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant. Well, a Japanese Italian restaurant. The portions were relatively small and it cost a lot. The lasagna was made of green lasagna noodles. It was really good though. On the drive home Fox pointed out some things to be aware of such as an onsen (public bath) near their home which is co-ed, tinted store windows (even if the title of the store seems innocent), and certain kinds of hotels where Japanese men take their mistresses and pay by the hour. I forgot to mention that on the way to the mall we saw a Dominoes Pizza delivery guy on a scooter. Fox thought they had closed and wanted to know where they had moved so he followed the guy until he entered a one-way street going the wrong way. Scooters, bicycles, and motorcycles have different rules here. So we lost him to be found another day.




Some insightful highlights from the kids this week: a boy and girl from the After School group told me my body looked funny because my boobs were too big. I guess that's something they don't see too often here. And while Troy was teaching the Saturday kindergarten class he told them he was fat and pushed out his stomach to which a little boy responded "not as fat as Heather Sensei." Gee---thanks, kids. Little do they know that I've lost 5 pounds since I've been here and actually look pretty good after my Christmas break food experiences.

Speaking of which, I really want to exercise but for the past week have had this terrible infection going on in my throat. There is bacteria here that my body is not immune to and it sucks. All my American friends say this is normal and to expect it at least once a month for the first year I'm here.....the whole time I'm here in other words. Fun! There are disgusting brown pockets of bacteria coming out of my throat when I cough (which is frequently) and my voice is often non-existent and I have this to look forward to for a year. :-D I'm seriously considering swallowing just a bit of hydrogen peroxide to get some bacteria killing going on down my throat. I did try this once when I lived at Glenwood and it only made me a little queasy. (Side note: the poison control guy was really nice and sounded cute.)

This week is Golden Week. Almost an entire week with no work! Yay! My next class is Friday with the Utazu Elementary 1st Graders. This week I plan to relax and hopefully get better. Tomorrow is a Day-Camp where people can bring foods to sell to help kids that want to go to EFY get there. It's in the mountains somewhere a couple of hours away. I plan to go to that and will fill you in on the adventures later. Yesterday, Wakako (the secretary at Utazu El) invited me to her home where she taught me some phrases in Japanese. Her husband wanted to meet me so we waited until he got home from coaching his baseball team's game. He is a silly funny guy. They invited me to stay for dinner and Wakako showed me how to make Oyako Donburi (parent-child bowl) which is chicken and eggs over a bowl of rice. Mmmmmm. We talked a little about the gospel and the LDS Church. They are very nice people. They have a son graduating from graduate school in Australia this summer and a daughter that lives at home and works for the department for public roads. She let me borrow "The Family Man" in Japanese and I promised to show her how to make American pizza and Better Than Sex Cake next time we got together.

I'm sure I'll think of more to add to this later. If I don't record it asap I forget bits and pieces. TTFN!