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Oda Nobunaga

 

Dustin Hoffman

A Busy Week

(click the picture!)

今晩は！

So its Thursday night for me right now, which makes it officially 1 week since I returned to Nagoya and moved into my new dorm...

Its been quite the week, to say the least!

In lieu of a strategically poetic, long and drawn out written description of what my life has been like so far, here are some pictures featuring really big flea markets, really crowded shrines, and really small (but cozy!) dorm rooms. And a Korean-Cooking-Krispy-Kreme-Donut-Bananza to top it all off!

Don't be sad, though.
I'll have plenty of hot air and explanations for you later!! ;)

Love,

Mackenzie

I'M BACK

If my life were to take place on a movie set, this would be the part the director comes in with his little clapboard and shouts, "MACKENZIE'S STUDY ABROAD ADVENTURE: TAKE TWO!"

...This metaphor may not be as clever as I intented, but, well...
yeah.

Action...!

I'm living in a dorm this time around- Nanzan University's Yamazato Koryu Kaikan, to be exact- and I'm thinking it should be a really different experience this semester. Who knows what could be in store!?

We'll see, right? :)

 I'll be back with more later, but I'm trying to follow some advice and keep my posts frequent and short instead of long and, well, nonexistent. (imsorrypleasedon'thateme!)

With lots of love and lots of hope (and maybe some rainbows and daisies for good measure),

**

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carlys-comfort-zone/4683117743/

Mackenzie!

**Looking for a picture, I googled "rainbows and daisies" and found this- probably the most perfect thing that has ever come from an oven (not counting babies, if you use this term figuratively). 

what being hit by a car has taught me about japanese culture

Hello again everyone!

Let me just start by saying sorry for the huge gap between postings this time!! I sincerely hope I haven't frustrated anyone too bad with my lack of correspondence. I have something of an excuse, though, that I think might relieve me of some of the guilt of being such a bad blogger, just a little, maybe...

So, this is going to sound unbelievable, but I was kind of hit by a car two weeks ago.

Don't worry, though- I am okay!!

Think boo boo bunny and tylenol serious...

...not full-body cast, surgery serious.

Seriously. :)

Nothing's broken and I'm almost "hyaku paasento" (100%) by now! I just thought I'd look at the whole debacle as in interesting experience and I figured it was worth mentioning. Because, you know, a lot of people can say they've been to Japan before but how many people can say they've been to Japan and got hit by a car?

I don't suppose I could get by using the, admittedly dramatized, words "HIT BY A CAR" without divulging more details about what actually happened, so here is a quick run down of the incident in convenient list format:

1. I was riding my bike home from school at around 2:30 pm (sorry Japan, I can't think in military time yet) on Thursday, October 27th.
2. The last stretch of my way home, I was headed straight on the street that my host family lives on. I could see my host family's house up the street on my left.
3. Two intersections before my house (about one minute away from being home) I collided with a vehicle coming from my right. I do not remember the actual collision, but found myself on the ground with a gaggle of alarmed Japanese people all around me, including the old woman driving the car, who might have been her daughter, and a young mother that was walking by, I guess, who was on the phone with the police.  
4. What happened during this time was a real adrenaline-induced blur of disbelief and shock. My host mother happened to stumble upon the incident while driving in her car and joined the group of panicked Japanese bystanders right before the ambulance came. All I could think about was finding some way to press the "REDO" button and, in an effort to believe that I did not just get hit by a car during study abroad, wanted to just go home, clean myself up, and pretend that nothing happened . 
5. I was really preoccupied with the damages involved- the money I might have to pay and the commotion that was being raised around me- rather than my physical condition so I denied the ambulance ride to the hospital and convinced everyone to let me go home. My glasses broke and I do not remember the details of the following moments very well, but I remember that the police were there and they carried my warped bicycle the remaining block to my host family's house. I got home with my host mother under the condition that she would take me to the hospital later. 
6. About an hour later, my host mom drove me to the hospital after I cleaned my face and laid down for a bit while she made some important phone calls, and there I got both a CT scan of my head and an X-Ray of my knee. By this time, the adrenaline was wearing off and I was starting to feel everything. It turns out I had a concussion, which explained why I was sick, but that there was no internal bleeding or any damage to my brain, which was awesome. They prescribed me some pain medicine and told me to come back the following Monday when the brain doctor was in. 
7. Fortunately, the following Tuesday was the start of fall break here, so I missed only a little bit of school and had plenty of time to rest and recover. (Good timing, right? :))

Since then I have been in an out of the hospital 4 times, and, through working out the aftermath with insurance people, my school, the police and the hospital, have been able to see sides of Japanese society that many foreigners never have access to. I mean, I know it might seem like I'm trying to put a childishly positive spin on a silly and pathetic situation, but I really do feel like I learned a lot in the past two weeks.
Here are just a few of those things:

1. Japanese health care and insurance is stunning. My experience with Japanese hospitals has been like taking part in a big health care machine. You get this card when you become a patient at the hospital and, the next time you return, you put the card in this reception machine to see a doctor. If you have an appointment, the machine spits out a piece of paper with a bar code and your appointment time, along with your number that will pop up on the screen in that ward's waiting area when its your turn. If you are coming because you are sick, you go through the touchscreen and select the appropriate disease/ type of doctor you want to see and you get a number that will be called based on the order of first-come-first-served. However, this also means that you have to go to the hospital when it opens if you want to be seen without an appointment and you'll probably end up spending several hours waiting, anyways, especially if its a bigger hospital. Doctors are only there in the morning, too, so they joke that you can't get sick in the afternoons. :)  This sounds kind of bad, but I think the system's efficiency and accessibility makes up for any waiting you might have to do. That's one thing I would like to stress about the health care system here- it is incredibly affordable. For the 1400 yen that I pay per month to be enrolled in the national health care program, I have had all of my hospital visits free of charge. Because I was in an accident, whatever small costs I would have had to pay otherwise are completely covered by insurance. As long as I see a doctor or receive medicine for injuries related to my accident, I do not have to worry about paying for anything, which still leaves me speechless. I always leave the hospital with the weirdest feeling that I'm doing something wrong- like its too good to be true and someone is going to run out, rip of my band-aids and tell me to give back the rest of the health care I'm stealing.
2. Saying sorry means you are wrong (but never completely). My host mother told me that you do not say sorry in these sort of situations because that means that you are accepting the blame and saying that it is your own fault. However, it was explained to me that the way Japanese insurance companies usually work is so that, no matter what the situation is, some sort of financial burden is footed by each party. There is no 100% at fault or 100% innocent in any situation, but rather a collaboration. Also, in a normal situation, they take the amount in damages from both parties and split it up so that each person pays for both part of their own damages and part of the other party's. (For example, if they decide that you are 4:6 wrong, you will pay for 40% of the damages on each vehicle.) I was actually lucky that my situation was unique. Instead of paying for any percentage of the car's damages and having the car owner pay for a part of my bike, the driver's car insurance is taking care of her vehicle while the bike is left to me, which, financially, I think works out much better.
3. When in doubt, go to the hospital. For everything, anything, go to the hospital. Have a cold? Go to the hospital. Headache? Go to the hospital. Paper-cut? Hospital. :) I'm exaggerating, but, really, I was super surprised at first by how common it is to go to the hospital in Japan! I think its a part of the American health care system that I've grown up with, but the first time my host mother told me she took her kids to the hospital that day, I immediately thought, "oh my god! broken bones! leukemia!", not  "mild cold! cough medicine!". Whether it is a product of culture or simply to do with the affordability of healthcare, I am not sure, but I get the impression that it's more okay to show your physical pain in Japan. If you say "大丈夫です..." ("I'm okay..."), you must really be okay. Talking about what hurts is not complaining, and there is no virtue in trying to be tough. My host family told me to tell the doctor every itty bitty thing that I was feeling, no matter how small, and let him "fix me"- to keep going and going as many times as it took to get every little boo boo and scratch looked at. But I have to admit, I feel silly consulting a doctor about a bruise when my inner Payton Manning is telling me to just  "rub some dirt on it" and "shake it off". :)
4. Ambulances are free! I think I knew this before hand, but was too confused and afraid of being wrong to accept my free escort to medical attention. I mean, I'd have to be on the verge of death or missing a limb for an ambulance ride to be worth the bill I'd receive in America... It's... just... wow, Japan. I wish I could write you a thank-you card. 

All and all, I have more positive feelings about being so lucky that it was not worse and that I was so well taken care of than I do negative feelings that the accident happened in the first place.

If nothing else, it makes an interesting story, don't you think?

love,
mackenzie

(Also, please feel free to laugh. I mean, after all... I went to Japan and got hit by a car.)

IT'S THE FIRST MONTH WRAP UP, Y'ALL!

 Howdy friends!

It's been a while, huh? Both since I last posted and since I started this whole study abroad what-not. Without really feeling the time go by, 4 weeks have come and gone since I arrived in Japan and, just, wow, I don't even know where to begin, really.

If there is something the past month has taught me, it's that details matter. The little things about Japanese life are the ones that seem to surprise me the most.

You know, they tell you this and that about Japanese culture and what to expect while in Japan, about the taboos and the customs, and all the other good stuff that makes Japan so interesting, and before coming to Japan, I really thought, "Okay, yeah, I got this. That makes sense" and that I understood it- whatever it is- that makes Japan work the way it does. I thought my understanding of Japanese culture was similar to the way I understand how voting or precipitation works- that comfortable spot where I got the overall mechanics without knowing all of the details.

Well, say I do know how the 'overall mechanics' work. Confucian values, samurai legacy, Shintoism, rice, saving 'face', {insert buzz-phrase here}. The confidence I had in my understanding of these mechanics led me to seriously underestimate the impact that 'the little things' would have on my experience in Japan. At least once every day I have this moment where I'm like, "say what now?". "What's going on here?". I mean, I guess you can't possibly know what you don't know, but it just seems like there is so much that I just didn't know. You know?

My days have been full of moments where I discover these little bits of unknown. Here are just a few things that I have found interesting in my experience here:

• Japanese people think hand sanitizer is only for contact with feral animals? One bottle of this stuff is 980 yen (about 13$) so, yeah, I don't think I could afford to use it for more than the occasional scuffle with a wild raccoon.
•  Doors and windows are actually meant to be opened! This sounds stupid, but hear me out. It wasn't until I went to open my bedroom window for the first time and accidentally slammed it into the windowsill with the amount of calculated force I put into it that I realized every experience I had ever had opening and closing windows had been something of a struggle. I thought it just might be that my host family's house is kind of new, but when I started to pay attention to my encounters with doors and windows here I realized that they all seemed to glide open smoothy and without force. Whether this is just personal interpretation or Japanese craftsmanship, I dunno, but I'm really enjoying not having to do the "EE-ERK" jerking movement just to get a cross breeze going. :)
• Concepts of nutrition are cultural. Like, when I caught a little bit of a cold, my host mom bought a bunch of fruit and told me that I should eat it right before I go to bed because she saw on TV that the vitamins will absorb best while I'm sleeping. (She made an octopus-like arm wiggle to illustrate the vitamins absorbing.) Also, all food made in Japan supposedly has magical nutritional properties that makes it inherently better than the same exact food grown anywhere else. (Go to any Japanese grocery store and you will know what I am talking about- 'Japanese-ness' matters!)
• There are things that simply cannot be translated. I mean, yeah, of course, everyone knows this right? Well, it's kind of a bigger deal than I expected. Not just words, but expressions, too! Something I've been struggling with is wanting to ask my host parents "how was your day?" in the evenings. There is no set expression in Japanese for this that I know of, and my translation 「今日、どうだった？」 (lit. 'today, how was it?') is always met with a sort of startled expression, like, "What? What part of today? What do you mean?". My kind host parents have caught on to 'oh, she wants to hear what we did today' when I say this, but I can just tell this is a weird question to ask. When I asked my Japanese professor about it, she said that it wasn't a natural thing to talk about. She said that Japanese people don't ask each other everyday what they did, but instead talk about the weather or, if they ask a question, it will be about a specific thing like "how was your test today?", etc. I'm kind of bending the cultural rules for now I guess, because I just don't see how far a conversation about the weather can go, especially when I'm genuinely curious about what my family did that day.
• Squatty-potties are everywhere! Going to a public restroom, especially in older establishments, is a game of 'Find the Western Toilet". Most places I've been have at least one, usually tucked away in the back corner of the bathroom. 

 Ah! Found it!

• There are a lot of things that I don't understand the purpose of. Like when I bought a pack of gum and found a little packet of sticky notes inside. 

And this weird machine that my host family has me use every week that blows hot air under my comforter for an hour.

I guess 'purpose' and 'sense' are not really inherent to something, but rather a product of culture? Things like this really make me wonder about my own background and all the things that make sense to me, but might just be bizarre to someone else...

Well, needless to say that the past month has got me thinking.

To know something is one thing and to experience it is another.

All of the 'big' concepts I learned about Japan before coming here seem like clouds in the sky right now with me on the ground, experiencing the gritty earth of it all. I mean, they matter, for sure. But no amount of cultural study could have taught me what Japan would actually smell like, feel like, look like. And these are the things that have made my experience here what it is so far. I guess it sounds pretty obvious now that I'm writing it down, but for some reason learning the limits of my conceptual understanding has come as something of a shock. Which leads me to ask, can you really know something without experiencing it? And how much can you know through experiencing something?

What's subjective? Objective?

I dunno, you guys, but I'm starting to confuse myself so I should probably just start wrapping up this wrap-up, don't you think? :)

I guess if I had to sum up my first month living abroad in just a few words they would be:

"Is this real life?".

I seriously feel like one of the luckiest people in the world to be living this life, being right here, right now, seeing what I see and feeling what I feel. I know that must sound really saccharine and fake, but I really believe it. I'd be under appreciating what I have to deny it.

I mean, just look at the view from my bathroom window and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Life is pretty special, huh? :)

-Mackenzie



P.S: If you liked the pictures from this post, you can see more here in my new Picasa album. I posted 222 of them! Ch-check it out here:

October 4, 2011

Also, here's a link to a cool website called 'Japan Trends'. It features a bunch of posts about, you guessed it, Japan trends! It's really interesting and details some of the crazy things that makes Japan so... well, Japan.>>> http://www.japantrends.com/

kyoto is bathed in white light

Nihon in Pink: Kyoto with Mackenzie and Sarah ~: I went to Kyoto Saturday and met up with some of my Beloit buddies for a wacky Japanese adventure full of plot twists and explosions!

Mita, a much better person than I, posted lots of pictures on her blog. Ch-check out some snapshots from our delightful rendezvous!

And while I'm at it, here are some new pictures from my Picasa album!!

Breakfast, Pachinko, Rain, and more

Apologetically yours,

Mackenzie
 

would you like some cream soup with your donuts?

Ever heard of Mister Donut? Apparently founded in the US, this donut chain is all over the place in Japan. Like any other foreign chain to take root here, it has been thoroughly digested and reprocessed as a Japanese creation. The localized menu is comprised of, of course, donuts, but with a distinctly Japanese twinge.

some noodles and nikuman courtesy of Mister Donut

My little host sister got a toy set of Mister Donuts donuts, complete with a little cup of something a yellowish beige color. When I asked my host father what it was, he said that Japanese people like to eat cream soup with their donuts. Now, call me a crazy person, but I've been looking all over the place to find this mysterious Mister Donuts cream soup and have found nothing online about it. Maybe it was some sort of language-related mishap? I dunno. I'll have to do some investigating at my local Mister Donuts some time soon... ;)
 
Either way, just the fact that donuts, something so very American, have been transformed into this Japanese thing threw me off a bit. I mean, it's not even a huge change, but all of the little itty bitty differences, the indescribable quality of 'Japanese-ness' that seems to be a part of everything here, really seems to add up into something big. For me at least.

What do you think? Can you tell the difference?

Dunkin Donuts

Mister Donuts