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:
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| October 4, 2011 |
Try some crazy flavored Kit Kats in Japan!
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