nipponDAZE

Notes from 2009

Loaf of Bread

Even loaves of bread were different in Japan. Loaves of sliced white bread came wrapped in plastic bags, like in America. But the loaves, all the same size, could be bought in varying widths determined by the number of slices in the loaf; the more slices, the thinner the slice. I suppose the concept is comparable to “thin-sliced” or “sandwich slice” or “Texas toast” sliced bread. The loaves were smaller but they did not include any end pieces. End pieces were bagged separately for stuffing. I thought this was a marvelous innovation. No one was stuck with the crusty end piece.

Our usual breakfast was toast and coffee. We liked the 5-sliced loaves because it made toast which was deeply golden on the outside and slightly soft on the inside. Hmmm. I guess that would be Texas toast.

First Day of School

Although all sorts of classes and meetings had been going on at the school throughout August, this was the official first day of the second term of school. Summer vacation interrupts the Japanese school year which starts on April 1st. So classes and routines were already settled. The half days at work I’d been attending helped me (and everyone who had to interact with me) make a smoother transition into school life. I was the first JET participant to come to Beppu Joshi and so no one on either side really knew what to expect or what to do. I was really glad to “belong” to a school. I think I would have felt very disoriented and lonely if I had worked at the prefectural official and had been assigned only to school visits, as many JET participants were.

Notes from 2009

Changing Perspectives

This letter was written to the girlfriend I shopped with which is why I go into such detail about shopping, as if I were taking her along with me and sharing with her what I thought would most interest her. As I say, I’m just starting to learn my way around. Over two years, I find many small specialty shops and even a few second hand places. I fall in love with the twisted winding streets and the tiny cramped stores. I buy lots of bamboo crafts and lacquerware, Japanese material, paper, and lots of dishes. When I arrived in Japan, all my possessions fit in two large suitcases. When I returned to America, I shipped over twenty boxes of things home.

Buy Only What You Can Carry

I remember the difficulty I had trying to carry all these purchases home. The black garbage pail seemed huge. It took up lots of space on the train and it was awkward lugging it on the 20 minute walk home.

I brought both of those black garbage pails home. I used them as packing containers when I shipped my household goods back from Japan. I still use them 20 years later in the garden to collect rain water or hold gravel mulch. In Texas, they are tiny.

Notes from 2009

I cashed in a traveller’s check and got ¥28324. Maybe this is the day that Murakami-sensei took me to Oita-shi to open my bank account so that my paycheck could be deposited.

Notes from 2009

Inari Sushi

I discovered I really like inari sushi. It was cheap and yummy. But I had no idea what it was made out of. The little “bags” looked like chicken skin. At Kotobukiya, I saw a large display of inari sushi and got the chance to ask Tonai-sensei what they were. It turns out to be deep-fried tofu pockets, abura-age. Now I can just do an internet search and get recipes, photographs, and how to make it demos via YouTube. How strange our difficulties and confusion a mere twenty years ago must seem to people of the 21st century.

Waving vs. Beckoning

I remember wandering the aisles of Kotobukiya and seeing Mrs. Tonai waving to me and JQS from the other end of the store. We smiled and tried to look attentive and figure out what she wanted us to do. This was our first encounter with the beckoning gesture that we foreigners confuse for a wave (although they are quite different).

Journal

We have been in Beppu almost a week but have spent only two days in our apartment. We got back about 15:30. It felt so good to be home and alone. I tried to organize the apartment again and to establish a routine. Little things take a long time.

Doing Laundry

Because the washing machine is so small, I have to do three loads when in America I’d do only one. But there is not enough space on the clothesline to hang out three loads. So I can do only one load at a time. Now I know why there is laundry hanging from every balcony every day. The small loads are better for our small family but it means I have to do laundry every day.

The clothesline itself is quite different. Not a “line” at all, it consists of two aqua plastic poles, the modern equivalent of bamboo poles, that run almost the length of the balcony. I guess that this system developed in response to the need for airing out futons. (Although, in this neighborhood, most futons are hung over the balcony rail). For small items, such as socks, one clips them to special hangers. The clothespins are plastic, and very, very small compared with American clothespins. The Japanese housewives slip the arms of shirts through the poles to hang them, but I just put the shirts on hangars and hang them as if they were in a closet.

If only the closets had clothes rods! But they don’t, as they are not designed for hanging clothes at all but for storing futons. I have no wardrobe and no dresser, so I’ve put a bookshelf in the closet to put folded clothes on. I have yet to discover a solution to my long dresses. Maybe that’s one reason so many women wear skirts and shirts sets instead of one piece dresses.

Grocery Shopping

I must shop for groceries every day. We walk about 10 blocks to Kamegawa’s market street.

Riding my bicycle down the shopping street in Kamegawa towards Marushoku.

I can buy only as much as I can carry. Also (even though we have a large refrigerator by Japanese standards), it is small compared to what I’m used to. There is not much storage area at all in the refrigerator or the kitchen (which is about 9′ x 9′). So it is better to shop daily and buy small portions that will stay fresh.

The supermarket where we shop, Marushoku, is comparatively new and modern next to the other stores on the main shopping street in Kamegawa. But it is half the size of the smallest grocery store in Austin, the Tom Thumb in Cassis Village. Some food items we readily recognize–like Ritz crackers. Others are quite mysterious. For me, used to the prices at Whole Foods Market, the prices here are not outrageous–certainly nothing as bad as I feared. For example, a package of chicken meat is about ¥300. Prepared meals of tempura and sushi are each under ¥300. Compared to restaurant prices or even to a ¥100 yen soft drink from a vending machine, supermarket prices seem very reasonable. I noticed that grapes are ¥300 yen in the supermarket but that the same package can be had at the green grocer for only ¥100. However, I find it easier to shop at the super than make a lot of little stops. Also, my presence flusters the shopkeepers which in turn makes us flustered.

Bathing

Bathing also takes time, planning, and instruction. The first night we were here Murakami-sensei called to say the housemother and next-door-neighbor, Negoro-san, would come over and show us how to take a “basu”. We got ready to go out, thinking she was going to tell us how to take a bus, but it turned out she came to show us how to take a bath.

First, I must fill the plastic, aqua bathtub with cold water (this apartment has no hot running water). Then I must turn on the recirculating heater. Then I sit naked on a stool in the bathroom, and dip water out of the bathtub and pour it over myself, soap down, wash, and rinse off. After I’m completely clean, I can get into the bathtub. This part is heavenly and I would give anything to have a bathtub like this in America.

The first time I pulled the plug, I was alarmed when the water went gushing out on the bathroom floor. Not to worry, though. This is the design as there is a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor. Not only does this simplify plumbing installation and maintenance, it simplifies cleaning the bathroom.

Like everything else, bathing in Japan takes much longer than jumping into a shower in America. If I’m just soaping myself down, it’s not too bad but if I have to shampoo my hair, the entire process takes almost half an hour. I think I’m going to cheat and shampoo my hair in the bath. I can’t see any reason why I can’t get soap in the bath if I’m the last one to use it and I don’t run the dirty water through the heater. I long for a shower.

Notes from 2009

I can’t believe now that I ever considered washing my hair in the bath. I do know that when it became winter our unheated bathroom with its unglazed window was freezing cold. So I would clean off and get into the bath. Then I’d lean over the side and wash my hair. But I never let the shampoo or conditioner get into the bathwater.

Like many things, I incorporated the Japanese-style “clothesline” into my life in Texas when I returned to Austin. I hung up a clothes rod from a closet outside on the edge of my porch and put my clothes on hangers to dry. I brought back a bag of those little clothespins, too–one of my many small purchases at the 100-yen shop.