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Human Behavior
Things I do in Japan that I was never accustomed to doing in the US:
- Finish absolutely every last grain of rice and bit of sauce on my plate, including the foods I'm not keen on. My host parents didn't insist I do this, in fact they've thrown the stock phrase "muri shinaide!" at me more than once when I've been struggling with something particularly foreign. Nonetheless, it's good manners, and I feel badly when I have food left on my plate while both my host parents have cleaned theirs and they're scolding my host siblings for not doing the same. Kouichiro has yet to cite my behavior as a reason why he shouldn't finish his meal, but I want to head off the possibility anyway. It helps that the Japanese eat reasonable portions.
- Eat McDonalds hamburgers. Oh. My. God. Fast food has never tasted this delicious ever ever ever. If you think you're too hip to eat trashy American chain food when you get the chance, wait until it's chicken cartilage, cow stomach, and squid tentacle for dinner. You'll run crying to Ronald faster than you can say, "Wait a sec, is this even edible?" Unless you're my fellow Japan traveller Jono. But Jono drinks durian shakes so he totally doesn't count.
- Wash my hands obsessively. With the added bonus that I actually use soap, which the Japanese do not. Something about a country this clean makes me itchy to get the germs off my grubby fingers before I touch anything. At the same time, I want to distinguish myself from those around me. The Japanese combine this really strange compulsion to clean in certain areas with a distressingly laissez faire attitude toward cleanliness in others. Public bathrooms, for example, are anything but pristine. And they don't put any soap by the sink. If the Japanese coming out of the bathroom bother to wash their hands at all, they just run them under the water and shake them off (no towels either). Okay, it's time to put on our culturally judgmental caps: that's gross.
- Stop for red lights at pedestrian crosswalks. What's that about anyway? I'm gonna get myself killed if I go back to Chicago without breaking the habit first. Cursed Japanese middle aged women and their unnervingly effective withering leers of disapproval. The shocked, utterly shocked! stares of elementary school children with those silly hats and the surface-of-the-sun bright yellow backpacks they all wear don't help either. Though maybe they're just staring at my big stupid foreigner nose.
- Eat at least two or three gelatinous substances a day. Gelatin is it's own food group to the Japanese. No meal with my host family is complete without something gelatinous. I'm excising tofu, jello (which they call 'jelly'), and flan (which they call 'pudding') from my diet for a few months when I get back home, just to restore some sort of sanity to my digestive system.
Things I do in Japan that are pretty much the same as back in the US:
- Let people assume I'm straight. Last night's dinner conversation with my host family confirmed they still think I'm going to marry a nice American woman and copulate in a nice heterosexual fashion to produce nice genetically related children. They got the kids part right at least. Though a few nights before that they pointed out a famous gay guy on a quiz show (didn't really need to point it out, he was flaming up a goddamn firestorm) without any sort of judgemental tone. They were just wondering if it's acceptable in the US for anyone to be obviously gay on television. I assured them that it was (I didn't get into Queer Eye because the complexity of that would've been beyond my ability to communicate). I think I've given them a harsher impression of the US than I've meant to with all the recent conversations we've been having about US politics and the strength of the Religious Right. They could barely believe what I was saying when I told them there was a heated controversy over evolution. My host mother described that as among the stupidest things she had ever heard. Go Mom!
- Say "please" and "thank you" more often than the people around me. I'm still much more polite to my host family than they are to each other, but that's just how I am. My American family's policy is that the home is a haven of courteous behavior and considerate speech. When I'm relaxed it's what I default to. I'm also pleased as punch with the incident where a stranger in a ramen stand who overhead my conversations with the cooks and the waitress exclaimed that I was more polite than the Japanese themselves. I still don't know how to use sonkeigo and humble speech to fluently express that whoever I'm talking to is God and I'm worse than dirt, though. Not that I'm every going to be hired to work at a department store or a konbini or anything.
Finally, Kouichiro's really starting to take a liking to me. And by "taking a liking," I mean he's fond of grabbing on to various parts of my body while we're eating dinner and just holding on and staring at me in fascination for a while. He's really cute about it too, he even asks permission by saying, "Suwatte ii?" He's also obsessed with convincing his mother to let him take his nap (two hours of bike riding every day means a nice nap for izu too) on the same futon as me, rather than her. She's of half a mind to say it's okay if I agree, but I have no plans to let that happen. Him holding on to my arm is adorable and I've stopped loooking awkwardly the other way when he runs out of the bathroom naked, but sleeping on the same futon pops my cultural bubble. You also may note this is why I'm still not keen to let my host family know I kiss guys.
The rest of the student body at HIF is currently grumpy at everything Japanese and desperate to go home. For some reason I went through this phase two weeks ago and I'm very relaxed and settled into my routine now. It'll be nice to be back in the states, mostly because I'll be able to see my friends and my parents again, but I'm not really counting the days till I head for the airport. I hope the next few weeks will stay as relaxed.