Here it is:
IN AND AROUND DAISHOJI
-You can’t expect to get away with being overweight or oversize in any capacity.
-Jaywalking is frowned upon but still doable. Even more so, eating or drinking while walking. Or being foreign while walking.
-Service kicks ass—I will never get tired of people being cordial to me in stores and restaurants.
-No matter how much or how little Japanese a foreigner may emit, coos of praise are sure to follow.
-There’s one unrestricted wifi signal in Daishoji and after I cycled all over town with my ipod touch looking for one, I found it to be in a tiny parking lot outside a building near the train station.
-The train station will, without fail, have at least 20 or 30 Daishoji High School students waiting on the platform.
-Ramen is awesome.
-Going to the ‘big city’ brings home the fact that I’m turning into a country boy.
-For the first time in my life, I’m not allergic to everything. In fact, since I’ve been here, I curiously haven’t had any adverse reactions to nature whatsoever…
-Paying my bills at the convenience store, while kinda weird, is actually pretty convenient. I can just pop in for a sandwich and some pringles and pay my phone bill in one fell swoop.
-I will, without fail, run into minimum 5 of my students/other teachers if I am out and about in Kaga.
-Teenage boys suffer no loss of masculinity if riding in tandem on one of those old-lady bicycles with a basket.
-At exactly 6pm every Sunday evening an emergency siren unfailingly blasts across the expanse of town as though the Americans have returned on an overdue bombing run. Needless to say, it scared the crap out of me when I first heard it…and still does.
AT HOME
-Living by myself means that I will unavoidably waste food…which is a bad feeling.
-Cockroaches are slightly more intelligent than I am.
-Japanese people are surprisingly capable of adjusting to the squalor of my apartment, probably because it’s traditional Japanese squalor.
-Tatami mats (instead of tiled, wooden or carpeted floors) comprise roughly 90% of my apartment, which means I worry constantly about damaging it with heavy furniture, spilling food and drinks, exercising, cleaning, walking, sitting, lying down, and when I’m not home.
-My kotatsu (heated blanket-table warmth device) is the most practical piece of furniture I’ve ever invested in.
-On windy days, it’s best not to hang clothes outside to dry, because they can blow away and never be seen again. I’m not just talking about t-shirts—jeans too. No sign of ’em.
-Rice for at least two meals a day is now routine. I now just leave the rice cooker plugged in and turned on.
-When inviting my friend ‘K’ over, it’s best to have purchased several 6-pack boxes of ice cream beforehand. As a general rule of thumb, two won’t suffice.
-The patrons and hostesses at the snack bar next to my house necessitate earplugs when sleeping. And sometimes when awake.
-Due to the lack of central heating, winter in Japan results in the interior of my apartment being roughly the same temperature as the great outdoors, which in turn leaves me internally conflicted. On the one hand, I fear for my health and wonder why the f*** I have to wait for my toothpaste to thaw so I can squeeze it out of the tube, but on the other hand, I feel pretty badass for living in igloo-like conditions.
-Having a squat toilet kinda sucks, but you get used to it.
-I’ve discovered that if the house is in desperate need of vacuuming, I can wait several more weeks before actually doing anything about it.
-Sleeping in a 5ºC room has gradually become my ideal. Every night before bed, I whip out my futon and covers, don my Uniqlo sweatpants, sweatshirt, socks, and, on occasion, beanie, and hop into bed. Any warmer and my delicate insulation-to-temperature ratio is shot to hell.
-There’s nothing quite as uniquely irritating when I’m trying to enjoy a lazy afternoon at home than the screeching cacophony of the town’s venerable elderly drowning out my itunes playlist as they belt out their favourite pre-1950’s karaoke songs next door—worse when it’s the regulars straining their prehistoric vocal cords to force out the same agonizingly dissonant jingle day-in and day-out.
AT WORK
-School days are for the most part busy and very rewarding, leaving me feeling like I’ve actually accomplished something. Office days are not.
-Trying to look busy is an art form—one that, with practice and perseverance, can be refined and applied to maximize the industrious image of a completely unproductive day.
-If I have nothing to do on a given day, I am not assigned further tasks or responsibilities by my supervisor. Thus, on days when I have no classes or any significant amount of school preparation, I come to work with little, if anything, to accomplish that day…to the full knowledge of and acceptance by those around me.
-Because the average age in my office is roughly 50, I’m basically a child when compared to my coworkers, so everything I do will inevitably be attributed to my youth. If I take off my sweater when I’m hot, it’s cuz I’m young. If I mention that I’m hungry, of course it’s obviously cuz I’m young. If I sit still in my chair and don’t really do anything out of the ordinary, it must of course be cuz I’m young. 22 is the new 12…
-When getting up to go and pick something up from the printer or fax machine, there’s an unspoken rule that one must run or at least break into a light jog and throw on a stressed facial expression (there’s also a hissing/teeth-sucking option) to fully convey the pressing nature of one’s task, be it running a memo to City Hall or sprinting to the recycle box to dispose of that grape fanta can that’s been urgently sitting on the corner of one’s desk.
-On days when I have no school, I feel guilty leaving the office at the end of my work day because I know everyone else will end up working at least a couple of hours more than me.
This list is ongoing. I will add more to it later.
IN AND AROUND DAISHOJI
-You can’t expect to get away with being overweight or oversize in any capacity.
-Jaywalking is frowned upon but still doable. Even more so, eating or drinking while walking. Or being foreign while walking.
-Service kicks ass—I will never get tired of people being cordial to me in stores and restaurants.
-No matter how much or how little Japanese a foreigner may emit, coos of praise are sure to follow.
-There’s one unrestricted wifi signal in Daishoji and after I cycled all over town with my ipod touch looking for one, I found it to be in a tiny parking lot outside a building near the train station.
-The train station will, without fail, have at least 20 or 30 Daishoji High School students waiting on the platform.
-Ramen is awesome.
-Going to the ‘big city’ brings home the fact that I’m turning into a country boy.
-For the first time in my life, I’m not allergic to everything. In fact, since I’ve been here, I curiously haven’t had any adverse reactions to nature whatsoever…
-Paying my bills at the convenience store, while kinda weird, is actually pretty convenient. I can just pop in for a sandwich and some pringles and pay my phone bill in one fell swoop.
-I will, without fail, run into minimum 5 of my students/other teachers if I am out and about in Kaga.
-Teenage boys suffer no loss of masculinity if riding in tandem on one of those old-lady bicycles with a basket.
-At exactly 6pm every Sunday evening an emergency siren unfailingly blasts across the expanse of town as though the Americans have returned on an overdue bombing run. Needless to say, it scared the crap out of me when I first heard it…and still does.
AT HOME
-Living by myself means that I will unavoidably waste food…which is a bad feeling.
-Cockroaches are slightly more intelligent than I am.
-Japanese people are surprisingly capable of adjusting to the squalor of my apartment, probably because it’s traditional Japanese squalor.
-Tatami mats (instead of tiled, wooden or carpeted floors) comprise roughly 90% of my apartment, which means I worry constantly about damaging it with heavy furniture, spilling food and drinks, exercising, cleaning, walking, sitting, lying down, and when I’m not home.
-My kotatsu (heated blanket-table warmth device) is the most practical piece of furniture I’ve ever invested in.
-On windy days, it’s best not to hang clothes outside to dry, because they can blow away and never be seen again. I’m not just talking about t-shirts—jeans too. No sign of ’em.
-Rice for at least two meals a day is now routine. I now just leave the rice cooker plugged in and turned on.
-When inviting my friend ‘K’ over, it’s best to have purchased several 6-pack boxes of ice cream beforehand. As a general rule of thumb, two won’t suffice.
-The patrons and hostesses at the snack bar next to my house necessitate earplugs when sleeping. And sometimes when awake.
-Due to the lack of central heating, winter in Japan results in the interior of my apartment being roughly the same temperature as the great outdoors, which in turn leaves me internally conflicted. On the one hand, I fear for my health and wonder why the f*** I have to wait for my toothpaste to thaw so I can squeeze it out of the tube, but on the other hand, I feel pretty badass for living in igloo-like conditions.
-Having a squat toilet kinda sucks, but you get used to it.
-I’ve discovered that if the house is in desperate need of vacuuming, I can wait several more weeks before actually doing anything about it.
-Sleeping in a 5ºC room has gradually become my ideal. Every night before bed, I whip out my futon and covers, don my Uniqlo sweatpants, sweatshirt, socks, and, on occasion, beanie, and hop into bed. Any warmer and my delicate insulation-to-temperature ratio is shot to hell.
-There’s nothing quite as uniquely irritating when I’m trying to enjoy a lazy afternoon at home than the screeching cacophony of the town’s venerable elderly drowning out my itunes playlist as they belt out their favourite pre-1950’s karaoke songs next door—worse when it’s the regulars straining their prehistoric vocal cords to force out the same agonizingly dissonant jingle day-in and day-out.
AT WORK
-School days are for the most part busy and very rewarding, leaving me feeling like I’ve actually accomplished something. Office days are not.
-Trying to look busy is an art form—one that, with practice and perseverance, can be refined and applied to maximize the industrious image of a completely unproductive day.
-If I have nothing to do on a given day, I am not assigned further tasks or responsibilities by my supervisor. Thus, on days when I have no classes or any significant amount of school preparation, I come to work with little, if anything, to accomplish that day…to the full knowledge of and acceptance by those around me.
-Because the average age in my office is roughly 50, I’m basically a child when compared to my coworkers, so everything I do will inevitably be attributed to my youth. If I take off my sweater when I’m hot, it’s cuz I’m young. If I mention that I’m hungry, of course it’s obviously cuz I’m young. If I sit still in my chair and don’t really do anything out of the ordinary, it must of course be cuz I’m young. 22 is the new 12…
-When getting up to go and pick something up from the printer or fax machine, there’s an unspoken rule that one must run or at least break into a light jog and throw on a stressed facial expression (there’s also a hissing/teeth-sucking option) to fully convey the pressing nature of one’s task, be it running a memo to City Hall or sprinting to the recycle box to dispose of that grape fanta can that’s been urgently sitting on the corner of one’s desk.
-On days when I have no school, I feel guilty leaving the office at the end of my work day because I know everyone else will end up working at least a couple of hours more than me.
This list is ongoing. I will add more to it later.
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