Won't Miss #402 - cosplay

A rack of costumes that young women can borrow for activities in a gaming center. 



The Wikipedia entry for cosplay ("costume play") claims it is a type "performance art". This has to be one of the most pretentious and inaccurate explanations I have ever heard of the tendency of some people to put on costumes resembling anime (cartoon) characters. In the U.S., I think cosplay tends to be a

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Will Miss #401 - the blue lights

I live along a Japan Railway (JR) line that is famous for attracting suicidal jumpers. The line is named the Chuo line, and foreigners waggishly call it the "Chuocide" line because it so frequently is disrupted by those intent on offing themselves. JR obviously would rather this not happen, but rather than do what many subways have done and put up walls with electronic gates that disallow

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Won't Miss #401 - my huge address

This may be my imagination, but writing my address back home was always a lot faster and easier than writing my Tokyo address. The length could have something to do with the byzantine naming of streets and nearly incomprehensible way of laying out blocks that it requires a system of three numbers (chome-banchi-go) in addition to information on the building, apartment number, city within a

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Will Miss #400 - east meets west xmas cards

Click for a bigger picture of Santas carrying a mikoshi in front of a temple. 


I realize that sending Christmas cards is a dying custom, but I still love them. Living in Japan affords me the chance to buy and receive unique designs that mix and match Japanese culture with traditional western Christmas imagery. Seeing this marriage between east and west, particularly when Santa is involved,

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Won't Miss #400 - natto questions

Most people who have never been to Japan but are interested in Japanese culture and cuisine believe the litmus test for tolerating said cuisine weirdness is an enjoyment of sushi, or perhaps, sashimi. If you can stomach raw fish, you may believe you earned your member's badge. If you've actually lived here, you know that adoring sushi is something only lightweights regard as an

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Will Miss #399 - chinsukou

There are a lot of efforts in Japan to simulate Christmas, but most of it comes off as simply copying images without any of the concurrent spirit. Strangely enough, the thing that really tastes like Christmas to me are chinsukou cookies. They smell like what mom was baking for the holidays when I was growing up and taste like heaven. There are many things that are like them made in other

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Won't Miss #399 - dogs in bike baskets

Perhaps I'm paranoid or overly sensitive about how people deal with their pets, but it makes me very nervous when I see an unsupervised parked bicycle with a dog sitting in it. The primary problem I have with it is that parked bikes are relatively unstable and I'm concerned that a careless pedestrian or cyclist, a gust of wind, or even a small earthquake will send the bike toppling and the

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Will Miss #398 - moai replicas

I'm not sure why, but Japan loves it some moai. If you don't know what they are, they're the Easter Island heads. Like the Statue of Liberty replicas, moai seem to show up in the oddest places for no reason other than people seem to think they are neat. In Kyushu, there are replicas of them. There are fan magazines devoted to them and many novelty items sold with a moai theme. I'm not sure

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Won't Miss #398 - being a minority in the minority

Foreign women in Japan have a variety of support networks to help them cope with the difficulties of being a minority here. Unfortunately, I don't fit in with any of those groups. One of the biggest groups is the AFWJ, Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese. Since my husband is American, the "welcome" sign isn't hanging on that door for me. There is also the Tokyo American Club Women's Group

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Will Miss #397 - shops that serve tea

My husband and I were walking around Nishi-Ogikubo, one of many little stops that have little of note to offer that we decided to explore, and I decided to peruse a Japanese sweets shop. I found myself waiting to buy a couple of small bean cakes behind a woman who apparently needed a remedial class in how to purchase goods from a shop. In the few minutes that we twiddled our thumbs, one of

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Won't Miss #397 - pregnancy badges

One of my students once told me about an experience she had while riding the train. She was sitting with several other people when a family of three, mother, father and child, boarded the train. The woman from this trio started loudly sniping about how no one was forfeiting their seat for her despite the fact that she was displaying a badge that indicated that she was pregnant. Like many

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Will Miss #396 - Rilakkuma

I appreciate simplicity. In fact, one of the reasons I set up this blog as a form of short form expression is that I want to try to minimize my verbiage. Sometimes things are better when you take things away from them. In Japan, nothing illustrates this better than some of their cuter cartoon characters like the mouthless cat. While I am sick of "Hello Kitty", because I can never escape her

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Won't Miss #396 - up the down and down the up

I've written before that context really matters in digesting experiences in Japan and I find it incredibly irksome when people break rules in Japan compared to back home. Part of the reason for this is the insistence by both Japanese and foreigners that the Japanese are so lawful and obedient. Another reason is that I get called on any tiny infraction of the rules, spoken or otherwise. I

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Will Miss #395 - elevator girls

She turned her back because I was taking her picture.

Back when I first came to Japan, every department store had an elevator operator who pushed the buttons for you with her immaculate white gloved hands. She was polite and carried out her work as if she were shepherding small children safely to school through perilous lands rather than helping middle-aged housewives spend their husband's

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Won't Miss #395 - the chop and/or wave

Walk through any busy, crowded street or station full of commuters attempting to dodge each other and you will sooner or later run across the "chopper". This is a man who thinks that by putting out his hand and chopping through the air that the crowds will part before him and let him through. In fact, he expects that you will facilitate his easy movement through the throng at your own expense

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Will Miss #394 - respect for and modesty about intelligence

I've talked to quite a few Japanese folks about intelligence and there are two major differences between them and most Americans. First, they want their politicians to be smart and very preferably smarter than they perceive themselves to be. There isn't a thread of anti-intellectualism in political discourse in this country. Second, most Japanese people don't believe they are smarter than

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Won't Miss #394 - being followed in shops

At lunch recently with a new acquaintance, she remarked that she felt all Caucasians should spend some time in Japan to begin to get a clue of what it feels like to be a minority in their home countries. One of the experiences which certainly breeds empathy for black folks back home is not being picked up by cabs. Another is being followed around in stores. This generally happens in larger

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Will Miss #393 - "akapantsu"

I'm not a big subscriber to the "weird Japan" mentality. One of the reasons I don't get so into it is that so much of it is clearly manufactured to be novel (e.g., maid cafes) and is little different than similarly generated oddness in other cultures which links not to human nature, but calculated commercial interests. However, when the weirdness manifests as a small component of a larger "

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Won't Miss #393 - using Japanese English

I don't mind if Japanese people use Japanese English (as opposed to "Engrish", which is a whole other kettle of fish) because it is understandable that they do. If I'm teaching them, I just point out that they shouldn't use it and tell them the correct words or phrases. Unfortunately, sometimes you find yourself being unable to make yourself understood unless you resort to using it yourself.

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Will Miss #392 - dads do the time if they do the crime

Many moons ago, I had an American co-worker with a Japanese boyfriend who was looking at a visa that was soon to expire and no full-time job to gain sponsorship from. The boyfriend wasn't ready to get married so a spouse visa looked rather out of bounds. Fortunately for her, she got pregnant. Voila, problem solved! Most Japanese men will marry a woman if she gets pregnant and wants to keep

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Won't Miss #392 - need for kid gloves

Have you ever approached a strange cat to pet it and as you approach, it is eyeing you warily with muscles tensed such that you fear it will perceive you as a threat and bolt if you make just one tiny wrong move? Often, I feel that way when it comes to talking to Japanese people (the "cats"). Twice I've said things on FaceBook which were meant to be informational, but they ended up being

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Will Miss #391 - amashoku

Back in my early days in Japan, there were few foods that I liked and trusted not to present me with a filling of sweetened beans. At that time, I was pretty squeamish about any of "that Japanese stuff". One of the easily enjoyable and reliable treats is/was amashoku, a half-cookie/half cake sort of baked good which is lightly sweet and has enough dryness to give it a pleasant cookie texture

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Won't Miss #391 - the smell of fish

Students often ask me about my first impression of Japan. I always give them an honest answer, and they really don't like it. The first thing I thought when I stepped off the plane in Narita was "I smell fish". When I sit at home teaching my students with the windows open, invariably, one of my neighbors will stink up the great outdoors with fish. Unfortunately, some of them seem to be

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Will Miss #390 - food fads

Bagna Cauda on display, the big fad of 2011.

All countries have fads, and I'm sure many have food fads, though Japan's seem to occur with greater intensity and frequency than I recall experiencing back home. Many of them get started by a T.V. program which highlights a particular dish, restaurant or food. Sometimes it is impossible to trace, but once the ball gets rolling, everyone jumps on

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Won't Miss #390 - dirty looks for English

I always get gawked at in public because of my appearance. Though I don't like seeing people do triple takes when they see me and just have to look back again and again, it's usually just basic rudeness. When my husband (who is also American) and I are out walking around, we, rather reasonably, speak English to each other. It's important to say here that we are not loud talkers. We speak at a

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Will Miss #389 - civilized behavior in theaters

Since I haven't been to an American movie theater in over two decades, I had forgotten how badly behaved that some people can be. Often the absence of a bad experience does not register as a necessarily good one. I hadn't thought about how people do extremely rude things in movie theaters in the U.S. until I saw some FaceBook updates about people who talked loudly, kicked the back of seats,

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Won't Miss #389 - talking to A-bomb survivors

Some posts are especially tricky to write and this one has to top them all both in terms of expressing the complexity of the feelings and the risk of being misinterpreted (willfully, in many cases, as self-righteousness needs to find an outlet even if it is an inappropriate one). I should note that the atomic bombs were dropped more than 20 years before I was born and no member of my family

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Will Miss #388 - husband thanking

This is actually a thank you sign at a rikshaw ride, but it's the only picture I have with the words "thank you" on it in English.

There's a custom/habit in Japan which sometimes receives a little flak from more feminist-oriented types, and no small resistance from at least a handful of the foreign wives of Japanese men. This custom is one in which wives thank their husbands for going to the

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Won't Miss #388 - coerced confessions

The obscured word is "Shut".

Sometimes I wonder if my most ardent stalkers realize the risk they take with their hostile e-mail messages and the trollish responses that they make as they follow me to every site I comment on around the web. If anything untoward were ever to befall me, from a robbery to an attack to an unfortunate fatal accident, the first finger would be pointed straight at

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Will Miss #387 - tuning out incidental conversations

If you've ever sat in a coffee shop next to someone really noisy and had trouble tuning out the details of their personal life, you can understand where I'm coming from with this. I'll be the first to admit that my Japanese skill pretty much blows and that I have to pay attention to what is being said to understand. It's not the sort of thing which effortlessly enters my consciousness, but

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Won't Miss #387 - whining about American portions

One of my students has a brother who lives in San Diego. He has gained 15 kg. (33 lbs.) in two years due to eating American-size meals. I suggested that he not eat everything he is served and prepare his own food more frequenlty, but she wasn't having any of that sort of crazy logic. No, it was the American food that was the problem, not his laziness about cooking or inability not to gobble

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Will Miss #386 - learning (deeply) about Japanese business

OK, no matter how much I understand about Japanese business, I don't know why this video shop is named "Slum."

If you have ever gone into a video rental shop in Japan, you may note that there are often more foreign titles than domestic ones. What fairly obvious conclusion would you reach? If you're like most people (including myself), you would conclude that foreign titles are more popular

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Won't Miss #386 - lack of strong flavors

One of my coworkers was a chef in Australia and he remarked that he should appreciate the fact that Japanese food is quite subtle in taste, but the truth is that he actually finds Japanese food rather bland. I'll admit that my foreign taste buds also favor intense flavors. It's not that I can't appreciate some of the subtler flavors, but my favorite things are definitely stronger (yuzu

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Will Miss #385 - (relative) economic parity

I've said before that Japan conducts a sort of "soft socialism", but it's not necessarily rooted in the redistribution of wealth. There is, however, relative economic parity in Japan with a large middle class, few rich people, and few poor people. This is accomplished by not offering presidents and CEOs obscenely lavish salaries and keeping the bottom income bracket a little further from the

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Won't Miss #385 - bait and switch fruit stands

Fruit in Japan is expensive, though not quite as obscenely so as most foreign folks believe. Still, many Japanese people do not routinely eat fruit except for bananas because it's on the dear side and that makes it hard to include as part of their regular diet. Fruit is often a treasured gift, unless it is persimmons that are harvested by the truckload and freely dispensed when in season.

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Will Miss #384 - watching the engineers

I don't know what it's like to run a train in America, especially in a metropolis like New York in which there is a large and complex system servicing a wide area. I can say that standing behind the engineer and watching how he operates when you get on a Japan Railway train is a pretty fascinating experience. He is sitting in there alone, but follows a very rigid routine of gesturing and

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Won't Miss #384 - Japanese (whatever) is "better"

Even the frozen French fries are better in Japan because, you know, they mix them with mini-weenies. 

Upon returning from a trip to Hawaii, one of my students asked me if I thought Japanese watermelon was sweeter than American watermelon. My truthful reply was that I've had sweet melon in both countries and relatively tasteless stuff in both of them. I've probably had more so-so watermelon in

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Will Miss #383 - Yebisu beer (by proxy)

The Yebisu beer museum in Ebisu.

I'm a creature that fascinates most Japanese folks because I don't drink and have never drunk alcohol of any kind. When I say this, they respond with surprise and then get a strange look on their faces. That look, I'm pretty sure, relates to whatever reason they've conjured up for my avoidance of what can be seen as a magic elixir of relaxation and a lubricant

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Won't Miss #383 - okonomiyaki

In theory, I should love okonomiyaki. Well, I should love it as much as you can love a food that looks like someone hurled the contents of their dinner onto a grill. For a society so obsessed with the appearance of food, it's surprising that this "Japanese savory pancake" is so popular. Okonomiyaki is a food that is prepared "as you like it", so you can customize the composition.

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Will Miss #382 - not taking impersonal things personally

He's probably not even a KISS fan.

One of the drawbacks about people who live in cultures with a great emphasis on individuality is that the people who comprise that culture often don't know who they are or what they define themselves by. This results in people defining themselves by trivial matters such as the soda brands they drink, the sports teams they follow, political party, choice of

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Won't Miss #382 - sugar in "everything"

When you think of Japanese food, the last thing you probably think of is sugar. It is absolutely true that the sweets have less total sugar than a lot of Western sweets. However, sugar (or artificial sweetene) is added to plenty of savory foods and traditional dishes. Sukiyaki, nimono, and other dishes have sugar and/or sweet sake as components. A great deal of savory sembei also includes

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Will Miss #381 - Tsurukame

Back home, we used to go to a discount store called "Big Lots". At that time, it was an awesomely awful store that sold strange food (often from developing countries or eastern Europe) near or past its expiration date, fashion that was so utterly unfashionable that those who had any sense of taste wouldn't buy it at any price, and items which were so dubious in their utility or appearance that

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Won't Miss #381 - reluctance to confront (the bad)

While not being confronted over niggling infractions like taking a photo in a no camera zone is a bonus when living in Japan, the fact that the Japanese are so reluctant to confront people who break rules can be inconvenient and troubling as well. In particular, when someone breaks a rule which affects others strongly and no one with authority calls them on it, it can be very irritating. One

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Will Miss #380 - reluctance to confront (the good)

Click to see a legible version. 


One of the things you learn pretty quickly in Japan is that Japanese people are quite reluctant to confront people who break the rules (either willfully or unwittingly). If you enter a space which says "no photos", there's a pretty good chance that people won't tell you to put away your camera if they see you taking pictures. This applies not only to

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Won't Miss #380 - the "gaijin" vs. "gaikokujin" argument

Offense at a word is in the eye of the beholder. Racially insensitive product name or really bad katakana translation of "mommy"?

One of the longest running debates in the world of foreigners is whether or not being called a "gaijin" (outsider/foreigner) is offensive. The term "gaijkokujin" is generally viewed as being more polite. Frankly, I think this is a trivial issue which masks the real

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Will Miss #379 - living in a small country

One of my students recently went on a package tour to the U.S. As part of the deal, she visited Las Vegas and took a bus to the Grand Canyon. I told her that I was surprised at this pairing because those two places aren't exactly easy to hit during one short vacation. She responded essentially with 'they're pretty close to each other.' That was before she went on her trip. After she came back,

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Won't Miss #379 - the "lesser" customer

This woman at Adores gaming center was giving some sort of discount card or ticket to everyone who came in, but didn't offer any to my husband and I. This is despite the fact that we actually patronize their establishments. 


Walking down the streets of Tokyo or going into shops, you see people sometimes handing out free samples, tissues, coupons, and flyers. Ninety-nine percent of the time,

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Random Thoughts: The Big "E's"

Some time ago, I attempted to have a dialog with someone whose experiences in Japan and opinions as a consequence of those differences were rather different than mine. The exchange ended at an impasse because it was clear that we would never agree. It wasn't that there was fundamental disagreement, but we couldn't settle even on a basic structure on which to reach conclusions.

As an example

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Will Miss #378 - sweet osmanthus

Osmanthus fragrans is a type of flowering tree which is pretty common in Tokyo. There is one growing behind my apartment and in front of it. Most Tokyoites recognize it's pleasantly sweet smell and view it as a part of the seasonal change experience. For me, I will not only associate the scent with life in Japan, as the tree is not common in the United States, but also the change from

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Won't Miss #378 - status issues

Among the many things I have said which have sparked arguments with other foreign people in Japan was the fact that we regard our bosses in the U.S. as being of relatively equal status to us. Conversely, in Japan, there is the sense that your superiors and those who have seniority have a higher status than you. The issue of status at work is often confused with the issues of power and

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Will Miss #377 - the 7 lucky gods

The old gods of Greece are often portrayed as competing with one another and fighting amongst themselves. Cultures with multiple gods rarely show them playing nice together, but Japan's 7 lucky gods are often shown as one big happy family. They're on a boat taking a little cruise together or hanging out looking like they're all smiles. Their images often adorn products or are placed in front

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Won't Miss #377 - panchera

Personally, I don't care if people have their fetishes as long as they keep them private and they don't harm anyone in order to fulfill them. It's really none of my business, unless it is flashed in my face on a regular basis. "Panchera" is the Japanese word for panty fetishism, and you see it everywhere. There are anime-style signs with girls' dresses flipping up showing their cartoon

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Will Miss #376 - corn is king

Corn is everywhere in Western food, but it's usually a background ingredient except when it is served whole or shucked as a side dish. For our snacks, you find that we cover up the corn with strongly flavored powders and spices, or, in the case of cereal, sugar. In Japan, "corn" is often placed front and center as a flavor and a component. I've had corn sembei, and even corn caramels, and

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Won't Miss #376 - cicadas

Yes, it's dead. I rarely see a live one. I just hear them incessantly for months.

I'm sure there are plenty of places in which cicadas reside. For all I know, I experienced them back home, but they weren't nearly as strongly associated with negative experiences there as they are here. What I don't remember about them anywhere else is experiencing them for so long or at such high volume.

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Will Miss #375 - depictions of criminals

If all of the criminal element would just wear these types of jackets, the police would have a much easier time doing their job.


Old cartoons used to show the bad guy as having a long mustache that he twirled as he contemplated his dastardly deeds. Criminals were shown wearing striped prison outfits or were snaggle-toothed, wearing eye patches or masks, or leather-clad punks. These days,

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Won't Miss #375 - spider eyes

There's a trend in Japan which I find vaguely disturbing, and that's young women who get long and ridiculous-looking false eyelashes glued onto their eyelids. This trend has been gaining momentum over the past few years and more and more women look like they're walking around with spider legs attached to their faces. Frankly, it looks pretty creepy and can be quite distracting when you're

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Will Miss #374 - retro signs and artifacts

They're either channeling the world's most famous genocidal maniac or Hercules Poirot. 

One of my students recently went to France and said that one thing she noticed was that there were a lot of old buildings and reminders of old culture in Paris. She compared this to her home city, Tokyo, which is a place which seems intent on tearing down any structure that is approaching the equivalent of

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Won't Miss #374 - Seiyu

Seiyu is a chain of supermarkets with branches in most major areas of Tokyo. I can't speak for all Seiyu supermarkets in Japan, but I can speak for the one nearest me. In fact, if it weren't one of the cheaper places to get certain types of food, I'd avoid it. I'm too poor, however, to walk away from the prices, but there are things about it that annoy me. One of the things is that our

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Will Miss #373 - hyuganatsu

Hyuganatsu is a Japanese citrus fruit which fragrant and a bit sour. When I was first given one of these fruits, I was told I'd have to put sugar on it to eat it. However, I ate it as it was and found it delicious. I may have gotten lucky and had the world's least sour hyuganatsu, but it made me wish I could get them more easily (they're not only a Japanese fruit, but regional and not

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Won't Miss #373 - puny AM doughnuts selection

Actual selection at Mister Donut at 9:00 am.

There's a well-known commercial from the 80's in which a man stumbles out of bed at an ungodly hour to go off and make doughnuts so that they are ready for breakfast. In Japan, no one is getting up before the sun shines. In fact, I'm guessing most are sleeping in later than the average commuter salaryman. I'm not a huge doughnut eater, but once

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Will Miss #372 - shodo

"Shodo" is Japanese calligraphy. I don't practice or study it, but I do enjoy the results of what other people do. What is more, I love seeing people doing it on the street in tourist areas. Western people in general have a fascination with the look and feel of Chinese characters (kanji) and calligraphy extends the interest level a bit further. The style, energy and orientation reflect the

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Won't Miss #372 - inhumane animal handling

The only animal being treated badly here is the poor master of that stubborn bulldog.

I realize that animal population control is a difficult thing and that cost is a part of the consideration. Sometimes animals have to be euthanized or they will suffer worse fates (life in a tiny cage, starvation, death by disease, etc.). How a country on the whole deals with this problem is a reflection of

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Will Miss #371 - vinegar drinking

What's for dessert? Vinegar, of course!

Of course, when I say I'll miss drinking vinegar, I don't mean me personally, but the fact that the Japanese do it. And it's not that "only" they do it, because apparently folk medicine worldwide claims vinegar will cure everything that ails you. It's more the pervasiveness of vinegar for drinking and how it is more fully integrated into the culture

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Won't Miss #371 - methodical scanners

Yeah, I'm talking about this guy (among others). Learn how to use the equipment fellow!

I haven't lived in the U.S. for a long time, so this may be a problem there as well, but it's something I never experienced there. When I go to markets in Japan, at least 30% of the time when I am buying more than one of the same item, the cashier will scan the same item through again and again rather than

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Will Miss #370 - monster goya vines

At this stage of the year, the vines are about 4 stories high, and they're not finished yet.

Goya is a vegetable that is often translated to mean "bitter gourd". It looks like a big cucumber with a bad skin disease and is famous for being a part of Okinawan cuisine. Some Japanese folks swear by it and others detest it. It's one of those polarizing things, but mainly, I notice it in the summer

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Won't Miss #370 - being told what is "Japanese"

I'm going to blow your mind, and very likely piss you off when I say that Japanese people do not know Japanese culture by virtue of being born in Japan. Don't believe me? Next time the Golden Week holidays roll around, ask your friends what each day celebrates and how it is observed. Or, ask them what a mikoshi is/does. Being of a culture is not the same as being educated in it and sometimes

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Will Miss #369 - simpler living

The Japan Times newspaper used to run a series of columns by an American writer named Don Maloney which was compiled into a book called  "Japan: It's Not All Raw Fish." In one of his articles, Maloney talks about the inconvenience of life in Tokyo and how much more cumbersome it is than life in the U.S. A reader wrote to Maloney and talked about how he and his wife cope just fine with the high

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Won't Miss #369 - facial hair prejudice

Okay, this guy definitely isn't helping the image of facial hair, but give him a break. This picture was taken at a summer festival, not at the office. You'd all look less than ready for Wall Street in 93 degree heat and high humidity at a crowded public gathering.

When my husband came to Japan in 1989 seeking a job, his brother, who also lives in Japan, recommended that he shave off his

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Will Miss #366 - "trash cops" (the good)

As I've said before, dealing with garbage in Japan is complex. It's so complicated that many Japanese folks get it wrong, too. There are different rules for different neighborhoods and some subtler rules come into play about washing garbage. You can't, for instance, put out a can of food that has expired. You have to empty the food and wash the can. It's easy for people who have busy lives to

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Won't Miss #366 - trash cops (the bad)

A (rather nice-looking) sign created by and placed in a trash collection area by a self-appointed "trash cop" reminding everyone that today's trash collection is over. This is to let them know not to put out more trash bags until the next collection day.

Some people are vigilant about making sure the trash on the curb of their block is properly done and that doesn't necessarily have to be a

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Will Miss #365 - capsule machines

Things may have changed since I was living back home, but most of the capsule (or bubble) machines that sold little plastic balls with an item inside were designed for kids. Not only that, but the stuff you got in them was pretty crappy and tended to hold ones attention for about 15 minutes then end up mashed into the carpet of your parents' car when you returned home. In Japan, there are

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Won't Miss #365 - wiring money home

As I've mentioned before, Japanese banks have paltry interest rates on savings accounts. In fact, I'm surprised most people don't hide their money in old bento boxes and bury it in the back yard. That probably has more to do with the fact that so few people have actual backyards than it being considered a lesser option than putting it in the bank. Since I'd prefer to lose as little of my money

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Will Miss #364 - emotional control emphasis

Sumo wrestlers are famed for the stoicism. Tournament winners will stand sweating and tired in front of an interviewer staring straight ahead and grunting minimal answers. They rarely smile or show any overt happiness, even when they are elated at their victory. This is an extreme example of emotional control, and few average Japanese folks have such a tight reign on their feelings. That being

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Won't Miss #364 - Benevolent Prejudice

One of my students is a lovely older lady who is friendly, fun to talk to, and frequently gives me gifts. She's a delightful person who makes mundane stories sound interesting and makes an effort to carry on a conversation, unlike some students who sit there like a lump and expect the teacher to interrogate them into improving their English while they grudgingly utter short replies. She's a

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Will Miss #363 - realizing where I am

Most of the time, I go about my business in life like everyone else. This is often a part of the sleepwalking through life that we all do as we perform routine behaviors. When you first come in Japan, the "oh wow" factor tends to dominate as the novelty of all the little differences make you think normal things are awesome because they are 10% different and have Japanese writing all over them.

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Won't Miss #363 - dead stoppers

These two decided the best place to stop and mess with their cell phone messages was dead in the middle of the sidewalk. The angle makes it look bigger than it is. Trust me when I say that when they dead stopped in front of me that it was more than irritating going around them.

On New Year's Eve of 2010, I was heading into a Kinokuniya supermarket located in the basement of a building. I was

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Will Miss #362 - super cheap book scanning service

Our service of choice, and the image I pinched from their web site. They have really served us well.

My husband and I have accumulated a lot of books since coming to Japan, and everyone knows how infamously small Japanese apartments are. My husband has a large collection of books that he cannot replace without going to great expense (special ordered from a limited run publisher that feels

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Random Thoughts: Gilligan's Island

When you live in Japan, people make an assumption about why you are here. More often than not, they fill the gap in their knowledge with their own motivation or ones that they are familiar with based on what others have said or they have read. Some people come here because they love aspects of Japanese culture, especially manga, anime, or pop culture. Others follow a dream of knowing this "exotic

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Won't Miss #362 - "my hobby is sleeping"

While talking with my sister and one of my friends in America, I asked, "do people ever say that their hobby is sleeping back home?" Both of them were taken aback at my even asking such a question as it seemed like a fundamentally incongruous thing for anyone to assert. My inability to distinguish the weird things I sometimes hear in Japan from the weird things people say back home spurred

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Will Miss #361 - Japanese strikers and protesters

In Japan, the unions are exceptionally weak and tend to cooperate fully with most companies. Most of the time, the union reps get together and quietly talk about what the company is willing to do and just do it. They rarely push hard. When they do strike, it is an almost comically mild event in which a small group of people quietly parade down a street in a complete and orderly manner bearing

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Blogger Weirdnesses

Just a head's up about some Blogger issues that are affecting my posting schedules. I queue my posts to go up for at least a week ahead, but since Blogger changed their interface, the scheduling has become unpredictable. The main problem is that sometimes it schedules on West coast of the United States time and sometimes it schedules on Japan time. It will do this randomly so sometimes posts that

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Won't Miss #361 - rudeness (qualified)

Shhh. Listen carefully. Do you hear that rustling that sounds like fabric rubbing over fabric? That's the sound of dozens of Japanophiles', apologists', and assorted foreigners' underpants wadding up at the title of this post. They won't even read it before dashing off indignant e-mail messages about how Japanese people are less rude than most Westerners (and especially most 'merkans). Those

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Will Miss #360 - "happy basuday to you"

I don't have a picture of someone singing at a birthday party, but this is the tart I had for my 47th birthday this year. It was fatty and delicious, and the picture is the best I can do for something which is birthday-related.

Japanese folks celebrate their birthdays generally with a visit to a restaurant for what they call a "party", but is actually a nice get-together with friends. At such

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Won't Miss #360 - bags that need a seat

On all public transport around the world, I'm sure there are people who plant their bags onto an adjoining seat until someone comes along and needs to occupy that space. I don't mind if people do this on a relatively empty train, not that there are many "relatively empty" trains in Tokyo most of the time. However, there are people who flop their bag onto the next seat and as the train fills up

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Won't Miss #359 - "you can't/won't understand..."

One of the things Japanese people say to me when they're about to tell me about some cultural concept which they are aware is dissimilar in Western culture is "you can't/won't understand, but we Japanese (do whatever)." I know that this is offered up without any sort of negative connotations, but it is an immensely condescending thing to say. This is their way of saying, "as an outsider, you

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Will Miss #359 - Adores

There are a lot of big gaming centers in Japan. Some of the more common ones are Taito, Sega, and Namco. The one that my husband and I frequently seek out is Adores. One of the reasons for this is that they are the only one that frequently stocks debu neko prizes, but another is that they simply are one of the most helpful and willing to set you up for a win or to get a particular prize. If

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Will Miss #358 - "mata haris"

I associate the name "Mata Hari" with spies, who generally don't want to be recognized for who they are. For that reason, I call women in Japan who are so fearful of sun exposure that they cover nearly every inch of exposed flesh by this name. The first time I saw such a woman, I thought that the desire for "creamy white skin" in Japan gives celebrities an ideal manner in which to disguise

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Won't Miss #358 - handwritten Japanese

Mostly, it's the stuff on the left near the bottom that trips me up.

When I teach, I use a white board to write notes or words for students and I always print. I have quite good handwriting, but if some letters are not nearly perfectly formed (especially "r", which without a prominent hook will be seen as an oddly squashed "v" for some reason), my students frown and look confused at what has

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Will Miss #357 - yuzu koshou

There are a lot of flavors in Japan which I think have the potential to be gangbusters back home if someone would just introduce them in the right fashion. One of those is kinako (toasted soy flour) when used as a flavoring on rice crackers, baked goods, or candy. Another is yuzu koshou, a type of citrus and vinegar blend which uses a Japanese fruit (yuzu) that looks like a lemon but tastes

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Won't Miss #357 - living in material limbo

Blue Shoe writes about his experiences with a Korg keyboard and having problems shipping it back home. Though he eventually found a way, the cost was almost the same as that of the keyboard itself. I've lived in Japan for a long time, but I have never sought permanent residence because I have always known this is not a "forever" gig. I know one day I will pack it all up and go home. That means

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Won't Miss #356 - a lack of charitable spirit

Tags near the cash register at Seiyu supermarket that you can toss in your basket and 100 yen ($1.24) and the money will be given to victims of the tsunami following the Great Tohoku Earthquake. These have been around for months and I have never seen one person toss one in their basket.

This is a tricky topic because people often confuse "charity" with "foreign aid". Note that Japan gives a

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Will Miss #356 - the empty room

Yes, I was creepy and took a shot of someone's empty room through a window. To be fair to me and my quasi-peeping tom tendencies, this was an unoccupied room rather than one someone was actually living in. The things I do to get shots for my blogs...

There is a long-standing cultural habit in Japan of keeping one Japanese-style (tatami mat, low furniture, minimalist styling) room in their

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Will Miss #355 - Japanese "soft cream"

A lot of people talk out their asses about Japan. When I say that, I mean they assert something and offer a reason (often that elevates the Japanese people or cultural aspects above Western ones) which they have no real insight, understanding or evidence of. One of the things which consistently irks me is that people will say something about Japan is "better" when they have no evidence that

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Won't Miss #355 - TP paranoia

Going through the earthquake on March 11, 2011 and its aftermath is something I wouldn't have chosen to do, but it taught me some new things about Japan and the way the Japanese people operate. Some of those things were good and some not so good. Among the things I learned was that, when crisis hits, the Japanese go for the toilet paper. This wasn't the first time in Japan's recent history

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Will Miss #354 - no April Fool's pranking

This isn't a joke, but I wish it was because it's just sad otherwise.

I have a sense of humor. Really, I do. However, I dislike April Fool's Day with the passion of a million burning suns. It's not that I can't take a joke, but that puerile pranks aren't funny and I don't like spending an entire day having to second guess whether or not people are telling the truth. Frankly, I just think the

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Random Thoughts: Relativity Theory

Sometimes I have thoughts about living in another culture which I'd like to incorporate into blog posts here, but due to the format I have chosen, I can't really flesh them out effectively in any brief individual post. Rather than simply keep them to myself, or worse, forget about them entirely, I've decided to occasionally make a "random thoughts" post. This will be the 1000 Things equivalent to

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Won't Miss #354 - (almost always) being at a disadvantage

My brother-in-law, who is also American and lives in Japan, recently bought a house in Japan. He had an experience which illustrated the point I'm about to make all too well and that is that foreigners always operate at a disadvantage when conducting business in Japan. Even if you speak Japanese well and have a native along with you to clarify and digest information, there is always wiggle

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Will Miss #353 - self-restraint (en masse)

A poster asking people to conserve energy in the summer of 2011 due to the shortfall of energy resulting from the Fukushima nuclear power plant crisis. 
During the cherry blossom viewing season in Tokyo after the Great Tohoku Earthquake on March 11, 2011, the Japanese government asked people who were accustomed to drinking and partying hard (and noisily) to use restraint. They weren't going to

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Won't Miss #353 - being a leaning post

My former boss used to complain on a regular basis about something which happened to him every time when the train was crowded to sardine levels. That would mean this happened to him everyday during rush hour. Fortunately for me, it happens less often than that, but it still happens. When the train was extremely crowded, the people around him would simply stand without holding a strap and lean

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Will Miss #352 - the "bottle keep" system

 In Japan (and possibly other Asian countries), bars offer something called "bottle keep" in which a customer buys a bottle of booze, drink some of it, and then store the rest at the bar. This is done to allow people to drink from the same bottle repeatedly without having to finish it off at once. In bars where this is done, you see shelves or racks of bottles with tags attached to them to keep

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Won't Miss #352 - "it's Japanese", when it's not

Debu neko may be Japanese, but calicos are not.
In the original Star Trek, the character of Chekov sometimes asserted that something was invented in Russia when it was not. As far as Chekov was concerned, all good things originated in Russia. The Japanese have something in common with that fictional character. They think that a lot of things are Japanese when they are not. My first introduction

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Will Miss #351 - WYSIWYG at restaurants

Click this small image for a bigger view of a lunch menu.
In America, there are two kinds of menus for the most part. There are those that display extremely unrealistic styled shots of food and those that have no pictures at all. The former is to make food look more appealing than it really is and the latter to avoid customer complaints (or even lawsuits) when people don't get what is shown in

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Won't Miss #351 - paltry (or no) raises

The economic situation in Japan has been going downhill for quite some time. That doesn't mean companies don't make money, but rather that Japan hasn't been growing economically on the whole. However, even before the downturn became so dire, raises were very pathetic at most companies. It's not unusual for people to get raises of as little as a few thousand yen (about $24) or no raise at all,

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Will MIss #350 - natural food dyes

Lunch meat in Japan is its own brand of "scary".
Many foods in Japan have common preservatives and chemicals added to them just like back home, but one thing the Japanese are careful about is food dyes. Unless a food is imported, it's quite rare to find a food that has had its color altered with chemical dyes. Most of the time, natural coloring extracted from carrots, potatoes, annatto, turmeric,

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Won't Miss #350 - puny mark-downs

One thing which consistently amazes me is how small sales and markdowns are on items in Tokyo. I've seen prices marked as little as 2%, even on food items which clearly are nearing their expiration. Convenience stores often have the most absurdly low price reductions, such as 10 yen off of something which costs 200 yen or more. Mind you, I do occasionally see bigger markdowns (especially on

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Will Miss #349 - taiyaki/imagawayaki

If you walk around nearly any city in Japan for a little while, you're bound to come across someone with fish-shaped molds pouring what looks like pancake batter into them. After a short while, a generous dollop of red bean jam or custard will be added to the center and two molds will be combined to sandwich the filling between the two fishy halves. The outer portion of this treat is like a

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Won't Miss #349 - jishin yoi (earthquake sickness)

Though I grew up in western Pennsylvania, where there are no earthquakes, I did experience the earth shuddering on a regular basis. My family lived near coal and strip mining operations. The use of explosives a safe, but palpable, distance away commonly shook our house. Also, we lived a very short distance from a dirt road that huge trucks roared down, causing objects in the living room to

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Will Miss #348 - being told I'm beautiful

I look absolutely nothing like this woman, but I think she's supposed to be actually beautiful.
I've read on some blogs and forums that a lot of the women who marry foreign men are actually considered relatively mundane or unattractive in Japanese culture. I've also been spontaneously told by Japanese men and women (even at the ripe old age of 46) that I am "beautiful". My sense about both of

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Won't Miss #348 - Japanese keyboards

 Click to see details of a touch typists bad dream.
If you don't know what is wrong with Japanese keyboards, then you are obviously not a touch typist and I bid you good day, sir. People who have to look at the keyboard to hunt and peck their way through a lengthy diatribe won't understand how frustrating it is to have extra keys on the right side of the board and on the bottom row messing up

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Will Miss #347 - UFO Catchers

A UFO Catcher prize bag from a Sega game shop. 
I can't believe I'm writing this post. Not a year ago, UFO Catchers (claw crane games) were something I wanted nothing to do with because I thought they were scams and you had to put a ton of money into them with little chance of getting a price. Some time around the end of 2010, my husband gave one a shot to win me a debu neko (fatty cat) and he

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Won't Miss #347 - monthly pay

This is a MUFG (Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group) building, which is very tentatively linked to this post. I'm using this picture because of the man and poster person staring in awe at the silver scrotum sculpture in front of the building, which is more interesting than a generic bank picture. 

In the U.S., I was paid every two weeks and some people are paid every week. I think the system is

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Will Miss #346 - teaching English (the good)

I've already written that I love my students, but that is because I currently mostly work freelance in a situation which allows me to work with people who are rather different from the general population of language learners in "eikaiwa" (English conversation schools). Because of my specialized circumstances, I have fewer of the passive people I mentioned in the previous post, and more active

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Won't Miss #346 - teaching English in Japan (the bad)

I've already written about the bad attitudes and misconceptions some people have about teaching in Japan, but there are negative aspects associated with it that have to do with the work itself. Foreigners who once taught but moved on to other jobs look down on those who remain in that work because they think it's a job that requires no skill. It requires a lot of skill to do well, but many

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Will Miss #345 - recycling pick-up trucks

If you want to throw out a large electronic item in Japan, you have several options, and most of them will cost you. One is to contact the local government and pay them to remove it. Another is to contact the manufacturer of your item and pay them even more to have it removed. Finally, if you're having the large item replaced, you can pay even more to have the store that is delivering the new

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Won't Miss #345 - Costco as a Herculean task

If the trip alone isn't enough to wear you out, being in a food court full of rude people, shrieking children, and people who hog the seating for as long as possible will. 
Living in central Tokyo can be awesome. Your commute is shorter, you're near a lot of interesting shops and restaurants, and the public transport is convenient. That being said, Costco can't afford to place its giant

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Will Miss #344 - new word inventions

"First food, fast food", "to-may-to, to-mah-to".
Because I spent over a decade doing work which required me to correct written English, I have a very good grasp of what Japanese people commonly mishear when they listen to my native language. They not only write these odd concoctions when they take dictation, but they use them in their own expressions without checking the dictionary to see that

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Won't Miss #344 - futon beating

In addition to being pretty uncomfortable, futon need to be aired out regularly in order to get all of the cooties out of them. Fortunately, I have a bed, but that doesn't stop me from experiencing the second-hand "joy" of futon beating. When my neighbors whack the hell out of their futons or order to chase out all of the creepy crawlies, they do it so loudly that I can't have a conversation

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Will Miss #343 - lunch sets/deals

A fairly typical lunch set including salad, pickles, dessert, an entree, rice, and soup. This one went for a mere 650 yen ($7.94).
Eating out in Tokyo is expensive if you order dinner, but it can be both economical and awesome if you eat out at lunch time. Back home, I know that there were occasional lunch specials, but it's an art form with restaurants in Japan. You pay between 500-800 yen, and

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Won't Miss #343 - the envelopes

A counter with forms and a glue dispenser at a post office. They know you're going to need it.
Back when I first came to Japan, I wrote to a lot of folks back home, and this was before home computers were cheap and accessible for all, let alone e-mail being the norm. At that time, I had ample experience with the frustration of Japanese envelopes and I was reminded of that recently when sending

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Will Miss #342 - Japanese gardens and parks

One of my friends recently took a tour through a Japanese garden in San Francisco. It had all of the stuff you expect to see in such a place, particularly if it is designed with tourism in mind. It's also not exactly the type of thing you tend to see in Japan since all of the elements of that garden don't tend to appear in one place here. For example, you don't tend to see cultivated trees,

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Won't Miss #342 - washing rice

Somewhere under that cloudy water is my rice. That color is telling me my work is far from done. And, no, I don't use a rice cooker for something as simple as making rice. 

One of my students lives and works in Tokyo, but her home town is in Miyazaki. I've never been there, but she tells me it is vast tracts of nothing, but she goes there because she's a wonderful person and a good daughter.

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Will Miss #341 - living far from family (the good)

Most people have complicated relationships with their families. In my case, that is even more so than many others. My relationship with my mother is especially bad, and the truth is that we haven't spoken in over 15 years, though we are each informed about each other through my sister who lives with my parents and who I am in almost daily contact with. This hasn't happened because of any sort

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Won't Miss #341 - living far from family (the bad)

I once had a discussion with a student in which I taught her the word "fallback". She was talking about how being married with a working spouse allows the other party to take career risks because there was one stable income to rely upon. Our talk was about how vulnerable single folks can be economically as compared to married ones. However, I reminded her that she had a fallback in case of

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Will Miss #340 - "food is fuel", as it is meant in Japan

Delicious, salted fuel.
It's very easy to misunderstand the statements made in other cultures, and one thing that I often hear American dieters who have spent a short period of time in Japan smugly assert is that the Japanese stay trim by viewing "food as fuel". When a Western person says this, they think this is about minimizing the pleasure of food such that it is diminished to being mere 

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Won't Miss #340 - process over outcome

 Click this version to see a larger version which is readable.
One of my students was corresponding with her company's head office in Italy and she wanted to tell them that an error had been made in the paperwork. The ultimate outcome would not be altered by this mistake, but she simply wanted to let them know someone had carelessly entered the wrong data at an initial stage of the process. The

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Will Miss #339 - old Japanese houses

I'm a fan of all old houses in general, though the truth is that I like those in a state of disrepair best. In Tokyo, where there is constant renewal, finding an interesting old house is like locating a prize in a Cracker Jack box. Such houses have a special appeal because of the relative infrequency of seeing them, but also because they are increasingly rare snapshots of Japanese society from a

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Won't Miss #339 - the idea that I represent all foreigners

One of the things that I get tired of is the notion that I must not only behave well in Japan, but that I must be a paragon of human virtue because the Japanese will judge all foreigners by the behavior of the worst of us. If one foreigner neglects to do something properly, the rest of the community clucks their respective tongues and wags their fingers while moaning about how one bad apple

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Will Miss #338 - Good Morning Bakery

There's a chain of bakeries called "Good Morning" and one branch is in my neighborhood. They also sell their baked goods on consignment at supermarkets (such as Ito Yokado) so you can get their offerings even if a cafe or bakery is not in your immediate area. While there are tons of excellent bakeries in Tokyo, this place has a koshian (red bean paste) bread which is sublime. It's soft, lightly

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Won't Miss #338 - low protein (and veggie) meals

An extremely delicious Sri Lankan meal that I ate in Shinjuku with a tiny salad, 3 bites of chicken (with skin), rice, potato salad, and bread. Three carbs in one meal - great if you're running a marathon, or want to expand the size of your ass. Despite the carb overload, I heartily recommend this place - Court Lodge. The staff is wonderful (attentive, friendly,  offering more gravy as needed)

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Will Miss #337 - alien nation

There was a movie made in the late 80's called Tokyo Pop which shows a scene with the main character, a young singer from America, walking through the crowds in Tokyo. Her blond head and blue eyes stand above a sea of dark heads going in the opposite direction. That comes as close to anything I can say or show about the sense I'm trying to describe. I've been in Japan for a long time, so I tend

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Won't Miss #337 - expensive digital cameras

Things tend to be fairly expensive in Tokyo (and Japan in general), but over the past 20 years the prices of electronics items between the U.S. and Japan have become roughly equivalent. One exception to this is digital cameras. Even low end cameras are more expensive here than they are in the U.S., and they are made by the same companies and very similar models. There's no qualitative difference

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Will Miss #336 - highly developed empathy

This is the sort of assertion that people who elevate Japanese culture about other cultures tend to make, but that is not what I'm attempting to do. Though I cannot make this assertion about every single individual raised in a Japanese cultural environment, I can say that Japanese people have much better empathy than most people from Western countries. It makes sense that this would be

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Won't Miss #336 - Japan honeymooners

I've played a role-playing game for over a decade. When I first started playing it, I paid attention to and enjoyed every detail from the nifty sounds items made to the details and rewards of every quest. Many years on, I still like the game, but the artwork, sound, and shortcomings of the quests have become apparent. It doesn't mean I don't like it, but just that the way in which I experience

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Will Miss #335 - office lady trot

It's probably not fair to call this "the office lady trot", since women everywhere do it, but it is something that I witnessed early and often among office ladies. We all know what people mean when they say "run like a girl", but I've seen it taken to an all new level in Japan. This is a "run" which has all of the appearances of increased movement without any but the most incidental increase in

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Won't Miss #335 - kisoku wa kisoku da

One of the things in life that I'm naive about is the idea that sometimes it's better to lie. That idea has been strongly and boldly underscored to an incredible extent while living in Japan. A big reason for this is that telling the truth will gain you nothing. Lying, even when it's obvious that you are doing so and and as transparent as glass, gets you a free pass. This is because the lie

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Will Miss #334 - 10 months of pregnancy

One of the situations which continues to fascinate and interest me is the way in which pregnancy lasts 10 months in Japan, but 9 months in Western countries. When I address this inconsistency with Japanese friends, they grow wide-eyed in a response which I sometimes feel scarily validates (to them) all of the nonsense about how Japanese people are biologically very different from foreigners (

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Won't Miss #334 - people who pretend to understand

One of the things I never had to contend with when I shared the native tongue of the people around me was people who didn't understand me pretending to understand. Whether the language being used is Japanese or English, there always seems to be a fair amount of nodding and the equivalent of saying, "uh-huh", when it's clear that one is either not being understood or is not being carefully

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Will Miss #333 - funky good luck charms

There are a lot of shrines in Japan. In fact, it is downright shocking how many there are for a country in which people state they are absolutely not religious. At many shrines, various good luck charms are on offer. The charms are good for a year and various types are supposed to bring you particular types of good fortune - driving, health, studies, etc. Though I am no fan of the fact that

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Won't Miss #333 - necessities that are not available

Disposable heating patches on sale in a plethora of sizes.
This was a hard post to title, but it comes about because of my increasing decrepitude as my age advances and the fact that there are some things which are easy to get back home which are damn near impossible to locate in Japan. For reasons I do not understand, getting a hot water bottle or heating pad is difficult here. A sort of heating

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Will Miss #332 - lady liberty replicas

Being American, seeing replicas of the Statue of Liberty around Japan always strikes me as smile-worthy for two reasons. First of all, it feels like a curious homage to all things American without any consideration for what this symbol means. Second, since the statue was placed in New York Harbor to welcome immigrants, and Japan is one of the least immigrant friendly countries in the world, it

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Won't Miss #332 - little joy for turkey fans

A rare food stand selling smoked turkey legs in front of a shrine in Ueno.
If you grew up in America, there's very little chance that you don't have some experience with turkey because of Thanksgiving. Well, maybe you didn't eat it if your parents were vegetarian or vegan, but even then perhaps you had a tofu turkey. Around the holidays, my husband and I always embark on a quest for turkey, and

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Will Miss #331 - rent contract terms

No, this is not where I live, but someone else does.
When I lived in the U.S., I lived in circumstances in which I didn't have to pay rent in both Pennsylvania and California. Lucky me. I only started forking over a pile of cash to a landlord upon moving into my Tokyo apartment, and I was annoyed at the key money and renewal fees, but figure that was the cost of business here. I've since come to

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Won't Miss #331 - foreigners speaking Japanese to me

Occasionally, I have foreign friends over to my apartment for dinner or socializing. Though such friends are native speakers of English, they sometimes do something which is one of my pet peeves, and that is tossing in random Japanese words for things which are absolutely unrelated to Japan or Japanese things. I'm not talking about using the word "sushi" or even "chikatetsu" (subway) or

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Will Miss #330 - shiba inu

Many dog lovers may already be familiar with this ancient breed of dog from Japan. The dogs are beautiful, intelligent, and generally gentle in nature. Since I can't have a pet, I have little interaction with these dogs aside from observation. Since I live in Japan, I see them a lot and their image is used in advertising quite frequently. They're beautiful dogs and lend themselves to some pretty

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Won't Miss #330 - having to wear pajamas

I'm going to confess that I preferred to sleep in the buff back home. I'm not some free-thinking anarchist or a hippy. I just prefer not to have to have clothes bunched up under me, tangled or giving me a wedgie when I sleep. It's simply easier to wear nothing, especially when it's hot or warm during the 5 months of summer or 2 months of rainy season in Tokyo. During the other 4 months of

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Will Miss #329 - Japanese person/foreign nickname

Shirley McClaine is an American actress who is probably more famous for her new age spirituality at this point in time than her acting. One of the more curious facts about her is that her daughter is called "Sachi". Given that both of her parents are Caucasians and American, it seems odd for her to be called by a Japanese name (her real name is Stephanie). Similarly, it is odd in Japan when I

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Won't Miss #329 - limited diet soda options

Okay, let's get this out of the way first. Diet sodas are bad for me. They are the devil's sperm meant to inseminate me with their evil cancer-causing hobgoblins. I shouldn't drink diet sodas and if I "have to" have a soda, I should suck it up and drink the sugary stuff. Finished with your finger wagging and judging? Good, good. You are superior to me in every way and I bow to your greatness

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Will Miss #328 - tsurushi bina

Japan has its own brand of folk art, and some of it is known well all over the world (origami or paper folding craft). Tsurushi bina, or stuffed dolls displayed on strings, bring to mind mobiles, are less known, but they have a unique Japanese flavor both in the design of the dolls and the way in which they are strung together. It is said that the dolls originate in Shizuoka prefecture in Japan

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Won't Miss #328 - English practice moochers

One evening, my husband and I met up around 9:00 p in Nakano after long tiring days at our respective jobs. Our plan was to have a nice dinner and unwind after talking to people all day. As we were walking along, a stranger in a business suit rushes up alongside my husband and asks if we'll speak English with him at a bar. This was neither our first or last experience with random strangers just

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Will Miss #327 - cat cafes

Tokyo has quite a few "cat cafes" in which patrons can go in and play with cats as well as have drinks and food. As someone who loves cats, but isn't allowed to have one in her apartment, this is a pretty nifty service. I'm not sure, but I believe it's also the kind of thing which would never be allowed back home because of concerns about cleanliness when animals are mixed with food preparation

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Won't Miss #327 - pet stores (and most zoos)

Pet stores in Tokyo in my experience are insanely depressing places. The animals are often in small cages in cramped and too hot or cold spaces. The animals seem to be largely ignored and are left in the cages overnight. Most of the cages are about twice the size of an animal carrier, and at least some of the smaller shops look pretty grubby as well. I can't even really bear to make a passing

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Will Miss #326 - gaijin smash

There is something that we foreigners do which I'm frankly embarrassed to admit that I have done in the past. For those who have never heard the term "gaijin smash", it is essentially a way for foreigners to bully the Japanese into allowing them to have their way. This happens because the Japanese tend not to like conflict and will often capitulate to avoid making a scene and because sometimes

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Won't Miss #326 - the peanut gallery

A former stalker of mine once spent several months in Japan and found how she was treated so unbearably that she fled back home in a state of depression and sought medication. Since returning there, she seems to have forgotten how she felt about being treated like a purple multi-tentacled alien and seems to jump on a soap box every time someone who actually lives here has a complaint about

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Will Miss #325 - great feats of strength and endurance

One of the things I often see in Tokyo are relatively slender, average-looking men carting around or hauling enormous loads up (or down) stairs. The amazing thing about it isn't necessarily that they perform back breaking labor without overt concern for damaging themselves and then suing their company for the injury, but that they will haul what must be  hundreds of pounds up a huge flight of

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Won't Miss #325 - ignorance about Japan back home

Public transportation in Japan, through the eyes of my old mum.
When I was growing up, I loved to look through the old pictures my mother had from her youth. One of those pictures was of a Japanese man with two children who was once her penpal when she was in high school in the 50's. My mother's knowledge of Japan was frozen in the time he wrote to her and whatever pop culture misconceptions she

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Will Miss #324 - used record shops

Bins full of 45 rpm records with their unique Japanese picture inserts.
My husband and I spent our first decade in Japan collecting and selling second-hand collectible records. The records in Japan are unique in a variety of ways including 45 rpm records (singles) having a picture sleeve and albums having a paper band (obi) around the side or across the top. In addition, some Japanese records

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Won't Miss #324 - "gaijin da!"

 Spot the foreigner in the mix!
You're walking to the local train station as part of your daily commute and living in the dream world that is your own thoughts when suddenly, you hear someone (usually a child) shout, "gaijin da!" (a foreigner!) Instead of being wrapped up in the relative peace of your own thoughts, you're pulled into the reality that you are a stranger in a strange land and that

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Will Miss #323 - plum blossoms

When people think of Japan, they think of the cherry blossoms, and certainly they deserve all of the admiration that they are due. For me though, the real harbingers of spring are not cherry blossoms but their precursors, plum blossoms. They look relatively similar and people often mistake the plum flowers for their more famous cousin. They're both beautiful, but the plums show up to the party

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Won't Miss #323 - talk of "the big one"

A cafe window in Tokyo which was cracked in the Great Tohoku Earthquake. The word spelled in tape is "danger".
People seem obsessed with talking about a huge earthquake leveling Tokyo like the great Kanto earthquake of 1923. You'd think that such talk might settle down in the face of the Tohoku earthquake on March 11, 2011, but that doesn't satisfy the need for people to see Tokyo shaken apart.

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Will Miss #322 - traditional music

I'm not sure I'd ever buy a CD of Japanese traditional music or sit around listening to it for hours. It's not much of a toe tapper, but there is something about it which puts you very much in the spirit of living here and reminds one of nature through its simplicity. Most places are overwhelming you with annoying pop music or, worse, muzak, so it's a refreshing change of pace and a

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Won't Miss #322 - open meat handling/tray disposal

The Japanese are known for being fanatical about cleanliness and food safety, yet they engage in a thoroughly unsanitary and slightly gross habit in their markets for dubious reasons. There are trash bins near the counters and tables set aside for people to bag their own groceries. These bins have open packaging that used to contain various sorts of raw meat. On occasion, I have witnessed women

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Will Miss #321 - daikou

When debuneko overdoes it, he knows that daikou service is there to help him get home. ;-)
I've often talked about how subjective ones experiences are in Japan and how no one person can speak with encompassing authority or knowledge on life here, and the existence of daikou services and my coming by knowing about it about it so late in the game is proof of that. Daikou service (代行サービス) is, in

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Won't Miss #321 - Tokyo marathon

I don't have anything against marathon runners and I'm sure that there are people who have to drive their cars through the path the Tokyo marathon takes who have far better reasons to be annoyed than me. That being said, there are things about it which are irritating. First, those who want to take part in it talk about it. A lot. Too damn much. They do this because you have to win a lottery to

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Will Miss #320 - noren

Quite some time ago, the doors (literally) fell off of my closet so I strung some sumo noren over the doorway. This picture actually makes it look much more sheer than it really is. Without the camera flash, you can't see the clothes behind it much as all, nor do you notice the dust along the top. :-p
Noren are a traditional fabric "curtain" that is used to divide rooms or at the entrances of

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Won't Miss #320 - gaijinpot

When I think of the on-line forum for foreign folks in Japan, Gaijinpot, I think of the line delivered by Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars about Mos Eisley space port: "there has never been a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." Okay, it's not quite that bad, but this place which is supposed to function as a support area and a place to find jobs is a water cooler for the angriest, most

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Will Miss #319 - interest in my picture taking

Generally, I really don't like having attention directed my way simply because of my hair color, eye color, or body. This sort of attention is unwarranted and based on superficial observation and objectifies me. There is one type of attention which I rather like and that's when I take a picture of something strange and the Japanese folks around me notice and look very carefully at what I'm

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Won't Miss #319 - institutionalized sexism

People stand around the dohyo (the ring) to make sure no one runs up and steps on it as the national stadium (kokugikan) empties after a day of sumo wrestling.

Sexism, like racism, is everywhere in the world. This is obviously a fact. No society can dictate the thoughts or actions of individuals. What a society can do is make rules and laws in order to reduce the ability for its citizens to

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Will Miss #318 - laughing in all the "wrong" places

Seeing an English language movie in Japan can be a surreal experience, particularly if it is a comedy. The movie you are watching may look like the same one that the Japanese patrons are viewing, but in reality you are having a somewhat different experience. While you are following along in your native tongue, the Japanese are following the subtitles; these do not often say the same things as

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Won't Miss #318 - teeth/wind sucking

You can't hear it, but that's pretty much what the face looks like during this maneuver.
Every culture has its body language tics and odd sounds associated with certain actions. I'm not a big fan of any of them, but one of the habits which is like nails on a blackboard for me is when people (usually men) suck air around their teeth in a particular manner. This is a habit which I never

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Will Miss #317 - sesame sweets

Ginbis animal biscuits for children, flavored wonderfully with sesame.
What peanut butter is to Americans, it seems that sesame is to the Japanese (also possibly to other Asian cultures). Our sweets are often infused with creamy peanutty goodness, and theirs with the rich, strong flavor of various types of sesame including both black and white varieties. Though you can get sesame treats nearly

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Won't Miss #317 - imperial palace

Early on in my time in Japan, I visited the imperial palace and after a long time, I forgot what it was like so I went back last year. Now, I have a much better idea of why I retained no memory whatsoever of the experience. Visiting the imperial palace in Tokyo is a singularly unmemorable experience. In fact, after having gone there and remarking on that fact to Japanese folks I know, their

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Will Miss #316 - "capsule" services

A lot of hoopla has been made about capsule hotels in the West so many people are aware of these tomb-like spaces meant to allow people to sleep on the cheap in expensive areas. The truth is that capsule hotels are losing some of their appeal these days because business is changing in ways which aren't allowing for the expenses that brought people (mainly men) to use them. They're still around,

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Won't Miss #316 - ramune

Ramune is a type of soft drink which is associated with summer in Japan. You often see it on offer in its distinctive bottle design. All food and drink is strictly a matter of personal taste, and its not the flavor of ramune (that I don't much care for, but that's beside my point) that I take issue with. The first thing is that the bottle design is irritating. You can't see it in my picture, but

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Will Miss #315 - Japanese manhole covers

A manhole cover at Mt. Takao.
Many areas in Japan have unique manhole covers. You can find pictures of them on Japan blogs all over the web, and there is even a book devoted to them. Some of them are colorful or intricate and others are cute. Most of them are culturally relevant to the regions they are in.

I'll miss chancing across these interesting and often artistic drain covers.

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Won't Miss #315 - JLPT score preoccupation

Most foreigners who come to Japan spend some time studying Japanese and taking useless tests to prove how well they can speak, read or write it. OK, perhaps the tests aren't entirely useless if you need to achieve a specific score for a particular job, but it often seems that the main point of these tests is to boast about your Japanese level by pointing to what level of JLPT (Japanese Language

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Will Miss #314 - the genkan

The genkan is the Japanese word for the sunken entryway that is in every Japanese home. What's so great about it? Well, let's start with the fact that they are usually made with outdoor tile, concrete, or other durable surfaces. Dirty or rough-soled shoes, rain or snow run-off, etc. don't damage them and there is no expectation that the area is going to look fashionable or beautiful. They're

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Won't Miss #314 - low ceilings and doorways

Compare the height of these guys to the door behind them. You get an idea of the general height, though this isn't the best picture to illustrate my point.
I learned recently that my husband and I are each of absolutely average height for Americans at 5' 9" (175 cm.) and 5' 4" (162.5 cm) respectively. That means we are neither rather tall nor short. The ceilings in Japan aren't a problem for us

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Will Miss #313 - miso soup

People talk a lot about authenticity and food, and I generally think it's a bunch of snobbery put forth by people who need to elevate themselves (via their tastes in food) above others about a trivial point. However, after years of eating Japanized American food and some experience eating Americanized Japanese food, I have no choice but to change my thinking in this regard. The origin and

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Won't Miss #313 - "law and order" moral mentality

Those who study psychology are familiar with Kohlberg's stages of moral development. For those who don't know about it, this theory breaks down the way our moral sense develops into 3 levels with various stages. At the second level is "law and order" determined morality. Japan is a shame-based culture, not a morality-based one (this ties into the lack of a strong religious backing which I

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Will Miss #312 - food on sticks

Back home, certain types of food are sold on sticks. Mainly, corn dogs, cotton candy, and lollipops. When it comes to "real food",  you're more likely to get a bowl with a plastic utensil. In Japan, if it can be threaded on a stick, the Japanese will find a way. Fruit, vegetables, seafood, and any type of meat you can think of are skewered and served up for one-handed consumption.This method

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Won't Miss #312 - Akagi Gari

Sometimes a mascot offers up such a disturbing image that I'm actually turned off of the company's products. Enter Akagi's "Gari" mascot. The characters huge maw reminds me of a slavering pervert than a kid who wants a tasty ice treat. You can't tell so well from this picture of a tanabata festival decoration, but here's a picture I pinched from Akagi's site:

He reminds me a bit of a Mad

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Will Miss #311 - free calendars

A gorgeous sumo calendar I was given for 2011. Best calendar ever.
At the end of every year, you'll see a lot of people walking around with shopping bags full of calendars. It's common in Japan for various companies to give customers a free calendar as they go around visiting them and thanking them for their patronage. Most of the time, these aren't the wimpy little freebies banks give out in

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Won't Miss #311 - buying by the case

One of the best resources for homesick or thrifty foreign folks in Japan is the Foreign Buyer's Club. It is a mail order seller that imports food from the United States and sells much of it by the case. If you need specialty foods or items (like sugar substitutes or sugar-free foods for diabetics) or simply would like to buy things which cost a fortune in Japan as individual imports at a price

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Will Miss #310 - the golden turd building

In Asakusa, there is a famous building which foreign folks often refer to as "the golden turd" building. It was designed by a famous French designer (Philippe Starck) and is occupied by Asahi Breweries. The building itself is less of interest than the fact that the people at Asahi at some point were shown a design, which obviously didn't look anything like a golden flame, and went ahead and

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Won't Miss #310 - expats

 I don't know if this lovely lady is an expat, but she probably is a foreigner (probably).
Many Japanese believe that a foreigner is a foreigner is a foreigner, particularly if they are of the Caucasian variety, and they think we all make a lot of money and have an easier life than they do. I believe that this idea is fueled by the existence of expatriates. Expats are the "trust fund" babies

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Will Miss #309 - childhood memories (askew)

Since I grew up a little less than a half century ago and the world has really moved on since I was a young pup, I rarely see things which bring on a sense of nostalgia for my youth. It's not merely that I'm in Japan, but also that the "stuff" I played with isn't around anymore. Occasionally, I'll run across something both reminds me of my childhood, but also is a reoriented memory that makes it

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Won't Miss #309 - sitting on the floor

Sitting on the ground is what humans did before chairs were invented. Putting a pillow on the floor doesn't make the experience appreciably better, especially for those of us with bad backs and knees that find even brief periods of time with bended joints conducive to painful stiffening. Despite significant advances in chair technology, many people living in Japan still have furniture which is

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Will Miss #308 - omikuji

An omikuji with a small gold-colored trinket. You can see the box on the left has coin slots and a hole to reach in and take a fortune.
"Omikuji" are fortunes that can be purchased at Japanese shrines. Usually, they cost 100 yen and are little rolled-up bits of paper with messages on them. Sometimes, the fortunes include another trinket (and cost a little more). There are two aspects to this

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Won't Miss #308 - rakugan

One of the most beautiful Japanese sweets is rakugan. These are often served as part of Japanese tea ceremony and are pressed starches, bean or other types of powders, and sugar. They are extremely dry, too sweet, and also don't taste like much of anything. They are a perfect example of style over substance as they look good, but don't offer much in the texture or flavor department (unless

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Will Miss #307 - Tokyo Metro Yellow Manner Posters

There is a particular series of "manner" posters that are regularly issued on the subways. They are always the same color scheme and from the same artist. The style is peculiar, but memorable and the messages in English are sometimes strange and surreal. Most Japan bloggers have pictures of the various posters on their blogs as new ones are released, but an easier way to see them is to check out

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Won't Miss #307 - Japanese coffee

I know that people are thinking that American coffee is famous for being mud water and tastes terrible. I've heard that. Keep in mind that I didn't drink coffee until I came to Japan and my exposure to American-style coffee didn't come until after the advent of Starbucks. And, further, please keep in mind that this isn't some sort of competition between the U.S. and Japan but a blog about what I

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Will Miss #306 - "chibification"

A tengu, transformed from its ugly, fearsome self into this cute little doll.
Most people who are interested in Japan know the word "chibi". For those who don't, I'll say that it means small or child-like, but "cute" is generally also a part of that. In Japan, there seems to be literally  nothing that can't be "chibi-fied" or turned into a small, cute thing and many pop culture icons are examples

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Won't Miss #306 - carb and calorie bombs

This plain-looking bit of sponge cake is a calorie bomb waiting to explode onto your thighs.
Early on in my time in Japan, most products did not have complete nutritional data on them. In particular, calorie information was not commonly given. These days, you find it on most, but not all foods. Generally, mass-produced food by major companies have such information, but traditional snacks or foods

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Will Miss #305 - cigarette brands

When I was a very small child, I used to wander around my grandparents house during my mother's visits with her mother. Since I'm 46 as of this posting, that was a long time ago. My grandfather used to collect old cigarette packs, cards, and paraphernalia and I'd entertain myself while my mother prattled with her mother by looking through his collection. That means I saw some of the types of

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Won't Miss #305 - mistrust of imported food

One of the bits of marketing that you find appears on some food designed to be fed to infants and toddlers, as well as the odd product for adults, is the fact that the ingredients are made in Japan. When a package says, "made with rice grown in Japan," I wonder why it even matters. I think one of the reasons is that many Japanese people don't trust the safety of food grown in other countries. In

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Will Miss #304 - Shinjuku Illumination

Illumination, or lights, pop up all over Japan as the Christmas season approaches. There are some particularly spectacular ones in various areas of Japan which eclipse the one in Shinjuku for sheer breathtaking scope and beauty. The Kobe Luminarie is just one of them. However, it's not all about spectacle or beauty. It's also about atmosphere. The Shinjuku illumination has a special charm

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Won't Miss #304 - Japanese doctors

In Japan, doctors are held in a somewhat exalted position. Japanese people tend to listen passively to them, not ask questions, and definitely do not challenge their assertions. Because of this, many doctors in Japan have some pretty bad bedside manners and can be tyrannical. My brother-in-law, who was perhaps 30 lbs. over an ideal weight at the time, walked into a doctors office and the

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Will Miss #303 - love hotels

 "Hotel Vanilla Sweet", perhaps for candy and cake lovers who need to get some loving of a different flavor.
I have never been to a love hotel, but I like the existence of them for several reasons. First of all, the names and designs are generally pretty goofy so they're good for a laugh. Second, they are meticulously clean for a place which is designed around allowing people to pay by the hour

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Won't Miss #303 - pointless placating steps

If you've ever called tech support and been asked a string of stupid questions before you can get to the heart of the issue, you'll have some idea about the point I'm about to make. In Japan, I've experienced a lot of situations in which I had to "make a show" or someone else had to take pointless steps before the real issue could be addressed. In my former company, there was always a problem

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Will Miss #302 - spiritual use of incense

Back home, incense was associated with people who smoked pot. Anyone who used incense was viewed with suspicion or mocked as some sort of bizarre New Age hippy type. In Japan, incense is used at shrines as part of spiritual practices. One of my students brought me back an incense burner and sticks as a gift from her travels to an Asian country. I think I wouldn't have been given such a gift back

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Won't Miss #302 - denial of free downloads

My sister bought a Barnes & Noble "Nook" eBook reader last year and told me that one could get a lot of free books from them and read them either on one's PC, Mac, or iPad even without a Nook. Since my husband recently bought an iPad specifically to read eBooks, we were happy to hear this. Unfortunately, when he tried to download the Nook reader for iPad, the door was shut on his doing so

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Will Miss #301 - the old clock shop

There's a very large old clock shop in my neighborhood with a slightly gruff, but sufficiently polite old gent in charge. The shop is this odd mixture of old and new world with it's happy anime character clocks on sale and its 30 (or more) -year old chairs in front of a long counter. The fellow who runs the shop sits in the back watching T.V. behind piles of old clock and watch parts. He's so

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Won't Miss #301 - stingy drink service

Have you ever researched the cost of a fountain drink to a business? In some places, it costs mere pennies for enough syrup to make a few hundred glasses of Coke. While I'm sure that this is slightly more expensive in Japan (as many things are), it's not greatly more expensive, yet free refills are almost unheard of in most parts. Costco Japan's food court is a rare exception to the rule. I'm

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Will Miss #300 - tonkatsu

There is a type of cuisine in Japan called "yoshoku", which is influenced by Western cooking practices and was developed during the Meiji restoration in the 1800's in Japan. At that time, the emperor ended Japan's isolation and incorporated aspects of Western culture into Japanese life. One of the many results of that is tonkatsu, or pork cutlet. It is a piece of pork (or sometimes chicken)

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Won't Miss #300 - born in a barn

I have no pictures of people being born or barns, so the best I could come up with is this pachinko place with the door hanging open in winter (hence the coats on the players).
There are some curious habits that Japanese service people have which I find troublesome. While it's good that I only need some sort of repair, installation or service in my apartment about once or twice a year, when it

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My quake experience (cross-posted)

During the quake, people in Shinjuku leave their office buildings and stand in the street for fear of their buildings falling down with them still inside. (Click any picture for a larger version.)
Note: I wasn't going to write this, but I feel it's something that is worth putting out there. If I still wrote for my personal blogs, I'd put this there. As it is, I'm placing this here as a

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Will Miss #299 - shinise

Koganei Imo, a type of bean cake which is the product of a shop with 5 generations of expertise behind it. It's by far my favorite bean cake in Japan.
Shinise (老舗) are long-established restaurants or shops in Japan that usually have generations of expertise behind them. Such shops often present unique fare that can't be had anywhere else. They have developed a technique, formula or recipe which

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Won't Miss #299 - missing sisters

Part of my freelance work is doing English telephone testing. One of the questions I ask in order to elicit as much speaking as possible from my subjects is, "tell me about your family." In 90% of cases, if someone has a sister who is already married, they won't even mention her existence unless I specifically ask "do you have a sister?" In the other 10% of cases, they'll say, "I have a sister,

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Will Miss #298 - Nakano Broadway

The creepy entrance to one of the many "Mandrake" shops on the Nakano broadway. This one specializes in antique collectibles.
I'm not that big into "tourist spots" in Japan, but there are areas which I think are interesting to visit on occasion. I'm not such a great fan of the "classic" spots like Kyoto or Mt. Fuji because I think they aren't "real Japan" anymore than the Grand Canyon is "real

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The Situation Now in Tokyo

I'm not inclined to make posts about the earthquake, tsunami, or the nuclear situation because I'm not an authority on such matters, but I have been asked about what is really happening and have found that there is a massive amount of misinformation spreading in the West regarding how bad it is. One bit of grim irony is that those of us who are potentially in more immediate danger as we are

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Won't Miss #298 - Japanese way of washing dishes

It's odd how it's the little things that really hit you sometimes about life in a different culture. One of my students went to Germany and said that she was really bothered because they didn't rinse the soapy water off of their dishes after cleaning them, but just put them on the rack to dry.* In Japan, the sinks are designed differently than back in the U.S. There, we had a sink with two

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Will Miss #297 - obsession with "first/new"

The Japanese have a preoccupation with whatever is "new" which I find interesting (and sometimes amusing). It likely started with their own harvests and the value they attached to sampling the first rice crop of the year, but has since expanded to encompass the "new" comestibles from other countries. Around late November, signs will start going up everywhere about the Beaujolais Nouveau being at

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Won't Miss #297 - discussions become competition

Do you know what never happened to me in the U.S. when I made a critical statement about a political, social or economic situation? No one ever said that it was okay that America was like that because it was worse in Japan. Do you know what happens 90% of the time that I make a critical statement about political, social or economic issues in Japan? Someone (who has never lived in the U.S.) says

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Will Miss #296 - mikan

I grew up in the rural Northeast, where fresh fruit was something that came along seasonally and with few exotic varieties. Because of this, and growing up in poverty, I rarely had experience with fresh fruit growing up and I certainly never got my hands on any oranges that weren't the cheapest and most readily available. Because of this, I grew up disliking oranges because they were bland and

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Won't Miss #296 - expensive aspirin

 I offer you a picture of this promotional box of tissues given away by the makers of Bufferin because I'm not wealthy enough to buy the actual medicine.
Over the counter medicine, and things like aspirin or other self-administered painkillers, are very expensive in Japan. The last time I bought a box of Bufferin in Japan, I paid 500 yen ($6) for 16 tablets lovingly packaged individually in a

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Will Miss #295 - collectible movie tickets

Yes, it's a terrible picture... it was taken through the window of a display case at night.
Movie tickets in America are usually boring affairs. Either they are generic with text or computer print-outs. In Japan, there are boring tickets, but you can also buy pretty cool looking ones with a picture from the movie on it. They serve as a much more attractive reminder of your experiences and are

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Won't Miss #295 - "fishing"

I continue to do freelance work for my former company and as part of this work I am asked to offer my time in line with a company's request. The company will say they want me to do a job between X and Y time with spans of up to 8 hours between those times, but they will only need two hours of my time. They will not say they want 1 hour in the morning and 1 in the afternoon. They will simply say

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Will Miss #294 - ground blessing ceremonies

The Japanese have a curious relationship with spirituality. Most of them don't believe in anything, but they still go through the motions, even when it costs them money. One of the things you find people will fork over a wad of cash for even though they don't deeply believe in a) demons or b) God, is ground blessings (jichinsai). A priest comes to a place where a new building is to be built

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Won't Miss #294 - tragically misguided welfare policies

I realize that the idea of welfare is controversial and many people all over the world resent paying taxes to support people who do not work, but can we all agree that the point at which people actually need that money is when they are at risk of dying of starvation if they don't get it? In Japan, the welfare system is set up such that those who work in the social services offices are obligated

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Will Miss #293 - soba boro

There is a type of buckwheat cookie that is unique to Japan (in my experience) which I really love. It's called "soba boro", and is a small, flower-shaped crispy treat. It is made with simple ingredients - buckwheat flour, sugar, and eggs. They aren't too sweet, taste of caramel, and have a lot of the crispy, airy nature of meringue cookies due to the large amount of eggs and sugar that are used

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Won't Miss #293 - Japanese dish soap

One of the things about living in another country is that you find that they balance the strength of various products differently based on their consumers' preferences. In most cases in Japan (but not all), that means that things are watered down or weaker relative to the U.S. Dish soap is a good example of this. It is thinner, doesn't makes suds as well, and requires more liquid to get dishes

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Will Miss #292 - Meiji Shrine

You know the Japan that tourists and people who have never been here talk about? You know, the one which portrays Japan as a country which is full of reserved, polite, quiet, respectful people who have a lot of quaint and deeply spiritual traditions and who live in harmony with nature? I'm talking about the one in which there are rock gardens, minimalist homes of immaculate cleanliness, and a

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Won't Miss #292 - blocked videos

Occasionally, one of my friends will send a link to video that they believe I'd be interested in. On more than one occasion, such videos are a dead end for me because I am told that they cannot be viewed from my particular country. For the odd video here and there, this isn't too great an issue, but a lot of entire sites or services are blocked for Japan (ABC television network on-line shows,

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Will Miss #291 - massage culture

All humans have the same basic needs, and one of the more fascinating aspects of learning about other cultures is seeing how they adapt to meet common needs when their culture, by and large, does not practice the same type of expression that is common in one's own culture. The need to be touched is shared by all humans and many animals, but physical affection, particularly hugging and cuddling

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Won't Miss #291 - empty university education

The Japanese are considered to be some of the most educated people in the world and are thought to study harder than anyone. The truth is quite a bit further from that. Japanese universities are widely known to be little more than playgrounds where people "rest" between the crush of studying for entrance exams in their lower education years and the oppressive days ahead as company drones. They

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Will Miss #290 - tattoos on Japanese

Tattoos are nothing new in the world, nor are they new to Japan. Every exhibitionist and her brother in the west has sanskrit, Chinese characters, or "Hello Kitty" tattooed on their arms. It carries no (or very little) taboo, and rarely will get you denied access to anything. In Japan, tattoos are actually a real act of rebellion because they are associated with organized crime and people of

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Won't Miss #290 -ignoring the inevitable

When I was working in a Japanese office, my (Australian) boss and I often cautioned the president or our coworkers about certain problems that were inevitably going to come up if we pursued a certain path. We weren't being unnecessarily pessimistic. We were pointing out what would definitely happen. Our concerns were always brushed aside or shrugged off. More often than not, we were told that

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Will Miss #289 - swords for sale

I grew up in a rural area which was hunting country and almost everyone was a bit of a gun nut. There was a hunting club, and most men in particular enjoyed collecting guns. To me, they were always inelegant, dangerous, and troubling weapons. In Japan, guns are legal, but only hunting rifles and getting them is difficult, so I have never seen a real gun for sale here. I do, however, see swords

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Won't Miss #289 - "shikataganai" (the bad)

The flip-side to the good aspects of "shikataganai" thinking (translated into "it can't be helped") is that sometimes people give up easily in situations in which their lot in life could be improved if they made an effort, sometimes just a small one. Since people rarely fight for what is their right or what is morally right, things rarely improve or change in Japan. This underlying cultural

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Will Miss #288 - "shikataganai" (the good)

When faced with hardship or a difficult situation, the Japanese have an attitude of "shikataganai" (or "shoganai") or "it can't be helped". When translated into mere words, it comes across as passive acceptance of the inevitable, but the thinking is more pervasive and applied more subtly to experiences in life. It is about acceptance, but it is also about taking things as they come with

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Won't Miss #288 - very expensive scented candles

I should clarify that there are actually two types of scented candles in Tokyo. There are those which are relatively cheap and smell like a cheap prostitute's boudoir and those which cost an arm and a leg. I really enjoy candles that smell like relatively natural scents like cinnamon, holly, pine trees, and vanilla, but I can't buy them in Japan because I won't pay 2000 yen (about $22) for one

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Will Miss #287 - good quality secondhand goods

When I was growing up, my mother loved to drag my sister and I to yard and garage sales as well as Goodwill so that she could pick up second-hand crap to clutter our home. One thing I remember was that most of that stuff looked pretty well-used, and sometimes a bit grubby. In Japan, my experiences with secondhand goods has been markedly different. Japanese people are renowned for two things

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Won't Miss #287 - otoshi/tsukidashi

Cultural customs and habits are a reflection of a country's culture. Even small things like the custom of tipping in the United States tell you something about the priorities and expectations of the people. In the U.S., tipping is the way of empowering the customer and giving more control over the meal's expense (often at the expense of the servers). In Japan, the custom of "otoshi" or a "forced

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Will Miss #286 - well-traveled people

One of the things you often hear in the never ending comparisons between the U.S. and Japan is that Americans go abroad too little compared to people in Japan. This is true, but it's important to understand that the U.S. is a huge country with a diverse cultural base and Japan is a small island with a fairly homogeneous culture. Japanese people can't experience much cultural diversity at home,

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Won't Miss #286 - one with the borg mentality

A sign encouraging everyone to carry their own bag rather than use plastic ones - note how they all follow each other, and look, and act the same.
There was a big flap several years ago about Brazilians living in a particular apartment building and their inability to get along with their Japanese neighbors. They weren't unfriendly. They didn't do anything criminal or fail to follow some rules.

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Will Miss #285 - La Puta posters

There is a theater in my area which shows vintage Japanese movies. For some reason, they put up a poster on a back street which is the most common path for me to follow to get to local grocery shops. It's an odd place for a poster which advertises old Japanese movies because it would seem foot traffic would hardly bring in a substantial number of patrons, but I love the fact that they are there.

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Won't Miss #285 - allergy issues

The cold and flu seasons and the allergy seasons are the times when you see the most mask wearing. This picture is from the former, but what the heck.
Before coming to Tokyo, I never had any allergies. I credit this partially to good genetics, but also to having grown up in a rural area with clean air. Living in a city with pollution tends to eventually cause some people to develop allergies. It

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Will Miss #284 - women holding hands

One of the things which continues to catch my eye in Japan is the way in which adult women will hold each others hands in public. It gets my attention for a few reasons. First of all, physical displays of affection are relatively uncommon in public, even between children and parents, let alone other adults. Second, back home adult women do not hold each others hands because of the fear

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Won't Miss #284 - spouse denigrating

The Japanese are generally a modest lot, sometimes, far too modest. When speaking of their spouses, they feel almost obliged to never "boast" about his or her positive attributes and to talk up negative qualities. You're far more likely to hear a woman talk about her lazy, selfish, childish husband and a man talk about his fat, incompetent, messy wife than hear even the slightest complimentary

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Will Miss #283 - no big deal birthdays

In Japan, people don't make a big deal about birthdays, particularly when it comes to adults. Often, celebration extends only so far as taking a friend out to dinner and/or serving up a "surprise" cake. It's very rare for people to give each other actual gifts except perhaps something very modest like a bit of chocolate or a small cake from a designer shop. In America, adults often feel burdened

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Won't Miss #283 - dry muffins and cakes

If you don't bake, you may not know what components make baked goods moist. Most people assume that it is the fat that makes things like a muffin moist. Well, it is, but it's only half of the equation. The other half is sugar and that is why most muffins and many (but not all!) cakes in Japan have poor texture. The Japanese are notorious for whining that everything in America is "too sweet" for

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Will Miss #282 - arm stockings

I have been asked on occasion to speculate about the motivations behind certain cultural differences between Japan and other countries. One of the questions I've been asked is why the Japanese value white skin so much. The usual answer I get from Japanese people is that they think it is more beautiful than darker skin tones. They say no more than that. I've heard many foreign people speculate

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Won't Miss #282 - "the stare and swerve"

Somewhere in the cobwebbed areas of my deeper memory, I recall seeing a comedic scene in a movie or T.V. show where a person is riding a bike and is so distracted by an attractive women, that he doesn't look where he is going and crashes into something. Seems rather silly, eh? Well, there is a situation in Japan that happens to me which makes it seem much more plausible. When I'm riding my bike,

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Will Miss #281 - cooking terms without pretense

I like to cook, and I follow several cooking blogs and a few forums. There is something that drives me crazy and that is people who use Japanese words instead of perfectly reasonable English equivalents because they're trying to sound like they know something other people don't. They're the types who like to toss around words like "umami" when they could say "savory" or "meaty" or who say even

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Won't Miss #281 - hanging

Poor Anpanman. He's had better days. 
The Japanese overwhelmingly support capital punishment. Latest statistics put it at 85.6% support, and my personal experiences speaking to Japanese people about this issue completely fall in line with these numbers. You can compare this to the United States, one of the other few developed countries that allows for the death penalty (albeit on a

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