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,

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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,

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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.

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More