Cultural Tidbits

Well since I moved to another country, obviously there will be a few differences between the new and the old cultures.

1) Around 2:30pm in the teachers' room, all the faculty brush their teeth. The first teacher turns on the radio or a tape to some current J-Pop music or oldies and within a half-hour, all the teachers have brushed their teeth and gargled something disgusting in the teachers' room kitchenette.

2) Speaking of the kitchenette, green tea has replaced coffee. I like this situation since I'm not a fan of coffee. And we have our own insta-hot faucet just like at home so the waiting for tea to steep takes approximately 10 seconds for me. I don't like my green tea too strong.

3) And speaking of green tea, NEVER use another teacher's mug/cup and think you can wash it for them and everything be hunky-dory. I haven't made this mistake, but I've heard stories from other JETs so I bought my own mug.

4) So when women start to get gray hair, most American women try to match their original color or gradually transition to a new color. Japanese women somehow get away with going from gray or pearly white to dark purple or dark blue. You think that'd be a stunt for the teenagers! Seriously, on the JUSCO shuttle, I saw a woman with a magenta afro. It was stunning.

5) As for public transportation, it's impolite to talk on the cellphone on the bus or train. So people text like crazy. And of course, there is always one businessman or lonely boyfriend who hides behind his hand while pretending to scratch his nose or "reads" his newspaper severely up close and talks on the phone. Psh. As though people can't tell what they're up to.... Personally, I really like this cultural point. No one wants to hear your phone conversation anyway so just keep it to yourself by texting!

6) The teens in this generation are the oddest I've seen yet. Almost everyone who has graduated high school wants to bleach their hair! And it usually turns out horribly wrong. And this goes for American's too! For Japanese, they will NEVER be blonde, no matter how hard they try. It'll always turn an ugly shade of tarnished brass. Yuck. I tried to look at it from their point of view. In Japan, EVERYONE has black hair. Granted, they seem to come up with new hairstyles all the time, but it's not like America, the hodge-podge of every ethnicity so we get various shades of hair and skin color. So maybe bleaching is not only intended as an imitative notion but rather a desperate stunt to stand out from the sea of ebony, raven, and jet black hair.
And for all those Americans reading this, ahem, DYEING YOUR HAIR BLACK LOOKS STUPID! WE CAN ALL TELL! Your hair turns dull and full of split ends. And if you're gonna do it anyway, at least remember your eyebrows too!
But it gets better....

7) Due to strict dress code rules in high school, most girls after high school do something crazy in the field of cosmetic surgery. And in this generation, it's all about the eyes. Take a look in the mirror. Above each of your eyes, there is a thinnest of thin skin folds. I bet you have never noticed it. Well, the Japanese girls sure have. And they go crazy for it! In high school, girls will take cosmetic glue and a pitchfork-like plastic wand and make a temporary crease. In college, girls pay for cosmetic surgery to get the permanent skin fold (I believe it's called the double eyelid) and since they are there, they also get the excess skin around their eyes tucked away so they can have wider, bigger eyes. Vanity...

8) Men carry purses. Not murses or testoster-bags; purses. They are about as big as Bible-cover cases and come in all sorts of materials and colors... just like women purses. And it's totally NORMAL. At first, I thought all the men were really religious-conscious and then remembered that this isn't a western-religion based nation. The younger businessmen usually try to hide theirs inside their briefcases. Elderly men just don't bother and swing them around while walking on the street.

9) The trash/recyclable system is VERY COMPLICATED. I've got to sort my trash into compost/burnables, non-burnables, "PET" bottles, glass items, "PET" bottle caps, and metals cans. And if the trash is non-burnable, I can't simply put it in a different pile on the same trash day as the burnables. No, I have to call the waste management people, get a special and costly sticker to put on the item. And then wait until a special, random, inconsistent day of the month for the WM people to pick it up. And I missed the ONE "PET bottle" trash day of the month because I was gone to work at an English Summer Camp. So I get to wait until the third Wednesday in September for it to come again. Whee.

10) Deliveries accept C.O.D. (Cash on Delivery). This goes with the cash-based nation. I'm not really sure why Japan hasn't picked up on the convenience of credit cards. But everything is done in cash.