Put to the test, one year on
10th October 2007
And here's another column I hadn't planned on posting. Some people who missed it when it appeared on Oct 6 (http://www.thestraitstimes.com ) seem to want to read it though, so here you go.
Just don't tell other people you got it here.
...
A year and a week ago, I moved to Kyoto.
So in true Japanese fashion, I marked the milestone by taking a test. The questions below have been floating around the Internet in various forms for more than a decade and give you an idea of how you’ve adapted to life in the country.
According to the quiz, you know you’ve been in Japan too long when:
- You find yourself bowing while talking on the phone. (Guilty. Well, you have to be polite, don’t you?)
- You return the bow from the cash machine. (Not guilty. Haven’t met any cash machines that bowed to me.)
- You’ve forgotten how to tie shoelaces. (You have to remove your shoes so often in Japan that it makes more sense to wear the slip-on type. Recently, I walked past a convenience store a few days before it was opened to the public. Inside were workmen and manager types. And at the door were all their shoes. But I do remember how to tie shoelaces. You take one end in one hand, the other end in the other hand and…do that shoelace-tying thing.)
- You buy an individually wrapped potato in the supermarket. (Not guilty. Nearly bought an individually wrapped banana though.)
- In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rice fields and abundant nature, you aren't surprised to find a drink vending machine with no visible power supply. (Guilty. Vending machines are bad news for the environment but what else can you do about the trees trying to buy a can of coffee after midnight?)
- You think curry rice is food. (But it is. And those bright red pickles that come with it make up one of the two servings of vegetables you should eat every day.)
- You buy a potato-and-strawberry sandwich for lunch without cringing. (Not guilty. But next month, who knows?)
- You really enjoy corn soup with your Big Mac. (Not guilty. I don’t enjoy corn soup with anything. But I bet miso soup would go nicely with a burger.)
- You are outwardly appalled to see someone pour miso soup over rice but do it in private yourself. (Hell, I do this in public. I very low class one.)
- You think cod roe spaghetti is a typical Italian dish. (What do you mean, ‘mentaiko’ isn’t an Italian word?)
- You think it's all right to stick your head into a stranger's apartment to see if anybody's home. (Not guilty. But it’s not unusual in Japan for the foyer to be considered public space so unless you want a door-to-door salesman to see what you look like in a towel, keep your front door locked.)
- You have discovered the sexual attraction of ‘sailor outfit’ school uniforms. (Not guilty. Whew.)
- You look forward to the porno reviews at midnight on Fuji TV. (There are porno reviews? On television? What channel is Fuji TV? Just kidding, Mum.)
- You don’t think it’s unusual for a lorry to play It’s A Small World when backing up. (Because it’s a small world, after all.)
- You’re arguing with someone about whether the green light of a traffic signal is actually blue…and you think it’s blue. (Not guilty. It’s green – unless you’re speaking Japanese in which case you have to say that it’s blue despite its obvious, undeniable, Kermit-worthy greenness.)
- You vow to “ganbarimasu” before every little activity you engage in. (A word that means to persevere or to do one’s best. Hmm. Not really guilty. I use it only for the significant and semi-significant activities.)
- You find yourself apologising at least three times per conversation. (Not yet. Sorry, I’ll try harder. Ganbarimasu.)
- You automatically remember all your important years in Showa numbers. (Not guilty. I still find it hard to remember when I was born according to the Japanese system of years. I guess I’ll keep messing up forms until I get it right.)
- You can't have your picture taken without your fingers forming the peace sign. (Not guilty. The day this happens is the day I book a flight back to Singapore. A French classmate once asked my form teacher why so many Japanese made the peace sign when a camera was pointed at them. Her brow furrowed. ‘Then what do you do in France when someone takes your picture?’ she asked. ‘Nothing! Just smile,’ he said. The furrow in her brow deepened as she wrestled with this novel concept.)
- You have trouble figuring out how many syllables there really are in words like ‘building’. (That’s easy – it’s ‘bi-ru-di-n-gu’.)
- You find yourself asking all your foreign acquaintances what their blood types are. (Not guilty. People are often categorised by blood type in Japan and according to this system, those with O blood are outgoing, energetic and sociable. As an O+ person who can go for days without talking to anyone, I have this to say: ‘…’)
- You use the ‘slasher hand’ and continuous bowing to make your way through a crowd. (Guilty. This is how it’s done: Stick one hand out in front of you, move it up and down as if gently karate-chopping the air and bow all the while. Reports indicate that Moses didn’t do this when parting the Red Sea but I bet that it’d have worked if he did.)
- It all seems normal.
Not guilty. It’s still bewildering, funny, moving and endlessly absorbing. Guess I’ll have to stay here a little longer.
To see the quiz in full, go to http://perrin3.com/stupid/been-in-japan-too-long/
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Saturday, October 06, 2007
If I were one of the Seven Dwarfs, I'd be Grumpy
6th October 2007
Warning: The following may upset you.
Though if you have to handle queries in any shape or form, it may strike a painfully resonant chord instead.
I’m always delighted to get a message from a reader and sometimes when I open the e-mail, the delight becomes pure happiness. But there are also times when I am…perturbed.
Here’s a composite of those messages: “hi, will be going to osaka for hols next month and want to stay in an inn in kyoto. please give detailed instructions on how to get to kyoto from osaka, how to book ryokan room and idea of how much it costs. what should i eat? see? buy?
“also keen on stdying in japan as am intrestd in the japs. can give me names of some schools? tks”
Certain thoughts come to mind: Does the writer have a religious objection to capital letters? Is he afraid of spelling words out in full? Of complete sentences? And did somebody break the Internet while I wasn’t looking?
Even setting aside the issue of calling the Japanese “japs”, messages like that disturb me on a number of levels.
I love e-mail but I sometimes wonder if it’s made things a bit too easy. If you have to look for paper, write or type on it, then find an envelope, stamp and postbox, chances are, you’d take more care with what actually went into the letter because it’d be a waste of the trouble otherwise.
When you use something that needs as little time and effort as e-mail, the temptation is to write without taking either.
But the result is like a stranger walking into your home dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and wearing slippers he doesn’t remove. He then puts his slippered feet up on your coffee table and demands a drink.
He may really be dehydrated but he’s not thinking of anything other than his thirst.
Living in Japan can be a constant education in how your actions affect others. A few months ago, I signed up for a class meant to introduce students to business Japanese.
But we found ourselves studying more than language. We learned the protocol involved in sitting in a room or car, the right time to call another company (not 9am as many businesses start the day with a short meeting) and the “respectful” way to seal an envelope (with glue rather than tape, which looks unsightly).
Some may say that this hyper-sensitivity to what others think of your actions is the result of a group culture gone overboard. They may point out that the care taken comes not from genuine consideration but a fear of ostracism.
While this seems to be true in some cases, it’s still worth thinking about exactly what you are doing when you approach another person – and the possible responses.
For this reason, I’ve debated for months whether or not to tackle this subject because I know it will upset some of those who have written to me.
“Geez,” they may say, “It was just an e-mail.”
Was it?
There’s another issue here quite apart from the writing style: The ease with which some people will ask a stranger for information readily available elsewhere.
Almost everything I found out about Japan before moving to Kyoto, I learned by using nothing more complicated than books, television and the Internet.
If you really don’t know where to start, try Kinokuniya. Those on a tight budget can do what I did: Look in the bookshop for something helpful then check if the public library carries the title.
As for information on studying in Japan – I got that from the Internet, not the secret files of the CIA.
But why am I so reluctant to share this information with strangers? First, the many, many things staring at me as they wait to be done.
Secondly, to make a recommendation is to take responsibility for the experience another person will have. I prefer to do it only for people I know or if what I’m recommending looks like a sure-fire winner. Not a lot of things fall into this category.
There’s another reason: The knowledge that by answering those kinds of e-mail, I’m compounding an unhelpful habit.
Every time we want to know something, we slide into our own pattern of asking questions and finding answers. We form this habit as children, taking it unconsciously into adulthood.
If not for this column, I might not have thought so hard about how I move from Q to A. I see now that while I enjoyed school on the whole, it was an environment where questions were seldom voiced.
I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing; I just got into the habit of finding my own answers. This meant reading, watching and listening – and thinking about what I’d read, seen and heard.
I might not have got the best answer but I usually came up with something.
Sometimes I’d get lazy and bother my friends before doing anything on my own. In return, I’d try to help if one of them came to me with a question.
But here’s the thing: I am not a friend to most of the people reading this column. I am also not a travel agent or education consultant. And I most certainly am not Google. For a start, I’m a lot shorter.
It’s cold comfort to know that journalists and other columnists also find themselves in my position. And reading the FAQ section of authors’ websites, it’s hard not to see a hint of exasperation at times.
Even British writer Neil Gaiman, reckoned to be one of the nicest human beings on the planet (and not just by his fans), felt the need to put this on his website: “Please don’t try to use the FAQ submission area for help with your homework… I won’t do your homework for you. Just pretend I’m a dead author and in no position to answer your questions”.
And, anyway, the answer’s probably somewhere on the site, he adds – just search for it.
If you believe that it’s good to have questions, then don’t be in such a hurry to give them to someone else.
There’s a university lecture I still think about years after I attended it. It’s not the content I remember but what the professor said as she gave out stacks of notes.
Students, she remarked, had come to expect such photocopies as a right. But it was interesting, she said, that this kind of information had the same name as the things given as charity: handouts.
There’s a difference between help and charity – when you ask for something, which are you asking for?
One e-mail I received didn’t ask for either. It was from a reader who just wanted to say that, like me, he’d quit a good job to pursue his interests and was “hyped up” to see another person doing it.
He didn’t come looking for answers from a stranger because he’d already found them by himself.
And when I read his e-mail, delight shot into pure happiness.
6th October 2007
Warning: The following may upset you.
Though if you have to handle queries in any shape or form, it may strike a painfully resonant chord instead.
I’m always delighted to get a message from a reader and sometimes when I open the e-mail, the delight becomes pure happiness. But there are also times when I am…perturbed.
Here’s a composite of those messages: “hi, will be going to osaka for hols next month and want to stay in an inn in kyoto. please give detailed instructions on how to get to kyoto from osaka, how to book ryokan room and idea of how much it costs. what should i eat? see? buy?
“also keen on stdying in japan as am intrestd in the japs. can give me names of some schools? tks”
Certain thoughts come to mind: Does the writer have a religious objection to capital letters? Is he afraid of spelling words out in full? Of complete sentences? And did somebody break the Internet while I wasn’t looking?
Even setting aside the issue of calling the Japanese “japs”, messages like that disturb me on a number of levels.
I love e-mail but I sometimes wonder if it’s made things a bit too easy. If you have to look for paper, write or type on it, then find an envelope, stamp and postbox, chances are, you’d take more care with what actually went into the letter because it’d be a waste of the trouble otherwise.
When you use something that needs as little time and effort as e-mail, the temptation is to write without taking either.
But the result is like a stranger walking into your home dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and wearing slippers he doesn’t remove. He then puts his slippered feet up on your coffee table and demands a drink.
He may really be dehydrated but he’s not thinking of anything other than his thirst.
Living in Japan can be a constant education in how your actions affect others. A few months ago, I signed up for a class meant to introduce students to business Japanese.
But we found ourselves studying more than language. We learned the protocol involved in sitting in a room or car, the right time to call another company (not 9am as many businesses start the day with a short meeting) and the “respectful” way to seal an envelope (with glue rather than tape, which looks unsightly).
Some may say that this hyper-sensitivity to what others think of your actions is the result of a group culture gone overboard. They may point out that the care taken comes not from genuine consideration but a fear of ostracism.
While this seems to be true in some cases, it’s still worth thinking about exactly what you are doing when you approach another person – and the possible responses.
For this reason, I’ve debated for months whether or not to tackle this subject because I know it will upset some of those who have written to me.
“Geez,” they may say, “It was just an e-mail.”
Was it?
There’s another issue here quite apart from the writing style: The ease with which some people will ask a stranger for information readily available elsewhere.
Almost everything I found out about Japan before moving to Kyoto, I learned by using nothing more complicated than books, television and the Internet.
If you really don’t know where to start, try Kinokuniya. Those on a tight budget can do what I did: Look in the bookshop for something helpful then check if the public library carries the title.
As for information on studying in Japan – I got that from the Internet, not the secret files of the CIA.
But why am I so reluctant to share this information with strangers? First, the many, many things staring at me as they wait to be done.
Secondly, to make a recommendation is to take responsibility for the experience another person will have. I prefer to do it only for people I know or if what I’m recommending looks like a sure-fire winner. Not a lot of things fall into this category.
There’s another reason: The knowledge that by answering those kinds of e-mail, I’m compounding an unhelpful habit.
Every time we want to know something, we slide into our own pattern of asking questions and finding answers. We form this habit as children, taking it unconsciously into adulthood.
If not for this column, I might not have thought so hard about how I move from Q to A. I see now that while I enjoyed school on the whole, it was an environment where questions were seldom voiced.
I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing; I just got into the habit of finding my own answers. This meant reading, watching and listening – and thinking about what I’d read, seen and heard.
I might not have got the best answer but I usually came up with something.
Sometimes I’d get lazy and bother my friends before doing anything on my own. In return, I’d try to help if one of them came to me with a question.
But here’s the thing: I am not a friend to most of the people reading this column. I am also not a travel agent or education consultant. And I most certainly am not Google. For a start, I’m a lot shorter.
It’s cold comfort to know that journalists and other columnists also find themselves in my position. And reading the FAQ section of authors’ websites, it’s hard not to see a hint of exasperation at times.
Even British writer Neil Gaiman, reckoned to be one of the nicest human beings on the planet (and not just by his fans), felt the need to put this on his website: “Please don’t try to use the FAQ submission area for help with your homework… I won’t do your homework for you. Just pretend I’m a dead author and in no position to answer your questions”.
And, anyway, the answer’s probably somewhere on the site, he adds – just search for it.
If you believe that it’s good to have questions, then don’t be in such a hurry to give them to someone else.
There’s a university lecture I still think about years after I attended it. It’s not the content I remember but what the professor said as she gave out stacks of notes.
Students, she remarked, had come to expect such photocopies as a right. But it was interesting, she said, that this kind of information had the same name as the things given as charity: handouts.
There’s a difference between help and charity – when you ask for something, which are you asking for?
One e-mail I received didn’t ask for either. It was from a reader who just wanted to say that, like me, he’d quit a good job to pursue his interests and was “hyped up” to see another person doing it.
He didn’t come looking for answers from a stranger because he’d already found them by himself.
And when I read his e-mail, delight shot into pure happiness.
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