Handtowels

Today, the smell of a bathroom wafting down the hall sent the kids in a frenzy. Some begin frantically searching for their influenza masks while other searched for their hand towels. That’s right, the kids carry both around. Those surgeon masks that people wear around in fear of influenza, they carry with them in their backpacks. And the hand towels, it is considered unhygienic to NOT carry a small hand towel with you, as none of the bathrooms here have paper towels. EVERYONE in Japan, and I mean everyone, carries a towel with them everywhere.In fact, it is considered so important that there is a huge hand towel chart and graph displayed at school that is updated daily. This chart shows the classes that have all brought hand towels to school and the ones that haven’t. The classes that all have hand towels are announced over the loudspeaker. I don’t know how I feel about this, except that I do find hand towels useful in these increasingly humid days. I can also find other uses for these towels like wiping off my sweaty water bottle, covering things from the rain and wrapping things like my cell phone in it.

Hygiene

Yesterday, I spied my students’ little bags of basil and chamomile flavored toothpaste. Most adults brush their teeth at work (school and the town office), and at school, all of the kids brush their teeth after lunch everyday.
I never realized that I considered brushing my teeth a private matter, but trying to converse with teachers with toothbrushes hanging in their mouths, brought the issue to light for me। Brushing together while casually leaning on the desks introduces a strange intimacy that makes me feel like we are having a sleepover or something. Even the thought of spitting together in the common area sink is just too much for me to handle. I gave it a try and it just didn’t quite fit my hygienic style… ok well I tried it for umm, only a day, but that was enough to satisfy my curiosity. Ultimately, it’s the sound of hacking that kills me. Walk by any men’s room after lunch and you will hear the sound of intense lung expulsions. Smoking is very popular here so I think that may explain the big chunks of whatever is coming out of them. When I go to the town office in the afternoon, I hear a loud, from the back of the throat combination of coughing and almost struggle-like chokes. It literally sounds like their lungs are being vomited out of their mouths. Good　times。

Japanese Phonomime, Phenomime, Psychomime

How do you describe the sound of bubbles in soda? How about the twinkle of starlight? The sound/feeling of a stare? The crispness of chips or the sensation of steam on your face? How about the feeling of two people in love?

I swear Japan uses these sound/feeling words for everything. I say or hear the following words on an almost daily basis, when in English I would never say things like "stare sound" or my skin is "scratchy scratchy" or my stomach is making"grumble grumble" sounds or I am feeling "happy sound, happy sound". But anyone who has seen Pikachu's pika-pika sound, should vaguely understand the Japanese way of describing everyday sounds; sounds that may not have words in English. For example, when I say someone is fluent is English, I say they are pera-pera or "their English is speaking sound, speaking sound".

Jiii! My stare broke the shiin sound of complete silence as I watched  an old couple walking and holding hands. I thought to myself, oh rabu-rabu (love-love). Then, I realized that my own hands were kasa-kasa dry, I applied some lotion to make them nice and tsuru-tsuru moist. Suddenly, I whirled around guru-guru to the sounds of a dog’s wao-wao and a sharp tamtamtam of someone at my door. It’s almost midnight and I can feel the doki-doki pound of my heart.  Oh no, I realize that my room is bara-bara and I need to clean. So I quickly open my CC Lemon pop and calm myself with the shuwa-shuwa of fizz. As I open the door, I can hear the paku-paku of my friend eating. Then I realize my stomach is making peko-peko sounds, so I decide bring on the pati-pati crispness by munching on Pringles. Finally, I wash it all down with a big gabu-gabu of my CC Lemon. Then we relax on my fuwa-fuwa pillows, watch the kira-kira of the stars and hear the pera-pera of speaking.  Uki-uki feeling, niko-niko smile :)

Mountain Dew Bread

Today we had bread at school called meronbread. I wasn`t sure what it was made of, and I assumed some sort of melon (remember switch r and l). Based on our conversation, I concluded that we were talking about honeydew. One teacher asked, “Is that Mountain Dew’s, ‘Dew’”? Since the dew in honeydew is spelled the same and we were talking about the same thing, I answered with a yes. Mountain Dew Bread. Sounds like heaven to me.

Surprise! drink

If I am ever bored, I go to the vending machine, because it contains a free surprise everytime and that makes me happy.You never know what drink you’re going to get. You can buy corn soup, to hot chocolate, to beer, to yogurt, to banana milk. I was really excited to get a huge can of a drink called X (double the surprise), but it turned out to be black coffee which I hate! My friend recently got a can of jello. As she was attempting to slurp it out of the can, it squeezed in her eye. Orange flavored jello in a can. Oh man. Anyhow, I have gotten used to jello-ish things randomly in my drinks and one of my favorites is Aloe Vera chunks in white grape juice. Yummy surprises at the end of every drink!

Death Mushrooms

My co-worker approached me with a bag, so I thanked her, as I thought it was the normal humdrum bag of souvenirs that we get at school almost on a daily basis.  Thank goodness the bag was marked MEMORIAL so I knew not to be too happy and thankful about what I was getting. This package of mushrooms wrapped in a fancy box complete with a card was a gift because her father died and …still not sure why I get a gift for that, but hey. Perhaps it’s because money was collected for her father’s death from the other teachers (I usually have no idea what's going on). People get money for everything. You pay money to go to weddings (at $200-$400 a pop), baby showers, New Years (children rake in $100's) so why not funerals? According to Wikipedia, guests must bring $50- $300 to the funeral AND the average Japanese funeral costs about $14,000, the most expensive in the world. WOW! 

Rejection

So my trash got rejected. I made it for almost a year without getting my trash returned to me with an embarrassing bright yellow and red note stating why I’m stupid enough to think I could get away with not sorting it properly. It’s been a week since my rejection, so I am finally ready to talk about it. At first, I glanced at it on the ground outside the trash area as I passed by, and didn’t recognize it. But the more I thought about it, the more familiar it seemed. When I walked by the next day for a closer inspection, I spied an envelope in the bag that said “Sandoval” on it, for the entire world to see. Argh! 

Since all my refuse was exposed in a clear plastic bag, I just couldn’t bring myself to take it back at that moment. I don’t think I could handle the 10-story ride up the elevator with others seeing my naked waste. I was too embarrassed to take it back up to my apartment during the day, so I put it in my car and waited for night. Around 11 pm, when I was least likely to be detected with a trashbag full of rejection, I went to my car to retrieve it. Just in case there happened to be anyone around while I was taking it to my apartment, I brought an extra non-clear bag to hide it in. I felt like it was a dead body that I was furtively dragging back up to my apartment.

I kept thinking, ah, if only I hadn’t been lazy! Before I got myself into this debacle, I debated over that mandarin orange can for about 5 minutes while getting ready to leave for school that day and at the last second I threw it in, thinking, What’s one can in a bunch of junk? I guess if everyone in Japan thought that way, there would be a lot of cans and other recyclables in the trash.

I am a little nervous this morning for my trash, I mean I separated it, but for some reason I am afraid that it will be rejected again. I won’t feel safe til I come home today and make sure that it wasn’t rejected. Rejection isn’t fun, even if it’s only rejection of something that you don’t want.

Upon returning

So, hisashiburi desu yo. It's been awhile since I've written on my blog and I apologize but I've been editing videos and that takes hours! Some highlights of stuffing friends/family in a tiny 3 week box (drumroll please):

1) Saw my brother's graduation, godson's birthday and my siblings!

2)Was shocked that I wasn't the least bit reverse culture shocked

3) Bowed to people unintentionally, sorry it's a habit now

4) Argh! I am annoyed that I say sorry a lot more in English, I am translating from Japanese

5) Casa Bonita! 

6) #4 doesn't count, so #5 is that I saw my brother Josh's thesis on the impact of smells in choosing a mate

I loved being home and I miss it already.  I noticed some things when I came back to Japan. I got off the 23 hours of travel, stepped outside and inhaled Japan's familiar heavy, musky, sweet smell. It's the smell of an island, indescribable, but different. I am used to it now, so I can't smell it anymore, but I remember the feeling that came with the smell. It felt like coming home, back to my apartment, my kids, and my life. Strange, but it reinforced my decision to stay for another year or two. See Josh, I learned something from your thesis :) 

I was quarantined for a week in my apartment in case I had the H1N1 Flu and didn't go to any densely populated places like the mall. In fact, on the plane we were all scanned with infrared (to see if anyone had a temperature), made to answer a 10 question sickness test and every single passenger was inspected before leaving. It was ridiculous, I am so glad no one on my plane was sick, or I might have been quarantined in Tokyo. Oh Japan, you are too much sometimes!  A video will be coming soon to a blog near you!