Random Thoughts: Where I go from here

As of yesterday, I finished my 1000 things, 500 good points and 500 bad points. There were times when I thought I would not make it, and times when I was certain that I would. In terms of the full content, I'd say that I'm not happy with some, but am mostly happy with the vast majority of my posts. As Dave Barry used to say, and I paraphrase, 'they can't all be gems'. Not every post is an

Read More

Will Miss #500 - living abroad

When I first got on to Facebook and started connecting with my former classmates from elementary school and high school, they saw me in a particular fashion because I was living in a foreign country. Automatically, my life was more interesting and everything I talked about was more exotic, even when I was talking about things which were present in American culture as well. The idea of living

Read More

Won't Miss #500 - being a "gaijin"

While living in the United States, I am just a person. While living in Japan, I was turned into a "gaijin". This is an identity that was assigned to me by the Japanese and is given to everyone who does not suit the definition of "Japanese".  Even people who are actually Japanese, but don't look it, are given this identity. I've spent the last 23 years of my life being defined by my "

Read More

Will Miss #499 - something to write about

I have yet to write about foot monkeys, but you can't cover everything... not even in 1000 posts.

One of my students aspired to be a writer. In fact, she had been trying to change her work from salesperson to something in the publishing industry for quite some time. The only problem was that she was a writer who didn't write. I encouraged her to blog, because you can hone your craft through

Read More

Won't Miss #499 - no sense of "home"

This shirt actually has nothing to do with the topic of this post, but the graphic fits. 

One of the hardest things about living in Japan was knowing that it was not and never could be my "home". Sure, I could have applied for Japanese citizenship or residency. I might even have been granted the latter, but Japanese culture is not one which accepts occidental faces as Japanese. It doesn't

Read More

Random Memories #13

Click this smaller image to load a bigger version.

I'm not sure, but outside of die-hard hoarders, I'm probably the only person on the planet with 24-year-old flyers from fast food places. It is a testimonial to my sense in 1987 that anything with Japanese writing on it was "neat" and therefore worth keeping. Well, it's also a reflection of the fact that anything my future husband sent me was

Read More

Will Miss #498 - "only in Japan" moments

People love to post wacky pictures of strange things in Japan and then caption them as "only in Japan". However, there is strangeness all over the world and the main difference between what I saw there and what I see back home is not the look of the people and the type of pop cultural influence behind the funky self-presentation. For me, "only in Japan" has much more to do with individual acts

Read More

Won't Miss #498 - being called a parasite

I talk a little about my background in the "About Me" section, but that's hardly the full picture. For instance, I worked at a Japanese office, and part of that job was teaching. Another part was that I created textbooks. I not only wrote content, but I did desktop publishing. To that end, I taught myself how to use Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. I not only learned them, but I did

Read More

Will Miss #497 - reminders of shared humanity

No matter what your nationality, Martians will be happy to eat your head. It's a nightmare we all share.

Whether we realize it or not, we spend a lot of our time awake but "sleepwalking" through life. We're not aware of what is going on around us, particularly when we're not making a conscious effort to scrutinize our surroundings. One aspect of visiting a foreign country as a tourist is that

Read More

Won't Miss #497 - open office plans

One of the cool things about teaching in Japan? No open office plan (usually)... though my husband's second job did have such a style. The noise was awful. This was one of the cubicles I taught in at my last job in Tokyo. Ah, luxury!


I can't speak for offices around the world because I only have experience with two countries - America and Japan. In the U.S., most people work in a private

Read More

Random Memories #12

One of the only good things about having had a boyfriend in Japan while I suffered the difficulties of a long distance relationship was that the gifts were awesome. More than one of my female friends expressed envy and outright jealousy at what they saw as the opportunity afforded me by his location, especially in regards to KISS collectibles.The funny thing was that I was less interested in

Read More

Will Miss #496 - furoshiki

A personalized furoshiki, given to me by a student as a goodbye gift. The paper is instructions on how to tie this beautiful cloth.


I remember watching cartoons when I was a kid which showed a hobo walking around with his bindle tied to a stick. The hobo, as someone who lacked funds, used this little folded up bit of cloth to carry his possessions. This was back in the days before we could

Read More

Won't Miss #496 - fixation on blue eyes

Surely, the tears of angels fall from blue eyes.

I had many discussions with students about their preconceptions regarding Western people, and, to them, "Western" (occidental), meant "white". It meant not only white, but mostly blue-eyed white people. In fact, I was told on more than one occasion that they believed most of us have blue eyes. I learned a long time ago when I studied basic

Read More

Will Miss #495 - volume control (personal)

I'm not saying everyone can control their personal volume. 

I'm a person who likes order. In fact, one of my pleasures in life is the sort of anal retentive organization that makes the Felix Ungers of the world "squee" with delight and the Oscar Madisons scoff with disdain. I enjoy knowing where things are enough to invest energy in setting up a special place for them and placing them in it

Read More

Won't Miss #495 - "worn" = "dirty"

Yes, this is a real place in Tokyo (in Hamadayama). I don't know what it was all about, but the elaborate garbage placement nearly made it a work of art. 

I have a real ambivalence about the way things worked in Tokyo in terms of the constant renewal and the waste associated with it versus the pristine sense of things being clean and new. Since coming back to America, I have been struck by

Read More

Random Memories #11

The scanner really picks up the tiny bits of dust embedded in the grooves. What looks so dirty and dull here looks very shiny, gold and clean in person.

One of the things which is clear from my memory books from 1988-89 is that Japan was a different place at that time. The positive effects of the economic bubble were still intact and a lot of things were more elaborate than they were after it

Read More

Will Miss #494 - herbal "nodo ame"

Image pilfered from Kanro's web site.

The notions of too much or too little of anything are culturally relative. In Japan, they always served me too much rice by my estimations. They gave me too little protein. The medicine was too weak and the coffee was often like tar. Before undies are wadded at that coffee comment, I should say that I like strong coffee like Italian espresso, but what

Read More

Won't Miss #494 - being hung up on (a lot)

Wrong numbers are a fact of life in any country. The main difference between getting a call from someone who is confused or dials incorrectly in Japan as compared to the U.S. is that, if you answer in English, and I always did because that was the language I expected my callers to speak, you will more often than not be immediately hung up on. This isn't just because you are speaking English as

Read More

Will Miss - #493 drinking soup from a bowl

Since coming to America, my husband has refused to eat soup with a spoon. This is the result of having been "spoiled" by the Japanese custom of conveniently tipping the bowl up to ones mouth and taking a slurp. Though I have no problem at all with his doing this at home, I feel a little strange about the possibility of doing it in public. I'm going to blame the Europeans for creating

Read More

Won't Miss #493 - castella

Castella is a kind of sticky, coarse-textured cake which is somewhat sweet and has no strong flavor. It is often sold in blocks or rectangular wedges and can be found pretty much everywhere in Tokyo including 100-yen shops that carry food, convenience stores, markets and tony department stores. Not only can you get this low quality cake pretty much anywhere, but it is frequently used as a

Read More

Random Memories #10

Click any image to see a larger one.

For a good portion of my young adult life, the postal service was of incredible importance to me. At the age of 17, I had 19 pen pals. At 22, I was in a relationship with one, albeit not one of the 19 that I had known since I was 17. No, I fell in love with him within several months of having first heard from him. When lightning strikes, it hits hard and

Read More

Will Miss #492 - my illusions about America

One of the reasons that I do this blog is that I want to show a more fully rounded perspective about life in Japan. Of course, that perspective is always subjective, but I am at least trying to find a balance by talking about the positives as well as the negatives. For many years in Japan, I also tried to be balanced about how I viewed America. One could never have accused me of being overly

Read More

Won't Miss #492 - competitiveness about "correct" English

Before coming to Japan and encountering people from many other English-speaking countries, I never gave a second thought as to whether one type of English was "true" English. After working around people from England, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, I've come to realize that there is an attitude of competitiveness about which type of English is "correct". To me, "colour" and "color" are

Read More