Will Miss #38 - free Krispy Kreme donuts in line (reflection)

While waiting in long lines at Krispy Kreme in Japan, someone would often come out and hand a free fresh donut to folks in line. I thought that was pretty cool in Japan because it was not common to receive things for free. I didn't know that, in America, getting things for free is far more common and that what you can get is much, much bigger.

Since coming back, I've discovered that you can

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Random Memories #53

This is part of an ongoing series that I've been doing about my memories of working at the same place for 12 years. This is a continuing series talking about the time I spent working in a Japanese office. The other parts are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

After my final "permanent" coworker flew the coop, I spent most of the time as the sole instructor at the company. It was just

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Won't Miss #528 - monaka

There are chestnuts on the package. I'd probably consider this even though it is monaka.


"Monaka" is often described as filling, usually sweetened beans, inside of a "wafer". I don't know about you, but when I think of a wafer, I envision sugar wafers with their light crispy blandness providing texture to evil creamy filling. I don't think of something which resembles thin Styrofoam packing

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Will Miss #527 - it's okay to be average

There are some aspects to life in Japan which are hard to capture with words, and this is going to be one of them. They are nuanced, but there are a lot of them and the aggregate effect creates a profound difference in behavior and quality of life.

Children growing up in America are often told that they can do anything, be anybody, and make anything of their lives if they try hard enough.

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Random Thoughts: Confirmation Bias

The presence of this gun and military shop in Tokyo indicates that the Japanese are violent people who love guns and implements of destruction, right? We can judge people by the items in stores, correct? If they didn't sell, such shops wouldn't exist! Is this not logical thinking? Perhaps not... Whether you believe this or not depends on your confirmation bias regarding Japanese people.

I'm

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Will Miss #36 - Japanese peaches

Ozzy Osbourne once talked about how he didn't understand the need for lavish Christmases with lots of gifts. He said that, when he was a kid, they got a stocking with an orange and a few walnuts in it. Those of us who grew up in a global age (or close to the coming of it) may see a child who receives such things as one step removed from getting a lump of coal. The truth is that, in the past,

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Won't Miss #35 - not having a proper oven (reflection)

My "old" oven in Tokyo when it was brand new. I gave it to a student when I left and now she uses it.

Since coming back to the U.S., I have tried not to take the advantages that I have living here for granted, but this one, having a "proper" oven, is one that I've so eased into that I'd forgotten that things were once quite different. You'd think that every time I make a big clay pot chicken

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Random Memories #52

This is part of an ongoing series that I've been doing about my memories of working at the same place for 12 years. This is a continuing series talking about the time I spent working in a Japanese office. The other parts are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

As the company's fortunes continued to decline, the necessity of having a third full-time employee started to diminish. When Amelia

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Won't Miss #527 - international one-upmanship

As many readers of this blog may know, I am not a fan of talk of "better" or "worse". It is my opinion that all positive aspects of a culture carry a companion negative aspect. To speak of one culture as "better" than another is to betray an ignorance of the culture as a whole. The structure and predictability of Japanese culture which brings a sense of stability, continuity, and comforting

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Will Miss #526 - no drug debate

Twenty-five years ago, I told my future husband that I objected to drug use. At that time, he thought I was being judgmental, moralistic, and small-minded because that's why most people have an issue with it. The truth is that my objection has nothing to do with morality. It has to do with what is often referred to as "presence". That is, when I am with people, I want them to be mentally "

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Random Memories #51

Click this picture to see a larger, more legible image.

This is part of an ongoing series that I've been doing about my memories of working at the same place for 12 years. This is a continuing series talking about the time I spent working in a Japanese office. The other parts are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

After the three permanent workers who I talked about in the previous parts of

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Will Miss #35 - being a "millionaire" (reflection)

My husband's old pay stub. Ah, those were the days... days when we had jobs.


If you think that the way you perceive money and numbers does not matter, start paying very close attention to the way prices are set in your home country. My current rent is $1395. It isn't that way because someone figured that it would just be too high if it were $1400, but rather because that's as close as they

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Will Miss #35 - Japanese political advertisements (reflection)

MacArthur famously called Japan a nation of children. Over the years, this has been interpreted in various ways and one cannot know what he truly meant by this because MacArthur wasn't called on the carpet for this ethnocentric and possibly racist remark. He was around in the day when the press didn't dissect everything or grill the speaker for saying idiotic things.



I can see, to some

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Random Memories #50

This is part of an ongoing series that I've been doing about my memories of working at the same place for 12 years. This is a continuing series talking about the time I spent working in a Japanese office. The other parts are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Reading through the stories of two of my former colleagues during my early years at my office job in Japan, it may seem that everyone I

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Won't Miss #526 - mentaiko

Mentaiko sembei (rice crackers). I want to love you like so many others do. I really do. We are just incompatible.

I really am open-minded about food. I'll try nearly anything, and I'll even make a good faith effort to like things which I experience repeatedly. That being said, mentaiko, or spicy cod roe, and anything flavored with it was just not something I could come to like. The strange

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