Will Miss #41 - no tipping (reflection)

We don't think too carefully about it, but many things in life are about power. Why do people prefer to be attractive to being unattractive? It's not because of vanity in most cases, but rather because beauty gives them power over others. Why do we want money? It's not because a pocket full of cash is intrinsically satisfying. It's about the power to get what you want.

The whole point of

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Random Thoughts: On self-praise and the lack thereof

This is another brief step off the path of my tales from my former employment. They'll be back next week. Thanks for your patience and for reading!

One of my friends here in the U.S. believes she is great at counseling people. In fact, she is lacking in empathy and listening skills. She's competitive in all areas, but especially in terms of how she believes she has suffered more than anyone

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Won't Miss #530 - sublimating my opinions

During the many goodbye gatherings that I took part in as I was preparing to leave Japan, I went out to dinner with two of my students who are sisters. During this meal, one of them said to me that she realized that the teacher me wasn't the real me. It was only at this little goodbye that she realized there was a whole other person who she had no exposure to.

One of the things I decided

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Will Miss #529 - rule followers, rule enforcement

There are interesting contradictions in all cultures. One in Japan is that they expect people to follow "rules" even when they are not in writing or something that people are not contractually bound to do. At the station, personnel will be organizing people into lines, telling them where not to stand, and generally ensuring order even though nothing compels them to do so. Of course, people

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Random Memories #56

This is part of an ongoing series that I've been doing about my memories of working at the same place for 12 years. The other parts are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

It was much easier getting to know foreign coworkers than the Japanese ones for a variety of reasons. The primary one may seem to be language, but it was far from the most limiting one. The main issue was

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Won't Miss #40 - small refrigerator (reflection)

This was when the refrigerator was new. It didn't stay like this for long. Trust me.


I think that there are some things in life that you will always stretch to fit and then exceed the initial capacity. Closets are one of them. Blue jeans, unfortunately, are another. Refrigerators are as well.



In Japan, our refrigerator was quite small. Our first one was dorm-size-ish. Our second and

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Will Miss #39 - dressing up for the girls (reflection)

Last weekend, my husband and I walked around a local mall and I made a conscious effort to not sleepwalk through the experience. When we first returned, I took note of people and what they did and how they looked because I was trying to acclimate to the culture again. Over time, I've come to do what most people do - tune everyone out.

I'm not sure why I decided to attend to what I was seeing

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Random Memories #55

This is part of an ongoing series that I've been doing about my memories of working at the same place for 12 years. The other parts are here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.

Given the parade of temps, there are going to be a lot of people who I won't write about in detail, but I do recall a fair bit about certain ones and would like to note what I remember here briefly. This forum

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Won't Miss #529 - lack of diversity

Japan has a rich culture with a lot of variety and history. In fact, you could not really understand every nook and cranny of what it has to offer even if you had a lifetime to explore it. What is more, much of the culture has been adapted from other cultures - Chinese and European ones in particular - so there is a bit of a crazy quilt going on. That being said, it is one unified quilt and

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Will Miss #528 - the extra mile

I used to receive an actual newspaper when I was living in Tokyo. When it rained, the paper always was delivered in a plastic bag. This is not too far outside of the realm of reasonable service, but I found that there were other areas in which care was taken that I'm not noticing happening here in the U.S. In particular, when a parcel arrived damaged via the Japanese post office, they would

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Random Memories #54

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

There are some people out there who have a reflexive response to explain away the bad behaviors of other people. If someone behaves rudely, they'll say, "oh, he's just had a bad day". There are others who never

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Won't Miss #39 - walking to shops, the pain (reflection)

While living in Japan, I got used to schlepping around a heavy backpack when I went shopping. Things were generally pretty small, but there were times when I'd go to the local Utakaraya market and buy a small melon, a package of chicken, a liter of milk, a head of lettuce, and four bottles of soda and find that my pack suddenly weighed as much as what felt like a couple of bowling balls.

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