Winners of the "Things Japanese" book contest announcement

Many thanks to everyone who entered the contest to win a copy of Tuttle's "Things Japanese" book. I appreciate everyone who took the time to talk about their favorite books (though I could not comment in the thread as it would cause problems with the selection of a winner by random number generator). The winners were "LostinThought" and "Monica Gilbert". Please e-mail me at  orchidsixtyfour@

Read More

Random Memories: Brush with Terrorism

Have you ever seen one of those old detective stories in which a cop asks someone "Where were you on the morning of March 20, 1995?" Most of the suspects haven't a clue what they were doing and, if enough time had passed, they also would have little idea of where they were. We only remember where we were on specific dates is something special happened. I remember exactly where I was on the

Read More

Won't Miss #57 - drunkenness as an excuse (reflection)

This topic is one that has been on my mind for other reasons as of late. There are several things that have inspired thoughts about drinking and behavioral control, not the least of which has been the national debate about rape and alcohol in college culture. I took a graduate course in addiction last summer so I have a deep understanding of the effects of alcohol on the brain. It lowers

Read More

A word about lost comments

Several people have mentioned that comments are missing. I'm not sure what is going on, but Blogger seems to be having a bad time of it lately. Unfortunately, there is nothing that I can do about this as I have no control over what Google does once a comment is submitted. I either get notified of a comment and publish it or I never see it at all. If you are using a particular account and failing

Read More

Will Miss #56 - surgical masks (reflection)

One thing I have realized since coming back to the U.S. is that cultural context truly matters. This is something I've pondered in relationship to the debate over face-obscuring hijab or burkas being worn by women in the name of their native culture. In America, a country in which there is a fair bit of crime, covering ones face in a manner which obscures identity is a very different kettle

Read More

Random Thoughts: The Curious Relationship Between Fish and Aggression

My mother was (and probably still is) a terrible cook. When I was growing up, I was taught that meat of any sort was not safe to eat unless it was cooked until its texture was close to shoe leather. To this day, my father will not eat a piece of meat if any sort of juice runs freely within it. Chicken in particular was considered a potential source of food poisoning unless all of the moisture

Read More

"Things Japanese" (A Book Review and Contest)

Image courtesy of Tuttle Publishing


It was not uncommon in my English lessons for students to ask me about those aspects of Japanese culture to which I felt particularly drawn. In my earlier days in Japan, I often mentioned that I really liked sumo wrestling. This response invariably elicited a someone patronizing little smile and a question about which wrestler I liked best. The answer to

Read More

Won't Miss #544 - emergency call fear

One of my greatest fears in Japan was that something would happen and I'd need to call for the police or an ambulance. Communicating in a foreign language can sometimes be trying in the best of times depending on the context, the person you're speaking with, and the vocabulary required. Doing so in a situation in which one is in a panic is almost unimaginable. If there is ever a situation in

Read More

Random Memories #78 - the last weeks in Japan - part 11

This final installment is more of an epilogue than a memory, though it will include memories. I'm sure that people who have gone away for a short trip or even a somewhat long one imagine my return to the U.S. was like a breath of familiar air as I stepped out into the world into which I was born. It wasn't. It felt more like being expelled from the womb into the bright, noisy, painful light

Read More

Changes to My Blogs

I've been blogging regularly and steadily on both of my blogs since each one's inception. Both were created to serve several purposes from the outset. One was to bookmark experiences regarding life in Japan so that I could remember them as well as share my perspective on things both trivial and important with others. Another was to set myself a task such that I would develop my writing skills in

Read More

Will Miss #543 - "gift" wrapping

Dave Barry tells a story in his "Dave Barry Does Japan" book about a woman whose son gives his son a small gift-wrapped package that contains candy. Since it is not likely that the boy was carrying around candy in case he ran into a child that he wanted to give a little present to, Barry is initially puzzled as to how the Japanese boy was able to produce such a present so rapidly. He finds

Read More

Random Memories #77 - the last weeks in Japan - part 10

I wish that I had written my memories of the last weeks in Japan shortly after I'd lived them. Two years down the line, there are things I remember with perfect clarity and things that I'm sure have slipped away. The same goes for my early experiences after returning to America. There were some very important things which happened when I had just gotten back that I wish I had taken the time

Read More

Won't Miss #56 - slow payers (reflection)

During my twenty-three-year absence from the U.S., a new way of doing business popped up. It became possible for people to do something which I never imagined that they'd allow them to do. That is, they could check themselves out at the register. In fact, there are some places which only do self-check-out ("Fresh & Easy"). At first, I found the prospect intimidating. Now, I wish every store

Read More

Will Miss #55 - mochi (reflection)

When I was 24 years old, I thought I was as smart as I was going to get. Seriously. I thought I'd had a lot of experiences, grown beyond a lot of my psychological issues, and that I had pretty much worked everything out. As I got older, I didn't get dumber, but I did come to realize that I wasn't nearly as worldly and knowledgeable as I believed myself to be.

One of the conceits that we tend

Read More

Random Memories #77 - the last weeks in Japan - part 9

The, mostly, empty living room. That box is the cable box, which the landlord said he'd look after. I also realized that we left behind not one, but two carpets that we'd installed (layered on top of one another in that room) and that power strip mounted on the wall. Oops, but there were no hard feelings. The landlord has written to use a few times with nothing but positive feelings.



The

Read More

Won't Miss #543 - "Japanese food is healthy"

One of the things you notice about not living in Japan is that people aren't nearly as interested in talking about it. That means that I no longer find myself hearing comments about how Japanese culture is superior in this way or that way on a regular basis. One of the highest grounds that people tended to occupy when it came to expressing how much better Japanese culture was than others (

Read More

Will Miss #542 - relative income equality

I've lived in two different apartment complexes since returning the U.S. and, in both places, homeless people came by several times a week to poke through the recyclable trash for bottles and cans that could be redeemed for deposit. Though my half of the complex locks its trash containers, the other half doesn't, so I'll see someone with a borrowed shopping cart parked in front of their

Read More

Random Memories #76 - the last weeks in Japan - part 8

Among the earliest of my tribe of returning students was a woman who contacted me late in 2011. She had studied with me for about six months several years earlier and had stopped when she ran out of money. I will call her "M", and the memory of how I finished my time with her is one I've been dreading telling.

"M" was almost the same age as me and, like me, she grew up in a rural area and in

Read More

Won't Miss #55 - hanko (reflection)

For those who don't know, a "hanko" (or inkan), which used to be referred to as a "chop" by Western folks, is a little seal that you apply ink to and use instead of a signature. In Japan, many families use them to "sign" official documents instead of writing their names. You can get them made for fun, but to use them for banking or contracts, you have to have a registered hanko (jitsuin).

Read More

Will Miss #54 - harsh no smoking rules (reflection)

As I mentioned in the original post, Japan used to be a smoker's paradise, but they cracked down pretty hard and now you aren't even allowed to smoke in the streets. I figured that, while there are fewer smokers in the U.S., there are no restrictions on smoking outside so it would be worse here.

Since I'm living in California now, and smoking is not allowed in restaurants where I'm at, I

Read More

Random Memories #75 - the last weeks in Japan - part 7

My previous posts about goodbyes with students may lead my readers to believe that every student loved me to pieces and sobbed herself into a state of apoplexy at my impending departure. In fact, the reason for my focusing on those people in my initial posts about goodbyes was more about what left the biggest impression on me than an attempt to self-aggrandize or paint myself as someone who

Read More

Won't Miss #542 - simplistic and ineffective therapy

Recently, I watched a video lecture about a mental health issue in which an international audience was present. After the presentation, members of the audience were allowed to ask questions or make comments. When it was the turn for a Japanese audience member to speak, his comment about the fact that optimists suffered less degradation in their bodies than pessimists was, 'so you're saying

Read More

Will Miss #541 - genkatsu

Some people like an enormous hunk of meat that they can sink their teeth into. I'm not one of them. The truth is that my bite is uneven and my mouth is also small. I have difficulty tearing things off and chewing well. If my parents hadn't been so poor, I guess I would have had some orthodontic work done and I'd be able to bite off a hunk of animal flesh with the best of them. At any rate,

Read More

Random Thoughts: When culture is (and isn't) an excuse

I had an exchange recently on Facebook after posting a status message about one of our neighbors. These particular neighbors are an Indian couple with a small son. I'm not a person prone to liking kids, but he is incredibly adorable and has done some thoroughly charming things which even someone like me - who was dramatically under served when maternal instincts were being doled out - finds

Read More

Won't Miss #54 - washing my trash (reflection)

Times have changed since I lived in the U.S. and I'm also living in a different area. I grew up in a rural area and the way we handled our garbage tended to be to either burn it in a trash pile some distance from our house or to haul it to the local dump. I never thought about who owned/managed the town dump, but I'm guessing our taxes rented the space for everyone to leave their unwanted

Read More

Will Miss #53 - getting around by bike (reflection)

America is well-known as a country in which car use is the norm. A lot of people criticize this as wasteful, indulgent, and selfish. However, it's important to know how geography and history dictate how people get from place to place. In New York City, for example, many people don't have or use cars because there is adequate public transportation and high population density. The rest of

Read More

Random Memories #74 - the last weeks in Japan - part 6

The red bag has my name embroidered on the other side. It's from a well-known maker, or so I was told. K. also gave me a picture frame and rusks. It was quite a generous pile of gifts considering she hadn't seen me for a very long time.

Compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, human babies are born essentially premature and quite helpless. A calf will be up and walking soon after it is

Read More

Won't Miss #541 - gaijin baiting

A long time ago, when print newspapers were still relevant, I subscribed to a paper called "The Daily Yomiuri." This was the English equivalent of the far more popular "Yomiuri Shimbun". I chose this paper not because it was the best, but because it was the cheapest and news in English was hard to come by in the pre-internet days.

One of the things that started happening in this magazine

Read More

Will Miss #540 - toilet seat covers

When I was growing up, my grandmother's house seemed much better appointed than my family's. Our bathroom was old an crummy with some mismatched shag carpet fragment sitting outside of the tub. My mother was a lazy and poor housekeeper so that thing rarely saw the inside of a washing machine. My grandmother, on the other hand, had a matched deep pink set of items to adorn her bathroom. There

Read More

Random Memories #73 - the last weeks in Japan - part 5

S's goodbye gift to me – a beautiful,
colorful shawl and her lovely note which said, “It's very sad that
you leave Japan. But is already decided with your husband. I
understand because a Master wonderful to you is in a side. On
Thursday, I remember, and miss you every week. Thank you for the
great time. Please, don't worry, and don't hesitate. Everything OK!!
Because it's you. I'm believe

Read More

Won't Miss #52 - bicycle parking problems (reflection)

Bikes being taken away for illegal parking. To retrieve them, you had to wait several weeks and then pay $25-$30 to get your bike back.

For many years during my time in Japan, I suffered from severe back pain. I'm not talking about the type of thing where you exert yourself and your back hurts later. I'm talking about the thing where you wake up every morning, walk for a minute and agony

Read More

Will Miss #51 - shoe removal culture (reflection)

One of my friends recently introduced me to the term "Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon" (aka the "frequency illusion"). This is when something is brought to your attention and then, coincidentally, something else of a similar nature occurs. For example, I was walking to a store recently and noticed that several cars parked along the street had solar-powered bobbing plastic flowers in pots. Later

Read More

Random Thoughts: Space for Honesty

I'm taking a break from my recollections about the end of my time in Japan. Frankly, it's still an emotionally difficult thing to write about and this post has been percolating for awhile so I'll offer it here as a brief interlude. Thanks to those who take the time to read all of my prattle. :-)

As attentive readers may recall, my husband and I came back to the U.S. so he could go to

Read More

Won't Miss #540 - Japanese marshmallows

I haven't celebrated Easter for quite some time because I have learned that there are greater costs to eating sweets than the impact on your wallet. Every time I have seen Easter candy here in America, I have thought about how the idea sounds better than the treats will taste. That being said, I have always loved all things marshmallow and occasionally will indulge in them here. I've even

Read More

Will Miss #539 - the sound of Japanese sirens

This is, obviously, not my video, but this type of siren is very close to the ones I heard. The pitch is different, but it is otherwise the same.

I seem to have had the misfortune of living not too far from a street that is close to a fire station both in Tokyo and in California. That means that I hear more than my fair share of sirens going off. One of the things that I have come to really

Read More

Random Memories #72 - the last weeks in Japan - part 4

H.'s goodbye gift to the husband and me - she chose this because she wanted to give us something to remind us of her house, which is two stories tall, but is not red and brown nor did it have a cat or bird.

When it came to saying goodbyes, my husband and I had to find a balance between his students/friends and mine. We couldn't possibly fit in goodbye get-togethers with everyone, much as we

Read More

Won't Miss #50 - anime-style advertising (reflection)

I have to admit that I have an enormous personal bias when it comes to the sort of animation that is all over the otaku (geek/nerd) parts of Japan like Akihabara. The infantilized and sexualized imagery really irritates me. It's not only freaky, but creepy. If real people looked like the women in that artwork, they'd look like hideous alien creatures. It's so distorted that I view it not as

Read More

Will Miss #43 - liberal ideas about birth control (reflection)

My husband and I were talking about some theoretical concepts regarding life and how people choose to live. It's all pretty complex stuff, but it comes down to the choices we make and how we "buy" ease in the present at the expense of some benefit in the future. For example, you might decide to buy a frozen pizza instead of making your own dinner. You spend more, get a less nutritious meal,

Read More

Random Memories #71 - the last weeks in Japan - part 3

The beautiful laser-cut card that the two sisters gave me.


Here is part 1 and part 2 of this series.


When you have met as many people as my husband and I met during our time in Japan, there are a lot of goodbyes to offer. Our last few weeks were full of trying to balance preparation to leave with meeting people and saying goodbye to them. Some of them would see the last of us in

Read More

Won't Miss #539 - being one down

I can't pretend that I know what it is like to be a minority in the U.S. I can say that I know very well what it is like to be a part of a tiny minority in a culture with an overwhelmingly dominant culture. White people are something like .2% of the population in Japan. To that end, we do suffer at least some of the standard problems that minorities have to deal with in other countries. One

Read More

Will Miss #538 - whirling dervish women

During my recovery from depression after quitting my long-term office job in Japan, I was looking around trying to figure things out. I wanted to feel "normal" again. In fact, I wanted to actually be "healthy" and I started to attend to the way I saw Japanese people live their lives. I figured that they seemed to be doing okay. They knew what they were doing to live life as best they could

Read More

Random Memories #70 - the last weeks in Japan - part 2

Seiyu supermarket with shelves picked clean in the wake of the March 11, 2011 quake.


This is part 2 of short series on my final weeks in Japan. Part 1 is here.


As I mentioned in my previous post, as my husband and I headed for the wire on our planned departure - a date which was chosen three years ahead of time - there were some late complications in the form of the discovery of a tumor

Read More

Won't Miss #42 - Disney obsession (reflection)

It's interesting how, the presence of something annoying can be grating, but it's absence not appreciated. This isn't a thought which came to me over the memories of Disney bags and small dangling Mickey figures on cell phones. It came to me a long time ago when I was suffering from chronic and oppressive pain. When you don't have pain, you don't think about its absence or appreciate being

Read More

Will Miss #41 - no tipping (reflection)

I read several blogs devoted to food and cooking and little is more contentious than the custom of tipping in the U.S. One side claims it is a system designed to allow restaurants to justify grossly underpaying their employees. The other side says it allows the customer to be empowered in a fashion the promotes good service. My reply is, "can't it be both?" I am also only too aware that there

Read More

Random Memories #69 - the last weeks in Japan - part 1

OK, I lied. It was four suitcases and two backpacks (and my husband's jacket).

Time is a far more complex and odd business than we generally give it credit for. It can appear to move fast or slow. We have sayings which indicate that time moves rapidly when we're enjoying ourselves ("time flies when you're having fun") or glacially when we're waiting for something to happen ("a watched pot

Read More

Won't Miss #538 - the bacon

Having done over 1000 posts (Blogger tells me 1285 at this point), it is difficult at times to remember what I have and have not said so I try to double-check my past posts to see if I've already mentioned a particular topic. When it comes to this particular topic, I cannot believe I had not wrote about it before.

For the duration of our stay in Japan, my husband was disappointed in the

Read More

Will Miss #537 - lack of sprinklers

You can't tell, but these were in Okubo in Tokyo along Ome Kaido Avenue. Yeah, flowers pretty much look like flowers everywhere.


California, where I'm currently living, is in the grips of a long drought. This is a unique experience for me as I lived in a place that had what appeared to be five seasons. The fifth one was "the rainy season, of which there actually appeared to be a major and a

Read More

Random Memories #68 - Alyson - part 3

This is the 3rd and final part of a short series of my memories of my coworker named Alyson. Here are parts 1 and 2.

During her tenure at the juku, Alyson grew smitten with a 15-year-old boy named Kenji. At the time, she would have been 25 or 26 years old. Both she and this teenager wanted to get something going between them, but she was afraid of statutory rape charges being brought

Read More

Won't Miss #41 - willy nilly food serving (reflection)

I can't say that I have eaten in a lot of restaurants in America, but I have eaten out about once every month and a half for the past two years. In all but one case, everyone at the table was served their food at the same time, and, unsurprisingly, that was at a Japanese place. For a culture in which people do everything together, I'm surprised that nobody cares if everyone gets to eat at the

Read More

Will Miss #40 - people doing their own thing (reflection)

If this guy were in America instead of Akihabara, he wouldn't bother wearing headphones, he'd just blast that music aloud.



At some point within this past week, my husband and I were crossing a street and a guy on a skateboard crossing in the opposite direction was loudly and theatrically singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." After he had passed, my husband asked me if I thought he was

Read More

Random Memories #67 - Alyson part 2

Part 1 of this short series is here.

From the straight arrow junior manager (CJ), Alison moved her attentions to a rock-and-roll student - literally a guy who was musician - who I'll call "Koji" (I don't remember his name). She was always thrilled when she showed up on her schedule for a conversation lesson. We even swapped classes sometimes to give her more face time with him.

Early on in

Read More

Won't Miss #537 - mold

The wall behind my washing machine - it turned nearly black with mold that grew in warmer months and died in colder ones then came back around again the next year.

During my first year in Japan, one of my coworkers told me about how mold seemed to spring up everywhere in his apartment. He told me that a pair of shoes that he left in his genkan (entryway) had even seen a crop of the stuff

Read More

Will Miss #536 - having a laundry hook-up in the apartment

The beige tray on the left (under the water spigot) was the home of my machine for more than two decades. You can see that there are disadvantages - mold developed on the walls behind and in front of it from moisture (both from the machine and the bathing area behind that door). Those trash bags were the things we were tossing out when we were vacating the apartment. It's not garbage so much

Read More

Random Memories #66 - Alyson - part 1

Recently, I've been renewing my interest in chemistry. It was one of a handful of majors that I considered when approaching college and it is one of the few topics which I have not revisited with any intellectual vigor. Fortunately, YouTube and other outlets afford me the chance to "attend" lectures on nearly any subject I may want, at least at the elementary level. A brief search and about

Read More

The March 11, 2011 Quake Remembrance

Yesterday, we received a copy of the Wall Street Journal that included an article on the anniversary of the quake. Of course, it was dated yesterday because Japan is a day ahead of us and they have already observed the third year passing. The article talks about how the mental toll on the areas most strongly affected by the quake continues to this day. I also know from my contact with folks in

Read More

Won't Miss #49 - frozen construction (reflection)

As I mentioned in the original post, my issue with construction which took forever to complete was that areas that I had to walk through were often obstructed by it. In particular, it seemed to take forever for any work being done on stations to be completed. The question as I look back on that situation is, "does it take forever in America, too?" The answer to that is definitely "no". In

Read More

Will Miss #48 - sleep anywhere (reflection)

Shortly after we moved to the Bay Area in the late spring/early summer of 2012, my husband remarked that he thought it was nice that some people felt free to just sack out on a picnic bench somewhere. It wasn't something that we saw often, but, on occasion, people would sleep in public after a hard day or during lunch. This is the uncommon sort of sleeping in public that I see here in the U.S

Read More

Random Memories #65 - Mr. Matsubara

One of the things that used to happen to my husband or me on occasion in Japan was that we'd run across a person who'd stop us on the street and look at us with recognition. This person would then say, "do you remember me?" Sometimes, we would remember this person, but, at least half the time, we would not.


In the long history of my work in Japan, I spoke with hundreds of people face to

Read More

Won't Miss #536 - fear of being arrested

I don't think having your picture taken with the police mascot would have been an arrestable offense, but I wouldn't take any chances.

Early on in our time in Japan, my husband and I knew that the Japanese police could hold you and disallow contact with the outside world entirely if they chose to do so. "You" means "foreigners", of course. This could happen for no reason at all or for

Read More

Will Miss #535 - laundry pole trucks

The sounds of Japan are something I miss as much or more than the sights. I was telling my husband at one point in the past month that I missed hearing the 5:00 p.m. "children go home" music that used to play near our home. It was always a little melancholy because of the tune, but also comforting in the way it was trying to let people know what time it was.

Among the other sounds that I

Read More

Random Thoughts: The Extinction of Love Hotels

The hotel pictured above offered rooms for 2980 yen ($29.16 USD) for 2 hours. 


One of the things that my husband and I wanted to do before we left Japan was to stay at a love hotel. For those who don't know what such things are, they are what they sound like. They rent the space out for a limited time so that people who want to have trysts can get a room. They're also billed as being for

Read More

Won't Miss #48 - instant dust (reflection)

When I was growing up, my family lived in the boonies. Well, speaking more accurately, we lived in the midst of strip mines. I mean that quite literally. There was a coal tipple about a five-minute walk in one direction and sludge ponds and processing machinery as well as a cargo train loading area about a ten-minute walk in the other direction. Enormous coal trucks rumbled up and down the

Read More

Will Miss #47 - tiny watermelons (reflection)

I've had mixed experiences with fruit in general since coming to America. I've found that the prices, in general, are similar to those in America, but you get a lot more for your money here. If you have a family or are a big fruit eater, this is a good thing. If you're the only person who eats a particular fruit, such as, watermelon in my case, then paying $5 for a big one means that you're

Read More

Random Memories #64 - things I wish I'd kept pt. 3 - Tokyo Pop (pt. 2)

This is a continuation of a post I started last Wednesday about the movie "Tokyo Pop". Part 1 is here.

Before I get to my continuation of my memories as sparked by watching this movie, there's something I'd like to say about the screen capture from the movie at the top of this post. Recently, I saw Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine" because I wanted to assess Cate Blanchett's Oscar-nominated

Read More

Won't Miss #535 - "home party"

This isn't a festivel. It's an "outside party".

Sometimes, you are irked by something not because there is any reason to be so, but just because you have some idiosyncratic and utterly illogical response. The use of the words "home party" to describe what is essentially a common get-together with friends at ones home in America used to really annoy me. I knew that this was a Japanese-English

Read More

Will Miss #534 - not having to run the cold water

There are habits that you get into for a good portion of your life that you can forget that you ever had if you've been away from them long enough. I'm not talking about unforgettable things like smoking or compulsively turning around three times and whistling "Dixie" before you turn the door knob for fear that the boogie man will be on the other side if you don't. Not that I've ever done

Read More

Random Memories #64 - things I wish I'd kept pt. 3 - Tokyo Pop (pt. 1)

Image pilfered from Wikipedia's page for the movie.

The first time I grew up, I grew up in America. The second time, I grew up in Japan. Perhaps I should explain what that means.



When we think of "growing up", we tend to think of moving through childhood to adulthood. The idea seems to be that, when we reach our full height and the age of adulthood, the "growing" part is finished. I have

Read More

Won't Miss #47 - air conditioners set for reptilian biology (reflection)

I knew when I returned to the U.S. that I would not be finding myself walking into markets and sweating. I also experienced more than one student who told me that they didn't like shopping in America because the shops were always "freezing". I dismissed this as the typical Japanese female sense that any temperature lower than 80 degrees F./27 degrees C. was downright Arctic. Well, I was wrong

Read More

Will Miss #46 - hachiko (reflection)

It is only now that I realize that what I really miss is the common cultural touchstone aspect of this dog statue in Shibuya. It was such a rallying point and everyone who has spent even several months in Tokyo will know about it and recognize it when it is shown in movies or pictures. The fact that we all used it as a meeting point despite the enormous crowds of people who were doing the

Read More

Random Memories #63 - things I wish I'd kept or photographed - pt 2

This is part of a sequence of posts that I'll be making from time to time about things that I wish I had kept or at least had taken a picture of. These are memory fragments rather than full-blown stories, but they are things that have stuck with me which I want to take note of before I forget them. Part 1 is here.

Most people who follow anything about Japan know about "Engrish". You know,

Read More

Won't Miss #534 - melon-flavored stuff

Yes, even melon gum.


Recently, my husband and I visited a local confectionary (See's Candy) because he wanted to buy their strawberry truffles. I love strawberries, but I'm generally not a fan of anything that is not an actual live berry. In fact, I found the truffles pretty vile and he loved them.



For me, this is a common pattern. I love the fruit, but hate things flavored with it. The

Read More

Will Miss #533 - the liberal zoning laws

A restaurant (with vending machine in front), temple, hotel and apartment complexes all in close proximity. I don't know if this is usual for cities in the U.S., but it's the common crazy quilt in Tokyo.

I grew up in a rural area, so things like zoning laws never really meant much to me. There was so much land between homes and businesses that it never occurred to me in my youth that people

Read More

Random Memories #62 - things I wish I'd kept or photographed - part 1

Some memories exist fully formed in my mind as "stories" of life in Japan. Others are little fragments which are jogged back into recollection by some random circumstantial experience. Those fragments tend to come and go randomly and I often feel that if I don't grab them and trap them in words, they may flit away forever as the chances that some stimulus will compel one to come forward again

Read More

Won't Miss #46 - washing in cold water (reflection)

My old laundry machine in Japan - and it was actually a fairly modern one!

The first time in 23+ years that I was faced with an American washing machine, I was stunned by the buttons that allowed you to make choices about water temperature. I'm sure that our washing machine when I was growing up had such choices, but I frankly did not pay any attention to them at all. In my youth, laundry

Read More

Will Miss #45 - New Year's Trinkets (reflection)

Shortly before the new year, my husband and I met a Japanese acquaintance at a Starbucks. We talked about a variety of things, including what it was like to go to shrines during the biggest holiday of the year in Japan. She thought it might be fun to go to a shrine in America on New Year's day. However, despite the fact that there is a large community of Japanese people in the area, there

Read More

Random Memories #61 - First Impressions

All those people behind us? I didn't see any of them.


One of the questions that my students loved to ask was what my first impression was of Japan. Any time that this question was asked, I wondered what answer they would have expected. It made me think about what I initially expected when I arrived in Japan. The fact of the matter was that the circumstances under which I entered were so

Read More

Won't Miss #533 - fear about retirement

One of the things that we all have to face as we get older is how we're going to look after ourselves in our old age. No matter what country you are in, this is something of concern. My husband and I saved a fairly decent nest egg (which we are now using to pay for his graduate school and life expenses) while in Japan, and no doubt that nest egg would have continued to grow had we stayed in

Read More

Will Miss #532 - lack of New Year's resolutions

No resolutions, but plenty of bananas for New Year's day consumption. No, I don't know why, but there are always chocolate-covered bananas around the shrines. 

Most years, after returning from the holidays, I asked my students whether or not they made any New Year's resolutions. Each time I asked this question, I got a quizzical look. They didn't understand the word "resolution" and that was

Read More

Random Thoughts: You are where you live

A very long time ago, when my husband was my boyfriend and we were in love but had never met face to face, we had an argument about children not yet born. Though it turned out that these hypothetical children were never to be and all our disagreements were moot, the exchanges we had on this topic are forever preserved in our audio correspondence from 1987.

One of the many topics that we

Read More

Won't Miss #45 - pitifiul economies of scale (reflection)

Now that I'm back in the U.S. with access to all of the types of sales that are common here, I conceptualize what it means to be able to buy a lot of something in order to get it cheaper. One of the common sales here is at Safeway supermarket at which I can buy cases of soda for about half the usual price during sales. They tend to do a "buy 2, get 2 (or 3)" free deal. Sure, we have stacks of

Read More

Will Miss #44 - Akiyoshi yakitori-ya (reflection)

Sticks served on a stainless steel rim around the food preparation area at Akiyoshi.

One of the things that I mentioned to my husband about living in California was that it was not a happy place for me because I had no good memories associated with being here. In fact, I only had bad memories connected to it as the 10 months that I lived here from the summer of 1988 to the late spring of

Read More

Random Memories #60

This is the conclusion of my series of memories based on working at a Japanese company for 12 years. It may not be the last memory of my experiences, but it will complete this series. The other parts are here:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18.

After my company was purchased by a Nova subsidiary, my work experience took on a new cast. Yes, there was a lot of

Read More

Won't Miss #532 - stain-orific mugs

I knew that there would be some things that I'd realize about life in Japan only after coming back to the U.S., but this is one that I never expected and couldn't have guessed. Awhile back, I posted about the habit in Japan of bleaching the crap out of everything, especially drinking cups. At that time, I thought they did this because of  an obsession with things looking clean that those of

Read More

Will Miss #531 - card delivery on holidays

This year, I had some expectations that I'd receive some real Christmas cards. No, I did not expect to receive them from Americans. I expected to get them from Japanese friends and I did receive a few (and they were gorgeous). When Christmas day arrived and I'd only gotten four cards, I had a strange sense of anticipation about possibly getting just one more on the holiday itself. Of course,

Read More

Random Memories #59

This is the enormous butt of a duck in stuffed toy form. Given what I mention in this post, the reason for showing something's tail end will become clear. FYI, this is in Sugamo, Tokyo. And, no, I don't get it either. 

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, 

Read More

Happy New Year to my kind readers

This year will be the year of the horse. The fact that I pay attention to that is one of the lasting effects - one among many - of my time in Japan. It may seem a mere bit of trivia or an aspect of culture meant to add color and interesting fiction to the changing of the year. To me, it is more than that. It is a reflection of the  the way in which the shape of time passing is framed

Read More