Awkward Moments

This is a new and mostly humorous segment of The Gaijin Diaries (alternate title: "Oh Goodness, What Is My Life"). Seeing as my life and I are quite awkward, there will probably be similar posts in the future.
These are all things that have happened the past couple weeks, except the foundation one.

That awkward moment when…

…the buses are late and everything else in Japan is on time.

…there’s an empty seat on the full bus or train, but no one is taking it, perhaps out of politeness although they clearly want to, and you’re too far to take it yourself. (Come on guys, the seat’s going to waste!)

…you realize that when you’ve been telling the cashier at the convenience store that you don’t need a plastic bag, you’ve been saying “mother” (o-fukuro) instead of “bag” (fukuro).

…you’re in Osaka with some peeps, and a group of Americans/Japanese comes up and asks for help on a scavenger hunt, and you help them and another group as well, and you see the first group again, and it turns out the two are mortal enemies. (We have no loyalties!!)

…you suddenly look around on the train back from Osaka and realize you’re inside a women’s-only car—yes, they do exist—and there’s some random dude standing at the far end of the car who just did not get the memo.

…you’re in the store, replacing another of the items that was in your lost makeup bag, and with the shop lady’s help you finally choose the right eye shadow—but she also asks if she can help with foundation while you’re at it. (Yes lady, my skin is not the best, I know, don’t rub it in. I already have some foundation, but don’t wear it all the time. Mind yo’ business!)

…your American professor sometimes says phrases in Japanese that sound really, really American, and you want to laugh, and then one of your classmates actually does.

…you’re half-taking a nap in the tatami room in the new awesome building while your friend is studying, then you realize there is a boy holding up a sign on the other side of the table, and he and some cute friends are interviewing  your friend in Japanese…then realize you woke up with crazy sleep-hair and look totally bewildered. (A wild gaijin appeared! What will you do?)

…you’re at the optional-singing-for-the-heck-of-it part after your chorus practice, and the boys suddenly break into an American spiritual from the slave days in perfect harmony…with Japanese accents. (and you’re stifling laughter and no one will ever know why…)

…you come back on Sunday night from the first chorus bonding/nomihoudai and subsequent karaoke, still a little drunk, and your host parents have been drinking wine and are in good spirits, and ask if you’ve found a boyfriend yet and say they’re looking forward to it and will want to meet him. (Whoa what?) And also when they say don’t worry about coming home late and they’ll only worry if you don’t come home at all, especially the host dad—and especially if you’re with a guy. Or maybe they were encouraging that? Don’t remember. Either way, aaawkward times!

…a Japanese friend asks you about prom at the aforementioned chorus party, and you tell her, and then she asks what you did after. “Uh…go home?” (it wasn’t that kind of a prom… //foreveralone)

…almost everyone is in a group of friends (well, clique really) except you. (//foreveralone again)

…you ask your host dad why your host mom hasn’t seen the thank you card you left for her, and he says she’s on a business trip to Tokyo till tomorrow. You don’t know when she left. (//foreveralone still…)

…you are alone in your homestay some days from when you come home till you go to sleep, and everyone’s Facebook statuses and pictures are of their crazy families and cute pets. (also //foreveralone)

…you get all excited about monthly allowance from the KCJS office, only to find that textbook deductions took out more than half of it.

…some friends in chorus  let you know that the color purple, your favorite, is somewhat of an erotic symbol in Japan. And you’ve been wearing a purple backpack, among other things.

…your throat starts hurting like a mofo the day before your night bus to Tokyo, and it’s Saturday so none of the many local clinics are open. (also an FML)

Things They Don’t Tell You

Here are some things no one tells you about Japan right off the bat, which may be helpful for those of you planning to come here at some point. And for those who aren’t, well, I hope it’s interesting. (And you should come. I don’t take no for an answer!) Some of these are somewhat complain-y, but they’re really overarching truths that I’ve observed.

1.        The Japanese like to drink…far, far more than you might think. Nomihoudai or “all-you-can-drink” is a fairly common way of going out and getting plastered. I’ve seen guys chugging pitchers of beer…seriously, American frat boys gotta step up their game!

2.        Makeup is wildly expensive here. Do not lose your makeup bag at the abovementioned drinking establishment—or anywhere, really—for you will regret it.  ¥1100 for a fairly small eye shadow, one shade…that’s just over $14, folks. Similar prices for eyeliner that doesn’t work very well.

3.        Fruit is also more expensive than it should be—many apples cost over $1. It’s much more common to have a giant fluffy piece of buttered white bread toast at breakfast than a nice ripe orange or apple. Same goes for peanut butter—it’s pricey and hard to find, and there’s none of the natural “just peanuts” kind.

4.        Which brings me to the next point—no whole grain anything, ANYWHERE. And we KCJSers are wondering why we’re hungry all the time, and some of us are gaining weight…or at least I am.

5.        Speaking of which, you are not guaranteed to lose weight here, even if you walk around a lot. The food is not actually as healthy as it is portrayed in “common knowledge” about Japan. The convenience stores sell fatty meat curry in fried bread, for Pete’s sake. And don’t forget the mayo everywhere! (it was hiding in my sushi one time….yick.)

6.        Okay, it’s a lot about food, but being pesco-vegetarian here is a lot less convenient and more surprising to people than I’d thought. While there’s a decent amount of seafood and veggies (and CARBS), meat shows up in a lot of cuisine. And people really just don’t understand why you wouldn’t eat it, other than disliking the taste of it. C’mon people, I’ve done this since elementary school, calm down.

7.        In public bathrooms, there is nothing to dry your hands on, and sometimes no soap. So carry some Purell! Also, a lot of people bring a little hand towel with them…very handy indeed. (No pun intended. I hate puns…unless they’re in Japanese, then it’s interesting to figure them out. Teehee.) Also, best of luck finding a Western-style toilet...yeah.

8.        In contrast to the very nice but somewhat awkward Kyoto U students in my choir, the students at Doshisha, and many people elsewhere in the city, are super oshare, or stylish. Even if you wear your cutest clothes—or suavest, for you menfolk—you may still feel underdressed.

9.    Riding a bike can be scary--I’m pretty sure I’ve almost died a few times. There’s not much space, since the sidewalks and little side roads are narrow, there’s poles in the way, and of course there’s pedestrians, cars, moped riders, and other bikers. Plus the bikes are designed in this way that makes you sit straight upright. Craziness.

10.    If someone compliments you on your Japanese, it is probably not sincere. Specifically, the earlier they say it, the less sincere it is. One of my classmates said that his host family was oh so amazed at how “fluent” he was right after saying “Douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu” (similar to “Nice to meet you”). Stop lying to us, people! Actually, when we discussed this in class, the prof concluded that it was just a perfunctory thing to make the Japanese person saying it feel comfortable because they’re “supposed” to say it. The result from the Japanese students taking the class was silence or small awkward laughter. Bingo!

11.    On that note, another thing that you’ll hear fairly soon from many people here, despite them being so reserved otherwise, is the question "Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?" So far I’ve heard this from my host parents, their friends who came to the mini-welcome party, a nice old obaachan (granny) I’ve met a couple times on the bus, and a girl in the Kyodai choir who’s befriended me. That’s not counting all the people who asked when I came here in high school. Each time they ask, the answer’s been no, so it’s getting a bit embarrassing. Do they just do this to Westerners or what?

This has been “Natasha’s meager attempts at giving you an insider’s education on Japan.” Hope you enjoyed it!

Awkward Tales from the Country

I think I win the prize for most “interesting” homestay family situation for the class trip to Okayama prefecture.


It’s not exactly a class trip, though, because we were divided and subdivided. The A group took a bus to the seaside area, and my B group took a bus to the mountain area. And within the B group, I was in a group of 8 people who went to the mountain town of Hokubou and played with elementary schoolers (their school has only 33 kids! Gotta do something about the declining birth rate…), then went to the grape vineyard right nearby and sampled kinds of grapes I never imagined. There were firmer/crunchier ones, ones that tasted like wine, and some longer thinner ones—and they were all about twice the size of ones I’m used to. Also, the nashi (Asian pear apples) they sold were bigger than grapefruits. Daaaang. They also let us walk around where they grow the fruits—they cover the nashi and grapes with newspaper until they’re ripe, in order to keep the bugs away. Smart! One of the workers there also took lots of pictures of us showing off the grapes. Hope we get some royalties—I mean, c’mon, we don’t just do modeling work for free.

Love that kid's photobomb face, second from right

The nashi was on steroids, I swear...

The ones in the lower right are funky/interesting

So then we walked back from there to the town office for about 20-30 minutes, taking pictures of the scenery and singing songs from Miyazaki movies. At 6, there would be a small ceremony to welcome us and put the students and host families together and whatnot. However, Shore-san (the second in command of KCJS) came up and let me know that my family wouldn’t be able to make it until 6:30. So inside I was like, okay, that’s not a big deal, but still, why’s it gotta be me who gets awkwardly left out of the welcoming thing? Anyway, Mrs. Tsuji showed up after the other students had left and was hushedly discussing things outside the door with one of the officials and Shore-san. At first it seemed like someone got sick and had to go to the hospital, so I was really worried, but then it turned out that her husband Hajime had gotten in a car crash at about 4:00, went briefly to the hospital, and was now dealing with all the legal formalities that come with such things. So then I just figured that the host family (and me) had really, really bad luck, not to mention bad timing. Seriously, a car crash right before the homestay? Do I have bad karma?!


I met the mother, Michiko, posed for a picture with her, thanked her for coming to pick me up in such a taihen (overwhelming/difficult) situation, and we left, while she explained that she hadn’t made dinner yet. Perfectly understandable, and I wouldn’t have minded at all except for the fact that I’d been hungry since 5:30 or so. Still, I was very patient and understanding. After we got back, she explained the house (very spacious compared to the Kyoto homestay, and I get to stay in the washitsu—Japanese tatami room) and started preparations, but with all the phone calls and distractions, we didn’t eat till sometime after 8:15. So that really tested my gaman (endurance) skills. The food was really good though—there was rice with red beans and chestnuts in it (seasonal fall type of dish) and chawanmushi, which is sort of a steamed savory custard in a cup with seafood and other stuff thrown in there. Oh, and miso soup with shijimi—little river clams just caught that day!

A tokonoma (display alcove) in the tatami room I slept in

Michiko’s older sister Keiko also came over before dinner. I found out later that she lived about an hour away…whoa! Good thing she spent the night over here. The family also has two sons, but the elder one—age 28—is working in Tokyo, and the younger one—my age—is living in Ochiai, the next town over. I didn’t fully understand the explanation, but it sounds like the younger one might be slow or developmentally challenged. There’s also a dog and three cats, but I’ve only seen two cats so far and they seem to be pretty shy. Aw, maan…


Needless to say, Mr. and Mrs. Tsuji were a little preoccupied with all the things related to the accident—hospital checkups, going to the company and the other person involved to apologize, et cetera. It was also a really weird situation to be there when the dad was describing to his wife and sister-in-law about the various post-accident issues he was having (left side and hearing in left ear was funky, possibly some glass in the finger, and more). I do remember saying “taihen deshita ne” (that was rough, wasn’t it), and “tsukareta deshou” (you must be tired), and “ganbatte kudasai!” (hang in there/do your best!). I mean, what else can you really say when you just met someone, and you don’t really know the details of the accident or whose fault it was? And even if it were his fault, obviously you don’t want to draw attention to that. Also, it would seem sort of patronizing to say “kawaisou” (aww/poor thing/I feel sorry for you) to the host dad.


So basically, everything was really awkward. But at least Keiko took an interest in me and asked me lots of things about America and my hometown and family. The next morning when we were talking at breakfast (salad, hard-boiled egg, giant buttered toast and little dessert-like yogurt…oh Japan), she said she did a little research on Maryland! How sweet! She said Babe Ruth came from there, and I was like, “oh, well even I didn’t know that!” *hahaa awkward self-deprecating laughter, derp derp*


I wish I had slept a little better and wasn’t on the floor and there wasn’t a dog barking at like 6 A.M. …whatever. Saturday was fun. We got going sort of late for some reason and drove half an hour to a town called Niimi, where we met Keiko’s daughter Fumika and her husband, and the new granddaughter Ayaka (eight months…d’aaww!) There was a little washi (Japanese paper) shop with a huge water wheel and two smaller ones. We got to make our own decorative paper! Mine had two dried leaves and some blue and red ink with some gold flakes strewn on there for good measure. It looks interesting, but everyone else’s looked more…artistically balanced. Then we drove a bit to another part of town called Koigakubo and ate at a little restaurant there, where most of us got the udon lunch set. Some of the other things looked good, but were only for a certain season….sigh, Japan and its love of “limited edition.”

Adding colored ink to the washi paper

*heart melts*

Mine's on the left...everyone else was more pro.

Me and my host mom with the giant water wheel

I bought a little box of cookies that had some kind of hakutou (white peach) filling in them, since hakutou is one of the Okayama area’s meibutsu (lit. “famous thing” but really just a regional food or product). Basically, if you go somewhere that’s further away than a day trip, you should bring back an omiyage (gift, especially from one’s travels) to your host family. Then we all drove to Koigakubo’s shitsugen, which I sort of figured from the kanji (“moisture” + “plains/wilderness”) meant “wetlands” before we actually went in and confirmed it. We didn’t actually walk that far because we stopped at this big pond where you could buy koi food and watch them swarm and fight to the death where food was thrown. Okay, maybe not to the death, but those were some hungry mofos, I swear.

Look at those mouths...OM NOM NOM

The funniest part was when we were on our way back out, we see a giant nasty spider in its web, and then I hear Fumika’s husband say, “Oh, look, a snake,” in Japanese. It sounded very nonchalant, especially compared to the rest of our reactions once we saw it…oh goodness. Thankfully the park lady came out of the reception cabin-thing and said it wasn’t poisonous.
Then we parted ways and went home. I was super hungry again, but while we waited for dinner, the host dad got out his giant collection of pirated DVDs that he makes and stores (yup, you read that right) to find ones to copy and give me. I ended up getting a total of nine, but they’re Japanese with no subs, so we’ll see how that goes. But yeah, he’s a cool guy—he has a really broad taste in Japanese and Western movies, and we bonded over that. Finally we ate kimchi nabe (nah-bay) for dinner! It was a delicious hotpot of veggies, seafood and tofu simmered in a big pot of kimchi-flavored sauce.

The next morning, Sunday, the dad Hajime was actually available, so we went chestnut-picking! Well, more like searching the ground for chestnuts and shaking them from the two trees and peeling open the bristly shells with gloves. Reminds me of home since we have a chestnut tree (and I live on Chestnut Avenue), but usually my mom just gets the chestnuts. This time, it was a three-person team, yaaay!

Host dad in the tree and host mom below for max efficiency!

Then we drove back though the pretty countryside, which felt like Colorado, the Appalachians in western Maryland, and Canada all at once. Back in town, we stopped at the field of “cosmos” flowers, the local specialty. It was just my host mom and I, since Mr. Tsuji was tired and had to rest in the car. The flowers weren’t all blooming since it was a bit early—they’re best in mid-October. The trip could’ve been timed better, but oh well, the flowers were still pretty.

Back at home we had okonomiyaki for lunch (my fourth time since arriving, but it’s cool), which is hard to describe: just read here. Anyway, it was yummy and ridiculously huge, or at least the second one was—good thing my host parents split it, or else someone’s stomach would burst.

Hard to gauge the size, but look at the receipt on the right for reference!

Then it was time to say goodbye to the pets, grab my stuff and take a family picture in front of the house. We ended up being a little late to the gathering spot at the cultural center, but at least I got more time with them? So it was a solemn goodbye, but we all kept waving out the window of the bus at the hosts as we pulled out of the lot.

Hehe, I'm taller than them. Also, Hana the dog was a cutie-pie

Conclusion: I think we’re all gonna miss the countryside. I know if I go to Hiroshima, which is a little further west, I’m definitely stopping in Hokubou town on the way there or back. And my host mom is coming to Kyoto in November, so we can meet then! Woohooo. (Hopefully my host dad will still have his job then…ehehe.)