The Japanese are very indirect. This leads to all sorts of gaijin paranoia about passive aggressive behavior and what every little potential message might mean. I’ve heard that you can tell how much a Japanese person likes you by how they serve you tea. If it is strong and hot, they like you. If it is cold and weak, it’s their way of saying they don’t like you.

I usually come into work later than everyone else. My contract says work begins for me at 8:30 am. Classes start around 9am, I think. I am expected to be at work no later than 10min early and even this is pushing it by Japanese culture. Most of the students are here before I get to work. Until today, there has been a cup of tea of my desk. I definitely appreciate it. Japanese tea may be horrid but I get served so much of it that I’m developing a caffeine habit. I NEED my shitty ass tea in the morning. Until today, there has been a cup of tea on my desk, albeit cold because I come in later than everyone else when the tea is served. When I started at this school I was told to bring in my own mug, and I did, a white mug with a blue Lily of the Valley image. Until this morning my tea has been served in this mug.

Today I came to work closer to the 8am side than the 8:30 side. I didn’t do it to join the Japanese solidarity of coming to work way before when is necessary. I did it because if I wait too much longer at my apartment, traffic gets really painful. I’d rather spend the extra time fucking off at my desk than on the commute. When I got here today, there was no mug of tea on my desk. In fact, my mug was on someone else’s desk. What was wrong? Were they pissed off that I was always coming to work later than them? Was it my turn to serve tea and I didn’t do it? Do we even take turns serving tea? Who serves the tea? I only teach at this junior high school three days a week. I figured that during my time away someone had adopted it and forgotten to wash it and just left it on the desk. Fine. Way to be polite community oriented Japanese, borrowing my cup and forgetting about it! I decided I would get up and while everyone was watching, quietly reclaim my lost cup, wash it, and pour myself tea.

Before I could do it, everyone disappeared. I went over to the mug to investigate. It was full of tea. I didn’t want to mess with someone else’s tea. I went over to the tea station, took a mug that someone had barely washed out, and dejectedly poured myself some last dregs of awful tea. What does all this mean? Maybe this is just a misunderstanding?

Engrish of the day:
Theme “the way of speaking doing some shopping will be known.”

From an old lesson plan found at the bottom of a drawer at one of my elementary schools.

I hate elections season. Thank goodness I arrived during elections season so that I could establish this hatred early. What would I do if I didn’t have something to dislike with fervor immediately?

Rather than a barrage of television ads hating on each other, the Japanese politicians go around the neighborhoods with giant bullhorns and speakers mounted on cars. They are allowed to do this from 8 fucking am until around dinner time. I’m not working yet. I love to sleep past 8am. Thank fucking goodness there was one parked right outside my apartment for several minutes. Otherwise, I might have slept in another unreasonable hour or so.

Fuck, I can hear one in the distance as I type this. The only good thing about this situation is that I can’t understand anything they are saying yet. Otherwise, it would be really annoying.

I really want to see two of them crash into each other and then get into a fight over the loudspeakers. That would be most amusing.

So far, I think my Doc Martens have been the worst decision concerning the items that I packed for Japan.

It is customary to take off your shoes when you enter somebody’s home and some other indoor spaces. I went to see a dermatologist and was required to remove my boots as I went into the building. The first thing I saw when I entered my new apartment was a red sign on the floor near the door that said SHOES OFF! Apparently, it is demanded of me that I remove my shoes in my own home. So as you can imagine, boots above the ankle are extremely impractical if you’re planning to go indoors more than once a day. All that shimmying on, and lacing, and unlacing, and shimmying off gets pretty tedious.

I don’t fit any of the bikes in Maebashi. The woman assigned to help me get settled let me borrow one of her old ones while I look for a bike big enough for me to want to spend money on. Like almost all the bikes in Japan, it’s a cruiser (they call them “city bikes”) with no gears. It’s also a bit rusted because it’s old and not well cared for. It was probably a bit cheap to begin with. The breaks don’t work that well, but there’s no way to go fast enough for this to really matter. Despite that it’s one of the larger sizes of bikes in Japan, it’s also considerably too small for me. You can jack the seat up as much as possible but there’s no way to make the bike any longer. The handle bars crash into my knees everytime I try to turn. I ride down the streets of suburban Maebashi with my blonde hair and my silly Caucasian face and my ridiculously tall body on this little cruiser and I can hear circus music playing. I feel like a trained monkey on a bike. A side show spectacle. Step right up! See the gaijin ride a bike!

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