*I apologize for not blogging yesterday, but after class all day and running errands, Damian and I headed to a dinner party at one of his coworkers apartments on base. It was really fun, good food, good company... mostly people from the GW Medical/Dental departments. Anyway, there were many glasses of wine and by the time we walked home through the rain I was ready for bed!!!
Anyway, back to the culture... it is very different here... I know what you're thinking... obviously!!!!! We spent a good 25 minutes talking about using chopsticks and then another 25 about table manners. Who knew there were so many things to know about chopsticks! The main points I took away from the chopstick session were 1) Never stick your chopsticks straight up in a bowl of rice (this is something they do to honor the dead at a funeral/wake/shrine) 2) Never pass food from your chopsticks to another persons chopsticks (this is also related to the dead as the bones of the deceased are passed by family members with chopsticks after cremation) and 3) Never use mismatched or different size chopsticks (it must be a matching set) which means if you are out to eat and using the disposable chopsticks and you break them all crooked you should ask for a new pair. There is also a certain way to break your chopsticks when eating out at a restaurant... never have them pointed up, they should be pointed to the side when you break them as to not be disrespectful. There were about 30+ other table manner rules regarding which foods to eat in what order, how to hold your rice bowl/miso soup bowl, how to cut and take bites of things with your chopsticks... I could go on for awhile! We even watched a video on this stuff!!!
*just had an earthquake (as I was typing)... not too fun feeling that in our apartment on the 8th floor... 4.5.... bleh!
Another major thing here is bowing! There are no shaking hands, high fives, and probably no fist pumping either... Bowing is very important to show respect, to say hello/goodbye, thank you, and to apologize. When you bow, there are a few rules to live by... always bow at least as low as the other person, keep your head down and eyes to the ground, and keep your hands at your side.
We had an instructor come in and talk with us about Japanese sports and martial arts including Karate, Judo, Kendo, and Tae Kwon Do... he even did a demonstration of Kendo using a bamboo pole... it was pretty cool. He also talked about other sports that are popular here including my favorite... BASEBALL. On the powerpoint slide he pulled up on baseball there were pictures of Ichiro, Matsui, and Dice K!!! He explained there is a team here in Japan that is owned by a very large and rich company and they have the largest bankroll and get all the good players... sounds like another team we have in the US.... hmmmmmm.
Tomorrow we are going on a field trip (sort of) and we take the train together to a town about 30 minutes away... then they leave us there and we have to find our way back!!!! Really?!?! The train system here is pretty elaborate and very efficient, however it is also very overwhelming for a foreigner. During rush hour the trains often hold 2-3 times the maximum capacity in order to accommodate all the commuters. During these hours (twice a day) they have 2 people on the train platform who are known as "pushers" they wear white gloves and their job is to literally PUSH people into the train so the doors can close... My heart rate went up just typing this sentence! No one with white gloves is going to push me into a crowd... no way! I am going to do my best to not travel on the trains during rush hour! I enjoy my personal space and I think as Americans we take this for granted. Japan is the same size as California... it has a population around 127 million people (the US has 300 million and a lot more space)!!! This fun fact really helped me to put it into perspective... Also, the Japanese only use approximately 19% of the land available to live... the rest is forests, farming, etc... Pretty crazy to have that many people right on top of each other... it doesn't seem to faze them though!
Japanese word of the day:
Densha: Train
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