Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
It’s so rare these days I that I get good customer service that when I do, I walk around in a bit of a haze afterwards thinking ‘what just happened?’ I was greeted, I was helped and, hold on a second, did that sales assistant just make conversation with me? And look as though they were actually enjoying it? Wonders will never cease! The very notion of ‘service’ is a lost art in this country, mainly because everyone thinks it’s beneath them. But it’s often overlooked that we as consumers have to take responsibility for our part in these interactions.
I’m speaking of course, as a former shop girl. I worked in retail for years, flogging everything from shoes to saucepans. It is, quite frankly, soul destroying. It’s all you can do to get out of bed in the morning, never mind not punch every rude customer in the face. Everyone looks down their nose at you because you’re a mere ‘shop girl’ – you must clearly have failed at life. Obviously it depends where you work – there are some retail establishments where you don’t count down every second til home time and work can be quite fun.
Let me be frank about why customer service in the UK sucks:
Tags: bad service, canada, customer service, fashion, Japan
Posted in fashion | 19 Comments »
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
I’ve always been a picky eater. When you’re a kid, it’s alright to be fussy, but when you’re 29, it’s just sad. My general policy with food is to never try anything new, ever. Occasionally, I slip up and try something. Sometimes I even like it, but it’s always traumatic.
I have about five foods that I actually eat and I just rotate them. I’m fine with that. I don’t feel like I’m missing out. When people ask me ‘what don’t you like?’ I sit them down, get my scroll out and make sure they have at least 45 minutes spare for me to tell them. I operate by one basic rule: if I don’t like the way it looks, I won’t be eating it. That rules out anything like olives (which repulse me), tomatoes (all that nasty jelly looking stuff and pips inside), chickpeas, lima beans, cucumbers (I can’t stand the stench), oranges (the most socially unfriendly food ever) – actually, the list really is too long, but I’m sure you get my point.
I’ve learned to live with my quirky eating habits, but that’s mainly because it’s just me who has to deal with them. But if I meet someone new, or I’m out to dinner or God forbid, eating at someone else’s house, it gets messy. I’m bombarded with questions about why I don’t like this or that and looked at like some sort of weird science experiment. Everyone thinks they’ll be the one to ‘cure’ me. I don’t want to be cured! I like my five food diet! Leave me alone!
Eating at someone else’s house is always difficult for me. I don’t want to offend anyone by not eating their food. What if I try it and I don’t like it after they took the time to make it? The whole thing stresses me out. When I lived in Japan, some of my students invited me to lunch at their house. That’s already a huge deal, what with all the etiquette in Japan, but then throw food in there and that’s a potential minefield for me. Little did they know, I’d been surviving in Japan on a steady diet of noodles and pretty much nothing else. No I don’t eat sushi. I’ve never tried it. Why? Because I don’t think it’s too much to ask for my food to be cooked! I spent a week stressing about this lunch and when I got there, they’d made me chicken wings and rice. I love Japanese people.
I don’t cook and I don’t care to learn. Food just doesn’t excite me. It’s just nourishment. I have far better things to spend my time and money on. So yes, the imaginary French boyfriend that I’m trying to ‘Field of Dreams’ into existence will be a bad ass cook who will be able to do incredible things with the five foods on my ‘yes’ list.
Tags: food, Japan, pickiness
Posted in life | 22 Comments »
Monday, August 31st, 2009
I live with two Japanese girls, both called Aya. I used to think that Aya 1′s English speaking abilities were lacking, until I met Aya 2. Let me preface all of this by saying, I know how hard it is to learn another language. I lived in Japan for a year and am pretty sure there are a bunch of Japanese people dining out on stories of the various gaffs I made while attempting to speak their language.
Aya 2 has been here for six months, learning English. I’m not sure what they’ve been teaching her, but I think it’s fair to say, progress has been slow. Her sentences are typically made up of three words and some charades. It’s on you to fill in the blanks.
A few weeks ago, she was showing me some stuff she’d picked up at a flea market. One of them was a old set of knives. She took one out of the box and said ‘For when I have boyfriend!’ and then made some stabbing motions with the knife. I was a little taken aback. ‘You’ll….kill him?’ I asked, now a little scared of my seemingly innocent roommate. She looked confused and conferred with Aya 1 in Japanese. They both giggled. Aya 1 clarified ‘No, she cook for him!’ So now we know both her English and cooking skills are shitty. When even the charades are confusing, you know it’s bad.
It’s gotten so I dread being alone with Aya 2. The awkward silences, the desperate scrambling in my head trying to figure out what the hell she’s talking about. Aya 1′s English isn’t great, but next to Aya 2 she looks like Barack Obama’s speech writer. Mind you, I don’t help much. I do all the embarrassing things we English speakers do in these situations. I start speaking in pigeon English too, thinking this will help her understand me better. I talk louder, as if her hearing is the issue.
Over the weekend, Aya 2 and I crossed paths on the doorstep as I was taking my bike out to run some quick errands. She said ‘Have a romantic time!’ Umm, what? What does that even mean? I couldn’t even hazard a guess at what she was trying to say. I mean, I love my bike an all, but not like that. But rather than question it, I greeted it with a smile and a nod and said ‘Thank you, I will.’
One day, Aya 2 will grasp the basics and before you know it, she’ll be chatting it up with the people of Toronto like never before. I, on the other hand, will still suck at Japanese.
Whatever you’re doing today, don’t forget to have a romantic time.
Tags: Japan, Japanese chicks, language barriers
Posted in life | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
I climbed Mount Fuji hoping I’d be able to show my friends breathtaking photos of an indescribable view. Unfortunately, something altogether different happened.
On the bus on the way there, my friend told me there was a 9% chance of rain. The odds were good that the trip would be amazing. It turns out, she actually said 90%. We should have called it a day right then and there.
We arrived at Fuji around 10pm, to do the night climb and watch the sunrise. As soon as I got there and saw other people in their professional walking gear, I felt a little intimidated. My Stan Smiths, Seven jeans, a couple of tank tops and a hoodie didn’t seem like they would suffice on this mission. But I’ve always put fashion before function.
We started walking and the rain was annoying, but bearable. We’d been told that the route was a straight trail to the top and would take about 7 hours. At first, it was a pretty easy trail. But in no time, it turned to a steep hill and before we knew it, we were full on rock climbing. I did not sign up for this. Between the rain, the darkness, slippery rocks and my Stan Smiths it was difficult, to say the least. When we hit the first stop, one of our group dropped out. She said she didn’t want to continue and she’d meet us in the morning. At the time I couldn’t believe she was passing up this amazing experience, but it was probably the best decision she ever made.
The higher we got, the more difficult the climb and brutal the rain. The downpour was now accompanied by gale force winds. We climbed for a couple of hours, reached the next stop and decided, after much debate, to take a break in a nearby hut and wait for the crazy weather to calm down.
We went into this hut full of 10 Japanese men to sit and take a breather. It was a fairly small tatami room with a stove in the middle. Our clothes were soaked, so the owner gave us tracksuits to change into. We hung our inappropriate, soggy clothing over the stove to dry. The tracksuits made us look like 1970s PE teachers. They were also Japanese sizes, which overall, made this not the best look for me.
Anywhere else in the world, a resting hut up in the mountains like that would be a place where you keep each others spirits up, laugh and joke, maybe even sing a song or two (I was more than willing to bust out a little ’99 Problems’ by Jay Z). But this being Japan, you were pretty much expected to sit in freakishly Zen-like silence.
There was also a good deal of hostility towards us as we were the only gaijin (foreigners) in there and we were women to boot. We had to force the men to make room for us around the stove. Huddled around, in our bright yellow Adidas tracksuits that looked like they’d shrunk two sizes in the wash, my pals and I found it difficult to keep straight faces. For a room full of Japanese men who didn’t seem to have a word of English between them, they sure knew how to tell us to shut up.
Eventually, they warmed up to us and next thing you know we were all taking pictures together (I’m mortified that me and that tracksuit have been documented for the rest of time).
We paid for two more hours in the hut. Now it was just me, my friend, the owner and his employee. My amigo went to take a nap, so I was left alone with the hut workers. I struggled through conversations with the young employee. Apparently he took a shine to me and through his employer, asked for my hand in marriage. Since the only English words he knew were ‘crazy’ and ‘madman’ (not words you really want to hear when you’re literally stuck half way up a mountain in the middle of the night) – I respectfully declined.
We waited for the weather to calm down but it didn’t look like it would happen. At 4:30am the owner kicked us out. To make it down to catch our bus back to the city on time, we had to leave. He managed to tell us, in his very limited English, that we had to climb for another hour to reach the descent route. This made no sense – why do you climb higher just to go back down again? But it wasn’t up for debate, we had to do it.
So, we set off again. Our clothes, which were supposed to dry in that time, hadn’t at all. So we put on our soaking wet gear and went out into the cold, wet rain and gale force winds. What a delightful feeling. You know when you’re wearing soaking wet jeans and it just feels like skin? I felt like I was climbing a mountain in my underwear.
The next stage of the climb was probably the worst. The rock climbing was much harder, the incline steeper and the winds more intense. It was lighter outside but all you could see was clouds, which made you feel like if you slipped you’d tumble down an endless cliff face. I was absolutely crapping myself. The next stop was a twenty-minute climb away, but felt like a lifetime. We finally got there but I had a flash back to the hut man telling us it takes an hour to get to the descent route. The thought of 40 more minutes of this torture sent me over the edge. I had a complete breakdown, I was freaking out, hysterical. I was sobbing, yes, full on sobbing (complete with snot and mascara running down my face. Yes, I was wearing mascara to climb Mount Fuji. Try to look past this and focus on the story).
I felt there was no way I would make it off this giant rock. Maybe I’ve watched too many movies, but don’t they send helicopters when people are stuck on mountains? Where was my fucking helicopter?! The friends we made in the hut earlier were at this same point and saw me freaking out. I guess I do the ‘damsel in distress’ thing pretty well. One gave me his gloves, another, his hat and a third gave me his flannel shirt to wear. They then took us under their wing and made us part of their group.
So, we continued en masse. As if the rain and gale force winds weren’t bad enough, hailstones had now come into the mix. As we climbed higher, we saw people coming down the same route. They stopped and talked to the leader of our pack. It was 5:30am and we were freezing our asses off, so I was hoping they could speed up the chinwag. Eventually, one of our crew explained that people were being turned back because the trail was too dangerous. No one could get to that descent route. We had no choice but to go back down all those rocks we just spent 30 minutes climbing. I resisted the urge to curse like a sailor. I would have been happy for Jesus to take me at this point – 25 years, I’d had a good life!
I took a moment to centre myself and chant my internal mantra ‘Suck it up and deal with it bitch.’ We turned around and started to go back down. Every few minutes, we have to crouch down because the wind was threatening to blow us off the mountain. One of the men behind me held onto my backpack and the one in front of me held my hand the whole way down. So much for being an independent woman.
We rested momentarily. Then, our group started walking in another direction and climbed over a fence. I figured the fence was there for a reason, so asked them if they should be doing that. One guy shook his head and managed to blurt out in English ‘beginner route’. I looked past the fence and there was a trail, just a straight trail, all the way down to the bottom. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! I just risked my life and smeared my mascara hiking up and down some very dangerous rocks when there was a straight pathway there the whole time? I pretty sure nothing about my look says ‘experienced mountaineer’.
As someone who’s most difficult walking experience thus far in life, had been walking from one end of Oxford Street to the other, I feel someone should have told me about this route much sooner. Things started looking up. Even I could handle walking downhill. It was a little slippery and the first time I slipped, one of the men we were with gave me his walking stick. Let me give you the visual: I was in soaking wet clothes, a flannel shirt, a poncho raincoat (which the men had to secure around my waist with some kind of special climbing equipment because it kept blowing over my head and threatening to suffocate me), two walking sticks, mascara smeared down my face and my hair sopping wet and stuck to my head. Frankly, I looked like I belonged on the ‘special bus’.
About an hour and a half later, we were back at the beginning. After a hot bath, some tea and a steady diet of painkillers, I could put this whole thing behind me.
So, all in all, Fuji was probably the worst experience of my entire existence. I didn’t make it to the top and the only photos I have are of a shit load of clouds and me in that frikkin’ tracksuit. But I’m glad I did it. I’m a city girl who had never attempted anything like that before and the fact that I did it under those conditions, kind of amazes me.
Tags: Japan, mount fuji
Posted in life | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008
I have been the subject of some inappropriate hair touching recently.
I have waist length, dark brown hair, never been dyed, in pretty good condition (if I do say so myself). I don’t know what it is, but when people see my long hair, they seem to have an overwhelming urge to touch it. Completely uninvited. I suppose it’s somewhat like pregnant bellies. People just can’t keep their hands off them.
My area leader (who is gay) popped into my work place the other day and as we were chatting about business, he was running his fingers through my hair. All a bit odd. I kind of give gay men a pass – it’s like I’m their Barbie, I know that the stroking of my hair will not lead to the stroking of anything else. Nonetheless, as my manager, hair stroking is probably not the best thing to do during a business meeting.
Since I rocked the Bangs and a Bun all summer (wearing your hair down in hot temperatures, when you have this much of it, is not an option – you’ll suffocate yourself) a lot of people haven’t seen me with my locks loose and flowing. I’ve met a few people recently who’ll say ‘I love your hair! It’s so nice!’ and then I see their hand coming out of left field and making a bee-line for my head to touch it. I politely duck out of the way. People also love to say ‘It’s so long!’ Thanks for pointing that out. I spend 25 minutes straightening this bitch every morning – trust me, I know how long it is.
When I lived in Japan, my hair was the topic of much conversation. I was out one night with a few of my students, when the subject matter, once again, turned to my mane. One girl kept talking about how soft my hair looks and was complaining about how coarse hers is. What’s my secret, she wanted to know?
‘Almond oil,’ I say. ‘I put almond hair in my hair once a week and leave it in overnight. Makes it soft and shiny.’
‘You put what in it?’ She asked.
‘Almond oil,’ I said again.
Blank looks all around.
‘Almond oil. You know, almond oil. Like, the oil from…almonds,’ surprisingly, this explanation didn’t clear it up for them. I asked one of the other girls, whose English was a little better, how to say ‘almond oil’ in Japanese.
‘Ahh. Almondu Oilru,’ she said. It sounded pretty much no different to the way I said it originally, but as soon as I busted out this new pronunciation, about six of the Japanese girls I was with all said ‘Ahhhhhhh!!’ and nodded in unison.
When everything died down, one of the girls approached me shyly. ‘Can I touch your hair?’ She asked. You have to understand Japanese culture to know how much of a big deal that was for her to ask and how embarrassed she would have been had I said no. ‘Sure!’ I said. She gently grabbed a bunch of my hair and stroked it. ‘So soft!’ She exclaimed. She then insisted that I touch hers. By comparison, it was not as pleasant an experience for me. ‘You should really get some almondu oilru,’ I said.
So, if you see me with my hair down and you feel the urge to stroke it, let me clear the mystery up for you beforehand – yes, it’s soft, yes, it’s shiny, yes, it’s long. Your fingers don’t need to become entwined in it to confirm those facts. Unless you’re my mum, my man or my hairdresser, kindly keep your mitts off my mane.
*And yes, that is me in the picture. I believe that’s what you call ‘Tyra Mail’, bitches. Check out more of Knolig Works (photographer) stuff here
Tags: bangs and a bun, hair, Japan, the gays
Posted in fashion | 10 Comments »
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
Tramping the streets of Tokyo had made my favorite black stilettos a little worse for wear. Armed with my shoes and no knowledge of the Japanese language, I hit the streets to find a cobbler.
My first port of call was the train station. Anywhere else in the world, somewhere around a train station you’ll find a little man in his eighties, wearing an apron, stinking of shoe polish and looking like he just spent the last 50 years cobbling his own hands. Not in Japan. I asked in a couple of stores selling hideous handbags and stuffed toys. When I say ‘asked’, it was more of a game of charades. I took the shoes out of my bag, pointed to the trodden down heel, mimed cobbling and made random inexplicable noises. The bemused shop assistants rambled on at me in Japanese, with me not understanding a word, but doing my very best ‘smile and nod’. I imagine they were saying something along the lines of; “You idiot, can’t you see we sell stuffed toys? Take your beat down shoes and go find someone who gives a crap.” (Though I was hoping they were throwing in compliments about the footwear).
The second store I went to, I pulled my same routine with the woman in charge. After some frantic head shaking, she said “Big Thumb”, in English, several times. Seeing the bewilderment on my face, she repeated “Big Thumb” a few more times, while pointing at her thumb and then pointing outside. I thought the woman had lost her mind. She seemed to have average sized thumbs, so this entire exchange was making no sense to me. Nevertheless, I did my polite smile and nod and left the store.
I walked outside into an increasingly dark and chilly night and just when I was on the verge of abandoning the whole mission, I looked across the street to see bright lights and a sign; “Big Thumb.” Suddenly, I felt optimistic, as I bounded across the street and flung open the door. But the optimism was killed when I looked around and realized I was in a pet store. I knew my Japanese skills were abysmal, but I thought my charades were pretty much on point. How could you mistake me pointing at my well-worn heel for me wanting to buy a dog? Furthermore, why would a pet store even be called Big Thumb? Do animals even have thumbs? So many questions, so little time.
I made the bold choice to fight on. I did my charades act with a young man who worked there who shook his head and blatantly laughed in my face. Rightly so, I think, at this point.
I wondered around the shop for a while, taking in the good deals on dog food and fish tanks. I found another shop assistant and showed her my shoes. She spoke for a while in Japanese while I stared at her blankly. She then took me to another staff member, who I’m assuming she thought would have some answers, but they were tied up (with someone who actually wanted to buy a pet). The first staff member and myself shared a few uncomfortable moments of silence. Minutes passed. A third staff member walked by and the first assistant grabbed him for his advice. They had a good three-minute conversation (it was hard to tell if it was even about the shoes at this point), while I stood there feeling more and more foolish. Employee One handed Employee Three my shoe and continued talking (Employee Two was on the verge of making a big sale. I believe it was a Maltese).
I was now becoming increasingly frustrated, as it was abundantly clear I was on a road to nowhere with this mission. Just when I thought things couldn’t get more bizarre than me trying to get my shoes cobbled in a pet store, out of nowhere, Employee Three started stroking my shoe. I looked on in horror as he carried on a seemingly normal conversation while gently caressing my stiletto. Given that an hour had passed since I began this doomed cobbling mission, I had reached my wits end.
Unsure what the etiquette would be in such a situation and afraid I might offend someone, I figured enough bowing could get me out of it. I politely interrupted their conversation and pried my shoe from the hands of the offending molester. Bowing repeatedly and backing away slowly, I left the store more confused than ever and resolved to just wear flat shoes for the foreseeable future.
Tags: Japan, shoes
Posted in fashion | 3 Comments »
Friday, February 15th, 2008
Being a Sumo wrestler is the best gig in the world. It basically entails eating, sleeping, wearing a thong and bitch slapping people. I’d be an excellent contender, as that pretty much is my life.
There is an incredible amount of money involved in Sumo. It is big business, in every sense. The prime seats are right around the dohyo, where people sit on cushions on the floor. Those seats can cost upwards of $700 each. Now, when a fight gets particularly rowdy, a wrestler often tumbles into the crowd. I’ll be damned if I spend $700 for 400 pounds worth of Sumo ass landing in my face.
The wrestlers themselves earn crazy Yen. I read recently that some baseball and American football players (when you calculate how much time they spend actually playing the game, as opposed to standing around, spitting and scratching their balls) earn an hourly wage upwards of $3 million. Now consider Sumo wrestlers; some of their fights barely last three seconds, they don’t spit and they can’t even reach their balls. That’s one hell of a payday. And it’s just handed to them (cash in an envelope) at the end of the fight.
The wrestlers have a David Beckham-like appeal out there. They’re not just fat guys with cool hair. They have a very controlled diet and work out regimen and when you see them in the flesh, they’re bloody huge! Their legs are like tree trunks. They’re really just a few hundred pounds of muscle.
As they live around the arena where they wrestle, it’s not unusual to see them out and about in the local area, going about their daily business. But don’t think they throw on a sweatsuit and sneakers. Sumo is steeped in tradition and history, so they like to have the ‘ancient warrior’ look going on at all times. When they go out, they wear Yukata robes, geta and have their hair tied in the signature top knot.
That brings me to the outfits: Sumo fashion rocks!
The best dressed person in Sumo is the referee. Check this guy out:
The best a ref in most other sports can come up with is a black and white striped shirt. The Sumo umpire outfit says ‘I came to party. Now lets get down.’
But of course, while it’s easy to get distracted by all the glamour of Sumo, it’s really all about the fights. You need a fair bit of patience to watch this sport. There are so many rituals involved, it takes a while for anything to happen.
The wrestlers come out, pace around for a while, throw salt in the ring, do the Sumo warm up (lift one huge tree-trunk-of-a-leg high in the air, slam it down to the ground, repeat with other leg). Then the two wrestlers will glare at each other a while. Sometimes, they’ll get back up and throw some more salt around dramatically – the crowd goes crazy for this. Who knew salt throwing could be so exciting?
Eventually, when they’re ready, they’ll touch the ground and fight. But, sometimes, if you blink, you’ll miss it. They charge at each other, pushing, shoving and slapping. If they added hair pulling it’d be a full on school yard girl fight.
If everyone’s lucky, no innocent bystanders were hit with flying Sumo ass and it’s time to call it a day.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some eating, sleeping, thong wearing and bitch slapping to practise.
Tags: bitch slapping, Japan, sumo, thongs
Posted in life | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
Everything shook, the tea in my mug rippled, Nads hit the deck. She was saying it was an earthquake but the words just weren’t registering with me. My jet lag had kicked in hardcore and I was in a daze. It wasn’t a very strong one and was over in about 30 seconds, but the whole thing was very strange.
I had about 4 days before I had to start my job training, so I threw myself, full force, into exploration. I’d spend my days getting lost, finding all these amazing stores completely by accident and getting used to being stared at everywhere I went.
I even went clubbing with my Japanese friend, Ruru, who’d come to England as an exchange student when we were about 16 and I’d kept in touch with. I couldn’t get over how the clubs in Tokyo played all the same hip hop as the clubs in the States and how everyone in there could mouth the words to every song, but when I tried to talk to them, they’d look at me like I had three heads.
I was having a blast.
The only downside at this point was my jetlag was a mother bitch. I’d be awake all night, sleep from 5am-9am and that was it. That was my sleep pattern for the next three weeks. Not very practical when your new job is to teach English and some days you’re so tired you can barely string two words together yourself.
My job training started Monday morning and I had to teach people that afternoon. Talk about throwing you in at the deep end.
With all the information that had been thrown at me, by the end of the day, I was dead on my feet. I couldn’t wait to get home and crawl into bed.
It was dark when I left work to catch the three trains home. The first train was no problem, but when I got to the second station, I couldn’t find one sign written with the English alphabet. I didn’t have a phrase book and had no idea how to ask for directions (not that I’d understand the response if I could). I stared at the signs in Japanese kanji all around me, hoping they’d somehow magically make sense. The station got busier, I got swept along in crowds, pushed and had my feet trampled on to the point where I just wanted to sit down in the middle of the station and cry.
I tried to pull myself together. I got my huge subway map out of my pocket and approached any and everyone, pointing at the station I was trying to get to, making random, indecipherable noises.
Eventually, I was pointed in the right direction and managed to make it back to my home station.
At least there, the streets were quieter and I could breathe a little easier.
As always, I thought a cup of tea would make me feel a whole lot better. On the walk home, I stopped at the grocery store to get some milk.
As I stood in the dairy section, catching a chill from the refrigerators, I felt like I was three years old. I couldn’t read any of the labels. I just wanted to buy skim milk. Why was this so hard?!
I’d been so carried away with my four days of fun that the practicalities of life in Japan (like work, travel and groceries) hadn’t really occurred to me. But now, reality (in the form of coming between me and a cup of tea) was biting me on my ass.
Four hours of sleep, a full day of flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants teaching, that hideous journey home and goddamn it, I just wanted a cup of tea!
I stood there, looking at the 76 varieties of milk on offer to me, having no clue which one to get, and cried.
I had reached a new low: crying in the supermarket. As the only white girl in there, I was attracting enough attention as it was; the crying wasn’t helping. I fumbled around in my bag for a tissue while Japanese people looked at me like I was a psycho.
I grabbed whichever carton was closest to me, paid and went home.
After making the tea, I called my parents.
“I can’t even buy milk in this country!” I sobbed.
“Oh come on,” says Mama. “Stop crying over spilt milk – literally.”
I bitched about my day for a while and then Mama chimed in with her always profound words of wisdom: “Suck it up and deal with it bitch!” If I’d have been there, she would have slapped me across the face for added dramatic effect.
“Fair point Mama,” I said. Give the woman credit – she always knows the right thing to say.
In time, I sussed out the milk situation, mastered the trains and even became a mediocre teacher.
Tags: Japan, Teaching, trains
Posted in life | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
Going to Japan had been a dream of mine since my early teens, so when I was offered a job over there, I was beside myself with excitement. The build up had been huge with intense interviews and endless form filling.
The night before I left, friends dropped by the house as I finished my packing. Packing was a never ending process. The luggage allowance on Japan Airlines was miniscule, so we kept removing things and weighing the bag until all I was left with was, basically, underwear and my toothbrush.
The morning of my flight, my parents drove me to Heathrow. After check-in, it finally hit me just what I was doing. I knew saying goodbye to my parents would be hideous. I’d lived alone in other countries before, but never this far away, never this big a time difference, never not known the language. I decided not to prolong it. If I sat with my parents any longer, I’d never want to leave. I hugged my Mama and wiped her tears. As I went to hug Papa and saw his eyes well up, my heart just about broke.
I had a bad cold and having read up on Japanese culture, was aware that it was considered very rude to blow your nose in public. That made for a pretty uncomfortable 12 hour flight. Every couple of sneezes, I’d have to run to the bathroom to blow my nose. After 5 hours of that, I thought ‘screw this – I ain’t in Japan yet’ and decided to stay put whenever I had to clear mucous.
I was told that someone from the company I’d be working for would come meet me at the airport and take me to the apartment. I got off the plane and no one was there to meet me. I tried to ask someone but couldn’t find anyone who spoke English. I found this odd – shouldn’t the ability to speak a second language be a requirement to work in an airport?
Eventually, I found the person sent to meet me. She bundled me on a train into central Tokyo, where I’d be met by someone else, who’d take me on the subway to my apartment. It took over an hour to get into Tokyo and my jaw was on the floor the entire time. It was such a visual assault, the epitome of ‘bright lights, big city’.
I got to the subway station and was concerned for a second about how my guide would find me, until I realized I was the only white person on the platform and was about a foot taller than everyone else.
October in Tokyo was considerably warmer than October in London, so my multiple layers had me on the verge of passing out as we crammed into the rush hour subway train. There’s no better initiation to Tokyo life than to dive right into the sardine-tin-train-thing, but right after a 12 hour flight, it’s a little brutal.
We finally made it to my apartment and rang the doorbell. A 5’11” gorgeous blonde answered the door. This was Nads, my new roommate. We sat at the dining table and both pulled out our MacBooks. The bond was instant. We chatted as I emailed people back home to let them know I’d arrived safely. Nads had just arrived two weeks earlier, so was still high off the newness herself.
And then, after I’d been in the apartment not even half an hour, everything started to shake. Yep, my very first earthquake.
Welcome to Japan!
To be continued…
Tags: earthquakes, Japan, nads
Posted in life | 1 Comment »
Friday, January 18th, 2008
The first time I went shopping in Japan, I thought I kept wandering into the children’s department by accident. I stumbled across size 22 jeans and figured they were for teenyboppers, but apparently fully-grown women really are that small there. It’s like living amongst The Borrowers.
I’m a regular sized chick; 5’9” 140 pounds. I have these things called ‘hips’, which are apparently unheard of in Japan. Japanese women, beautiful as they are, tend to have the bodies of twelve year old boys. Luckily, I don’t have any body issues, I’m happy the way I am, but it would’ve been quite easy for me to feel obese in that nation of Twiggies.
Not being able to buy clothes there wouldn’t have bothered me so much if the clothes weren’t so damn nice. Tokyo is, by far, the most fashionable city on earth, streaks ahead of London, Paris or anywhere else that matters. Everyone there has a built in sense of style, from the Harajuku girls with their verging-on-comical costumes, to the designer divas of Ginza. Virtually every woman you see has a designer handbag; Dior, Fendi, Prada, Gucci, Louis – all so common there they’d throw their laundry in them. I never saw a badly dressed person there. I kept hoping I’d see someone break out a shell suit to throw everyone off, but it never happened.
As a ‘big girl’, shopping in Tokyo is a cruel form of torture. Occasionally, if I searched hard enough, I could find a top that could contain my swimmers shoulders, but anything for the bottom half was pretty much a no-no. I once tried on a pair of trousers in one uber-trendy Shibuya store, but I couldn’t even get one butt cheek in them. Handing them back to the assistant, she said in her broken English “Ahh, you’re too big!” with a slight smirk. I gave her a polite smile and thought about the day she’d be giving birth. Bet you wish you had my childbearing hips now don’t you, bitch?!
Another store, where I was being forced by the sales assistant to try things on, despite me trying to explain that I was too big for anything in the store, she actually resorted to getting me men’s jeans to try on. That’s not embarrassing at all. The only store where clothes fit was Zara. I wasn’t a big fan before I went to Japan, but I single handedly kept that store afloat while I was there.
What’s crazy is that as tiny as Japanese women are, they have all the same body issues as western women. I lost count of the number of women I knew on diets and various weight loss programs. When I was younger, I hated how I was taller and a bigger size than all my friends. These days, I’m happy to have hips and not just hip bones. I have an actual stomach, as opposed to a concave space between my chest and pelvis. I embrace my lovely lady humps for better or worse!
So, if you ever find yourself shopping in Tokyo, don’t lose sight of the fact that you are a normal sized person. Forget the ‘I’ll just lose a couple of pounds’ culture, love your curves and take your fat ass to Zara.
Tags: Japan, Japanese chicks, shopping
Posted in fashion | 2 Comments »