Halloween
Japanese culture is one that is obsessed with cleanliness. This can be
seen
from the important custom of taking of one's shoes before entering a house
to the vacuum cleaners that they have designed and use and by the way that
they eat. I work with 5 Japanese women everyday and to be honest, after a
while it starts to get on your nerves. Especially when there is a certain
holier than thou attitude about the whole thing. There isn't a day that
goes
by when I am not corrected, reminded, or rebuked about my practices. In
their minds I am an uncouth, dirty foreigner who needs to be educated or
at
least restrained. For example, often after our common lunch we have
little
cups of yogurt. I am in the habit of pulling off the plastic cover and
then licking it before putting it down. I do this because it is covered
with
yogurt and in my mind it would be wasteful just to throw it away. The
first
time I did this my coworkers grimmaced in disgust. You would have thought
that I had picked my nose and eaten it. After they explained that this
was
not acceptable in Japan, I explained my reasons. While I was willing to
accept their position and I try to remember not to do that in front of
them,
they are not willing to accept my assertion that it is not so terrible to
do
this in casual company in my country. In other words their opinion of me
remains fixed. They are very closed minded about what is clean and what
is
disgusting and sometimes the rules are impossible to fathom.
Sometimes I like to play with this and test the boundaries. Many of my
students are very young, some as young as 24 months old. The other day
Suki
who just turned 2 had finished class and was waiting for her mother who
was
talking to a staff person. Since her mother had already put her shoes on
she was standing on the stone landing which is considered dirty.
"Hi Suki. How are you? Come here Suki, honey. Come here." She made a
move
as if to step on to the tatami mat when it was like an invisible hand
stopped her. She looked at me and looked at her shoes and back at me.
"Come
here Suki." She was torn, but there was no way that she was going to step
onto that mat with her shoes. The training starts very young.
The other day there were no classes and the staff was working alone
preparing materials. Keiko who is one of my harshest critics brought her
dog
into school. I scowled. "Do you like dogs Frank-san?" "No I don't like
them," I lied. They are dirty." I figure that the best defense is a good
offense. However she didn't miss a beat. "My dog isn't dirty. I give him
a
bath everyday." However this doesn't explain why the dog doesn't have to
take his shoes off before entering the house. Maybe they wipe the dogs
feet
before he comes in.
We had a Halloween party. While this is not a traditional or commonly
celebrated holiday in Japan, my school chooses to celebrate it because
they
teach English and because it is fun. They decided to be lenient and allow
people to wear shoes in the house, since shoes are often part of the
costume. In order not to violate the clean/dirty rule they went to a
paint
shop and bought enough floor covering to cover the all the floors of the
house. Needless to say this took hours to tack into place and it was
expensive. In addition all of the things that were usually used for the
school had to be put away to make room for the party. This meant that we
worked hours and hours putting away books, computers, tables, etc.After
the
house was made ready for the party, we went to a fancy restaurant for
dinner. It was then that I began to suspect for the first time that they
had come up with a policy for me. One of the women was to watch me at all
times and make sure that I did nothing to embarass them. It was "the
Frank
Watch".While I have no proof that this is so , I believe it to be the
case.
On this particular day it was Keiko who sat across from me and always
seemed
to be watching me. When I started to mix the grilled fish and vegetables
with my bowl of white rice she sang out, "No Frank . Don't do that." I
almost dropped my bowl. All of the other staff turned to look, not to
mention many people in the restaurant. This was a new one to me. I
looked
at the other people in the restaurant and sure enough no one else was
mixing. I shrugged me shoulders and smiled sheepishly. After I finished
my
main course and soup I started to put my soup bowl on my plate to make it
easier for the waiter to carry off. "FRANK". Everyone turned to see what
I
was doing now. "That is dirty. NO" I felt like crawling under the table
but
managed an embarrassed shrug. They were going to wash the damn dishes
anyway weren't they? Or do they only wash one side of plates in Japan.
And
did she have to say it so loud? Was I paranoid or were they enjoying this
just a bit. After the meal we talked for a while. I mostly listened and
tried to pick up words that I knew in Japanese. For the most part I
couldn't understand anything except my name. It was like that cartoon that
shows a human talking to a dog and the dog understands blah , blah,
blah,Rover, blah,blah blah etc. Except for me it was blah ,blah, blah,
Frank-san blah,blah etc.. Was I paranoid or were they talking about me a
lot? The party went off great . We were assigned to meet early the next
morning at 10 to put the school back in shape.I arrived early at 9 because
I
wanted to leave early. The first thing I noticed was all the half -drunken
bottles of beer and apple juice that were all over the floor. As I started
to pick them up an idea descended upon me. I was still a little miffed
about the night before at the restaurant. It seemed a shame to waste all
that good apple juice. Apple juice is expensive in Japan. Before throwing
away all the bottles of apple juice, I emptied them into a big pot and
heated them. By the time everyone arrived at 10 I had made some real
progress in cleaning up the place. It took a long time to put the house
back in order . This was partly because they insisted that the plastic
floor covering had to be washed and vaccuumed before it was put away. It
was only floor covering! But that's the way they do things here. When
they
were cleaning up for the party I actually saw Keiko vacuuming the portable
CD player. I wish I had had my camera ready. After about 3 hours of work,
I
walked to the kitchen and scooped out a laddleful of hot apple juice. I
carried it over to Keiko. "In my country , a part of the Halloween
tradition is drinking hot apple cider. Would you like to try some?" I
said
in my most pleasant voice. She had never heard about this part of the
Halloween tradition. They were all very interested in learning as much as
possible about American culture. She bowed slightly and thanked me .
"However you should give this to the highest ranking member of the group
first." And before I could stop her she carried the cup of slighly used
apple juice to Hiroko, the owner. Hiroko was also very pleased to hear
about this aspect of American tradition. She called everyone's attention.
"Let's all take a break. Frank has something to teach us." Before I knew
it
everyone was sitting very formally in circle with a beautiful cup before
each person. Keiko poured the cider into each cup while I explained the
importance of hot apple cider to the Halloween tradition. They solemly
took
up their cups and noisily sipped. Then they grunted approval and talked
about how delicious it was. They were very pleased to be experiencing a
part of the real Halloween. These foreigners were good to have around
after
all. I thought about telling them about the origin of their apple juice
but
I could think of no good way of doing that. So I just smiled as they drank
it up. They smiled back and the group felt very cosy. I wonder what they
would have done if they'd known.. Maybe rushed to the hospital to get
their
stomachs pumped. But in reality no harm was done and I felt a little
better.
Happy Halloween everyone!