Things That Amaze Me

Some things in this world don't make sense. Back in America, I wonder why my taxes are so confusing. Or, why I can't buy the same number of hot dogs as buns when I go to the store. Or, why people ever liked Zima, let alone Zima Gold. Well, Japan has no shortage of it's own quirks. Some things are funny and some things are just frustrating. Here is my first list of "Things That Amaze Me":

- The Japanese have gone gonzo about recycling. I'm all for recycling, and please don't think I'm complaining. It's just that they've become garbage Nazis. I have 4 different trash cans (well one right now, but I have to buy 3 more). Each one takes a different color trash bag. Orange is for Burnables. Blue is for Non-Burnables. Green is for Cans and Glass. I forget what white is for. Everything that gets recycled must be washed first. I have to write my name on each bag in Katakana. If I haven't separated my trash correctly, it gets returned to me with a nasty-gram asking me to correct the problem. That means that someone is going through my trash!!! But, it doesn't stop there. I still have to take my plastic bags, plastic bottles (after I remove the wrappers and caps), and styrofoam, up to the grocery store and put them in the appropriate containers. I'm not allowed to put those items in the bags at the house. Ridiculous. Amazing, but ridiculous.

- Japan is full of contradictions. We are the most wired country in the world, but it took me 3 weeks to get my cable Internet turned on. First, they had to turn OFF the cable from my predecessor - they couldn't just transfer the line. Then, I had to wait 10 days for them to install the modem. The guy who installed the modem couldn't configure it. He just drops off the equipment. Then, I had to wait 3 more weeks for them to send me the paperwork that tells me how to set everything up. Amazing.

- Saving electricity has gone bonkers. The Japanese don't want to waste energy, so they don't typically use central heating, or "whole house" heaters, like baseboard heat or radiators. They have other devices, like kerosene heaters, electric radiators, mattress pad warmers, electric blankets, hot carpets that plug into the wall, and special tables called kotatsu that have heating elements underneath and a big blanket to keep your legs warm. Now, you are probably saying to yourself right now that it must be more energy to maintain all of these devices than to just heat your house - and you would be right! It doesn't make much sense. But, the Japanese way is to build houses that will last 20 or 30 years, so they don't put a lot of insulation in the house. Now, building a house like this would certainly make the house more expensive and energy inefficient, so they don't put in central heating units. But, if they just built a decent house, they wouldn't have such high energy bills and wouldn't need heating accoutrement out the wazoo. Plus, every year, dozens of people die from kerosene fumes in THEIR OWN HOUSES because they don't open a window when they are heating the place. Also, everything in Japan is made of paper and will flame up at the very slightest provocation. Why doesn't it dawn on anyone that they need to reconsider the whole "modern home" thing. It's amazing!

- Japanese students are supposed to be some of the most studious children in the world. There is an amazing amount of pressure on them to perform. They come to school at 7:30 AM and have class continuously until 4 PM. Then, they go right into club activity which runs until 7 PM or later. After that, they can go home, eat dinner, and see their family. Then, sometime after that, they are expected to do homework for their 15 different subjects that they have. Most don't do it. No wonder, since they have to come to school on Saturdays as well (year round). On Saturdays, they only have club activity since the law was changed a few years back, but it's all day long! Amazing.

- And, as far as club activity goes, they spend amazing amounts of time doing the activity. In my school, they play baseball if they are boys, volleyball if they are girls, or brass band if they aren't athletically inclined. The most amazing part of it, is that they don't actually play games or practice as a whole band. Well, they do sometimes, but most of the time, they just drill. The boys will practice throwing the ball to each other for hours at a time, days in row, weeks on end, before they actually play a game. This is Junior High, too. The younger students don't even get to play in the games until they have been on the team for a couple of years. I heard about a Tennis club at a nearby school where the kids don't even hit a ball for the first 2 or 3 years of practice. They just swing the racket around in the air until they "get the hang of it". Just plain amazing.

- The ATMs have "hours of operation". This isn't because they are inside the bank - they aren't. It's just customary for the bank to turn off its ATM at some point. Of course, my town is small, so the ATM is closed after 5PM and until 9AM in the morning. So, in the evening, I have to rush to the bank to get money if I need it. Now, you must be saying to yourself that surely it isn't that important because you can use a credit card at the grocery store or the gas station. You would be wrong. You can't use an ATM card, credit card, check (which they don't even have in Japan), or any other form of payment at the grocery store, gas station, or anywhere else. Amazing. But, what's even more amazing, and quite necessary, is that the ATM has a $10,000 daily limit! Friggin' amazing!!!

- Have you heard about the one where you have to separate your food garbage after lunch at school? No? Let me tell you. After lunch, when there are some fish bones on one plate, some inedible chewy seafood on another plate, and a quite unsavory pile of fermented soybean goo on the last, you can't just throw them out together. You have to put each food item's waste back in the container from whence it came. Now, I've watched the people that pick up the food containers after lunch, and they just put it all together and throw it out in the same place - the same place where all of the other trash goes, which ultimately ends up at the incinerator. We have a special bag for milk straws and straw wrappers. Then, the milk cartons have to be rinsed twice in water and gingerly taken apart at the seams so that it spreads flat like it was before it was a carton. These get stacked in a special bin. In all fairness, they might actually recycle the milk cartons, I don't know. But, everything else goes to the same incinerator. So, why do we have to go through this crazy procedure after eating lunch? Only the person who would fill the mysteriously absent lunch lady position knows. Amazing.

Well, that's it for now. I'll post some more amazing things another day. It's been a long time since I wrote anything, and it's probably because I've gotten depressed lately and wonder what I've gotten myself into. But, this winter will be a true test of my cold-weather endurance. And, it will also be a thorough test of my patience for silliness. Who knows. Maybe, I'll find that I'm just as silly as things are in Japan. Or, I'll discover that when I come home, there are an even greater number of silly things in America and write about how UN-amazing things are here.

Have a wonderful day/night and I hope to hear from any and all of you this season.

Maikeru
^_^