Ryan Cecil Smith

This blog entry tells you all you need to know about working conditions in Japan. It expresses very well the mindset that creates the work culture, both the good points and bad points. The writer seems to prefer the Western way, but she is Japanese and explains the situation well.

Do you know why we don’t have long holidays as European or American people? Taking a long holiday makes colleagues work even harder, which results in only 4 or 5 days holiday will be average, 1 week holiday is the lucky thing. If one says she wants 2-week holiday, she would have to feel very nervous against her boss, who of course may not say OK for her taking such a long holiday, and she has to feel so sorry against her colleagues who would think “I have to work extra 2 hours everyday overtime, because of her!”. By the time she leaves, she would try not to leave her work too much to her colleagues, and so she will stay longer hours to try to finish her work as much as possible. On the previous day of her holidays, she would say “I’m sorry to bother you and make you busy with my extra work.” to her colleagues. Even while she is off for holidays, she is busy thinking of souvenir for obligation which will make up for the inconvenience she made her boss and colleagues bare while she was off. When she finally returns to the office, she says “Thank you for helping my work” to each colleague of her department and then gives souvenir one by one. In this way she feels “not guilty” any more. But she would also think, “Going thru all these things, do I still want to take a 2-week holiday? No, I’d rather not!”

A big problem in Japan is that the culture is so resistant to change. I think a lot of people in Japan feel the same way as this woman does, but there’s not a cultural space for people to stand up and say, “hey, me too, let’s change this!” Instead, everyone is nervous to speak up and admit this, and even if they did, they would expect raised eyes, sarcastic remarks, disappointment, or even social exclusion if it was brought up. And everyone would feel like that’s the right way to respond.

Today I was on my bicycle for sooo long…

I have an ookuwagata. It was given to my by a teacher who likes to breed them and has given them as presents to teachers before. I was so very honored. I was excited to have him… but… I basically have been a very bad caretaker. I am embarrassed to go into details but I’ll say that I didn’t feed him enough, didn’t clean his cage properly, and most days I never even thought about him, because I kept him under my sink. You have to keep them in a cool, dark place, you see. But not only was he left beneath the sink in kitchen – he was left beneath the sink in my heart. I felt ashamed of my bad caretaking so I finally did something about it.

I found out where to buy supplies for him. I got him a new and bigger cage, newer and better food, a nice food tray, a branch to play on, and when I got home I moved him into the eye-level shelf in my closet, so I can always open the door and say hello to him easily.

I did this today. Ookuwagata are supposed to be resilient, so if he lived through my bad care then (this was basically two months I think?) and can survive the transition into a new place, and if I remain a good pet owner, we should live happily ever after.

We like to eat at Tip Siam, a very “genuine”-feeling, small Thai restaurant in Umeda. We’re boring and always order simple dishes like Pad Thai, but they have a wide menu with appetizers and desserts. Singha beer and Thai wine, of course.

It’s easy to get to. It’s a couple blocks behind Hep 5, but it’s on a kind of grungy street with lots of girl bars. That just makes it an interesting trip, right? Here is a map with some more info.

I am having a lot of fun guest-blogging at Sean T. Collins’s All Too Flat Attention Deficit Disorderly (say that five times fast).

If you happen to look at this blog, and you don’t usually look at Sean’s blog, click that link now and go look at it! I am posting a lot, even though I, like, never post here lately! Sorry!

What is wrong with that? Listen, I just wanna say I am on the side of freedom on this one, and that the haters are so mean and dumb.

I haven’t been posting on here much lately, so a brief update: it is the summer, and it is obon season, so i have a lot of free time. I went to the States several weeks ago with Sayaka, and was so embarrassed that I couldn’t say I had really learned Japanese yet, so have been studying more. It was also very refreshing and inspiring to see what all of my friends have been up. It was motivating. I did so much shopping in America, and I can say for sure now that Japan is too expensive! I wasn’t totally sure before, because my memory wasn’t so good, but now I know. I bought some really high quality shoes and shirts and fancy clothes in the States, that are prohibitively expensive (for me) here. So that was nice.

Today I had a kind of bad experience at the Post Office, one of those stupid things where I imagine myself the victim of my being foreign, or something stupid like that. The Post Office usually leaves very clear instructions with a little English at my door when they can’t deliver a package. Sometimes though, I instead get a tiny piece of paper with very little written and no phone number, but with someone’s (the delivery man’s) stamp on it. I am baffled by this receipt, if it is a receipt. I went to the Post Office but I left the receipt at home. Stupid me. I was frustrated and couldn’t find the words to say to the person at the counter and gestured like a moron and spoke no real Japanese. What a jerk I was, and I regret my poor behavior. What should I have said?

水曜日、yubinkyoku..min? 家にきました．．. 小さい紙, uh, ありました.私がいませんでした。。。あの、ごめんなさい uh… Kodzuzumi があります？

Or something retarded like that. You see, I really do not know Japanese very well, but it always helps to at least make an effort.

Thats my mea culpa (or should I say… Uh… Wait lemme check the dictionary… 謝罪?) for the day.

Tonight I’m going to see Inception with Sayaka.

Kobe, Nishinomiya, Ashiya fireworks and more. I hope the link works next year, since most of them are finished already

I have been meaning to do this since… last summer? I finally did it. I made southern-style sweet tea in the staffroom. I would like to share it with my students who are practicing outside in the summer heat, but for now I’ll test it with the teachers inside.

I used Lipton Yellow Label tea, and sugar. I boiled 3 liters of water, then added 5 tea bags and a little over 1 cup of sugar. I let it brew for 25 minutes, then poured it into a pitcher and let it sit… over the weekend! Is that a bad idea? It was Friday. Now it’s Monday and I have sweet tea.

It’s pretty good, but it’s not as good as mom’s. I really taste the black tea strongly. It’s sweet enough, but the sweet is overpowered by the tea taste. So, should I use less tea? Brew it for less time? I think it could use more sugar, but I don’t want to mess with that now since I think it’s okay. I’ll get started on a new pitcher once I share the tea with some other teachers.

By the way, I’m a little scared that no one will like the sweet tea! But, I think they will be polite about it, anyway.

One guy named Bill suggested:

1. Fat kids
2. Comics based on sitcoms
3. Dramatic hot rod stories
4. Funny hot-rodding characters
5. Comics with the word “Pal” in the title