It has been 5 months and 2 weeks since we first arrived in Japan. I am now 21 weeks and 6 days pregnant. Gabe is 8 months and 4 days old. And we are 7 months from the end of Aaron's 1st year contract. Now that stats are out of the way, I'll get on with it.
What things have I learned since coming here? I've learned it's ok not to have tv to watch, a working dryer, dishwasher, or air conditioner where you want it. They sure do make life easier and more comfortable, but we've learned to adjust. We've spent the whole summer sleeping downstairs in the living room because 90 degree heat with 80 percent humidity mixed with the science of heat rising, makes for a very uncomfortable upstairs sleeping experience.
I've learned that cooking things from scratch rather than buying pre-packaged and box meals can be fun and very rewarding. If there were 2 things I would say my husband was proud of me for, it would be for the way I raise our young son and for the meals I cook for him. Surprisingly, he says he eats better here than in the states. Not that we have a vast food selection of things we love to choose from, but it takes more effort here to eat food you enjoy, especially if it's not "nihon ryoori".
I've learned that the family unit is much stronger here than even in the states I think. On days off, families do things together, something that felt like a dying art in the states. I also learned that even though the family unit is strong, marriages are not always. Romance is not something often valued here. Marital intimacy seems like a strange concept. It is not uncommon for families to co-sleep, leaving little room for intimacy between mommy and daddy. It is also very common for the husband to live in a completely different city in some little dormitory to work while mom lives at home with the children and he may come home on weekends to visit. If people thought moms in America were bored, they should see stay at home moms here. People have tried to get me in contact with other women and expect us to be the best of friends simply because they are stay at home moms with nothing to do except take their children to the local community center playroom. I feel so much sympathy for the many women here who are ignored by their husbands or have accepted a traditional lifestyle marriage and family without the emotional support of their husbands. This makes me very grateful to be married to a man who comes home everyday and does his best to support his family not only financially, but emotionally.
I've also learned that our amazonian family is not as bizarre to the Nihonjin as I was afraid we would be. Yes, we will catch people looking at us, but they immediately look away. And we will get the occasional "ooki ne!" as they motion our hugeness with a hand gesture. But people have been even more accepting here than in America where I daily received multiple comments on my height and how short people felt next to me. Surprisingly, I felt more alienated in America than here. Despite the fact that we only see another foreigner every 3-4 months or so. I would say we have been accepted into the community as just another normal citizen of Shinjo. The only difference here is people, and when I say people, I mean the older grannies who worship our blonde-haired, fair-skinned, blue-eyed baby. They are more than happy to pick up your child or grab his cheeks even not asking for permission. Nihonjin lose all inhibition when they come in contact with a white-skinned, adorable infant. The fact that I'm about a foot to two feet taller than every women here is barely noticed due to the fact that I always have this adorable infant with me. His attractiveness overrides any bizarreness on my part. I happily accept this nice change of social behavior.
Something that may not seem so nice on my part, but I have noticed a trend, is that Japanese homes have a crapload of stuff laying around! Do they ever get rid of anything? Some homes hint of hoarding and clutter. Especially in the kitchen. Why do people here have to have so many different dishes and umpteen thousand colanders. It something I still don't understand even when people have large homes and plenty of room to properly organize. I'm sure they have their reasons, I just don't understand them yet.
I really love our apartment and the way the Japanese have so many gadgets for cleaning and organizing. But something I hate with an ever-growing passion are the drain traps in every sink and shower unit. Gone are the days of simply letting whatever lands in the sink wash down the drain along with your worries and simply using draino every month or so. Here there is a trap that catches EVERYTHING and cleaning it, even daily, can be a rather disgusting ordeal. I could simply remove the trap and have back my days of letting whatever be wash down the drain. But something inside convicts me because that is not their way of life here and who am I to come with my western standards of sink drainage and insist leniency. It is for the same reason I feel obligated to shower before taking a bath, even though I could do it visa versa if I wanted to. It just isn't how they do things here. In America we also walked on our carpet in our shoes never thinking twice about it, because it was normal to do that. Now, the idea of walking around the home in my dirty outside shoes seems almost nightmarish. Thus the carpet that has made a home in our apartment that has lasted several years and several tenants, still looks almost brand new. Go figure. The same with driving on the right side of the car, instead of the left, and in the left lane instead of the right. This has become my norm.
What a strange experience it is to accept a completely different reality and lifestyle than what you've have your whole life.
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