The 7 Things I Hate About You (Japan)

/Intiate copout routine alpha gamma sigma.
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I figure I've only got a few days left here, so what isn't spent saying tearful goodbyes is spent packing and preparing to leave. When I do manage to travel I'll blog about that, but mostly it's just filler blog.

So here's a list of seven things that I just never managed to get over in my stay in Japan.

1. The ATMs close - This should be self explanatory, but I'll emphasize. The ATM's for the most part are only open from 8/10 am-6pm, depending on the company running it. On a busy day, or a day where you're just being too lazy, this can ensure that you never reach it in time. It also creates that dead period in the evening where there is no way to get money if you spend more than you intended, and it will leave you running around bored out of your mind unless your friends are generous enough to loan you some cash. This has happened enough times to be a severe irritant, and I think when I come home I'm only going to withdraw money at 1am for a whole month just to feel alive. Or something.

2. Walking - This is not in the sense that you need to walk anywhere. I don't mind that, and bicycles, trains, and buses are also an option so you don't need to walk everywhere if you don't feel like it. It's the fact that people here seem to have no sense of spatial awareness when they're navigating on foot. Cell phones are the most important aspect of the life of a Japanese teen, and they'll stand around blocking passageways as they send e-mails, take photos, or attach a string to it and pretend it's a yoyo. Anything to not move out of the way. There also seems to be no code of conduct for walking around. If you don't move out of the way people will actually just walk right into you and then give you a shocked look, instead of moving themselves. Then on the complete flipside of the coin they'll get upset waiting for you to cross their path and motion angrily as they stand in place. I've seen Japanese students push other students out of their path as they walk (especially guys pushing girls) and it's not a one time occurence. There is also the fact that the flow of traffic is different regionally all over Japan. In Tokyo it's on the left, but in the Kansai region it's on the right, and it switches wherever you go. So Japan being as small as it is, that ensures that there are tons of people from all over Japan all in the same places frequently, which obfuscates the flow of traffic wherever you are. Hurrah!

3. Irashaimase! - The politeness. UGH. This might just be a personal thing, but I cannot stand how "polite" everyone here is. It's a superficial business polite but it's everyone. Classmates are polite, teachers are polite, store and construction workers are polite, it's aggravating. It's almots a hivemind. People will shout "irashaimase!" (welcome) in unison the second you walk into a store, and every time you pass them. Clerks will apologize repeatedly for taking too long with whatever they're doing for you, despite the fact that this makes it take longer, or even if it didn't take long. It's such a cold, rote, etiquette that it gets under my skin. I've been telling people that I can't wait to get back to Buffalo where people will be rude to me.

4. Beauracracy - You know how you hate going to the DMV, because it takes forever, and by the time you get to the end of the line you find out that you filled out the forms wrong, and/or in the wrong order, and instead of just letting you correct it you need to start all over again? Well all of Japan is like that. For example, it took me four hours when I needed to get a cell phone. This involved them copying down my bank number, me paying for it, and them activating it. Which took four hours.

5. Amazing Gaijin Prowess! - Every time you do something that Japanese and/or other East Asian people do in their everyday lives, it absolutely floors them. You can use chopsticks? HOLY SHIT you must be some sort of gifted super child. You know how to say thank you in Japanese? The miracles never cease! Basically anything that you could learn from eating Asian food in America they wouldn't expect you to be capable of for some reason.

6. Oshare or death! - Fashion is the lifeblood of young Japanese people. The majority of them would rather be dead than not look good. This includes the men, or what would be men if there were any of them left in Japan. The day I saw a Japanese guy in a public restroom with a fold-out make-up and hair studio that he pulled from his studded leather man purse is the day I realized Japanese masculinity is an endangered concept. One of my friends was riding his motorbike to school in a sleeveless shirt, a light, open jacket, jean, and shoes with no socks in the middle of winter. I asked him why he didn't dress warmer cause he looked like he was freezing his balls off, and his response was that he wouldn't look cool then. GAH.

7. Japanese School - You've probably heard of cram schools. A school after school for those that want to excel. They have those in Japan, and it's a frequent occurence to attend them, probably to compensate for the lack of education in regular school. The fact that so many kids attend them just to pass their normal classes means either the standards are too high, or the teachers aren't teaching properly, and from my time here I can tell you it's definitely not the standards. Pretty much anything taught in class is done so directly from the textbook with no outside thought. Things are not explained in depth and sometimes they aren't explained at all. There is an emphasis on groupwork because Japan is a society based on the concept of teamwork. Unfortunately, the emphasis toward that prevents any actual learning progress from taking place in the classroom, so what you should have learned in class instead needs to be studied by yourself on your own time. But who would want to study more after you've already been in class for 6 hours and didn't learn anything, or in the case of cram school students that have been in class for 10 hours, now with double the homework load, in addition to studying what should have been covered in class. Pretty well off, isn't it?

And that's all she wrote. Tomorrow we'll see if I can scrounge up 7 things I liked.
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