How To Break a Canadian Man

It's 2017. I was just about in the best shape of my life, the day we headed for the airport. I work out. I have a physical "job," helping a friend renovate his house. (I had recently declared myself retired...never worked harder, or longer, or for less in my life.)

It's about 24 hours of travel from our home in Victoria, BC, Canada to our destination in Osaka, Japan. By the time we land in Osaka, my family (Noah 12, Hana 10, Junko stuck at "40-ish") looks ready for bed—hospital beds. 

The bruised bags under my wife's eyes are so large that they count as carry-on. She's smiling, but fifteen years into this marriage I know better than to ask how she's doing. Both of the kids  look like limp zombie noodles and are dragging their backpacks along the ground. Noah feels sick. He's so prone to motion sickness that I'm afraid to mention that the earth spins. Last trip, he threw up once each hour, then one final time on the doorstep of the hotel. This time, he managed to hold out until the wheels touched ground and bounced his lunch into a paper bag. All three of them look like prisoners of war who've gone three rounds with Mike Tyson.

I'm tired but not overly so, and feel justifiably proud of how well I've endured, but not too cocky. My wife is 12 years younger than me. By tomorrow morning she and the kids will have bounced back, ready for another round. I am the liability. I'm nearing sixty and even though I take care of myself so that I don't often get sick or injured, when I do, I don't bounce back so much as crawl.

The first eight days continue to go well for me. We are touring...walking a lot, every day. The kids get bored, tired and sore. Both of my wife's feet are covered in blisters, effectively crippling her by the end. But I am completely fine.

Then we move from a hotel to her family's home—from fast food to home cooking, from noisy Osaka streets to quiet rural lanes but, most significantly for me, from plush, foamy comfortable beds, to thin futons on hard tatami mats.

This is not my first trip to Japan and, when I was younger, I was surprised at how comfortable the futons were and wondered why we, in the West, choose to complicate the simple matter of lying down to the point of needing bed frames, boxsprings, sprung mattresses with foam toppers, and headboards.

That was then.

Now...

I awake from that first fitful night's sleep achy and hobbled, like a 90-year-old man. I have to spend ten minutes stretching under the covers to limber up in preparation for rising from the futon.

Overnight, the temperature has spiked from a tolerable 27ºC (81ºF) to over 30ºC (86ºF). And those last 3 degrees must be the hottest ones because suddenly my pores erupt like geysers. I take a cold shower which offers about ten minutes of relief before the sun kicks into high gear. By 9am, it's sweltering and so am I.

It's hotter inside the house than out, so I find a place in the shade and sit on a nice soft rock and read a book. From time to time I strut about with my arms stretched wide like the saviour I am not, in order to air my armpits. That night, I dream of snow cones and penguins.

Over the next few days, my body adjusts somewhat and I no longer find the futon uncomfortably hard. It's probably because I am now uncomfortably hot. Sleep rises to just below oxygen on my list of health priorities. Deny me a good night's rest and my condition collapses like a pyramid of cards. I am now the only one of us with bags under the eyes.

Three days later, the mercury plummets and it begins to rain. Like most Japanese houses, this one has no central heat. Ever practical, the Japanese prefer to heat their bodies, instead of the entire house. For this purpose, the living room has a table set into a sunken area under which is a nice warm space heater. From the edges of the table hangs a thick blanket (kotatsu) to retain the heat. Regular trips to this area become routine, topping up our heat reserves, like Roombas charging their batteries.

The two warmest places in the house are the kotasu and the heated toilet seat. But now I'm wearing long underwear, and sitting on the toilet is a comfort trade off.

Such cold weather so early in the year is unusual and so we are not truly prepared. We all have only one long-sleeved shirt and one pair of long pants which, as luck would have it, had just been washed the night before we woke up to rain. They are now hanging in our unheated bedroom, insulated from the outside cold and humidity by walls of paper, as are we.

Machine dryers are not common in Japan. Japanese houses are more cramped for space than American houses and, in the past, this was the main reason. But, these days, the dryer can be stacked or even built into the washer itself. Yet they are still not popular. Several years ago, a large Japanese manufacturer made a marketing push to sell clothes dryers. The push failed and now, it's even hard to find one in a store. I'm not entirely certain why, but I'd guess that it has something to do with the Japanese work ethic. No Japanese housewife wants to be accused of laziness, and one of the most visible signs that she's hardworking is loads of laundry out on the line, each day. If the lines stay clear, then the neighbours would know that she had a labour-saving device. Tongues might wag. Strengthening my case is the fact that where clothes dryers failed, dishwashers are selling well. A neighbour might see that you have one, but can't know whether or not you use it. 

As a practical matter, however, it would be a great benefit to be able to dry clothes during the rainy months of the year. Japanese houses aren't spacious to begin with, let alone when festooned with wet laundry. As well, I don't appreciate having my saggy underwear on display. Nor do I appreciate seeing my father-in-law's.

Until the weather turns, our attire will be the same indoors as out. Beneath my windbreaker, I am wearing three t-shirts and three pairs of socks. Additionally, my wife is bundled in an old down jacket of hers that she found in the storage room.

Two days after this, the sun comes out to play. We're all in our pyjamas for a morning, waiting for our clothes to dry on the line. By noon, we are fully and appropriately clothed for the first time in a week.

I'm still stiff and sore and so decide to take a nice long walk which, along with sleep, has always been a secret weapon to cure all that ails me. The added benefit of a walk is that none of my family members are interested in coming with me. It's a glorious three hours of quiet back-road exploration. I return home feeling renewed.

That night, all the muscles which I thought would be limber and relaxed start tightening. I am unable to find a comfortable sleeping position. After a couple of hours of tossing and turning and cursing the tiny wheat-filled pillow, my entire back seizes up. I decide it might be easier to sleep sitting up and wander the house looking for a comfy chair. 

Japan laughs.

This is a typical Japanese house. The only chairs are the stiff wooden ones at the dining room table. Other than that, I have my pick of places to sit on the floor. Sitting cross-legged on a floor, I have found, is not something you can adapt to in just a few weeks. It requires the lengthening of crotch tendons, strengthening of ancillary back muscles and, I theorize, you also have to somehow raise your blood pressure enough for blood to blast its way through between your own fat and a hard floor, and around the tight corners created at your joints when performing human origami. Typically, I sit at a Japanese table the way clothes tumble in dryers...constantly reconfiguring to take the strain off of muscles I never knew I had, and to let blood reenter my butt cheeks.

I slide my body under the kotastu. At least I'm in a sitting position without having to fold my legs and I'm warm. The room is small, so the walls are not far away. I could keep my legs under the blanket for warmth and slump against the closest wall. But it's a sliding wall/door, and largely made of paper. It rattles in its tracks like a tambourine, and if I put any real weight on it I'll likely fall right through. There are puffy seat cushions strewn about the room. I grab one and put it on the table as a pillow.

The last time I look at the wall clock it is 5:00am and miraculously, mercifully, after that somehow I fall asleep. I drift off wondering how many people have farted into that pillow.

There are currently nine of us crammed into this 1500 square foot abode and two of them are my nephews; young,  single men with active social lives. Two others are farmers who rise so early that they annoy roosters. Each day, quiet lasts only a few hours. The rest of the time the household creaks, bangs, and rattles with movement. I am awoken at 6:30am by the explosion of morning activity as everyone gets ready for school or work. They're all headed to the breakfast table. The nephews have snapped photos of me asleep in a puddle of my own drool to show their friends.

I try to lift my body from under the living room table and discover that beyond the cluster of aches and pains I went to sleep with, the heels of my feet are deeply bruised from the long walk. I grit my teeth and hobble to the bathroom.

The most positive thought I can generate is that there are few body parts left to fail.

I haven't had butter, cheese, or Tim Horton's in five weeks.

I am a broken Canadian man.

A Marriage Made In Japan

     My wife is Japanese. She is clever and can be sweet and funny. She is beautiful and has a cute accent. Her name is Junko. (June•koh) 

     Sadly, that’s about all I knew, going in. 

     I had been married once before—too young, but for fourteen years—so I thought I knew a lot about women. Clearly, I was deluded.

     And, I knew absolutely nothing about Japan. In fact, when she first mentioned that her father owned a farm and lived far from any big city I wondered, but was smart enough not to ask, if he used an Ox to plough his fields. His house, I imagined, might be a flimsy construct of paper and bamboo, perhaps with a roof thatched from palm fronds. Maybe her brother was a ninja; their neighbour a geisha. There would be sushi.

     I’m sure that more ignorant people have blundered into marriage, but we’re not here to talk about my father.

     Sometimes, our differences make life extra fun. Sometimes, not so much. Often, we are both on the same page but, sometimes, it seems like we’re not even reading the same book. Also, the library’s on fire. 

     I keep a list of words that Junko has trouble saying: Rural, juror, refractions, reflection... And, for a while, I insisted we name our first-born Lilith, just because she couldn’t pronounce it, and it would be fun watching her friends and family try. Junko vetoed this idea. The fact that our first-born was a boy may have also been a factor. 

     On balance, Junko has an entire dictionary filled with words that I can’t pronounce. For instance, doitachimashite (you’re welcome), atatakakata (it was hot), ikitakunakata (I didn’t want to go). 

She does all the grocery shopping and, as a result, the inside of our fridge is a montage of cheap horror flicks with all the claws, scales and tentacles. It’s a scary place where fish still have heads on them, as if they were once alive! 

     And then there’s the Natto; a stinky, gooey paste made from fermented soybeans. Like Haggis in Scotland, Vegemite in Australia, Millennium Eggs in China and Spam in America, it’s that gastronomic bridge that only the rare outsider can cross, and the reason I always offer my wife a Tic Tac before a kiss.

     To Junko, this is comfort food. Her comfort food makes me uncomfortable. As does seeing her lips ringed with pitch-black squid ink after pecking at the meal that she’s preparing. She’s certainly broadened my gastronomic horizons but, ten years in, I’m still not sure if she’s a good cook. 

     Food issues aside, Junko and I are very comfortable in our married life and I sometimes find it strange to think that only three years before, I was dating a blond, blue-eyed Caucasian.

 

     How did I end up here from there?

     Well, it all started, of course, with the blond and I going our separate ways.

     We’d broken up and gotten back together so many times over the previous five years that I guess she felt this time, she had best pack up her horse and other worldly possessions and leave the country in order to make it stick. 

     She moved to Oregon.

     It stuck.

     At about this same time, Junko was back in Japan. She had been in Canada but had been forced to return when her visa expired. She was resigned to remain there, to marry by arrangement of her family and to spend the rest of her life as a traditional Japanese wife and mother, comforted by fond memories of her adventurous, globe-trotting youth. Her parents had endured four years of her wanderlust, but now forbid her to prolong this unproductive indulgence.

     Junko was not happy. She was conflicted by duty and desire and a friend recommended she consult a psychic. It was not something she would ever normally do, but her friend persisted, and in her anguish, Junko agreed. The fortune-teller proclaimed that she absolutely must return to Canada. Junko was startled. The fortune-teller’s advice mirrored Junko’s desires but flew in the face of all she had been taught about being a good Japanese daughter and citizen. 

     The friend was also startled. In all the years she had been consulting the psychic, she had never been told anything so emphatically, nor had she ever been given a personal card, a token of good fortune—and, incidentally, a reminder to bless your fortune teller with a financial gift, once your good fortune has come true. It is interesting to note that, to this day, Junko has never revisited the fortuneteller with a gift. Either she feels she was shortchanged by marrying me, or that the very fact that she never gifted her proves that the fortune teller was not good enough at predicting the future to deserve it.

     Junko packed some bags and stowed them at a friend’s house. A few days later, in the darkness of early morning, before her father rose to tend his fields of green onion, Junko snuck away, and boarded a train headed for Tokyo airport.

     She was halfway to Canada before her family knew that she was missing. When she landed in Vancouver, the immigration officer stamped her passport granting her one more year of visiting privileges.

     Meanwhile, I was suddenly, truly single again and I promised myself at least one entire year of a wild and crazy, commitment-free, bachelor life.

     It was because of this personal vow that we never dated, before marriage.

 

     Junko had arrived at the periphery of my life a few years before. She had a working holiday visa and started a small business wholesaling fresh sushi to the catering company that is our family business. She quickly made many friends—a lot of them members of my family—and we often bumped into each other at social gatherings. I was barely aware that she had ever left Canada, when I saw her again.

     Junko was sweet and demure, and I had always been attracted to her but was reluctant to ask her out because I instinctively knew that she was the “marrying kind” and I was committed to not being committed. On the other hand, I reasoned, her visitor’s visa would expire in a few months and she’d be forced to leave. She seemed no threat to my pledge of singlehood so, Junko and I started spending more time together. 

     Whenever we went somewhere, we asked for separate bills, and I often reminded her “just so you know, this is not a date, right?” And she agreed. I’m not sure why. Perhaps she wanted nothing more than a fling before returning home forever. Now that I know her better, I’m more inclined to believe that she was being very, very devious.

     In December of 2001, her visa expired, and Junko prepared to fly back home for the very last time. “We” would surely have ended there but for a series of last-minute coincidences. 

 

     It was Christmas time, and she was going back to Japan, via Hawaii, for one last week of exotic vacation before settling back into rural Japanese life. My family was headed to Hawaii for my brother’s wedding and our accommodation included one extra bed. My family all knew and liked Junko so, without asking me, they invited her along. It shouldn’t be a conflict for me, they reasoned, as we hadn’t been “dating.” She would just be one more friend in the wedding party.

     Coincidentally, my bachelor year ended at Christmas. We finally dated—for five days. We fought for three of them. What I thought would be our last fight, turned out to be our first.

     Our entire group was scheduled to depart the same day; my brother and his new wife for another week of honeymooning on another Hawaiian island, Junko for Japan, and the rest of us back home to Canada. For convenience’s sake, we spent our last night in a hotel near the airport, sharing a room with others, and whispering our goodbyes to each other in the dark.

     When it came time for us to part at the airport, I felt sad and empty, like something very important was getting away but I couldn’t commit to her based on our short history so, I waved goodbye.

Junko did the same but showed no emotion. From this, I could deduce only that she didn’t care or that she did care but was Japanese.

 

     I had promised to call her, so I did. 

     We were in the early stages of a blossoming relationship, but without the dating history to justify it. Strange territory. Stranger still, for Junko. She was over twenty-five years old and unmarried. In Japan, to many, she was an “old maid.” Some Japanese refer to them as “Christmas cake;” something that everyone wants before the twenty-fifth but is difficult to give away on the twenty-sixth. 

     Her relatives were anxious to arrange a marriage for her. Her aunt’s friend’s son had seen Junko’s picture and invited her to a marriage meeting at her earliest convenience. He was young, handsome and well-off. The family was excited and relieved. 

     A marriage meeting is not binding but it is a commitment, and the first step in a process aimed at fast-tracking a courtship and wedding.

     Junko was depressed. She could not tell anyone that her hopes, her heart, lay with a noncommittal Hakujin (Caucasian) man she had only “officially” dated for less than a week. She lived with her parents, did her chores, looked for a job, and avoided the marriage meeting, searching for some way forward that did not include marrying for expediency, rather than love. 

     Our phone conversations were not joy-filled. Junko tried, but couldn’t get a job. At the time, Japan's work culture and hiring laws were very different from Canada’s. She is well educated and when she was younger, had easily found good, high-paying jobs. But now, prospective employers skimmed her resume and asked only, “Why, are you not married? Why, don’t you have children?” 

     In Japan, it is commonly believed that by the age of thirty, a woman should be married and at home raising children and making a good home for her husband, not out getting a job. More than just a cultural issue, it’s also good business practice: Younger girls cost less than older, experienced workers. She watched as interviewer after interviewer took her resume, drew a bold red circle around her age, then pointedly placed it atop the red-circle pile, obviously destined for the trash. 

     Each day, the pressure from her concerned family mounted. Junko stayed silent, confiding only to one special aunt. She put on a brave face, tried to keep her situation from influencing me when we talked on the phone, all the while hoping that I would travel to Japan, meet her family, sweep her away to Canada; marry her.

     In May, I went to Japan.

 

     After fifteen hours of travel, I was tired and looking forward to freshening up. Junko promised that I would love her family’s bath and filled me with visions of a long, hot, spa-like soak. One of the many ways in which Japanese bathrooms are different from Western ones is the bathtub. Japanese tubs are luxurious—short but shoulder-deep, the water temperature automatically maintained. They are made for lounging and relaxing. Showers are for washing. 

     But my soap-bubble dream quickly burst. The Japanese bath is for relaxing after you’ve showered clean and so, families share the tub water. Traditionally, the father goes first, followed by the eldest son, youngest son, mother, eldest daughter and so on. The father may allow honoured guests to bathe first. The lowest-ranking person goes last. As a foreign stranger intent on stealing away his only daughter, I would probably rank lower than the family dog. I opted for a quick shower.

     My room couldn’t have been any more authentically Japanese; paper walls, tatami mats underfoot, a futon as a bed. In the morning, I was awakened by the giggles of children. Two diminutive silhouettes slipped along the paper walls of the hallway, then dark eyes peered in through rips in the paper. It was Junko’s nephews; Kazuki (9 years old) and Hiroki, (7). When I sat up in bed, their eyes became saucers. They had never seen a Caucasian in the flesh, and they had never imagined them to be so hairy. Hiroki asked his mother if he could take me to school for show and tell. She said no.

     Junko is not an early riser and none of her family speaks English, so breakfast was pretty quiet. Her father was polite but distant, and quickly left to tend his fields leaving instructions to try and keep me in the yard. He didn’t want all the neighbours talking. Junko’s mother fussed to make me something I recognized, finally settling on a piece of dry toast.

     Junko and I quickly realized that if we wanted more time together, she would have to come back to Canada so that we could explore our connection. But this was such a strange, noncommittal situation that there was no hope of explaining it to her family. She did her best impression of a stereotypically stoic Japanese, answering her parents’ questions in one word or less, offering nothing. When her father attempted to interview me using her as interpreter, she severely edited my answers, altered them entirely, I suspect. She didn’t want them to know that I was merely a part-time caterer, that I write novels in obscurity, that I was divorced, that we were not committed, let alone engaged. There was nothing redeemable in my present circumstances, it seemed. The only communication between her father and myself was through eye contact, yet I could tell that, despite Junko’s best efforts, he knew or suspected all our secrets.

     I spent most days reading novels on a sunlit boulder amid bonsai-like shrubs in the Japanese garden or playing with the nephews who were still fascinated by me. They brought friends around and I felt a little like a sideshow exhibit. “Step right up and see the round-eyed stranger! You’ve never seen a living man so white! Witness the hairy forearms. Witness the towering nose. Witness the deep-set eyes. Marvel at his inept pronunciation of simple words!”

     After one week, her father told Junko that he thought it would be ok if I was seen beyond the garden walls. Junko and I toured the rural neighbourhood, her father’s fields, her ancestor’s burial shrine. We went to the hardware store, and I fixed the hinges on a kitchen cabinet door. A few days later, her father let me help him plant the first rice seedlings. It was not hard work but went much faster with two, and he thanked me. That night, at dinner, we shared a bottle of beer. Maybe, I thought, we had bonded. More likely, he realized there was no stopping his daughter, and accepting me was the only way to keep her in his life. 

     When it came time for us to leave, he drove us to the train station, became quiet as we hoisted our suitcases. He shook my hand, hugged his only daughter, turned away when tears began. 

 

     Junko and I lived together and finally, truly, dated until the next February when she accepted my marriage proposal. We were married in my parent’s garden, in Victoria, on a sunny day in June of 2003, at the height of the SARs epidemic which prevented her family from attending. But that’s a whole other story.

Fifteen yeaers later: Junko, Bill, Noah and Rihana.

Don't panic! It's Only Japan.

It's a popular internet meme that strange and Japan are synonymous. But Donald Trump is now President of the United States. So, who are we to judge?

My Japanese wife and I travel to Japan about every four years, and for me, all the important things are similar and only the inconsequential things are different. But, those inconsequential things can be surprising. Though I now have a deeper understanding, a trip to Japan is still as exotic and exciting as it was the first time, and the wonder and strangeness never seem to fade.

 Below, is a list of the differences that I most noticed when I first set foot in Japan. As with every other such list of peculiarities, this one will prepare you for Japan much in the same way that basting prepares the turkey to enjoy a happy Thanksgiving.

 • Perhaps the most obvious thing is that the language is a barrier. What surprised me, and may surprise you, is just how high that barrier is. Not only will you not be able to understand or participate in conversations, but you will be unable to read so that, sometimes, just choosing the right bathroom will be a challenge. This reduces you to the dependency level of a four-year-old.

• There is no “L” section in a Japanese-English dictionary.

My father-in-law's rural home.

• Slippers are a big deal. The entrance way to every home has a tiled area below floor level dedicated to the idea. You are expected to doff your shoes there and then slip into guest slippers to cross the wooden floors of the rest of the home. At the entrance to the bathroom will be yet another pair of special, rubber slippers. You back out of your guest slippers and slip into these while using the toilet. I found it arduous to change upon entering every room and eventually gave up. Being Caucasian gives you some license to ignore tradition and get away with it.

Typical front entrance in Japanese home. Shoes are left on the tile.

• I was not surprised by the automated toilet seats, as their existence is now widely known. However, I was surprised how quickly I got used to it and how badly I wanted one for my own house. Ten years later, I have one and can say with confidence that only a toddler's butt could be more pampered.

(In every sense of the phrase, I have probably written much more than is justified on the Japanese toilet: CLICK HERE to read Navigating the Japanese Bathroom.)

Japanese toilet seat in my home.

Toilet controls—and this is an economy model.

• Japanese toilets have a small faucet and basin above the cistern. After you flush, the incoming water is used for washing your hands.

• Toilet and washing up areas are separated, in most houses. This means some rearranging of daily hygiene rituals.

• The shower and bathtub are together in a waterproof room. You are expected to wash using the shower and relax in the tub. Family and guests all share the same bathwater which is recycled, cleaned and replenished via a computerized system. The bathtub is drained periodically for cleaning, but otherwise stays full and warm, with an insulated cover over top to save energy.

"Dad! There're weeds in the bathtub!" Noah yells, after rolling back the insulating cover. "Hop in!" I call, from the couch, "We're having kid soup for dinner!"  On May 5th (Children's Day) it is tradition to put Iris leaves and roots in the bathwater to promote good health and ward off evil.

• Many of the homes I've visited have both a Western-, as well as a Japanese-style, living room.

The traditional Japanese-style living room (below). The table stands in a square pit that has an electric heater at the bottom. The duvet-like blanket is called a kotatsu and is used to conserve the heat, during colder weather. In most Japanese homes, this is as close to central heating and insulation as you are going to get. Inset: Close up of tatami mats, woven rice straw mats that cover the floor of Japanese living rooms and bedrooms.

• Most Japanese homes have no insulation or central heat. The idea is to heat bodies, not rooms. In cold weather, they wear layers and eat hot foods. A lot of leisure time is spent around the Japanese living room table, your lower body huddled under a special duvet, while an electric heating unit warms your toes.

• You will find only cooking knives in Japanese kitchens. There are few, if any, butter knives, and nothing like a steak knife. The cook is expected to serve the meal with everything pre-sliced and diced, convenient for eating with chopsticks.

• Japanese housewives grocery shop, daily. I'm uncertain whether this is cause or effect, but Japanese households are not built for stockpiling. Fridges and cupboards are about one-third the size of the American equivalent.

Crowded Japanese kitchen with dining room, beyond.

• In Japan, the traditional family culture is very strong and includes a stay-at-home mom. In this arrangement, the women control the purse strings and do the majority of the purchasing, so businesses have found it in their best interest to make shopping as convenient as possible for housewives with toddlers. The most obvious example is the prevalence of large, kid-oriented amusement centers in department stores. Often, they employ an attendant—or, more recently, a robot!—who will supervise the children. The price is always so reasonable that it becomes unreasonable not to utilize the service. This is quite opposite of the western idea of charging parents through the nose for things their kids desire.

Robot child-minder found in some Japanese department stores.
(CLICK HERE FOR RELATED ARTICLE)

• TV: The language barrier never seems so high as when you watch Japanese television. Almost every program introduces some element that seems bizarre and requires an explanation. After a while, you just go for a walk.

Beyond a clutter of garish type-written comments pasted over just about every show, a small box is often inset in one corner featuring the face of a celebrity guest watching the same thing that you are watching. His/her reaction to the material is meant to help you appreciate, in the proper way, the content; like a laugh-track in an American comedy.

Japanese TV: Inset faces (often celebrities) react to what it on the screen to help set the context for the audience. They laugh when it's supposed to be funny and make appropriate exclamations when something is surprising, horrific, or looks tasty.

Japanese TV:  The long tradition in using paper is still reflected in modern news programs which use paper charts with peel and stick labels as much as they use computer graphics.

• Outdoor banks of vending machines are a common sight. Most dispense juice, coffee, tea and cigarettes, but I've also seen ones that sell comic books, condoms and even, one offering a variety of household objects like brushes, screwdrivers, rubber bands and light bulbs. An urban legend persists that Japanese vending machines sell used panties. This has some basis in fact: For a brief time there were a few such machines, but then new laws were made to address the disturbing practice, and those few machines disappeared.

Outdoor vending machines may be found anywhere there is power and some shelter. They are as common on rural back roads as they are on urban thoroughfares.

A hand-cranked document shredder. Don't know if this is a Japanese thing, but I've never come across one anywhere else.

Door to door milk delivery is still available.

Manhole covers in Japanese cities are usually much more decorative than in Canada.

Though they are years ahead of us in cell phone use and tech, they still have a lot of phone booths.

The  Japanese Giant Hornet; a 3-inch-long wasp! When my father encountered one, his only comment was, "I want to go home!" It is the only logical response.

In no imaginable universe is this me holding any of these nightmarish creatures.

Common Broom Bush selling in a local garden shop.
In Canada, this invasive and almost-indestructible plant is referred to as a weed.

 

  FOOD:

• The Japanese are obsessed with food. They are also obsessively polite. Consequently, “Oishi!” (tasty!) is the most commonly used Japanese word. If you say, "Here, have some three-day-old burnt Kraft Dinner I scraped from a pan I found on the side of the road..." They will take a microscopic nibble, smile and say, "Oishi!"

 • If you ever host a Japanese visitor, you need to know that they are not used to using knives to eat their meals. I realized this the first time my Japanese father-in-law visited Canada and I took him out for dinner with a group of friends and family. He does not speak English and could not read the menu, so I ordered a steak for him. I was almost finished my meal before noticing that he hadn't taken a bite of his steak. And that's when it dawned on me that in Japan, everything is served already cut, suitable for chopsticks. He had no experience wielding a knife in such a precise manner and I guess he felt too self-conscious to take a "stab" at it. I surreptitiously sliced it up for him. We were both slightly embarrassed.

This is a popular type of inexpensive sushi restaurant referred to as kaiten-zushi, literally "rotation sushi." Customers grab whatever they want from the conveyor belts (background) and pay between one and three dollars, for each plate. The prices are indicated by the colour of the plates.

• It is polite to slurp your soup. I'm so well Westernized that I was unable to do this without spraying the room with noodle drippings. The family was surprised that I lacked this basic culinary skill.

• Restaurants—including many fast food places—will give you a wet napkin to wash your hands with before a meal. It's gauche to wash your face with this.

• Generally, restaurants do not supply paper napkins. They assume you carry tissue with you and can use that. When licking my fingers doesn’t cut it, I steal the toilet paper and try to keep it hidden.

• A related observation: There are no paper towels in the bathrooms.

• Japanese ice cream, pizza toppings candy and potato chips include things like wasabi, seaweed, squid, shrimp and corn.

Something more familiar but with unfamiliar flavour: Apple Pie Kit Kat and Matcha Tea Kit Kat. It's worth noting that most potato chips on store shelves are not salt flavour, but sushi or nori (sea weed).

Inago (locust) is a common snack food in many areas. I tried it. It actually tasted good, but I hated picking bug feet out from between my teeth.

• I noticed that corn seems inordinately relished, though it is a common vegetable, in Japan.

• Many things in Japan are about one-third smaller than in North America, but not beer. It’s served in mugs that are about one and a half times larger than what we get here.

• I never saw anyone eating anything while walking—not even a candy bar or a hot dog. They always take their food somewhere, and sit to enjoy it. I have since learned that it is considered rude.

• FINANCE: Cash is still the most common transaction. Credit cards are still not accepted in a lot of places, even where they expect tourists. And banks still verify your identity by a personal family ink stamp, a practice I had never heard of, before I went to Japan.

An Asian girl's fingernail. Also, novelty imitations of family seals. This one represents Yokokawa, my wife's family-name. Official versions of these stamps, called inkan, are still used in Japan to verify identity on important documents.

• REAL ESTATE: In the rural area where I've spent most of my time, houses either look completely dilapidated or brand new. Old houses are mowed down rather than renovated. My father-in-law's 50-year-old house had been constructed from 40-foot spans of clear timber that, these days, only the wealthiest people could afford. Two years ago, that lumber was hauled away and burned before they started construction of his new house. The idea of renovating an existing structure seems to only now be gaining traction, probably due to the extended economic downturn.

• TOURISM: In cosmopolitan areas like Tokyo, the Japanese are making strides in accommodating English speaking tourists. However, their efforts are still rudimentary and unevenly applied; mostly amounting to English signage. You may well follow English signs to a bilingual ticket agent and book a three hour guided tour only to find the guide speaks only Japanese. I would not yet say that Japan is a comfortable destination for English-speakers.

• RELAXATION: The Onsen is a traditional Japanese public bath, designed for relaxation. They are ubiquitous throughout Japan and a very common form of recreation. Onsens feature large, communal hot tubs in which people bathe naked. Men and women usually bathe in separate facilities. If you go, expect to be gawked at by Japanese children.

Mitsui Garden (Chiba, Tokyo) rooftop onsen.

On my last trip, I noticed two strange things that I had never noticed before. The first thing was that, in the change room, the other men tended to cover their private parts with a small towel, even though we were all male, and all soon to be exposed.

Onsen, like all Japanese baths, are exclusively for relaxation, not for cleaning. So, before entering any Japanese bath you are expected to wash and rinse your body. At an Onsen, this is part of the relaxation process and performed both thoroughly and leisurely.

The second thing I noticed was that after sweating in hot water, no one washes, on the way out. I thought this odd, considering the Japanese obsession with cleanliness.

DRIVING:
•  Like here, a green light in Japan is green. However, they call it “blue.”

• Cars and streets are about one-third smaller than in North America. Therefore, city maps look more crowded.

• The streets are so narrow and tight that there are a lot of blind corners, so you’ll notice a lot of mirrors mounted at corners... it’s the only way to know if someone is about to enter the intersection.

• Drivers always back into parking spots.

• There are virtually no street signs or house numbers in my in-laws' town. I still have no idea how the mail gets delivered... or a pizza, for that matter. I have read that big cities work on a grid system and that delivering mail involves a lot of training.

• In an emergency, you dial 1-1-9 instead of 9-1-1.

• In Canada, my five foot nine inches (5' 9" = 175 cm) is about average and a lot of men are taller than me, so, the first time I visited Japan, I looked forward to being the tallest one in a crowd and imagined myself being able to see over the all the heads. But, in the very first entirely Japanese crowd I encountered in Tokyo, all of the younger men were at least as tall as me, and most were taller. I did tower over the average woman, though. Turns out, that due to dietary improvements, the younger generations tend to be taller. The average height in Japan is currently five foot eight inches (5' 8" = 178 cm) and increasing, each year.

• As well as increasing their height, a more modern diet, which now includes frozen and fast foods, has resulted in a visible number of overweight people. I have noticed the difference over the fifteen years I've been traveling to Japan. Based on observations made during my last trip, I'd say that about 20% of the people are above their ideal weight.

• Japanese women admire pale-skinned, Western beauty. They try to stay out of the sun to keep their skin youthful, and rely on long gloves, umbrellas or even skin whiteners to emulate the Western look. Their efforts to adhere to this ideal prevent them from being outdoorsy.

• Public displays of affection are frowned upon. Younger people are demonstrative enough to hold hands, but older people—including my wife, while we're in Japan—would be embarrassed by this. I never saw any other form of touching in public.

My nephew and his girl friend are young and in love, but this is as close as I ever saw them get.

• Japanese will praise you highly for the least achievement. Do not let it go to your head. They don't mean it. They are measuring your humility. They like humility.

• The Japanese are masters of understatement and self-deprecation. If a Japanese person says that they have taken a Karate lesson, you may expect that they are, in fact, a first degree black belt. They are constantly amused by foreigners who exaggerate their abilities. So, unless you are fluent, I would not mention that you know a couple of Japanese words. If you always understate your abilities, you will be well received.

• If you are a foreigner, you are exempt from almost every rule: That you behave strangely is a given. However they will appreciate any attempt to learn their language and accommodate to their customs.

• When a toddler loses a tooth they throw it on top or under the house. (lower tooth on the roof so it grows a healthy replacement straight down and upper teeth under the house so it grows a healthy replacement upwards.) Go figure. Not sure what they do when Grandpa loses his teeth.

In the hotel garden. It struck me that so much loose change could never exist in a public space in Canada.

• The Japanese are profoundly practical. When faced with a religious decision between Shinto and Buddhism, they generally choose both. Japanese homes often have two separate shrines. Perhaps frustrating to religions everywhere, the Japanese see no hypocrisy in selecting bits and pieces that they like from each religion. This may be the wisest thing I have ever heard.

East meets West: Some hotels provide both books. The Japanese have a long tradition of taking what they like from many religions and melding them into one, personal philosophy.

The Japanese borrow only those elements from a religion that they feel are valuable. As a result, they assimilate and accommodate many religions, without conflict. In most homes I've visited, you would see both Shinto (above) as well as Buddhist (below) elements, like these two shrines in my father-in-law's home.

There are many familiar products with variations we may never see. This is Coke, but with a natural sugar alternative, so that it's about half as sweet. Wish we had this in Canada.

Examples of weird English is a many.

Especially prevalent, are strange-English T-shirts for toddlers and teens. I think they try to be edgy but often end up inappropriately sexual. One toddler's shirt I saw, read: "Call me, bitch!"

North American churches could learn a lesson in fund raising through "good luck" games, like this coin toss at a Buddhist shrine, in Kyoto.

The traditional kimono is rarely seen outside of tourist areas. Many of these girls are tourists from other Asian countries who have rented kimonos for the day.

Inside a car, parked in a private garage are life-sized cardboard cutouts, presumably of the owners. Neither my wife nor her family or friends can offer any explanation for this one. I thought it might be to discourage thieves or crows.

I wish I'd brought one from home that says "Tom" which I could slip onto the store shelf, to enhance someone's day.

As we walk, a van decorated with signs meanders through the neighbourhood. Some very enthusiastic person inside is babbling, via megaphones affixed to the roof. There is a civic election going on and vehicles like this will visit us about twice a day, for the next week. The first time I saw one of these, I ran after it for three blocks before realizing it wasn't selling ice cream. I just couldn't imagine anyone being so enthusiastic about a thing, if it wasn't ice cream.

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