Grumpy Gaijin

Anyone who has ever lived in Japan and whose face is not Asian has experienced the familiar cry of "Gaijin," literally, outside person. This is not a post about some 6 year-old pointing a finger at me and crying out that word. Though, god knows, I've had enough times where that has happened. No, this post is about being a discontented outside person.

I teach two classes of 3 to 6 year olds every Friday afternoon. I spend 2 to 3 hours prepping for these classes. I make decent money, but it's not my life's calling. For the last two weeks, my student numbers have been dropping. Some of it is sickness, some of it is new interests. I combined my two classes into one so I could actually earn my per class rate. Now, the moms who help me organize it are saying that one class is going to be the norm. Considering that I never really wanted to teach preschoolers, I'm at the point where I want to quit. So, I'm grumpy.

It's these kinds of stupid everyday, "how many people will the resident alien alienate?" problems that make my head hurt. I already have another English teaching job lined up for Tuesday nights, so it's not like I need the money. It's just that I know that half the moms will apologize to me for their kids not showing up and the other half will dismiss the effort that I put into this in the first place.

And all of this just underscores how little I actually use my brain in this country. Or for that matter, how marginalized women are in this country. Most of the moms of my 5yo son's classmates work in low-paying jobs as sales clerks, drink yogurt sales, or as office temps. Women are always amazed that I used to be a computer programmer. The bar is set very low in Japan, but especially in my own Southern paradise of Hikari.

I need to leave here in another 30 minutes to go teach my one class. My heart is not in it. I do not want to go. I just want to eat cookies, read people.com, weep, and lash myself for the underachieving outsider that I am. Instead, I will play games, read books, sing songs and put on the Alex dog and pony show.

My dishwasher

I got a dishwasher last week. A bonafide, under-the-counter, overpriced, undersized drawer-type dishwasher. We paid more for the dishwasher than we paid for our one-way tickets to Japan, for all four of us.

It was almost a joke. How many Japanese does it take to install a dishwasher? Apparently, four. It was the electrician and his helper, along with the plumber and the contractor who set it all up. And while I appreciate my sparkly clean dishes, I can't help but think that the butt-cleavage Sears installer would have done it for way less. And as my loving husband reminded me, this isn't Seattle.

Alas, my Japanese dishwasher falls prey to the same problems that many Japanese fall prey to: a confusion about what to do with large foreign things. My 11" dinner plates fit in, but then you can't use the area next to it for salad plates or small bowls. My American-sized, Japanese-designed, made in Malaysia coffee mugs fit on the small top rack, but there is no way that 12 drinking vessels will fit if I use them.

So every night, I play a game of "Will it fit?" And every night, I attempt to make my combination of Japanese and American tableware fit harmoniously into one small-drawer type dishwasher. And I wind up washing a few odd pieces by hand. I kind of empathize with those few odd pieces.

Art or torment...

My 5yo saw a picture in the local free advertising rag showing a silver-plated jungle gym at the Shuunan Art Museum. He wanted to go. Not being the best reader of Japanese, I told him I thought it was art, but we'd ask Daddy when he got home. Well, Daddy read the article and not only is it ART, but it's small art, the size of a pizza box.

Have you ever tried to reason with a 5yo who is filled with disappointment? I tried humor, "Hey, we'll shrink you to two inches tall and you'll be the perfect size." I tried empathy, "Gosh, it's really a bummer that the cool looking playground is really just some twisted artist's way of tormenting small children."

In the end, my son took the article and ripped it up into confetti sized pieces. In the process, he also destroyed the article about the fire station festival in the next town over. And the ads for beauty clinics and laser skin resurfacing. And where to pawn your silver, gold or platinum. I guess if you are an artist and want to stir your viewer's emotions, you'd count this as a success. Otherwise, it's just another lesson in "things ain't always what they seem."

Happy Moo Year

It's 2009 and the New Year's postcards have been delivered and, once again, I've managed to not send out a single one. Damn. I was so looking forward to sending out a cow-themed, year of the cow, postcard to all of my friends. Alas, the picture postcard website I was using refused to display the text that I input. So, no postcards. No Christmas cards either. Zero for two on holiday correspondence.

So Happy New Year! I resolve to write more, eat fewer bean paste sweets, and maybe get the rest of our moving boxes from 2007 unpacked.

Beaujolais Noveau

So, it's that happy day when the first of the new harvest wines are released. I'm sipping a $23 Georges DuBoeuf and it's quite average. But, it's my reward for a week with no hubby around and small children who keep waking up in the night. Perhaps I'll slip the little one some wine with his dinner. (Just kidding, in case anyone feels like reporting me to the Japanese version of DHS.)

My 5 yo is making things out of straws, milk packs, and tape. He just showed me his latest creations: a butterfly, a nebulizer mask, and a nasal aspirator. Can you tell we've spent a lot of time at the local E, N, T doctor's office for an ear infection caused by nasal congestion? I could write a whole blog on how much I hate the doctor's offices here, but I don't want to kill my Nouveau buzz.

My 2 yo is making various scribbles with his crayons on paper (and on the table). So far, no creations or descriptions to note. If he had a larger vocabulary, I'm sure he'd say that one of them is a picture of mommy ripping her hair out at 6:30 in the morning after being up for 2 hours with the insomniac toddler.

I would take pictures and post them, but I can't find the charger for my small digital camera. You know, the one I never use, because my husband is the family photographer with his professional camera and lenses. Oh well.

I'll end this here so I can actually cook the pork cutlets I planned for dinner. Otherwise, my kids will be getting chicken nuggets. Yes, they have them in Japan and yes, they are in the freezer for when all else fails. Hey, I even have Japanese tater tots if I really want to be slack. I wonder if they pair well with a fruity young red wine...

On two year-olds and deja vu

Tak took his nap early today and woke up around 2 p.m. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt that had been his brother's and woke up with that scrunchy baby stretch that is a rarity these days. Do you remember that stretch? You hold them under their arms and they scrunch their face and yawn while stretching out to remove the remainders of the fetal position. But they always forget their legs, still curled tightly under themselves.

I'm holding this 30 lb toddler and only half of him is awake and he's looking at me with a dazed expression. He lets me cuddle with him on the couch and sniff the back of his neck. It's a rare thing these days. Usually he's swatting my face like a demented leopard cub or climbing over my shoulders and ripping out my hair in the process. He's so boy-like, that I forget he was a new babe only two years ago.

And the sweatshirt. Big brother loved that sweatshirt, rarely took it off. It's weird seeing him in Kai's clothes knowing that they fit completely differently. Tak is a sumo wrestler, not fat, but strong and solid. Kai is a long distance runner, lithe and lean. Every parenting book says not to compare your kids, but it is so hard not to do that, especially when you have two of the same gender. Comparisons burst out without even trying. Every article of clothing has a memory attached to it and those memories refuse to be suppressed.

And life is so bittersweet these days. I want for my boys to have the childhood I had, but at the same time, I'm so happy that they have this opportunity to be in Japan and be with their grandparents. I'm still working on staying in this moment, but there are too many days when I get sucked into the past.

Random thoughts on summer in Japan

How do you know you are living in Japan? Well, besides the heat and humidity, it's usually the things that you scratch your head over that makes you think, "Damn, I'm living in a foreign country." Here's a list of random thoughts:

1. Oldest son's preschool/daycare sent him home with a big bag of fireworks and the admonition that fireworks should only be done with an adult present. Gee, you think 1000 degree sparklers are a good idea for a 5 year old? What's next, send him home with a machete and instructions that it should only be used on weeds?

2. I know it's hot, but does everyone need to wear long sleeves and ugly hats? Of course, this only applies to adults. My oldest is the color of leather since his preschool has a wading pool and doesn't believe in sunscreen.

3. Why are vegetables so cheap and why is fruit so g-damn expensive? I've taken to shopping the discount bin for lightly bruised fruit. I've scored apples, peaches, nectarines, grapes, cherries, and kiwi with this method. Thank god for the Japanese obsession with perfect, unblemished fruit. I'll take the cheap, ugly ones any day.

4. Speaking of fruit, there is only one thing worse than a fruit fly infestation. That would be a fruit fly MAGGOT infestation. Truly disgusting. I'm now emptying the raw trash more often.

5. Ah yes, trash. I'm so sick and f-king tired of sorting my trash by the ten thousand inscrutable rules. Example, plastic goes in a yellow trash bag, unless it's blue bag OTHER PLASTIC. And what is other plastic? Well..... Toothbrushes, tupperware, plastic models. Clear as mud, eh? Oh, but don't put PET plastic bottles (coke bottles, etc.) in either of those, they go in a separate green bag. Same green bag is used for glass bottles, but you can't mix them. But you can mix glass and steel cans. Now you know why my husband puts plastic things in the raw garbage (clear bag) and says, "I lived in America, screw this."

6. Cicada. Most annoying noisy bug on earth. Why do Japanese children like to catch them? Oh wait, it's to make them screech even more. Now there's a hobby guaranteed to set a parent on edge. (See picture of oldest son with cicada on soccer ball above. Cicada died a ball-related death only minutes later...)

Okay, I should make a list of ten, but BeanPasteHead Man is over and my boys will start beating themselves up any moment now.