Culture Differences

Living in Japan is very easy. Japanese society is structured so that it's easy to live here. There are vending machines everywhere, the public transportation is clean and efficient, and everyone is really polite and will do everything they can to help you even if your Japanese is limited or nonexistent. That said, I do not love everything about Japan. I have noticed some cultural differences that nag me here that struck me as a big change from what I'm used to, and they really make me appreciate things from home that I never noticed before.

First of all, Japan is certainly a modern nation in terms of technology, government, and culture, but there are still some aspects of the culture that are a lot more conservative than in America. For example, attitudes toward women. It's not that women are repressed here or anything, but then there is absolutely no sense of the feminism that I'm used to at home, and there is a lot of pressure here to conform with Japan's gender standards. Women here generally seem to be expected to do all of the cooking and house chores, which I guess is somewhat similar to at home, but it seems a lot more pronounced and extreme here. My host father does not cook at all, and on nights when my host mother is out, she sets everything up so that all he has to do is boil water and put rice on a plate. I'm not sure what he would do if he were on his own, but I suspect that we would eat a lot of instant ramen. (Notably, I have not eaten any instant ramen since I got here.)

What I have found affects me the most is the bordering obsession on women's appearance. All of the women here are extremely well groomed, well dressed, and skinny. I have felt a distinct pressure to dress better and wear makeup every day since I got here, and I am feeling very chubby. Despite my best efforts, a lot of times I feel uncomfortable on the train compared to all the women around me, since by comparison I still look like a slob. In fact, no matter how well I might try to dress, I feel like I am still on the borderline of acceptability in appearance. I don't think I have seen a single woman on the train wearing a t-shirt. Most women wear high heels every day, even among college students (and I mean stilettos), and whenever I go to the bathroom on campus, it is always crowded with girls fixing their makeup or hair. I would never see that at home. If someone wore high heels and or stood around in the bathroom in the middle of the day adjusting their appearance at Oberlin, I think they would be laughed out of town. (Or rather, they would probably run out of town as fast as their 3-inch heels would let them when they saw the way everyone else looked.)

The diet here has also taken some getting used to. Eating in my co-op at school, we almost never have meat (and when we do, I don't eat it), and a large component of every meal is composed of vegetables, especially leafy greens. I try to make a dive for the vegetables whenever I see them, but still I feel like I'm not getting enough leafy greens. (I never realized I cared so much.) It seems to me that my host mother serves very few vegetables, maybe as a side dish or something, and central to every meal is always meat and rice. In fact, not a meal goes by without meat. I told her that I would eat meat but didn't like it, and she claims to have cut back on the amount of meat that she serves, but it is still everywhere. I wouldn't mind at all if she made herself and my host father a meat dish and just didn't give it to me, but that seems to be off the radar. Now I have given in, and I usually pick the meat out of the rest of my food and set it aside rather than trying to make myself eat it. Also, there is evidently no such thing as whole wheat bread here. The only bread that they carry in the supermarket is bleached paper-white, and it is baked so that each slice is a perfect square. (How do they do that? And why?) It is always sold pre-sliced and there are no end pieces. I guess it's part of the expectation that everything be perfect, but still...I miss whole wheat. I can deal with the brown. (Also, they carry almost no real butter in the supermarket. I'd say there is a 5-1 ratio of margarine to butter in any display. What's with that.) People always talk about how the American diet is so unhealthy, but while it might be true that most people in Japan are thinner than in America, I judge my diet here to be about 60% as healthy as what I am used to.

The thing that bothers me most about Japan is the smoking. Smoking carries none of the social stigma that it has in the US, which seems a little funny to me given the focus on cleanliness and politeness that pervades so much of Japan. Smoking in restaurants and cafes here is unfortunately legal and perfectly common. The karaoke bar that my host father frequents is really small (the whole thing is maybe the size of your average bedroom) and enclosed, yet there are generally at least 2 people smoking at a time. It is so hard to breathe. To me, tobacco smoke smells like death. If I were president, the first thing I would do would be to eradicate tobacco from the face of the country. I think that if I were considering moving to Japan, the main thing that would make me hesitate is the prevalence of tobacco. There are even cigarette vending machines on practically every other block. whywhywhy.

It has been funny to hear about Japanese people's perceptions of America. I was surprised when the first thing that people I talked to thought of when they thought of America was not fat people, or McDonald's or conservative Christians, but guns. Apparently they think that everyone in America has multiple guns and that it is dangerous to walk on the street because you might get shot. I was not expecting that. I asked my host mother about it, and she explained that guns are illegal for almost everyone in Japan, and if someone holds up a knife here it's as scary for them as if someone were aiming a gun in America. Thus, the fact alone that any adult can own a gun in America is frightening for them. (And it really is a frightening fact.) Still I find it funny, since I really do not know that many people who have a gun, and I don't see them as being a major part of our culture. Also, my host mother was very impressed that I, as well as all of her past host students, already knew how to use chopsticks, and then she asked me if we have soy sauce in America. Then my host father asked me if I had ever seen kimchi before. (I guess I have to grant him that I had never eaten kimchi before I went to college, but still.)


Anyway, I didn't mean for this to sound so negative. I really like Japan, and I'm having a great time here, but the fact remains that it is not a perfect paradise, and for all its flaws I still embrace my life in America.

--

On a funny note, my Japanese Reading & Writing professor told us the traditional marriage proposal in Japan: "毎朝、みそ汁を作ってくれ": Make me miso soup every morning. (Not sure what I would do if someone said that to me.)