One thing one will notice about japan after visting for just a few days is the lack of public trashcans ("bins" for those who are not from the US.) The paradox is that tokyo is incredibly clean. Considering it is the largest metropolitan area in the world this is mind boggling. It is constantly surprising to me how clean tokyo is. If you have spend any time in other major cities you notice trash and liter is quite common. Some cities are dirtier than others, but tokyo is relatively spotless. You can find litter and trash on the ground occasionally but so much less than any other major city.
The thing that really makes no sense to me is that it is not due to an abundance of places to throw your litter. There are no trashcans on street corners, in front of shops, outside of train stations. The only places to throw stuff away is there may be one place inside of a subway station, inside some convenience stores near the front, or places which only accept cans or bottles near large banks of vending machines. Considering how japan is about convenience I find myself walking with the wrapper or can of something quite often. There are convenience stores everywhere to grab a snack and countless vending machines to grab a drink. Yet I have to walk for blocks before I can find somewhere to throw the wrapper or bottle.
This is strange compared to my last time in NYC where I remember there being trash cans about every 20 meters, on every major street. However those trash cans were full. Overflowing. Spilling trash into the street, which was already covered in liter. Intuition tells you that NYC needs even more trash cans. So what do people in tokyo do with their trash? It seems the answer is to hold onto it for long periods of time until you find a place. Maybe keep it in your bag until you go into a subway station and seek out the one trash can, or keep it until you get home. The bottle and can issue seems to be that you don't take your beverage with you. There is some notion that you get a coffee or soft drink from the vending machine... and stand by the vending machine until you are done. Then put the can/bottle into the receptacle next to the vending machines. Not all vending machines have such a place, but most of the areas with high concentrations of vending machines do. If you are going to walk with your Calpis or C.C.Lemon or Match, you will probably have to take the can home with you.
It almost feels like the fact that you usually have no where to throw your trash, has trained the residence of the city to keep their trash with them. Rather than the thought "I have no where to put this, I will throw it on the ground" that seems to occur in other cities, tokyoites don't even think that way. They never expected to have somewhere to dispose of the item in the first place. They knew that grabbing that boss coffee meant they had to carry the can home, it part of the deal. At least thats my theory on the Trashcan Paradox.
Japanese Lesson:
Okawariお代わり
"refill" or "another"
When you are at a bar, and you ordered something by pointing to it on a menu but don't know what it is called, instead of trying to find out the name, just say "Okawari" to ask for another one.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Thursday, January 8, 2015
New place
Sorry for the late post.
A month ago I moved into my new apartment. It is a apartment building specifically for foreign researchers. The city I live in, Tsukuba, has many research organizations. So far it seems like most people in the building work at NIMS, the National Institute for Materials Science. Since it is designed for foreigners so it isn't a traditional japanese apartment as it doesn't have tatami, but still many things you wouldn't see in an apartment outside of Japan. Here is a video tour of my place (filmed 2 weeks ago, sorry)
The place is not as close to the station as I had initally thought. So my commute starts with a 20 minute walk to Tsukuba station where I pick up a bus to get to work. I have missed the bus I want approximately 80% of the time so far increasing my commute by 30 minutes. Oops. At first this bothered me until I realized my walk to Tsukuba Station is about the same distance as my commute commute to CMU. However before I had the option of taking the bus instead of walking.
More posts soon. I promise.
A month ago I moved into my new apartment. It is a apartment building specifically for foreign researchers. The city I live in, Tsukuba, has many research organizations. So far it seems like most people in the building work at NIMS, the National Institute for Materials Science. Since it is designed for foreigners so it isn't a traditional japanese apartment as it doesn't have tatami, but still many things you wouldn't see in an apartment outside of Japan. Here is a video tour of my place (filmed 2 weeks ago, sorry)
The place is not as close to the station as I had initally thought. So my commute starts with a 20 minute walk to Tsukuba station where I pick up a bus to get to work. I have missed the bus I want approximately 80% of the time so far increasing my commute by 30 minutes. Oops. At first this bothered me until I realized my walk to Tsukuba Station is about the same distance as my commute commute to CMU. However before I had the option of taking the bus instead of walking.
More posts soon. I promise.
Friday, December 12, 2014
Language and Autonomy
I strongly feel that one of the most important things you can give a conscious being is autonomy. I always see autonomy meaning a mix of independence and freedom. I want to be able to be free to do and act as I please, and have the ability to do the things I want on my own without the help of others. I am rather kantian in my beliefs and put such independence is how to define morality. It is also what has been robbed of me by living in a country in which I don't speak the language. This is not unique to Japan. Living anywhere that you can't speak the language would evoke similar feelings. I would like to share my thoughts of how my freedom and independence have been hampered by living in a foreign country.
I am illiterate in Japan. I can not read any of the signs around me. This means I am unable to navigate, buy groceries or understand what I am ordering at a restaurant. Simply being unable to read wouldn't be so bad except I also can not speak the language, so anything too complex to explain with hand signals I am unable to communicate. It is like becoming a child. I feel strange as just finished my advanced education and now I live somewhere that I can only express basic wants like food and toilet as if I were a 2 year old.
However it is not hard to survive. Everyone is very willing to help. The problem is the need for help. I am unable to do anything independently. Finding my new apartment was done with the help the secretary driving me around showing my places and asking my questions to the landlord. My phone service was set up by asking friends and coworkers to translate things for me to understand what to do. Everything I do, I need help from someone as I don't know how they normally work, or I am unable to read any of the relevant information.
When I moved here I thought I would have lots of fun exploring new places. Everything is exotic and new and different. I enjoy trying new things, new foods, and I like exploring new places. However I found myself frustrated rather than enjoying the experience.
I have moved to new places before. When I moved to Pittsburgh, and SD, I didn't have any friends, I didn't know places to go. I was lost, but exploring them was fun. Those moves were about expressing my autonomy. When I moved to pittsburgh I found bars and restaurants that I enjoyed all on my own. Simply by looking on google and going to places that looked interesting. Finding places on my own made them feel like an accomplishment. They were my places. It allowed me to be even more independent than I had been in college. Not having anyone to help me while living in the unknown forced me to figure it all out myself. Exploring alone can be rewarding because not only do you find places you like but you learn about yourself of what you like and what you don't like. Finding what you are looking for want what to avoid. I loved it, so what was so different about this move.
I realized one of the biggest things was my reliance on tools such as google maps. In san diego, if I wanted to find a restaurant, I would look at all of the restaurants on google which were near me and pick one in driving or walking distance. I didn't need to ask anyone "where is a grocery store" or "where can I buy a trashcan" because google gave me all of that info. So maybe I wasn't as independant as I thought, but I felt independant. I was simply asking google for help instead of asking other people for help. However here I have neither option. Google maps, and other such tools are far inferior in Japan. The bus that I need to get to work does not have its schedule on google maps. The bigger problem is the lack of english on the maps. I can't search for a bar, I need to search for "居酒屋" which I don't even know how to TYPE. Then when I get to a grocery store, I don't know how to buy any of the things I want. It took me over a week to figure out where to buy reusable grocery bags. I knew I needed reusable grocery bags, but I didn't know how to solve the problem. I couldn't look up where to get them and I didn't even know how to ask.
Here I am unable to do what I want, because of lack of knowledge. I want to go to a bar, but I don't know what bars look like or how to find one. I don't want to walk into a dentists office and ask for a beer, but I am unable to read the sign out front. This drastically hinders exploration as I can't even recognize what I am looking for if I walked past one. I will be unstatisfied as long as I can't find what I am looking for.
The bigger issue is knowing that I can't solve any of my own problems. There are small problems, like needing garbage bags, which I have to seek help to resolve. However having to ask someone to help with every small issue makes me feel like a child. I don't feel empowered. I know that if I had a major problem, I would have no idea what to do. Instead I find myself just dealing with inconvenience rather than solving the problems. "I can't buy a reusable grocery bag, so since I can only carry a small amount I will make more trips to the grocery store." However that only works for small issues. I know that if I had bigger issues I couldn't solve them but bigger issues I may not be able to be ignored. I want to feel like I can handle things, even if problems crop up. Requiring my secretary to read half of my emails does not give me that feeling. I have to live in fear that everything goes smoothly because I couldn't fix it if something were to go wrong. About anything.
Sorry for the depressing posts. I just needed to get some of that out, and really this post didn't turn out how I hoped it would. I need to just start posting what I think rather than worry about if they are well written because I really have lots of things I want to share about my experience here. I promise my next post will be more fun, my new apartment.
Japanese Lesson:
daijobu
"It's ok"
When someone asks you something you say this, because you don't actually know how to express what you want so you say you are ok with what you have instead.
I am illiterate in Japan. I can not read any of the signs around me. This means I am unable to navigate, buy groceries or understand what I am ordering at a restaurant. Simply being unable to read wouldn't be so bad except I also can not speak the language, so anything too complex to explain with hand signals I am unable to communicate. It is like becoming a child. I feel strange as just finished my advanced education and now I live somewhere that I can only express basic wants like food and toilet as if I were a 2 year old.
However it is not hard to survive. Everyone is very willing to help. The problem is the need for help. I am unable to do anything independently. Finding my new apartment was done with the help the secretary driving me around showing my places and asking my questions to the landlord. My phone service was set up by asking friends and coworkers to translate things for me to understand what to do. Everything I do, I need help from someone as I don't know how they normally work, or I am unable to read any of the relevant information.
When I moved here I thought I would have lots of fun exploring new places. Everything is exotic and new and different. I enjoy trying new things, new foods, and I like exploring new places. However I found myself frustrated rather than enjoying the experience.
I have moved to new places before. When I moved to Pittsburgh, and SD, I didn't have any friends, I didn't know places to go. I was lost, but exploring them was fun. Those moves were about expressing my autonomy. When I moved to pittsburgh I found bars and restaurants that I enjoyed all on my own. Simply by looking on google and going to places that looked interesting. Finding places on my own made them feel like an accomplishment. They were my places. It allowed me to be even more independent than I had been in college. Not having anyone to help me while living in the unknown forced me to figure it all out myself. Exploring alone can be rewarding because not only do you find places you like but you learn about yourself of what you like and what you don't like. Finding what you are looking for want what to avoid. I loved it, so what was so different about this move.
I realized one of the biggest things was my reliance on tools such as google maps. In san diego, if I wanted to find a restaurant, I would look at all of the restaurants on google which were near me and pick one in driving or walking distance. I didn't need to ask anyone "where is a grocery store" or "where can I buy a trashcan" because google gave me all of that info. So maybe I wasn't as independant as I thought, but I felt independant. I was simply asking google for help instead of asking other people for help. However here I have neither option. Google maps, and other such tools are far inferior in Japan. The bus that I need to get to work does not have its schedule on google maps. The bigger problem is the lack of english on the maps. I can't search for a bar, I need to search for "居酒屋" which I don't even know how to TYPE. Then when I get to a grocery store, I don't know how to buy any of the things I want. It took me over a week to figure out where to buy reusable grocery bags. I knew I needed reusable grocery bags, but I didn't know how to solve the problem. I couldn't look up where to get them and I didn't even know how to ask.
Here I am unable to do what I want, because of lack of knowledge. I want to go to a bar, but I don't know what bars look like or how to find one. I don't want to walk into a dentists office and ask for a beer, but I am unable to read the sign out front. This drastically hinders exploration as I can't even recognize what I am looking for if I walked past one. I will be unstatisfied as long as I can't find what I am looking for.
The bigger issue is knowing that I can't solve any of my own problems. There are small problems, like needing garbage bags, which I have to seek help to resolve. However having to ask someone to help with every small issue makes me feel like a child. I don't feel empowered. I know that if I had a major problem, I would have no idea what to do. Instead I find myself just dealing with inconvenience rather than solving the problems. "I can't buy a reusable grocery bag, so since I can only carry a small amount I will make more trips to the grocery store." However that only works for small issues. I know that if I had bigger issues I couldn't solve them but bigger issues I may not be able to be ignored. I want to feel like I can handle things, even if problems crop up. Requiring my secretary to read half of my emails does not give me that feeling. I have to live in fear that everything goes smoothly because I couldn't fix it if something were to go wrong. About anything.
Sorry for the depressing posts. I just needed to get some of that out, and really this post didn't turn out how I hoped it would. I need to just start posting what I think rather than worry about if they are well written because I really have lots of things I want to share about my experience here. I promise my next post will be more fun, my new apartment.
Japanese Lesson:
daijobu
"It's ok"
When someone asks you something you say this, because you don't actually know how to express what you want so you say you are ok with what you have instead.
KEK
I moved to Japan to work at the research lab known as KEK, and so far have been living in on campus housing. Here are my first thoughts about the place.
What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think advanced physics laboratory in Japan? That's right... SPIDERS.
Giant ones. The size of my whole hand big. Everywhere. Some of them are bright colors too, which my limited knowledge of biology indicates I will die just by looking at them. There is a bank of 5 vending machines which I have to completely avoid because of the godzilla sized spider who lives above them. It is terrifying.
Other than the spiders, the major problem with the campus is it is isolated from everything else. Particle accelerators probably suffer from the "not in my backyard" effect and are built far from civilization. Actually the need for a large empty plot of land to build rings which are multiple kilometers in circumference is probably the bigger factor. I have not yet had a tour of the site and have not seen any of the experiments here yet. I have only really been to my building which is close to the entrance and the building next door which holds my super computer(s).
For those who don't know, my research is not involving the experiments or accelerators here at all. My work requires calculations which require millions of hours of processing on a computer. Instead of waiting millions of hours supercomputers are used which have a huge number of CPUs which either work together or on seperate parts of the calcuation so results can be produced within a persons life span. The supercomputers of the world are periodically ranked and placed on the top500 list. The building next door to mine houses two computers from that list, #68 and #69. However their combined power would place them at the 33rd fastest computer in the world, but they are listed separately since they are not actually connected and you would have to have two independent calculations to utilize both. However most program do not scale to that size and instead you run many different smaller calculations which each set of CPUs works on a different part of the problem, or runs the same calculation using a different set of parameters. Currently I am using half of one of the machines, so I apologize to the world for the vast amount of computing power is being wasted on my stupid science. It turns out that the 4th fastest computer in the world is in japan, but it is on the other side of the country.
I mentioned in my previous post how bad the isolation is. This is only a problem because I still LIVE on campus. At the end of this week I will be moving to my own apartment near Tsukuba station which has shops and convenience stores every street corner like the rest of Japan. I will then have to commute to work which will be a ~20 min bus ride. Eventually I may get a bike and cycle to work when the weather is nice, but that will hinge on being able to find a bicycle large enough for me at a reasonable price. It then won't matter that the nearest convince store is 2km away, because during normal hours I can eat or shop at the on campus shop. The problem only exists on weekends or evenings after work, where there is nothing around.
Everyday for lunch the people in my research group walk over to the cafeteria together at noon. The food is decent though all japanese, but it is at a good price. About 400-520円 for a meal. You order by putting money into a vending machine which prints a ticket which you hand to the lunch ladies who give you the food. This method of ordering is quite common in japan and many small restaurants use it at well. Being able to order by pushing a button is great for me, since I can't speak the language so I am not able to order even the simplest things. Ordering by selecting a button means I can order things even if I don't have a clue what anything IS. Just push a random button and hope it is edible. The cafeteria does put out samples of what the selection is for that day with the corresponding numbers so I am never 100% in the dark. It is difficult sometimes at restaurants when the buttons just have words on them, but still easier than having to communicate with a human what to order. The cafeteria always has a noodle selection which the style and type will change every day, a constant curry and rice dish which is always available, and 2-3 other entrees which rotate every day. The curry is pretty good, japanese curry is not very hot like indian curry, so it is a safe bet when I have no idea what any of the other choices are.
The hardest part about work is the lack of english. Most people have some understanding of english but most people are far from fluent. The only other foreigner I work with is italian, his english is better than most but not perfect. My boss and the groups secretary both have decent english which is conversational. Everyone else it is a real struggle to have just basic conversations with. They often ask me in broken english what I did on the weekend or if I like it here in Japan. Everyone is very nice about it, but often conversations are translated between someone whose english is slightly better but still broken. It is actually interesting that most of my coworkers have much better english when discussing physics or work than small talk or what they did on the weekend. They learned the science in english, but their english conversation classes were years ago and forgotten.
However that just makes lunch slightly awkward as discussion is stifled. What bothers me is the 10 emails I get per day which are in Japanese. I can run them through google translate which usually allows me to understand enough to know that it is an announcement of something that doesn't matter to me. However google translate is often lacking and I can't understand at all. So I am probably missing lots of meetings, events, and opportunities which I just can't understand. I have signed so many documents with no understanding of what they mean. I feel like the every day confusion of what is going on in the office/building/campus will cause me lots of stress and probably cause poor performance at my job. Oh well.
Japanese Lesson:
wakarimasen わかりません
I don't understand.
Something I say anytime anyone speaks to in Japanese. Usually by waving my hand in front of my face. What I should say is sumimasen wakarimasen, meaning "I am sorry. I don't understand." However I am usually petrified with fear so saying anything at all is pretty good.
1 I would guess classified computers exist (NSA?) which are not on the list.↩
What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think advanced physics laboratory in Japan? That's right... SPIDERS.
Giant ones. The size of my whole hand big. Everywhere. Some of them are bright colors too, which my limited knowledge of biology indicates I will die just by looking at them. There is a bank of 5 vending machines which I have to completely avoid because of the godzilla sized spider who lives above them. It is terrifying.
Other than the spiders, the major problem with the campus is it is isolated from everything else. Particle accelerators probably suffer from the "not in my backyard" effect and are built far from civilization. Actually the need for a large empty plot of land to build rings which are multiple kilometers in circumference is probably the bigger factor. I have not yet had a tour of the site and have not seen any of the experiments here yet. I have only really been to my building which is close to the entrance and the building next door which holds my super computer(s).
For those who don't know, my research is not involving the experiments or accelerators here at all. My work requires calculations which require millions of hours of processing on a computer. Instead of waiting millions of hours supercomputers are used which have a huge number of CPUs which either work together or on seperate parts of the calcuation so results can be produced within a persons life span. The supercomputers of the world are periodically ranked and placed on the top500 list. The building next door to mine houses two computers from that list, #68 and #69. However their combined power would place them at the 33rd fastest computer in the world, but they are listed separately since they are not actually connected and you would have to have two independent calculations to utilize both. However most program do not scale to that size and instead you run many different smaller calculations which each set of CPUs works on a different part of the problem, or runs the same calculation using a different set of parameters. Currently I am using half of one of the machines, so I apologize to the world for the vast amount of computing power is being wasted on my stupid science. It turns out that the 4th fastest computer in the world is in japan, but it is on the other side of the country.
I mentioned in my previous post how bad the isolation is. This is only a problem because I still LIVE on campus. At the end of this week I will be moving to my own apartment near Tsukuba station which has shops and convenience stores every street corner like the rest of Japan. I will then have to commute to work which will be a ~20 min bus ride. Eventually I may get a bike and cycle to work when the weather is nice, but that will hinge on being able to find a bicycle large enough for me at a reasonable price. It then won't matter that the nearest convince store is 2km away, because during normal hours I can eat or shop at the on campus shop. The problem only exists on weekends or evenings after work, where there is nothing around.
Everyday for lunch the people in my research group walk over to the cafeteria together at noon. The food is decent though all japanese, but it is at a good price. About 400-520円 for a meal. You order by putting money into a vending machine which prints a ticket which you hand to the lunch ladies who give you the food. This method of ordering is quite common in japan and many small restaurants use it at well. Being able to order by pushing a button is great for me, since I can't speak the language so I am not able to order even the simplest things. Ordering by selecting a button means I can order things even if I don't have a clue what anything IS. Just push a random button and hope it is edible. The cafeteria does put out samples of what the selection is for that day with the corresponding numbers so I am never 100% in the dark. It is difficult sometimes at restaurants when the buttons just have words on them, but still easier than having to communicate with a human what to order. The cafeteria always has a noodle selection which the style and type will change every day, a constant curry and rice dish which is always available, and 2-3 other entrees which rotate every day. The curry is pretty good, japanese curry is not very hot like indian curry, so it is a safe bet when I have no idea what any of the other choices are.
The hardest part about work is the lack of english. Most people have some understanding of english but most people are far from fluent. The only other foreigner I work with is italian, his english is better than most but not perfect. My boss and the groups secretary both have decent english which is conversational. Everyone else it is a real struggle to have just basic conversations with. They often ask me in broken english what I did on the weekend or if I like it here in Japan. Everyone is very nice about it, but often conversations are translated between someone whose english is slightly better but still broken. It is actually interesting that most of my coworkers have much better english when discussing physics or work than small talk or what they did on the weekend. They learned the science in english, but their english conversation classes were years ago and forgotten.
However that just makes lunch slightly awkward as discussion is stifled. What bothers me is the 10 emails I get per day which are in Japanese. I can run them through google translate which usually allows me to understand enough to know that it is an announcement of something that doesn't matter to me. However google translate is often lacking and I can't understand at all. So I am probably missing lots of meetings, events, and opportunities which I just can't understand. I have signed so many documents with no understanding of what they mean. I feel like the every day confusion of what is going on in the office/building/campus will cause me lots of stress and probably cause poor performance at my job. Oh well.
Japanese Lesson:
wakarimasen わかりません
I don't understand.
Something I say anytime anyone speaks to in Japanese. Usually by waving my hand in front of my face. What I should say is sumimasen wakarimasen, meaning "I am sorry. I don't understand." However I am usually petrified with fear so saying anything at all is pretty good.
1 I would guess classified computers exist (NSA?) which are not on the list.↩
Monday, November 17, 2014
The story so far
I have been finding it difficult to actually sit down and write blog posts. I have lots of ideas for things I want to share with everyone, however I never seem to actually get down to writing. I am hoping to find a way to fix this.
I have been in Japan for about two weeks now and figured I would start with just a status update with everything I have done. I have many posts in the works about where I the little differences between the US and Japan, and pots about, where I work, vending machines alcohol, being tall, and my thoughts on the Japanese language all in the works partially written. Hopefully I can get those done soon. This post won't focus on any one topic, but rather give a status report.
My first few days I stayed in Tokyo. The unfortunate part was that it took me a few days to get over the jetlag. Now it is probably worse for me than most people as I am 100% unable to fall asleep on an aircraft. The combination of being too large to even remotely fit in the seat provided as well as having a very hard time falling asleep normally in a pitch black quiet room is disastrous for me. So missing a whole day of sleep and missing a whole day due to crossing the international date line really messed me up. So there was no hope of being awake long enough to checkout Tokyo night life.
The things I did in Tokyo were mostly touristy. Checked out the Tokyo Skytree, which is the second tallest man made structure in the WORLD. You can pay to go up to an observation room and get a view of Tokyo from above. Unfortunately it was overcast so I couldn't see the whole city, but the view was still amazing.
The other touristy thing I saw was Sensoji Temple. I don't know a whole lot about Buddhism, but I had find with getting my fortune from the temple. There are containers filled with wooden rods which if you pay 100円 (roughly 1 USD) you can shake it and then extract one of the rods from a small hole in the container. Each one has writing on it indicating which box to open containing your fortune. I of course received "bad fortune." So just days before I start a new job I am told
so pretty excited about my new life in japan. If you receive bad fortune, you are supposed to tie the paper to a rack or a tree near the temple so the monks can pray for your luck to change... However I kept mine. I was also surprised that right next to the Buddhist temple was Shinto shrine. Shintoism is the religion that is native to Japan originating some ~2700 years ago. Today it seems that people currently believe some sort of hybrid between the two. Japan does not have Buddhists and Shinto, it contains people who follow both systems, which is fascinating. However I currently don't understand the tenants of either. Actually the fortune may have been Shinto rather than Buddhist as I can not tell and the two seem to blend together here.
Tokyo itself is huge yet surprisingly clean and organized. The trains all come on time, get you anywhere you need to go, and hundreds of people walk through the stations quietly and orderly. The cleanliness of the city is shocking considering that on no street corner is there a trash can. I will have to have a post dedicated to trash/recycling disposal in japan as it is fascinating. Tokyo is filled with vending machines, convenience stores, (Konbini short for konbiniensu sutoa) and restaurants. I enjoyed just walking around the streets looking at things. Pictured below is the most (foot) trafficked intersection in the world, and the best food I have had in Japan so far, unagidon, which is eel on rice.
Tokyo was fun but I will be living and working in Tsukuba (つくば）. There is a express train which leaves from Akihabara station in Tokyo and takes 45-55 minutes to get to Tsukuba station for ~1100円 (~$11US). The time varies depending of if you catch a local train or a rapid train which skips about half the stops between. Now for those of you in the states, it is worth pointing out that it takes over an hour to drive from Tsukuba to Akihabara since it is close to 50 miles as the bird flies. This is a big contrast to trains in the US as I am used to transit between San Diego and Orange county which takes twice as long by train as it does to drive (without traffic.) The Tsukuba Express (called the TX) is smooth, quiet and seems to have a train departing every ~5 minutes! The fact that I can get to Tokyo and back via the express train is comforting as it makes seem like I spend plenty of time in Tokyo as it should be possible to go for just a day trip or more likely weekend trips.
The reason heading to Tokyo is appealing is because Tsukuba isn't. It feels very dull. It is not rural, but small suburban city. The bigger problem is the location of my place of work. I am working at the KEK, which of course it not what it is called in Japanese. Here it is called 高エネルギー加速器研究機構. So from the Tsukuba station I have to take the bus 20 minutes outside of the city to my stop labeled something like 高エネルギー加速器研究機構, no English or romaji on the bus. I was able to find it though since I didn't even know which bus to take and the person at the information desk was able to circle the name of my stop on a bus timetable sheet when I asked for "KEK." The bus fare is 300円. Once there I checked into the guest apartment which is on the KEK campus which I will be living in for the first month. I filmed a tour of my temporary accommodations which you can see here.
Other than my inability to stand up in the shower (which is very frustrating and I leave the ceiling of the shower covered in water and shampoo as my pre-rinsed head keeps hitting it) the place is fine... except for the location. KEK is a research institution which contains a few particle accelerators. I imagine that it suffers from the "not in my backyard" effect which has caused its remote location. There is nothing near KEK itself. Walking for ~2km (~1.2miles) along a completely unlit road brings you to a マクドナルド (McDonald's) marking the edge of a small area called Oho. It is then a short walk to a grocery store and a few restaurants. Having to walk over a mile back carrying groceries severely limits how much you can buy, and the complete darkness of the walk makes it unenjoyable.
Oh, I mention the darkness because currently sunset is 4:30 here, which means by the time I am out of work it is completely dark, not even dusk. This surprised me at first since Pittsburgh was farther north than I am now, so I expected the day to be longer. It turns out it is longer, but it matters where you are located in your timezone! So I currently have about 30minutes more daylight than I would back in Pittsburgh, but sunrise is around 6:20am, where in Pittsburgh the sun is currently up from 7:10 to 17:00. While I am glad I don't have to change my clocks here in japan (DST is not observed) I really wish we could be in the next timezone over as I don't care at all about the sun being up early in the morning and would must rather have sunlight in the evening!
The isolation from living at KEK is really troubling. I could take the bus into Tsukuba proper, but the last bus to KEK leaves at 22:20 which does not leave for any time for evening activities. It also makes going to Tokyo for a day trip problematic as getting back to Tsukuba in time requires leaving quite early (especially leaving time for me to inevitably get lost.) Taking a taxi from Tsukuba station is possible, but ~$30USD which doesn't seem worth it. So I have been mostly restricted to the oho area near work which does not have much going on, and is very much a small town. At least it is a temporary arrangement, as I will be moving close to the Tsukuba train station on Dec5 (more on that later.) The McDonalds is 24hours so at least I wont starve.
I am able to eat at the cafeteria on the KEK campus, for only 500円 (~5USD) however it is closed on the weekend so I do have to go to the oho grocery store. I have walked around that grocery store for hours trying to figure out what everything is. The first hurdle I had is that they don't provide you with bags to bag your groceries. Well they might provide one if I were to ask, but I don't know how to ask. However there is a little area that most people put their groceries into a box to seal up and take, or more likely have reusable shopping bags. I have determined after walking around the store for hours that the reusable shopping bags are not sold within the grocery store. This problem is now solved as I found reusable shopping bags at a 100円 store (such dollar stores will certainly be the topic of their own post eventually.)
Actually shopping for food is difficult as I don't know what most things are. Things like vegetables, meat and eggs are pretty easy since you can identify them by sight. The meat is a bit tricky since a good percent is fish and I am unable to recognize it but chicken and pork are pretty easy to spot. There are still surprises, like when you buy bacon and don't realize it is not sliced, but at least I know what it is. The problem is everything else, especially sauces and packaged goods. For example it took me 10 minutes to decide that packages I was looking at were salt and not sugar. I believe the things in cartons are milk, but unable to determine which ones are cream, milk, skim, etc. So even if I were to look up how to cook Japanese foods ("Cooking with Dog1" is a youtube channel which seems to teach Japanese home cooking) I am unable to buy the required ingredients. There are many packages which look like they are the spices of seasonings required to make tasty looking things like curries or soups, but I can't read the directions at all. So far the only real cooking I have done has been to cook some noodles in a pan with pork and onions, which I have no idea if I am doing it right, some instant raman, microwavable things, and tomago kake gohan. The last one is simply a raw egg you mix into a bowl of rice. A traditional breakfast food here... I think.
The thing about shopping and everything else here in japan is that I don't understand the language, and no one speaks English. Supposedly everyone takes many years of English classes in school in Japan, but it does not feel possible to get by here with English. In Europe I imagine similar amounts of English in school but the Japanese have much less opportunity to practice it with native speakers. It may be that everyone's English is better than it seems, and everyone is too shy to speak it. Perhaps if I was more demanding or forceful people would speak more English to me, but when I encounter someone who is shy about something, I tend to leave them alone about it. I don't want to make people feel uncomfortable having to speak English to me if they are uncomfortable speaking it! Maybe that is something I will have to learn to get over but for now I have no form of communication with most people. People have been super helpful with everything, like a bus driver getting out of the bus and walk over to tell me where I should go when I was obviously lost, but he informed me with gestures and pointing, not with speech. I have no fear of being unable to do things here, as people will go far and out of their way to help me if I need it or ask for it.
The problem is never understanding what is going on. I enjoy knowing what is going on around me. I don't just want to know what to do, I want to know why things are happening. I think everyone has that to some extent, but maybe being a scientist that need to answer "why" is stronger. I am the type of person who reads the manual for every device I buy. Here I am unable to read a single word of anything. It is not good enough for me to figure out how to use the washing machine, or figure out how to use the rice cooker. I feel incredibly frustrated that I don't know what every option on either does. I can figure out what I need to do to ride the train, but I wan't know how all the details of how my rechargeable transit card works. This is not unique to japan, but simply living somewhere that I don't speak the language. I think I either need to learn to understand Japanese extremely quickly or I will be very frustrated and upset with my life here. Either that or take the advice that some have given and "learn to accept being confused and not understand what is going on." Which seems like a terrible thing to try to learn.
Currently my biggest complaint is how isolated living at the KEK is. I think things will be better once I move to an apartment closer to Tsukuba station as it will probably be easier to discover things I enjoy, be more convenient to get settled, and hopefully be easier to meet people and make friends. Additionally once I have a more permanent residence I can start buying things to make things feel more at home. The place I am moving to is designed for foreign researchers and comes fully furnished, which is nice for getting on my feet quickly (though it means a bed which is too small for me). It may not be perfect, and people have suggested I should move closer to tokyo and take the train to commute to work, but hopefully since the building is just for foreign researchers I can meet some English speaking friends. I had the option of moving to government housing (I am an employee of the Japanese government) which would have been super cheap (~$200 a month.) When I visited them they were huge apartments, spanning two stories, clearly intended for families. It would have been amazing... except the building was old so the doorways were WAY too low for me to walk through. Standing they were at MOUTH level. Even just looking at the apartments I smacked my head into one really hard and sadly couldn't move there. (I will post more about apartments after I move to my new place)
The next biggest issue is the lack of a phone plan. Not being able to use online translation services or Google maps while out really hinders my ability to explore. Having maps and GPS at your finger tips enables you to have confidence in going places as you can always use the GPS to find a route home. I will be much happier once I have data on my phone. Phone service here first required I get a Japanese bank account. After I received my account the secretary at work took me to docomo, which is the largest telecom here to get a phone plan. Unfortunately they refused to give me a plan for my current phone, and seem to require you to buy a Japanese phone through them. My phone is a Nexus5, which one of the important features of the Nexus phones is they come unlocked so I KNOW I would be able to use it in japan if I had a plan (it works currently with my US plan but the roaming charges are undesireable.) Since I want to keep my current phone it becomes tricky but my research has found that two companies B-mobile and Ymobile will offer simcard only phone plans here, and seem much cheaper than the major companies. The holdup there was since their ordering is completely online I needed a Japanese creditcard. I finally received my credit card today so I can hopefully sign up with one of them soon. However everything is in Japanese so not sure it will be easy for me to sign up.
The credit card is not that important since almost everything in japan is cash based. No one uses credit cards at small shops or restaurants. I was worried because I am almost out of the yen that I brought with me. When I first arrived I converted some USD to yen, but not all of the USD I brought with me in case the exchange became more favorable or I found a better way to convert the currency. I only had enough to last me a few weeks, which are now up. Luckily I received my fist paycheck today so I can take money from the ATM. It took me a long time this morning to verify I did get paid since my bank's website is only in Japanese. In fact here is the bank's website and here is the English version.... looks like it has not been updated in 10 years, certainly can't log in using English. The ATM's for my bank don't have an English option either... so hopefully I can figure out how to withdraw money and don't end up transferring all of my money to Nigeria or investing in gashapon from the ATM.
So that is an overview of everything so far and my current status. TL;DR moved to KEK, waiting impatiently for a phone and to move to a better located permanent place.
I am hoping now that I have this overview out of the way I can focus on writing more in depth about Japan and a bit about the differences in life and culture here as I see it. There are many odd things in japan, which I hope to convey soon in other posts. Thanks for reading.
Japanese Lesson:
Konbini コンビニ
abbreviated from the closest Japanese approximation to "convenience store," konbiniensu sutoa.
There are more 7-elevens in Japan then there are in the US. Konbini are on every street corner in populated areas (none near KEK). They sell softdrinks, snack foods, pens, beer, and often have a section of comic books with a hand full of young men/boys reading them in the stores. The biggest difference between a convenience store in Japan and the states is the selection of hot foods, which are not hotdogs which have been rolling all day, but nikuman which are buns filled with meat and quite good. But also various plates of noodles or bento boxes and onigiri. Try one today!
1 Dog refers to the host of the show, they don't eat dogs in japan.↩
I have been in Japan for about two weeks now and figured I would start with just a status update with everything I have done. I have many posts in the works about where I the little differences between the US and Japan, and pots about, where I work, vending machines alcohol, being tall, and my thoughts on the Japanese language all in the works partially written. Hopefully I can get those done soon. This post won't focus on any one topic, but rather give a status report.
My first few days I stayed in Tokyo. The unfortunate part was that it took me a few days to get over the jetlag. Now it is probably worse for me than most people as I am 100% unable to fall asleep on an aircraft. The combination of being too large to even remotely fit in the seat provided as well as having a very hard time falling asleep normally in a pitch black quiet room is disastrous for me. So missing a whole day of sleep and missing a whole day due to crossing the international date line really messed me up. So there was no hope of being awake long enough to checkout Tokyo night life.
The things I did in Tokyo were mostly touristy. Checked out the Tokyo Skytree, which is the second tallest man made structure in the WORLD. You can pay to go up to an observation room and get a view of Tokyo from above. Unfortunately it was overcast so I couldn't see the whole city, but the view was still amazing.
The other touristy thing I saw was Sensoji Temple. I don't know a whole lot about Buddhism, but I had find with getting my fortune from the temple. There are containers filled with wooden rods which if you pay 100円 (roughly 1 USD) you can shake it and then extract one of the rods from a small hole in the container. Each one has writing on it indicating which box to open containing your fortune. I of course received "bad fortune." So just days before I start a new job I am told
"Marriage of any kind and new employment are both bad."
so pretty excited about my new life in japan. If you receive bad fortune, you are supposed to tie the paper to a rack or a tree near the temple so the monks can pray for your luck to change... However I kept mine. I was also surprised that right next to the Buddhist temple was Shinto shrine. Shintoism is the religion that is native to Japan originating some ~2700 years ago. Today it seems that people currently believe some sort of hybrid between the two. Japan does not have Buddhists and Shinto, it contains people who follow both systems, which is fascinating. However I currently don't understand the tenants of either. Actually the fortune may have been Shinto rather than Buddhist as I can not tell and the two seem to blend together here.
Tokyo itself is huge yet surprisingly clean and organized. The trains all come on time, get you anywhere you need to go, and hundreds of people walk through the stations quietly and orderly. The cleanliness of the city is shocking considering that on no street corner is there a trash can. I will have to have a post dedicated to trash/recycling disposal in japan as it is fascinating. Tokyo is filled with vending machines, convenience stores, (Konbini short for konbiniensu sutoa) and restaurants. I enjoyed just walking around the streets looking at things. Pictured below is the most (foot) trafficked intersection in the world, and the best food I have had in Japan so far, unagidon, which is eel on rice.
Off to Tsukuba Town
Tokyo was fun but I will be living and working in Tsukuba (つくば）. There is a express train which leaves from Akihabara station in Tokyo and takes 45-55 minutes to get to Tsukuba station for ~1100円 (~$11US). The time varies depending of if you catch a local train or a rapid train which skips about half the stops between. Now for those of you in the states, it is worth pointing out that it takes over an hour to drive from Tsukuba to Akihabara since it is close to 50 miles as the bird flies. This is a big contrast to trains in the US as I am used to transit between San Diego and Orange county which takes twice as long by train as it does to drive (without traffic.) The Tsukuba Express (called the TX) is smooth, quiet and seems to have a train departing every ~5 minutes! The fact that I can get to Tokyo and back via the express train is comforting as it makes seem like I spend plenty of time in Tokyo as it should be possible to go for just a day trip or more likely weekend trips.
The reason heading to Tokyo is appealing is because Tsukuba isn't. It feels very dull. It is not rural, but small suburban city. The bigger problem is the location of my place of work. I am working at the KEK, which of course it not what it is called in Japanese. Here it is called 高エネルギー加速器研究機構. So from the Tsukuba station I have to take the bus 20 minutes outside of the city to my stop labeled something like 高エネルギー加速器研究機構, no English or romaji on the bus. I was able to find it though since I didn't even know which bus to take and the person at the information desk was able to circle the name of my stop on a bus timetable sheet when I asked for "KEK." The bus fare is 300円. Once there I checked into the guest apartment which is on the KEK campus which I will be living in for the first month. I filmed a tour of my temporary accommodations which you can see here.
Other than my inability to stand up in the shower (which is very frustrating and I leave the ceiling of the shower covered in water and shampoo as my pre-rinsed head keeps hitting it) the place is fine... except for the location. KEK is a research institution which contains a few particle accelerators. I imagine that it suffers from the "not in my backyard" effect which has caused its remote location. There is nothing near KEK itself. Walking for ~2km (~1.2miles) along a completely unlit road brings you to a マクドナルド (McDonald's) marking the edge of a small area called Oho. It is then a short walk to a grocery store and a few restaurants. Having to walk over a mile back carrying groceries severely limits how much you can buy, and the complete darkness of the walk makes it unenjoyable.
Oh, I mention the darkness because currently sunset is 4:30 here, which means by the time I am out of work it is completely dark, not even dusk. This surprised me at first since Pittsburgh was farther north than I am now, so I expected the day to be longer. It turns out it is longer, but it matters where you are located in your timezone! So I currently have about 30minutes more daylight than I would back in Pittsburgh, but sunrise is around 6:20am, where in Pittsburgh the sun is currently up from 7:10 to 17:00. While I am glad I don't have to change my clocks here in japan (DST is not observed) I really wish we could be in the next timezone over as I don't care at all about the sun being up early in the morning and would must rather have sunlight in the evening!
The isolation from living at KEK is really troubling. I could take the bus into Tsukuba proper, but the last bus to KEK leaves at 22:20 which does not leave for any time for evening activities. It also makes going to Tokyo for a day trip problematic as getting back to Tsukuba in time requires leaving quite early (especially leaving time for me to inevitably get lost.) Taking a taxi from Tsukuba station is possible, but ~$30USD which doesn't seem worth it. So I have been mostly restricted to the oho area near work which does not have much going on, and is very much a small town. At least it is a temporary arrangement, as I will be moving close to the Tsukuba train station on Dec5 (more on that later.) The McDonalds is 24hours so at least I wont starve.
I am able to eat at the cafeteria on the KEK campus, for only 500円 (~5USD) however it is closed on the weekend so I do have to go to the oho grocery store. I have walked around that grocery store for hours trying to figure out what everything is. The first hurdle I had is that they don't provide you with bags to bag your groceries. Well they might provide one if I were to ask, but I don't know how to ask. However there is a little area that most people put their groceries into a box to seal up and take, or more likely have reusable shopping bags. I have determined after walking around the store for hours that the reusable shopping bags are not sold within the grocery store. This problem is now solved as I found reusable shopping bags at a 100円 store (such dollar stores will certainly be the topic of their own post eventually.)
Actually shopping for food is difficult as I don't know what most things are. Things like vegetables, meat and eggs are pretty easy since you can identify them by sight. The meat is a bit tricky since a good percent is fish and I am unable to recognize it but chicken and pork are pretty easy to spot. There are still surprises, like when you buy bacon and don't realize it is not sliced, but at least I know what it is. The problem is everything else, especially sauces and packaged goods. For example it took me 10 minutes to decide that packages I was looking at were salt and not sugar. I believe the things in cartons are milk, but unable to determine which ones are cream, milk, skim, etc. So even if I were to look up how to cook Japanese foods ("Cooking with Dog1" is a youtube channel which seems to teach Japanese home cooking) I am unable to buy the required ingredients. There are many packages which look like they are the spices of seasonings required to make tasty looking things like curries or soups, but I can't read the directions at all. So far the only real cooking I have done has been to cook some noodles in a pan with pork and onions, which I have no idea if I am doing it right, some instant raman, microwavable things, and tomago kake gohan. The last one is simply a raw egg you mix into a bowl of rice. A traditional breakfast food here... I think.
The thing about shopping and everything else here in japan is that I don't understand the language, and no one speaks English. Supposedly everyone takes many years of English classes in school in Japan, but it does not feel possible to get by here with English. In Europe I imagine similar amounts of English in school but the Japanese have much less opportunity to practice it with native speakers. It may be that everyone's English is better than it seems, and everyone is too shy to speak it. Perhaps if I was more demanding or forceful people would speak more English to me, but when I encounter someone who is shy about something, I tend to leave them alone about it. I don't want to make people feel uncomfortable having to speak English to me if they are uncomfortable speaking it! Maybe that is something I will have to learn to get over but for now I have no form of communication with most people. People have been super helpful with everything, like a bus driver getting out of the bus and walk over to tell me where I should go when I was obviously lost, but he informed me with gestures and pointing, not with speech. I have no fear of being unable to do things here, as people will go far and out of their way to help me if I need it or ask for it.
The problem is never understanding what is going on. I enjoy knowing what is going on around me. I don't just want to know what to do, I want to know why things are happening. I think everyone has that to some extent, but maybe being a scientist that need to answer "why" is stronger. I am the type of person who reads the manual for every device I buy. Here I am unable to read a single word of anything. It is not good enough for me to figure out how to use the washing machine, or figure out how to use the rice cooker. I feel incredibly frustrated that I don't know what every option on either does. I can figure out what I need to do to ride the train, but I wan't know how all the details of how my rechargeable transit card works. This is not unique to japan, but simply living somewhere that I don't speak the language. I think I either need to learn to understand Japanese extremely quickly or I will be very frustrated and upset with my life here. Either that or take the advice that some have given and "learn to accept being confused and not understand what is going on." Which seems like a terrible thing to try to learn.
Current Status
Currently my biggest complaint is how isolated living at the KEK is. I think things will be better once I move to an apartment closer to Tsukuba station as it will probably be easier to discover things I enjoy, be more convenient to get settled, and hopefully be easier to meet people and make friends. Additionally once I have a more permanent residence I can start buying things to make things feel more at home. The place I am moving to is designed for foreign researchers and comes fully furnished, which is nice for getting on my feet quickly (though it means a bed which is too small for me). It may not be perfect, and people have suggested I should move closer to tokyo and take the train to commute to work, but hopefully since the building is just for foreign researchers I can meet some English speaking friends. I had the option of moving to government housing (I am an employee of the Japanese government) which would have been super cheap (~$200 a month.) When I visited them they were huge apartments, spanning two stories, clearly intended for families. It would have been amazing... except the building was old so the doorways were WAY too low for me to walk through. Standing they were at MOUTH level. Even just looking at the apartments I smacked my head into one really hard and sadly couldn't move there. (I will post more about apartments after I move to my new place)
The next biggest issue is the lack of a phone plan. Not being able to use online translation services or Google maps while out really hinders my ability to explore. Having maps and GPS at your finger tips enables you to have confidence in going places as you can always use the GPS to find a route home. I will be much happier once I have data on my phone. Phone service here first required I get a Japanese bank account. After I received my account the secretary at work took me to docomo, which is the largest telecom here to get a phone plan. Unfortunately they refused to give me a plan for my current phone, and seem to require you to buy a Japanese phone through them. My phone is a Nexus5, which one of the important features of the Nexus phones is they come unlocked so I KNOW I would be able to use it in japan if I had a plan (it works currently with my US plan but the roaming charges are undesireable.) Since I want to keep my current phone it becomes tricky but my research has found that two companies B-mobile and Ymobile will offer simcard only phone plans here, and seem much cheaper than the major companies. The holdup there was since their ordering is completely online I needed a Japanese creditcard. I finally received my credit card today so I can hopefully sign up with one of them soon. However everything is in Japanese so not sure it will be easy for me to sign up.
The credit card is not that important since almost everything in japan is cash based. No one uses credit cards at small shops or restaurants. I was worried because I am almost out of the yen that I brought with me. When I first arrived I converted some USD to yen, but not all of the USD I brought with me in case the exchange became more favorable or I found a better way to convert the currency. I only had enough to last me a few weeks, which are now up. Luckily I received my fist paycheck today so I can take money from the ATM. It took me a long time this morning to verify I did get paid since my bank's website is only in Japanese. In fact here is the bank's website and here is the English version.... looks like it has not been updated in 10 years, certainly can't log in using English. The ATM's for my bank don't have an English option either... so hopefully I can figure out how to withdraw money and don't end up transferring all of my money to Nigeria or investing in gashapon from the ATM.
So that is an overview of everything so far and my current status. TL;DR moved to KEK, waiting impatiently for a phone and to move to a better located permanent place.
I am hoping now that I have this overview out of the way I can focus on writing more in depth about Japan and a bit about the differences in life and culture here as I see it. There are many odd things in japan, which I hope to convey soon in other posts. Thanks for reading.
Japanese Lesson:
Konbini コンビニ
abbreviated from the closest Japanese approximation to "convenience store," konbiniensu sutoa.
There are more 7-elevens in Japan then there are in the US. Konbini are on every street corner in populated areas (none near KEK). They sell softdrinks, snack foods, pens, beer, and often have a section of comic books with a hand full of young men/boys reading them in the stores. The biggest difference between a convenience store in Japan and the states is the selection of hot foods, which are not hotdogs which have been rolling all day, but nikuman which are buns filled with meat and quite good. But also various plates of noodles or bento boxes and onigiri. Try one today!
1 Dog refers to the host of the show, they don't eat dogs in japan.↩
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Konichiwa
Welcome to my blog, where I will record my life, (mis)adventures, and thoughts about Japan.
I expect most readers will be friends and family but let me introduce myself anyway. I am a physicist who was offered a postdoctoral position at KEK located in Tsukuba Japan. I had applied to positions all over the world so I had not exactly planned to move my life to Japan. I tried to learn as much about the culture and language before I moved here but feel less prepared for such a culture shock than someone who plans for years to move here. So I do not speak any Japanese, or have any real friends located in Japan. I will have to figure it out as I go which hopefully will be entertaining for you dear readers.
The title of this blog is fitting as I have been told it is impossible for a foreigner to ever truly assimilate in japan (despite what The Vapors lyrics suggest.) Instead I am simply becoming a foreigner living in Japan. The Japanese word gaijin (外人) literally translates to "outside person" and is used to mean outsider, foreigner or alien. It does not have positive connotations as it is often used when expressing exclusionary attitudes. However I don't expect to ever fit in here as my contract is only two years which I expect will not be sufficient time to learn the language. There is also the issue that I am a 195cm bearded white guy, so it will be hard to go unnoticed. I will attempt to embrace my gaijin nature and try not to let it bother me that I will be treated differently. There are supposedly benefits to being visibly foreign in Japan as people will let you get away with quite a bit chalking it up to lack of understanding. I wonder what I will be able to get away with.
I have not settled on a format of this blog, but I expect there will be some posts focusing on specific topics. I plan on doing a post covering an overview of topics such as food, vending machines, shopping, transportation, alcohol, and work. After those posts may be more specific focusing on a particular topic or even.
Japanese lesson:
sumimasen (すみません)
Meaning: something like "sorry" or "excuse me"
How to use it:
When you bump into someone, when you don't understand something, when you make eye contact with anyone, to get the attention of a waitress, when you are in someones way, if someone does something nice for you, if you are ever within 2 meters of another person, when you are alone and think unsavory thoughts.
I expect most readers will be friends and family but let me introduce myself anyway. I am a physicist who was offered a postdoctoral position at KEK located in Tsukuba Japan. I had applied to positions all over the world so I had not exactly planned to move my life to Japan. I tried to learn as much about the culture and language before I moved here but feel less prepared for such a culture shock than someone who plans for years to move here. So I do not speak any Japanese, or have any real friends located in Japan. I will have to figure it out as I go which hopefully will be entertaining for you dear readers.
The title of this blog is fitting as I have been told it is impossible for a foreigner to ever truly assimilate in japan (despite what The Vapors lyrics suggest.) Instead I am simply becoming a foreigner living in Japan. The Japanese word gaijin (外人) literally translates to "outside person" and is used to mean outsider, foreigner or alien. It does not have positive connotations as it is often used when expressing exclusionary attitudes. However I don't expect to ever fit in here as my contract is only two years which I expect will not be sufficient time to learn the language. There is also the issue that I am a 195cm bearded white guy, so it will be hard to go unnoticed. I will attempt to embrace my gaijin nature and try not to let it bother me that I will be treated differently. There are supposedly benefits to being visibly foreign in Japan as people will let you get away with quite a bit chalking it up to lack of understanding. I wonder what I will be able to get away with.
I have not settled on a format of this blog, but I expect there will be some posts focusing on specific topics. I plan on doing a post covering an overview of topics such as food, vending machines, shopping, transportation, alcohol, and work. After those posts may be more specific focusing on a particular topic or even.
Japanese lesson:
sumimasen (すみません)
Meaning: something like "sorry" or "excuse me"
How to use it:
When you bump into someone, when you don't understand something, when you make eye contact with anyone, to get the attention of a waitress, when you are in someones way, if someone does something nice for you, if you are ever within 2 meters of another person, when you are alone and think unsavory thoughts.
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