Ambulatory Consumption

In this country, it is very rude to eat or drink while walking or standing. I have dubbed this unspoken regulation: the law of Ambulatory Consumption. Those of you who know me well are no doubt chuckling at my misfortune, as I am notorious for never sitting down to eat. My general instinct is to multi-task multi-task!!! No time to waste on eating, its always such a nuisance. Hunger is a fly buzzing around my head, at which I must swat with whatever victuals lay handy. I'd much rather stand at my kitchen counter, devouring cold kidney beans from the can with one hand and reading a book with the other, than do what many label "enjoying a meal". Of course, I enjoy my meal of cold kidney beans as much as the next person enjoys their 7-courses. Hell, I'll eat cold Cambles soup out of a plastic bucket with my fingers and be happy (just ask anyone who was at Tokashiki this year). Different strokes for different folks! as pops always says.

Anyway, this may have been somewhat acceptable behaviour in America, but here in Japan it creates constant ISSUES. My food and drink related habits are in violation of the law of Ambulatory Consumption. The most frequent infractions occur when I'm rushing in the morning and bring my (third cup of) coffee with me in the car to school, then carry it through the parking lot and into the building, frantically sipping all the while in a last ditch attempt to imbibe enough caffeine as to achieve the same level of frenetic genkidom as my students. I think the Okinawans have some sort of built-in detector for violators of the Ambulatory Consumption law, because people near and far turn and stare at me in accusatory silence as I walk the schoolyard-become-gauntlet-of-shame. By the time I realize what's happening, it's too late to rid myself of the cup, so I try to look like a dumb foreigner (not difficult) and shuffle along a bit faster.

I also get caught chewing gum in class all the time (fyi: in America a lot of people aren't allowed to chew gum in class, but in Japan it's supposedly rude to chew gum in public at all). The sensei (not having realized that Joyce-san, too, is misbehaving) will yell, "Takahiro!!!! We don't chew gum! Go spit it out!" Takahiro gives me an accusatory look, as I have been happily chomping away right there in front of the entire class for the last 20 minutes without realizing it. In order to assuage his feelings of injustice, usually I sidle over to the trashcan along with Takahiro and we spit it out together, producing waves of giggles throughout the classroom, and an embarrassed little, "Oh, Joyce-san!" from the teacher who has just realized her mistake and has fallen into a blushing fit.

There are actually some general eating and drinking rules besides those mentioned above, which you ought to know if you are planning on coming to visit me (which I firmly believe each and every one of you will do!). It's rude to refill your own glass when drinking in a group. If you want more, you should pick up the bottle and pour some into the glass of the person next to you, even if their glass is full and you can only fit a drop or two. They will then return the favor. Traditionally, the youngest person pours all the drinks. I haven't experienced this in Okinawa, but when I hung out with mainland Japanese in Chapel Hill, that's how they did it. It is also rude to take food from a communal eating dish with the end of your chopsticks that you're eating with. Usually when you go out to eat in Japan, you go to an izakaya where various group dishes are ordered and passed around. No one ever orders their "own" food in an izakaya. Instead of taking the food with the eating end of the chopsticks, you should turn them around and use the end that your hands are holding onto, then turn them back around to eat from your own plate… I haven't yet figured out why this isn't messy for anyone except me.

While I'm thinking about it, let me detail a few more oddities that you will have to deal with when visiting.

1. ATMs have working hours
Ladies and Gents, Im sorry to say that many ATMs here are only open until 8pm weekdays, and closed on the weekend. I suppose the machines need family time as well. Perhaps there is an ATM union here, which has worked hard and suffered many casualties in the struggle for a 40 hour work week. Their slogan, ATMs: the folks that brought you the weekend! Give it back to them!

2. The standard color of a parasol is BLACK. Don't use any other color or you will attract stares. Its perfectly fine to use a black umbrella, but it needs to have an old granny wooden hook handle if you want to fit it. Practically all women refuse to leave the house without a black parasol in the heat of the summer. Before I had my car, I used to walk 15 minutes to school (in August) at 8.30am. Within seconds, my entire body was covered in sweat. It gushed from every pore, creating ginormous splotches on my shirts, pools in my elbows, rivulets down my legs, and soaking my hair. Truly phenomenal. After a week of looking at ladies carrying umbrellas around, I finally tried it myself and it worked wonders. Cut my sweating by a third. Why they use BLACK, however, is a mystery to me.

3. When attending an Okinawan wedding, you are required to give the bride and groom 1-万 (roughly $100). This is not a matter of choice, it's how the wedding gets paid for (on the mainland they have the same tradition, but it's a lot more expensive!) So watch out if you are invited to a wedding. Without that money-envelope, you aint gettin in the door. (You also give money at funerals but I dont know how much).

4. Envelopes cannot, I repeat, CANNOT, be purchased at the post office. Stop trying, Joyce!!!! One of my least favorite things about this country. You have to go to a different store entirely to find envelopes. On the bright side, plane tickets and many other such items can be bought on the internet and paid for with cash at any convenience store (this is one way they get around having credit cards… barely no use of credit cards here). Another least favorite thing of mine is that boxed candy and microwave popcorn cannot be purchased at the movie rental store (though blank CDs, DVDs, and batteries can be). Interestingly, CDs can be rented at video rental stores. The music section is just as big as the video section, in fact! Am I right that we cant do this in America? Thats what I told the Japanese people, but I know my memory of America is rapidly failing.

5. Alcohol blood level tolerance is ZERO. They have this really useful service called daiko</EM> similar to a taxi service. A taxi comes with 2 guys in it, and one guy hops out and drives your car home for you with you in it, tailing your taxi. This costs less than a taxi! Yay no drunk driving!

8. There is a national curfew for high school students. They are not allowed to be outside their houses from 10pm-5am. Game halls kick middle school students out at 6pm, and high school students out at 8pm with loudspeaker announcements, so they can get home in time. Plus, part time jobs arent allowed to employ the kids past 10pm, though they do illegally. This is one of the reasons I find it particularly funny that I run into various and sundry students o mine every weekend between the hours of 2-5am on Kokusaidori (downtown). Even funnier is that they approach me to say hi. Normally, students hide when they are smoking cigarettes (must be 20 to smoke) or breaking curfew and see a teacher, because the teacher will report to the school, and they will get punished. Actually, any adult who sees them is supposed to report them to their high school for punishment, but unless theyre wearing their uniform (which is distinctive for each school for just this reason) no strangers have any way of knowing who to report them to. This is one way in which Japan is very different from America. It is the school`s job to control/punish student misbehavior OUTSIDE of school. Back to what I was saying. My kids will flag me town from a block away on the back of their motorcycles with cigarettes dangling out of their mouths at 4am to say hi. Fearless hooligans! I marvel. They know Americans wont report them, due to our renown belief in independence: school has no business meddling with their private lives. I even had one kid last week wave hi to me on the street when he was skipping class. The gumption.