Fish Heads Aren't Even the Worst of It!

I have a piece of paper with 500 written on it stuck to my fridge. It reminds me of this unbelievable statistic: the average American consumes the same quantity of food as do 500 Ethiopians. It's not meant as a guilt-laden diet plan; “make yourself so depressed about the state of the world and you won't want to eat!” Rather, it is a reminder of a principle that has long since vanished from our doorsteps in the West: moderation. Our society encourages thoughtless consumption, from Hummers that end up in the driveways of cookie-cutter homes in the suburbs to pasta dishes for children that contain more saturated fat that an adult should consume in four days. If someone is selling it, we think it must be a good idea to buy it.

With this cultural heritage, I was thrilled to be making my way to Japan in 2008. Known as a society heavily influenced by it's religious and artistic aestheticism, Japan could be the poster-child of “less is more” and “quality not quantity.” What I couldn't anticipate was the wreckage that the principle of motainai wreaks on school lunch at my junior high school.

Motainai is kinda like “waste not, want not.” In a conversation you'd use it to explain why you'd saved the scraps of fabric from a sewing project just as much as you could use it to explain why you stayed up late watching the Olympics. Applied to school lunch, this principle forsakes wisdom and pushes the boundaries of sanity.

Our school lunch company is, from what I can tell, incapable of counting or reading a calendar of events. If half the teachers will be away for a sports conference the company does not give us less food; we simply eat twice as much. Why? Motainai. The lunch company also keeps track of the food we didn't eat and sends my school a report card.

Class competitions are held to see what class leaves the least amount of milk bottles behind. Variables like chronically absent students and those with allergies are not taken into account. Allergies in general are not considered by the company; there was a student at my school last year who is allergic to seafood, all seafood. Almost everyday we eat fish, especially in the summer, and he simply went without. No meat replacement was ever offered.

So I was not surprised, really, when after informing one of my teachers that I didn't eat today's soup because I'm allergic to clams, she said “Motainai.” Not a command, necessarily, but certainly a sentiment that expressed as much or more disappointment in me having an allergy than in the school lunch company for not providing me an alternative.

Any principle, even moderation, observed entirely for it's own sake loses all meaning. Motainai is a good idea when it encourages students to try foods they don't like or aren't familiar with. And it's a good idea when it encourages us to soak in every last moment of an event. And it's a good idea when it makes us appreciate the labor that's gone into our food manufacturing, making us thoughtful in our consumption. But at junior high schools all across Japan motainai has gone terribly wrong.

I have become an expert at force-feeding myself and ignoring my gag reflex all to satisfy a principle that is, in the meantime, rendered meaningless.

On the Scooping Up of Night Soil

Over the last year and a half in Japan I have been reminded again and again, by both my blunders in Japanese and my students' in English, that language usage can be a tricky thing.

When you look up sumimasen in a dictionary, you're given "excuse me" as the translation. And "thank you" when you look up arigatou gozaimasu and "I'm sorry" for gomennesai. However, that does not mean that you are now ready to insert them into conversation. Not by a long shot! Sumimasen seems to be rarely used in formal/business settings to mean "excuse me." The more apologetic and polite gomennasai is more appropriate. Situations that warrant a quick sumimasen in my office--passing next to or overtaking someone in the hallways, for example--wouldn't need the English equivalent back home.

And "thank you?" Well, it has it's place I'm sure. But in daily interactions I use sumimasen and gomennasai just as often. For example, if I'm still at my desk instead of helping with lunch preparations when I'm given my lunch tray, it's most appropriate to say "excuse me" not "thank you" since it lets the listener know I appreciate their effort and am about to join in as well. And then if someone goes out of their way especially, like bringing presents from a trip, a hearty gomennasai will almost always be paired with the most polite thank you, domo arigatou gozaimasu.

Cultural understanding goes a long way to aid dictionary translations, or mistranslations. A few months ago one of the teachers I am paired with was telling me a story about why she was so flustered. She pointed to the hallway we were walking through and said, "I coach this road." She is an incredible teacher and super friendly but, obviously, her English vocabulary is somewhat limited. However, I had been at the school long enough to know there are teacher-led student teams that clean certain areas of the school after lunch. And I knew the schedule enough to know that we'd just finished this cleaning time. Understanding the culture, and not the words, what was what facilitated our successful communication.

Unfortunately, such was not the case when it came to the scooping out of night soil. My newest Japanese word: kumitori. It is the "scooping out of night soil." Apparently, my toilet is not connected to a treatment plant or communal septic system but is kinda like an outhouse. One that gets scooped out from time to time. But of course I have to give the go-ahead before these kinds of things happen to my house and so it falls on the English teachers at school to explain the scooping out of night soil to me.

"Your toilet tank needs to be emptied." "Your sewage system is bad. You need a new one." "Can you empty your toilet tank tomorrow?" Oh damn, I thought. I really don't understand anything you're saying. The dictionary entry of kumitori as "scooping out night soil" wasn't much clearer so I couldn't blame my teachers for the confusion.

Eventually, I came to know that the kumitori company was coming to empty my septic tank in preparation for the reconstruction of my entire sewage system. This took place over a weekend. The preparations were the weekend before. Unfortunately these were unannounced, giving both me and the workers a bit of a shock. Especially the woman who woke me up at 9:00am on a Saturday to bang around my house and remind me that they'd be doing the construction next weekend. Yes, I thought, next weekend! When I'm not here. Not this weekend...at nine in the morning! Too bad the majority of my Japanese is rather formal and polite and so I was unable to convey such sentiments.

When it comes to things like the digging up of night soil, no translation will explain it enough. You just have to experience it.

Indeed! Culture Shock

Before coming to Japan I went through several orientations and half-dutifully read materials the JET Programme prepared for us. A lot of the information was on dealing with culture-shock.

Culture-shock is a bit of a strange word, isn't it? I can't say I feel shocked by Japanese culture; this is a first-world nation with the second largest economy in the world. It's different but not shocking. Living abroad has tired me out sometimes but other times it's made me feel very alive and happy.

Today, however, I can legitimately say I am facing culture shock.

For the last two years at my school (I've been here about a year and half) there's been a part-time PE teacher working here. She never leaves before I do and is always here before I am so I didn't know until yesterday that she was a part-time teacher. She's been here while the full-time teacher takes a leave of absence to care for her sick father.

The sick father died two days ago. Yesterday was the funeral. Today is the part-time teacher's last day and tomorrow the woman who's father died two days ago with start working again. They don't know where they'll send the part-time teacher but presumably she'll have a job relatively soon. She spent today cleaning out her desk in between teaching classes.

We spent today smiling and joking and complaining about the cold together like we do any other day. But come Monday (when we have her farewell ceremony) most of us will not see much of her. (Teachers work until about 9pm every weeknight and have coaching duties most Saturdays and Sundays leaving little time to socialize outside of work).

In Japan, teachers move around constantly. One of the English teachers I work with was amazed that she was able to stay on at our school for another year. This is her second year here. She's been a teacher for five years and has worked at 3 different schools. Abrupt moving and massive change is not uncommon to the Japanese school system but rather the practiced norm.

It has it's benefits. New teachers get a lot of exposure and learn quickly from a lot of mentors. Seasoned teachers get moved to a variety of schools where their experience can benefit their coworkers as well as their students. Teachers become attached to their job of educating students rather than to a particular school.

I don't think I'd deal with the uncertainty well (at my school the changes were announced on the last day of the school year and the teachers who were getting moved cleaned out their desks and tied up loose ends over spring break). But I can appreciate the practice.

This, however, seems weird, unnecessary and unnatural. It seems that on the third day it's time to get back to work in Japan.