[Japan 2015] Initial thoughts: Being in Japan

So I’ve been in Japan for a little over a week now. The first week or so was spent traveling by myself in Osaka, Kobe, Nara, and Kyoto and now I’m finally settling down in my dorm room for the next few months. For those of you not in the know I’m studying abroad in Japan at Tohoku University this semester.

I’ve found out that traveling alone is lonely. Traveling alone in Japan is even lonelier. I remember on my first full day I was walking around and this wave of sadness just came over me. Here I am all alone in a country where I know no one. My Japanese sucks. I want to talk to someone.

Good thing that I had a schedule, a plan, so I wasn’t stuck moping in my hotel room by myself. Though doing touristy things by yourself isn’t as fun as doing them with other people. I would visit all the shrines, temples, tourist attractions, and I would spend my entire day taking pictures and walking. Most signs describing the significance of things were in Japanese so I just took more pictures. And when something happens (good, bad, funny) there's no one else to turn to and be like “omg can you believe that?” I wrote postcards to fill in that gap.

At first I was really afraid that people that people couldn’t tell that I was a foreigner (btdubs I look asian). What if they assume I have a full spectrum of communication? What if I offend them by doing the wrong thing? Am I supposed to say thank you when the waitress brings me the food? How am I supposed to even order food!?

I had a lot of anxiety over this. But as time went on I’ve come to realize that as soon as I open my mouth people know that I’m not from here. Whether I like it or not, I’m probably saying things wrong and have a foreign accent. And while I’m still kind of panicky about stuff like this, I can survive.

It’s really easy to fake understanding. Sometimes when I’m in conversations it doesn’t make sense to let the other person know that I don’t understand every other sentence. It’s like the same thing you do when you’re listening but not really, you just smile and nod and go like “ohhhhh.” it usually gets me by most things except when they’re asking me a question, and it's like GOTCHA. It’s also bad when I’m trying to get answers to my question since having a clear understanding seems to be relevant.

Another thing that I’m thinking of as school starts is how comfortable will I be adjusting? I think most people agree that when you’re in a foreign country that you should try to immerse yourself, learn the language, learn the culture, make friends with the people there, but when you’re there in the context it’s a little different.

I’m scared, I don’t really know I can end up making Japanese friends (In what context am I meeting them? (by the way classes here are entirely in English, so I don’t know how many native students are actually taking these classes) How do we communicate?) It’s so easy to default back on making friends with the other foreign exchange students, but then I feel like I’m cheating, that I’m not really doing it right. But what if I find that the language barrier is too high, and all the exchange students are settled down in their groups and I’m left over?

We’ll see.

Marketplaces in China

So I’ve spent a lot of my time in China in Chinese marketplaces called 市场 (shi4 chang3), that’s where we got our groceries for the day (daily groceries what an idea!). The closest thing I’ve seen in the U.S. is probably a farmers market, but those tend to have a reputation of being more higher end, organic, expensive, etc.

These marketplaces are comprised of multiple venders selling various things like fruits, vegetables, fish, meat, prepared foods (dumplings, etc.), and picked items.

Here we go!

So here’s the entrance to our marketplace, outside are parked a lot of different bikes and motorcycles (people in China are really into bikes and motorcycles; I’ve decided that when I graduate I want to get myself a scooter).

Here’s the fish vender. They’re usually organized by types of fish and sit on top of a bed of ice. The types of fish available are usually dependant on what was caught recently.

Here’s the fish guy cleaning the fish we just bought (ripping out its guts!). They do a really good, quick, clean job. I wish people did that in the states.

Baby? Squid! I like how shiny they are.

There’s also tons of shellfish! They’re usually alive when you buy them. They’re sitting in a vat of salty? water. You can occasionally find people who sell live fish too.

Here's what a butcher’s spot will look like. I’m not sure how to explain it well but they have this larger slab of meat (like in the upper left hand corner of this picture) and as people make purchases, they’ll carve portions of meat off and dice it up for you. I was pretty in awe by the fact that none of it’s refrigerated but I guess it’s slaughtered quite recently and most people will cook it the day of.

These marketplaces can also be outdoors. Here’s a vegetable vendor. Things are usually weighed on scales and are sold as price/kilo.

These people were selling bamboo shoots. It’s a little bitter tasting and the texture is of crunchy celery?

Here’s an example of a vendor selling picked items. We never bought any but they all look super yum. I wish I had a picture of a vendor selling cooked items like dumplings but I don’t. They usually have these ribbony things attached to fans to ward off all the flies.

AVERT YOUR EYES IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH

Have I successfully warned you guys yet? Aside from live fish you can also get live poultry. Here's a picture of a duck that we bought for soup.

And here’s the guy cleaning our duck for us. I’ve got to say, the duck was very quiet during this entire process and the dude was extremely fast. I don’t think I have a strong opinion on this with regards to animal rights, I think it’s the difference between seeing it or having it behind closed doors.

This did however make me try to appreciate my food a little more.

Here’s our duck in a soup. Probably the freshest poultry I’ve ever had.

Engrish, Dish Sanitizers, Mulan, and Zhong Yao

When we’re aboard we look for the things that are most familiar to us. Which is probably why bad English is hilariously everywhere in China. Since it’s like the only thing I can instantly read it sticks out like a sore thumb.

A hip modern café called “GRANDPA”

At home (Kansas home) we wash our dishes by hand. It’s not that we don’t have a dishwasher; we even bought a brand new dishwasher that we never use. At my cousin’s place in China there is no dishwasher, instead it’s replaced with a dish sanitizer, which not only sanitizes your dishes by bringing it to higher temperatures but also dries them and serves as a storage area. For a culture that mostly hand washes their dishes, it’s a brilliant idea.

Dish sanitizer!

Drivers here in China (or at least this part of China) are terrifying. People complain that Boston drivers are the worst in America, but really, it’s nothing compared to driving here. It’s rare that people ever use their signal lights, getting cut off is normal, everyone weaves in and out of traffic, crosswalks exist but are totally ignored (both by pedestrians and drivers), I don’t think I’ve seen pedestrian light yet, etc. My grandma and I were on our way to the marketplace and crossing the street was terrifying.

It was like that one scene in Mulan where Grandma Fa closed her eyes and crossed the road with the lucky cricket, only I was Grandma Fa, and my grandma was Cricket. She held my hand tightly as we inched across a busy crossway. It’s not even like cars will stop for you, they’ll swerve around you, and drive on sidewalks. But we made it safely to our destination and I took a few pictures while she bought our lunch.

I’ve been thinking what aspects of culture we pass on to our kids and what’s not, specifically my grandparents to my parents to me. In China people primarily drink hot water. Filtered water is first boiled before anyone starts drinking it. It might be for sanitary reasons, to make the water potable, but it is also traditional, hot water, hot tea, etc. What we do now at home (Kansas) is we filter our water using a Brita filter, boil it, and then stick it in the fridge (cold drinking water). Here in China I let my water cool down to room temperature and my grandma asked if I wanted to add more hot water in it. I think the explanation was something like cold water is bad for your health. This summer I lived in Arizona, since I’m lazy and have gotten used to drinking tap water at college I primarily drank unfiltered tap water with ice. That probably would’ve been a total no go here.

I’m not sure what it is but it’s probably good for me

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is eastern medicine vs western medicine, partly because I’m sick right now. My relatives have been loading me up with tons of Chinese medicine; yesterday I think I had 1 herbal tea, 1 herbal drink, 2 types of Chinese medicine pills, and ibuprofen. It sounds a bit excessive but I was being polite and didn’t say no. But that got me thinking about what I normally did when I got sick in the states. I’m pretty sure we do have expired cold medicine and cough syrup hiding somewhere in the house, but when me or my brother gets sick we primarily drink BanLanGeng (a Chinese herbal drink). I don’t know the active ingredients in it, and I don’t know if it actually does much to help, but it’s become habit. That’s basically our cold routine. I’ve been indoctrinated in it enough that I have a few bags at college that I’ll drink/offer skeptical friends who usually don’t drink it.

This is a blog post about Google

You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

No, this is not the introduction to a tragic young adult’s novel; this is a blog post about Google.

To give you some background, China has a penchant for blocking various western websites, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Wenxuecity (haha) to name a few. This is known to the internet as “The Great Firewall of China.”

Now I’m not exactly new to this phenomenon, I totally knew that once I got here I would lose all access to anything Google, but what I was not ready for was the realization on how much of my web crawling life was spent on Google and its affiliates.

Things that I knew I wouldn’t be able to do:

1.       Upload blog posts (blogger is run by Google)

2.       Google things

3.       Watch Youtube

4.       Check gmail

Things that took me by surprise:

1.       Googling things – But wait what, you just said you were prepared for this. Yes, I was. But what I didn’t come prepared for was the fact that typing into the address bar didn’t direct me to search results but instead to “This webpage is not available.” And you don’t really realize how often you use the search bar either until every time you look up something you have to backspace it all out and type bing.com (“How could you? Bing is the devil!” I couldn’t help it; Microsoft did some pretty hardcore advertising that somehow convinced me that it was the 2nd best search engine).

2.       Google translate – Tohoku University (the place I’m studying abroad at this semester) occasionally sends me entire emails in Japanese. Since my current understanding of Japanese is equivalent to probably a formal lower elementary school level, I decided to skip the trying and just run it through Google translate. AHA, BUT YOU CAN’T. You got me. I backspaced and used Bing translate. (Though I just Binged “translate” and it turns out that Bing has Google translate embedded in its search, so I could’ve just done that). (Fun fact, Googled does not get squiggled as a word, but Binged gets a grammar squiggle.)

3.       No Google hangout – Can’t send messages through hangout (or video call for that matter). Must use wechat.

4.       Links to Google docs/embedded Youtube videos – Totally forgot that the rest of the U.S.A. also uses google profusely.

Good thing this ban ends once I get to Japan. Free VPN is totally not worth it.

@ the Airport

I’m actually uploading this blog from the Taiwan airport but this was written around 9/7/15

Right now I’m at a layover in the Guang Zhou International Airport. I’ve been in airports and on planes for over 24 hours now, with around 3 hours more of waiting and an hour of flight time left. I was originally going to write a piece about my algorithm for solving “really hard” Sudoku puzzles, but I spent that layover updating my LinkedIn profile. Also I’m way worse at it than I remember, I successfully completed 1 out of 5 puzzles? (But 4 of them were really close (like really really close)).

A vehicle taxing an airplane? Guang Zhou International Airport

Anyway, airports and commercial airplanes suck. Something about spending time in them turns everyone around you (and you) into an asshole. Like my first flight where enthusiastic laptop dude kept elbowing me in my sleep so he could type comfortably. Or that one guy behind me that kept trying to shove me into the people in front of because they were taking forever putting their luggage into the overhead bins.  Or that other guy who felt the need to keep clicking his seat belt while everyone else was trying to sleep. I gave them all dirty looks but apparently that skill is ineffective in this terrain.

See?? I don’t suck

I spent the first flight getting elbowed while closing my eyes and doing Sudoku (separately of course). I spent the second flight trying to preempt jet lag by staying up and reading “The Martian” by Andy Weir (I went to sleep around 6pm China time which would translate to 7am Kansas time? Booyakasha). Which by the way is a great book, highly recommend. And now my butt hurts (I’m one of the luckier ones too, no one sat next to me, and I got an aisle seat). Though would it kill them to install squishier seats for international flights? I also took a peak into first class, and honestly it didn’t look that much better. It was like grey cubicles with fatter chairs. I bet they got ice cream though.

I’ve definitely noticed a language barrier. I’ve learned that tu3 dou4 ni2, which literally translates to potato mud, actually meant mashed potatoes. Because I look Chinese (and I am, though when I’m traveling I prefer to present as an American), people will speak to me in mandarin. Like when the airport people are like “So and so, please come to the information counter,” only they totally did my entire announcement in Chinese; could have completely missed that train. For the most part it’s fine, I usually understand enough bits to piece together meaning, but it irks me when the airport people manning the “foreigner line” for international to domestic transfers don’t speak a lick of English.

Anyway, there is no real coherence to this story (though I think it’s in semi-chronological order), I feel kinda tired already and I still have a full day ahead of me.

Oh and one thing I learned was you know those weird pillow things that attach to the airplane seats that move up and down? They are foldable, so you can pull them outward like a trifold so you can avoid awkwardly falling asleep on the person next to you.

Travel fanny pack selfie

Post China thought:

Language barrier was a little less of an issue than I thought. Transitioned to speaking Mandarin pretty well. Did have a terrible time trying to speak coherent English in between sentences though.