First year in Japan retrospective

'Congratulations! You just made the last school bento of the second term!' my husband announced. That means I also won't be making him any bento, while chibbi-chan is off school for Christmas break. I don't think he minds too much. He's been getting a lot of sandwiches recently.

As the year draws to a close, I feel like offering myself another pat on the back. 'Yippee! We survived our first year in Japan!' It's been harder work than when we were in California last year and not just because I don't speak the language well. For one thing, I miss the roasted Cosco chicken I used to pick up - and the bagged salad with cherries and blue cheese, and the rosemary bread. I could put together a meal in minutes.

I had a robot which cleaned the floors. Now, it's me, every other day. We never hung washing before - it went into a huge gas dryer and was bone dry in no time. The dryer here, for an average load of washing, takes three to four hours, so it's more energy efficient but time-eating to hang up the washing outside on the balcony.

I've done my share of shataku cleaning too - on the first Tuesday of the month, I joined the other stay-at-home wives cleaning the yard outside, weeding, picking up litter and moving recyclable papers ready to be picked up by the garbage collectors. I'm on nodding terms with most of them, talking terms with a handful.

Chibbi-chan has settled in at yochien. We've done Sports Day, Field Trips, the Christmas Nativity Service, the fund-raising bazaar, We've had friends over for playdates and been back to their houses (a few). We've had people over for dinner - colleagues of YK's and friends of mine in the shataku. I've run an English course for kids and have another one lined up.

But I still feel isolated and redundant. I'm thinking of joining a networking group - the Association of Foreign Wives in Japan, which has about 40 members locally in Nagoya. I met up with some members for dinner recently at a French restaurant. Many are older, most have kids. Quite a few are teaching at universities. A surprising number have been here twenty-five years or more. I admitted quite readily, I was not going to be joing their ranks. Two or three years is the most I can see myself doing here. I wasn't very flattering about the place they've chosen to call home. One woman told me it will get better, that the first year is always hard.
I'm sure she's right.

Back in the classroom

Well, I've achieved one of the goals I set out to do this autumn.
It was with some intrepidation that I took on a 'Very Young Learners' English class, advertising to the mums I know at yochien (I didn't know how blatant I should be, recruiting via another educational establishment, so I quietly e-mailed the mums in chibbi-chan's class and gave hand-outs about the class to other mums I know). Didn't know if I'd have any takers - I made it clear that I had zero experience of teaching this age group before - but I've ended up with 7 kids - mostly 3-4 yr olds with a 5 yr old and 9-yr old thrown in to make things interesting. Chibbi-chan comes with me.
I found a suitable room at a local community centre (there's no way our apartment could host that many kids without someone ending up crying) and we're now in Week 7 of an 8-week course. No-one's dropped out and I'm still sane. Not that preparing for and teaching a one-hour class per week is so very difficult, but teaching young kids has certainly had its moments.
Like the time I asked kids to work in pairs. Or the time I asked them to draw what they'd seen on the tray (now covered up).
But I was pleasantly surprised by the undivided attention they are able to give a story, despite the fact that it's all in English. Doubtless, because of the transcending power of great illustrations.
Games, of course, they love, and I've been revisiting all the oldies but goodies I enjoyed as a child - musical bumps, musical statues, pin the tail on the donkey, skittles.
I hadn't expected they'd move so fast through the activities, but I'm coming round to the idea that they need plenty of repetition, so it doesn't all have to be new for the whole lesson period. Rather than recycling the following week, I've learnt that we can recycle in the lesson itself.
And it's nice to have fun in the English class - something which I've realized has been missing from my teaching for quite a while. Teaching for exams and teaching students who don't want to be in class can sap the energy of even the most enthusiastic teacher over time.
Of course, I'd love to observe a professional pre-school English teacher in the classroom. That way I could avoid some of the pitfalls of what doesn't work. Then again, with 3-yr-olds, you find out soon enough.
At the end of each class, I always ask chibbi-chan the same question.
'Do you think the kids enjoyed English class today?'
Her reply is always the same.
'No,' she says, witheringly.
Nevertheless, within a day or two she's asking me 'When is it English class?'

Mon Amour Sweet Potato Pie

I have fallen in love with a little, boat-shaped, sweet potato pie. It bore me away on a yellow tide of silky smooth sweetness tinged with vanilla and cinnamon, as comforting as childhood food, but not one which I ever had the luxury of enjoying.
I don't usually fall for Asian desserts - can easily resist Chinese sweet black sesame dumplings, Hong Kong egg tarts, Thai confections with coconut milk and sweetcorn and Taiwanese fruit and sago jelly drinks. But I'm hooked.
I had my first bite of bliss unexpectedly (as most love affairs start) at a ramen bar next to our local zoo. Tuesday was Ladies' Day and it so happened that we were to be given a free dessert, which arrived on a small white plate - a pale honey-colored glob, the size and shape of nigiri sushi, tinged with brown at the edges and golden brown on top. Not easily identifiable by appearance, it seemed neither cake, cookie nor pie. But it didn't matter. It was good.
Since then I've hunted high and low for sweet potato pie. There are a few places in the city that sell them, but each is slightly different. I'm not a fan of the ones that have been fiddled with - piped into rosettes or tossed with sesame seeds and honey. I bought one in a subway mall that had been returned to the potato skin from whence it came and that was delicious, if expensive.
Usually if I eat enough of something I like, I go off it. But there was no stopping this addiction. My thirst for sweet potato pies still unquenched I sought the advice of the cooking guru upstairs, who kindly gave me a recipe to try out. I've done two batches so far, perfecting my recipe just the way I like it. Now the rest of the family are addicted.
Try it yourself and you'll know what I mean. Steam two medium-sized sweet potatoes until very soft. Peel off the skins and add to the potato 70 g of butter, most of one egg yolk, a good shake of cinnamon, a few drops of vanilla essence, two tablespoons of sugar and one tablespoon of something sweet like honey (I use Blue Agave) and puree. It won't be as smooth as mashed potato, but beat if for a few minutes. Then take a tablespoon size amount and shape it into a rowing boat shape with your hands. This amount makes about 10-12 boats. Brush the tops with the remaining egg yolk and bake in the oven for 20 mins at 200 degrees centigrade. Leave to cool. Scoff.

PS A word of warning: Being overindulgent can lead to regret. This is potato you're eating after all, so unless you want to feel extremely full, limit yourself to two. Per hour.

Being away has got me thinking

We're back from a long vacation visiting family in the UK, back into searing heat of 36 degrees and soaring humidity which has got me thinking about whether I want to stay here and all the reasons we are living here in Japan right now. At the same time I feel more energized about doing more with my time here - rekindling my enjoyment of French at the local Alliance Francaise and running an English class for 3-5 yr-olds are on the agenda for the coming month.
I'm no longer going to be a slave to my cleaning, cooking and bento prep. I'm going to make some money (hopefully) and feel good about being able to speak a foreign language (finally).
Friends say, what about your Japanese? Why aren't you learning that in Japan?
It's not that I don't want to learn Japanese, it's just that living here it's easy enough to find situations in which to practise - asking for things at the supermarket, asking for directions etc. which is all good, practical stuff and which is all I need. Maybe lurking beneath is the comforting assumption that I'm not going to be here that long, so why bother?

So what's changed in the last six weeks? Well, obviously seeing chibbi-chan delighting in playing with her cousins (a little boy her own age and twin babies of 8 months) and grandparents, as well as bonding again with my own siblings and an awareness of my parents' seventieth looming in the not-too-distant future. They want me to come back, never really accepted the idea I'd gone for good, won't believe that a poky apartment, fastidious society, dutiful wife and housekeeper are me.
As if to reinforce the anomaly of living away from both families as we do, this weekend at yochien is Grandparents' Day. Children are invited to bring along grandparents and celebrate their near and dear ones in a public forum. Only none of chibbi-chan's grandparents live here -YK's are working over in Beijing; mine are semi-retired in Gloucestershire. I'm wondering if attendance is mandatory or if we can gracefully bow out. No other mum in my class is in this quandary, so far as I know.
I always envied women I met in LA after I had chibbi-chan, who volunteered that their mom watches Dillon twice a week, or even grandmoms who dropped off, picked up and otherwise watched the entire brood of grandkids every day while their daughters were out teaching (and who lived only two doors down). These were Japanese Americans, the grandmoms, most of whom I met at Mommy and Me classes.

Am I looking at things through rose-tinted glasses? I'm not naive enough to think that if I was living back in the UK my mum would look after chibbi-chan for me whenever I felt like a break (in fact, I know she wouldn't - she is firmly of the school of thought which says if you have kids you should be prepared to look after them yourself). And I know other friends in the UK, plenty of them, whose parents and parents-in-law who have offered money towards childcare, rather than ponying up the time and responsibility themselves.
My sister says I should count myself lucky I don't have to work while I'm caring for chibbi-chan. It's not the norm, these days in the UK. But it is here, at least where we're living in Nagoya. At a mums' lunch I attended in April, just after the kids began yochien, 21 out of 22 mums were able to make it (meaning most of them weren't holding full-time jobs). So maybe I should be glad we are living here and able to rent a heavily-subsidized apartment in a good area of town for very little, thanks to the company.

If we were back in the UK now, would we be able to afford for me not to work full-time? Would I want that and to sacrifice the time I currently have to spend with chibbi-chan (and the guilt I'd feel)? If only life was that simple ...

Yochien: The first two months

Now that we're into our routine of yochien (pre-school) every day (Mon-Fri, 9-2 except Weds, 9-11.30) I can honestly say that it's going okay. That is to say, chibbi-chan is no longer complaining every morning that she doesn't want to go. Nor is she saying 'Yippee! Yochien!'
The first week was a very gentle introduction of a few hours a day. And each morning when I collected her, chibbi-chan would present me with a little folded paper gift - a man with a pointed hat, a flower, a house. She didn't cry when I left, but she was clingy and so we had our little ritual. I would hang around for ten minutes, putting her indoor shoes on, fixing her name tag on the front of her shirt, hanging up her water bottle, giving lots of cuddles, and then she would take her Thomas Tank Engine bag and hang it up in her cubby. That was my cue to leave. And Mari sensei, the young teacher in daunting, black-rimmed glasses, jeans and a smock who is in charge of 'kotori' (little bird) class would nod goodbye and give me a reassuring wave.

On the Friday of the second week, chibbi-chan turned to face me at the classroom door and announced she didn't want to go today. What she said in fact was 'I'm not going to yochien today. It's boring. Come on, let's go home. I want to stay home with you.' Music to a mother's ears of course, but not really what I wanted to hear. Then she started to cry and I figured she'd been so good up to this point that I could compromise/cave in and so we went home.
Which was undoubtedly the wrong thing to do, because come Monday she thought she would pull the same stunt, in spite of the fact that I'd warned her several times over the weekend that I expected her to go to yochien on Monday at the start of the week and that she had to give herself time to get used to it.
When she saw I was adamant, she gave it full throttle and when Mari-sensei took her off me, she kicked and hit with a fury. It was a horrible moment, walking away from her but I tried to remind myself that she would enjoy it when she got used to it, that she would have an environment in which to pick up the language faster and she would love the company of children her own age which would suit her sociable and outgoing nature.
Still, as soon as I got home I called the only English speaker in the school office and asked Ayako-san to go and take a sneak peak at kotori class. She reported back that chibbi-chan was fine and engrossed in reading a book. And when I collected her a few hours later it was like nothing had happened. She greeted me with smiles and exciting news (Kaito-kun had done a poo in his diaper and it had shot down his leg).

After that things were better. She told me sometimes she had a little cry after I left but then she was okay. And I didn't hang around, worried that a long parting would stimulate the wrong emotions. But I made sure to bring a nice snack for her when I came back. I had no worries that she would be well looked after and cared for - the staff (class teachers, helpers, sports teachers) seem unfailing polite, friendly, affectionate and patient with the children.
A month later and we were into 'bento', which added interest to her day. She still commented that it was boring or she was scared of the teacher and that she didn't want to go, but she went without much fuss. And then she started to make 'tomodachi' (friends) and was learning the names of the naughtiest boys in class and now (six weeks from the start) she no longer says she doesn't want to go.
I ask her about her day - what songs they sang, did she eat all her bento, what insects she collected in the yard (woodlice, lady bugs and butterflies are favourites and Mari sensei sensibly keeps a stack of old plastic jars and small milk cartons for the children to use as bug catchers). She tells me gleefully who kicked the teacher, who hit who, that she started eating before Mari-sensei said 'Itadakimasu.'

Each morning from the car park 50 metres away, to the school entrance gate, we are greeted by cheerful 'Ohayo gozaimasu!' roughly fifteen times, from mums and kids. In the yard, children are milling around making 'dango' from sand with helpers, playing at the outdoor sink, examining the tomatoes growing, or swinging on the climbing frame.
And we see little Aki-kun from next-door 'usagi' (rabbit) class still crying each morning because he doesn't want mummy to go and chibbi-chan asks 'why?'

Road trip to Beppu

We decided to put Tristy's Will Cypha to the test with an almost 2,000 km island-hopping road trip over Golden Week. We started out from Nagoya, then headed south to Shikoku, stopping to let chibbi-chan run off her car cabin-fever at the Naruto whirlpools. The Onaruto Bridge which spans the whirlpools was celebrating its 25th anniversary and as we walked out to view the eddies through the glass-bottomed floor, the staff pressed a commemorative postcard and balloon flower into our hands. Although we'd come at the wrong time of day to see the eddies at their peak (up to 20 metres across), the white whirls were clearly visible and boats with sightseers were riding precariously along the fringes.
Overnighting at Tokushima, we drove west down the freeway then along the glorious coast to the port of Yawatahama, where we boarded the three-hour early evening ferry to Beppu. Beppu is a holiday destination famed for its profusion of restorative onsen and many jigoku ('hells') - bubbling lakes, some colourful, of mineral water in picturesque settings where you can test your endurance in the steaming public footbaths. We were here to visit family, but we also found plenty to keep our toddler amused for a week. She spent happy hours on the rocky beach at low-tide, checking out what the clam-diggers had turned up - an amazing variety of worms, fish, jellyfish, mini-star fish, whelks and of course, the ubiquitous hermit crab. Another favourite was the Aquarium and, directly opposite, what we dubbed 'Monkey Mountain', home to hundreds of Japanese macaques that come down from the mountains to be fed at intervals on wheat and sweet potato. It was all we could do to stop her prizing a baby macaque off his mother's lap (but that raw-looking, red-faced stare put us on our guard).
At the 'Sea Egg Aquarium', chibbi-chan got to toss beach balls to the resident dolphins, feed the fish and coddle the sea cucumbers to her heart's content (poor things). The building is reasonably new and well-designed, giving visitors the chance to browse the sea creatures from different angles and really feel immersed. The Wonder Zone cleverly illuminates the jellies, sardines and cuttlefish to make the most of their shimmering and transparent bodies. And I think it's the only Aquarium I've ever been to where I've seen a diver, after a demonstration, actually cleaning the window of the tank (a woman, naturally, with a wire pot-scrubber).
We were also treated to a day to ourselves - while oji-chan and obaa-san took granddaughter out, we headed over the mountain to Koishiwara, a famous pottery-making enclave about two hours' drive from Beppu. In a beautiful, lush, winding mountain valley, 62 potters make their hand-crafted wares. Many have been around for a few hundred years and have supplied the Emperor's dining room. Prices range from the sublime (a few dollars), to the ridiculous, but I came back with some pretty coffee cups, rice bowls and serving dishes for the same price I'd pay in IKEA and a lot more interesting.
We'd just made our last stop, admiring yellow and black dinner plates, when we were dragged into a workshop behind the store by a jovial, beret-wearing, bearded man in his fifties who insisted we joined the celebratory party (sake playing a large part, given the drunken state of most of those round the table). That's how we got to try 'devil's fingers' from Kumamoto, a quaint name for a barnacle-type creature which looks like a glossy pink fingernail when pulled from its shell and tastes sweet and salty. Our new acquaintance was not the potter, but the proprietor of an izakaya, who had a fondness for slapping women's behinds (my own included). The potter was already drunk.
It was a memorable end to our Beppu stay, but we had to head back and were already looking forward to our pit-stop - the Peace Park at Hiroshima.
Nothing quite prepares you for something like this, especially if you know next to nothing about the place, like I did. YK knew the lodestar in the Peace Park was the Dome, so we headed there first. It's the hollowed-out shell of a building which survived the bomb by being right underneath the explosion - an eerie, stage-set of bricks and twisted metal, its Dome looking more like a crown of thorns than anything. Nearby are peace-themed sculptures and garlands of paper cranes, fashioned from colourful paper by school children. One monument is inscribed with the names of hundreds of schools who had students present in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb exploded on the 8th of August at 8.15 a.m.
It was only May, but it was already hot and steamy, so we sat down at a riviera-style cafe on the banks of the river which flows through the park and ordered coffee and ice-cream. Locals and foreigners were sipping their lattes with cake. Nearby, YK told me, a plaque mentioned that this very spot had been a post office where over two hundred people had died that day. By now, I was eager for more information, so we headed over to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Musuem, where for 50c, you can learn in detail what happened.
Predictably, perhaps, chibbi-chan was uninterested in the black and white plans and photographs of the city. She was drawn to the charred lunch box, the torn uniform displayed on a skeleton, the diorama of wax figures with dripping skin and the video of the bomb blast. The tone inside the museum was reverently hushed, and I was praying no-one could quite grasp what she was repeating over and over in a loud voice: 'I want to see the burned arms.' When you have a three-year old in a place like that, it's an exercise in judicious encouragement of interest and knowledge, tempered with a wariness towards anything which might provoke fear and nightmares (we have enough trouble with 'monsters' as it is). I grabbed her by the hand and we set off in search of something suitable. We found the Video Corner, and sat down to watch a ten-minute animation which showed what happened. As we watched the faces melt into brown rubber and peel away, I think she grasped that the people had been burned, but she wanted reassurance that the 'little boy' who sends his paper plane out over the street, survived (hope for the future and resurgence was my interpretation of the ending, so I was happy to give it).
We came away feeling that it was a stop we were glad we'd made, as we headed on to Kurashiki for the night and our first family-style o-furo.
The next day we met up with friends for lunch at the Uji Botanical Gardens, near Kyoto and then it was home, sweet home.

The Flower of Youth

This time of year in Japan seems to be all about two things: the flowering of the cherry blossom trees around every city, and the start of the school year (or career, for fresh grads). We've been admiring the pink-tinged white baubles for the past two weeks and the wind is now finishing off what the rain started. Everywhere is snowing petals. It's the only kind of litter that's tolerated here.
I braved the blizzard today and yesterday with chibbi-chan, as we hunted high and low for yochien (kindergarten) gear. I'd been trying to ignore it, this imminent parting from my little soul-mate (or demon?), but when Tristy called a few days ago and said she was on her way over with her sewing machine in the trunk, I knew it meant trouble. What was I thinking? she demanded. Where was the smock I was supposed to have hand-made, where were the toilette towel and hand towel with the loops 14 cm long? Had I ironed name tags on everything yet? Had I written her name on each individual crayon in the crayon box?
That's when I knew I was in trouble.
Chibbi-chan and I legged it down to Jusco and raided the haberdashery department, returning with totally unsuitable smock material which chibbi-chan in her wisdom had picked out. Tristy tut-tutted, and said we'd have to make double layers for the body. Then she got to work and I watched, helplessly, while our two kids played dodgems around the iron and the sewing machine.
It took the best part of five hours (we stopped for dinner), but it did look beautiful when it was finished. Tristy added cute pockets with round edges. My role in the smock-making was to iron chibbi-chan's name on the back of the smock (and even then I had to ask the clerk at Jusco to pick out the correct hiragana). For all I knew, I could be sending my child to school with the wrong name.
A day and a half to D-day (the entrance ceremony at the yochien) and I have sewn on my loops, ironed some name tags and written others on shoes and clothes. I've looped and named the gargle cup, and appliqued the set of three bags I bought ready-made (flat book bag; change-of-clothes bag; indoor shoes bag). I've got a horrible suspicion there may be more bags which need making/buying, but this is all we need to take to the ceremony. I haven't done the crayons.
Driving around today, I couldn't help but notice on every street corner, a mother with a son or daughter, dressed up in their smart school uniform (and the mothers also in their suited best), on their way out of a school entrance ceremony (yochien, elementary, high). Twenty-five years ago, apparently, this was not the tradition. The expert cook upstairs told me when she went to high school, there were no parents at the ceremony. You just went by yourself (after all, you got yourself to school). Was she hinting that today's kids were mollycoddled?
There's more justification to coddling a three-year old. I've promised chibbi-chan she can choose where she wants to go for lunch after her ceremony. I've promised myself I won't miss her terribly when she starts yochien. The cherry blossoms are almost finished, but we've done our fair share of viewing the cherry blossom together. We've admired the forest of trees at the zoo, we've picnicked under them in the park and we've seen them by twilight and lantern-light at our local shrine. We've spent the precious last few weeks together.
I won't get sentimental. I can't afford to. The next challenge, as Tristy point out, is waiting round the corner. Preparing chibbi-chan's kawaii bento box starts in May.

Our Visit to Echizen Town, Fukui

Last weekend was a three-day holiday, so we decided to get away in our Will Cypha and put its new tires to the test. Tristy's parents-in-law run a minshuku B&B on the west coast of Japan's rugged Fukui province, less than 200 km away from us, so we decided to make a trip out there. Unfortunately, it turned out that the crab (and therefore tourist) season had just ended (the season for fishing crab off the local coast runs Nov-Feb) and the minshuku was closed for business, but by coincidence Tristy was planning to go up the same weekend and twisted her mother-in-law's arm to let us come, too.
YK was very excited. He'd never been to Fukui and was salivating at the thought of all the fresh seafood which would undoubtedly come his way.
He wasn't disappointed. Our hosts were incredibly generous, preparing a huge feast the night we arrived of sashimi (crab, buri, squid, sweet shrimp), mounds of large and small cooked crab (male and female), as well as grilled sole, pickled fish and fish roe. One of the chief families in Echizen Town, they all (from great-grandmother, to cousins, nephews and uncles) play some kind of role in the seafood industry. Some are fishermen, others are fish packers and processors, supplying sashimi and cooked seafood to their regulars, supermarkets and restaurants in the prefecture and even setting up shop across in Shandong, China, with a fish-processing unit that sends seafood back to consumers in Japan. The family business has been running thirty years or more and is clearly a way of life. As with so many successful family-run enterprises, however, the question of succession has arisen.
Tristy's parents-in-law have three children, the eldest of whom is Tristy's husband, but none seem interested in taking on the business. This question seems to weigh on the minds of the family elders in a fishing town where tradition is not taken lightly. There's even a rule which says that properties built on reclaimed land can only be owned by second sons (because first sons inherit).
Echizen Town is a working crab town, a narrow strip of densely-packed wood and brick houses, restaurants and ryokan sandwiched between the billowing ocean and the cedar-covered mountains, with the occasional concrete onsen and the Crab Museum, built for the tourists.
Echizen City, not too far away, is a conglomerate of small towns which came together to reinforce the Echizen brand, famous for yaki (pottery), washi (paper) and knives, as well as crab. The Washi no Sato-dori ('a promenade symbolizing Imadate-cho's traditional washi-making industry'), built relatively recently, features a typical-looking washi-maker's house where professionals still produce hand-made paper for sale and a 'Papyrus Kan' where children can have a go at making their own paper. In the fading light of a stormy day, it encapsulated all that is lovely about the Japanese aesthetic. Rain dripped from wooden eaves, gravel glistened, and the last washi-maker respectfully pulled the heavy, sliding wooden doors closed and hurried up the path with a nod, her apron flapping. Tristy is a tad cynical and would no doubt laugh and call me sentimental. She dismisses such stuff as tourist nonsense. But I liked it.

How do I ignore my MIL?

By far the most interesting discussion this week on the 'Married in Japan' (Yahoo! group) postings has been on the subject of the Japanese MIL (mother-in-law). Started by a young mum who is being driven potty by her live-in in-laws, her rant has generated dozens of posts, offering sympathy, commiseration and advice from deep in the trenches.
It seems Japanese MILs share certain characteristics, chief among them being an unwillingness to accept non-Japanese ways of caring for baby and an obsession with gaijin hygiene, or lack thereof. More than one DIL mentioned how she'd been instructed by her MIL not to wash her underwear with the family's laundry, or had been relegated to being the last person in the house to use the o-furo bath water each night.
The bath struck a chord with me. Not that I live with MIL or have been asked to reuse the bath water of someone else. But I remember the first time I went for a bath with my MIL at the onsen, it scandalized my mother and sisters back in England. How could I possibly have appeared naked in front of my MIL??? I had taken a giant step beyond the pail of civilized behaviour, from which they have yet to recover. Of course I insisted that in Japan it was common as anything to bath with your relatives and that no-one stared at anyone else's bodies, but they didn't believe that. It did take something to overcome my ingrained shyness and expose myself like that, but it was either bite on the bullet or forego the pleasure of the onsen and I figured the sooner I got used to it, the better. Ironically it was the first and only time my MIL suggested we use the onsen together. So maybe she felt as uncomfortable as I did, after all?
Even in households where DIL and MIL get along, it seems things can turn quickly sour after the arrival of a baby. MIL wants to wrap baby in layers and layers in spite of the heat, MIL wants to use kimono-style onesies, MIL is suspicious that those boobs can produce enough good milk for baby. One post counselled patience in the face of extreme provocation. The correct response to unwelcome advice, downright criticism or blatant wrong-headedness was a calm and collected 'Wakarimashita. I understand.' If only I could have taken that sensible advice on board!
As far as me and MIL go, the score is 1-1. I made her cry once, and she made he bawl once. I made her cry when I blew up at her for doing my washing (am I wrong to believe I should have the right to wash my own undies?). She made me cry when I came back from a weekend trip to find she'd cut chibbi-chan some very short bangs. My child looked like someone else. I erupted into a major tantrum, making chibbi-chan cry too, and refused to eat dinner or have anything to do with my in-laws or YK (who had been present at the time of the calamity) that night.
After that debacle, I decided I would show more restraint. I would accept that I was now part of MIL's family and that meant that homeland security on certain boundaries would occasionally be breached. Likewise, I don't think MIL will attempt another hairdressing adventure in the near future. These days she buys chibbi-chan mountains of hair grips and bands to keep her hair from poking in her eyes as the bangs grow out. I know it bothers them, but I'm Mum!

I've found a guru!

'Tristy' (not her real name) has been in Japan since high school - an uninterrupted fifteen years plus - and considers herself more at home in Japan that Iowa, where she has few surviving relatives. She is a fluent Japanese speaker, has Japanese GPS and is on the PTA at her son's kindergarten.
It was Tristy who warned me to get my act together and find a kindergarten for chibbi-chan before it was too late, and that I should expect to have to hand-sew a smock and bento box bag to sufficiently demonstrate mother love. 'And make sure the food you put in the bento looks nice,' she said deliberately. 'Because if other moms happen to be around doing PTA activities and see a kid with a bad bento, they might not let their kids come to playdates with your kid, because obviously the mother doesn't care enough and the home might be dirty.'
Tristy is acting as my unofficial mentor, guide and all-round guru on Japan wifedom. It helps that we have a few things in common - we're both married to Japanese men (I found her through the Yahoo! groups 'Married in Japan'), we both have young children and we both care about organic food.
One rainy day, to take advantage of the 'rainy day' prices (10% discount), Tristy drove us to the Farmer's Market on the other side of town where we browsed meat, vegetables and fruit which were organic in all but labelling (nothing is in English - Tristy translated the hand-written Japanese).
She explained that here, 'organic' is like a patented brand which farmers have to pay to use, so many don't bother. We found free-range eggs, free-range growth-hormone-free pork and pesticide-free root vegetables, tomatoes, strawberries and tangerines all grown here.
Organic milk is still proving elusive. Tristy gets hers from a home-delivery company called Radish Boya each week, along with a selection of seasonal organic vegetables. The only problem is that sometimes she gets a whole bunch of something she doesn't recognize which turns out to be for a garnish. But they always include a recipe so you know how to cook it. In Japanese, of course.
For now, I think I'll keep looking. I want to check out what Tristy's borrowed Japanese guidebook notes is the 'largest organic supermarket in Japan.' Once again, Tristy is smoothing my way for me. She's just sold me her old Will Cypher.

We're back!

Apologies for my absence the past few weeks. I took chibbi-chan to Beijing for the Chinese New Year and it seems the Chinese authorities take a dim view of blogger.com (and youtube.com too for that matter) so I was unable to post from there. But here I am, back again in Japan and looking forward to resume posting very soon.

Life in the Shataku

The Shataku (literally 'company house') where we're living, looks a lot like a nondescript concrete block from the outside. It's already thirty years old (ancient by modern Japanese standards) and it isn't lovely. Inside, too, it's showing it's age. The o-furo bath has to be hand-cranked to light the gas and the storage in the tatami rooms consists of traditional o-shiire, a sliding door behind which lies a cavernous space separated by a deep shelf, suggesting a time when everyone rolled up their futon neatly each morning and packed it away next to clothes cut from soft, foldable fabrics which were stacked neatly on top of each other.
The kitchen screams 'galley' and we've had to buy Japanese furntiture to fit - a kitchen dresser for our crockery, a microwave oven that can fit above the rice-saver. There's just room to squeeze the three-part trash can next to the fridge. I think it's the first kitchen I've ever stepped foot in that has cupboards under the kitchen floor.
The trash can isn't working. Here, the rule is you have to separate trash into up to eleven varieties. So we're short eight trash cans. For the moment, we stick it out on the balcony with the washing. It won't offend anyone opposite (we overlook a vast cemetery), but we do have to watch the crows who recognise the official, red 'burnable refuse' bags.
In other respects, shataku life is rather pleasant. You see your neighbors often. Kids play together downstairs in the yard/car park area. Friends call by to introduce their new babies. Acquaintances exchange gossip in the elevator. Because most of us have recently returned from assignments overseas, we realize the value of sharing information which could be helpful to newcomers. I've discovered which day is 'market day' at my local Jusco (when I can buy produce discounted to Y98 - less than a dollar for wild yellow-tail fillets or a head for grilling), where to find the local (and only) pediatrician, how many 3-yr olds are available for playdates in the building, who teaches Japanese.
My home economics guru upstairs has offered to teach me how to make kimchi on Tuesday. She's also advising me on my quest to find organic food, although she has warned me not to get my hopes up. Apparently less than 0.1% of Japanese produce is organic. So far at my three local supermarkets (all within walking distance as I don't yet have a car), I've spotted organic tofu (made from imported Chinese beans), organic black sesame seeds and 'pesticide-free' milk. I'm buying 'Tasmanian' beef which I hope is grass-fed. But what I really want is a Farmer's Market where I can find fresh, local, organic produce. And cheese. Big, huge chunks of the stuff. The search continues ...

Hakurikiko, Churikiko and Kyorikiko - a Tale a 3 Flours

Last year when January came around, we celebrated chibbi-chan's birthday with cup cakes in the park and this year, in spite of the move and all the upheaval of leaving friends and little playmates behind in sunny California I was determined my little one would have a chocolate birthday cake if nothing else. To this end, I set off to Frante and bought my baking supplies -flour, cocoa, icing sugar, sugar, eggs, milk and margarine. My usual modus operandi when I can't find something is to seize on the nearest customer with, 'Ano ... sumimasen ...hakurikiko arimasu ka?' (Excuse me, is there self-raising flour?) It's probably inaccurate but it works every time and the poor customer will search the aisle for the product or a clerk to come help. Only this time, customer and clerk seemed unsure what it was I really wanted. Did I want to make cookies or sponge cake, melon pan or brioche, udon or bread? Sponge cake, I assured them. I just wanted the flour, no other added ingredients and they handed me a bag of white dust. And so I duly went home, mixed my chocolate cake and put it in the oven. When it came out it was rock hard. I didn't have my recipe books with me or my scales (still buried deep in the hold of a ship out at sea), so I wondered if I'd got the quantities wrong. I've never been a good cake baker but this sponge rated 1/10, it's only redeeming feature an edible chewiness on the inside. Not even a thick frosting could remedy this disaster. There was no way I was going to celebrate being 3 years old with this monster.
I called my neighbour upstairs, who had majored in Home Economics and could give me a recipe over the phone. She asked me if I had an electric whisk. I did, but ten minutes later she was at my door offering to beat my sponge for me. I wasn't going to say no. The Japanese way seems to be to beat the egg and sugar together into a froth of ecstasy until it's a foaming yellow cream tripled in size, before adding the flour and cocoa. Thirty minutes later and the cake was in the oven and I was looking forward to seeing the miracle of a beautifully risen sponge. But when the timer dinged and I opened the oven, my heart sank. This effort, in spite of the trouble which had been taken on its behalf by two pairs of hands, was even worse than the first. But I'd run out of time. And so with the help of a lot of whipped cream, chocolate icing, strawberries and sugar decorations and a fairy cake topper I cobbled something together which resembled a cake smashed with a mallet which more of less was what it was. I took a sampler to my neighbor upstairs, who wondered if there'd been too much flour added to the mix.
Chibbi-chan, mother-in-law and YK ate valiantly, but I was peeved. I wanted to solve the great cake mystery - was the oven too hot? Was the mixture too stiff? Had my neighbour overwhipped the eggs?
A few days later, mother-in-law solved the crime. I'd used the wrong flour she said, pointing to the label on the bag. I'd bought kyorikiko, not hakurikiko. Kyorikiko was for making noodles and bread. Hakurikiko was for making cakes, the equivalent I found, to self-raising/self-rising flour. My Home Economics neighbour filled in the details. Hakurikiko was the flour with the lowest gluten content, without bicarbonate of soda or salt. I would need to add bicarb to get things to rise. Churikiko was the equivalent of all-purpose flour (US) or plain (UK) flour, I could use that for cookies, she said. Kyorikiko has the highest gluten content.
Since my birthday cake debacle, I have successfully made everyone's favourite cheesecake, which tastes lighter and fluffier with churikiko. This morning I earned the compliment 'You made a nice apple pancake' from chibbi-chan (vocal appreciation of my cooking is a very recent development and much treasured).
The flour mixture has a glossier look and stickier feel to it than what I'm used to, but I think that's a small price to pay for the honest compliment of a 3-yr old.

We Have a Washlet!

Right at the very top of YK's list of things to buy for our newly-rented dorm apartment was a washlet (electronic toilet seat). He told me it was to keep your bum warm when you venture to the loo in the freezing middle of the night but it does so much more than that. Father-in-law installed it but wasn't prepared to explain the purpose of the button featuring a woman's face and center part. Chibbi-chan thought it was for washing hair. Not far off. It's for washing front instead of back (achieved with the press of another button, this time with the unmistakable image of a fat bum).
It took me several days to work up the courage to press all the buttons (chibbi-chan followed me in each time with a hopeful look on her face), but now I'm a total convert. Forget the hot water pot that sings happy birthday when the temperature hits 100 degrees, or the fridge that reminds you to close it, or the rice cooker that chirrups when the rice is done. Washlet is king. Why bother going to the trouble of taking a shower after sex when you can hop on the loo and get cleaned up in next to no time. Now, if only they could add a blow-dry button ...

We've arrived

Last time I was in Japan five years ago, my stint lasted all of three months. This time, I hope I can do better. But I still remember quite distinctly a few notable experiences I had back then, involving Japanese men, that left an indelible impression. One time we had run into a kissaten to get out of the rain and found the place empty except for the owner - a wiry guy in his late fifties with bohemian hair. I ordered coffee and when it came, I asked if he could heat up the milk on the side. So I'm fussy. I was told in no uncertain terms that hot milk belonged to a different species of coffee altogether and that I had committed something immoral on the scale of miscegenation by mixing and matching. YK was then bombasted with a tirade - how he ought to know better than allowing his wife to be so shameless, that he should have informed me of my rights prior to entering the establishment and that, ultimately, I should know that this was not how things are done in Japan. Lesson learned!
A week later, YK was unfortunately witness to another embarrassing episode by this 'indoor person' when I attempted to gain entry to the local sports club as his spouse. YK insisted that I could use the facilities as his spouse under the terms of his associate membership. The manager, a guy in his fifties preserved in tobacco, insisted quietly but firmly that I could not. The reason was never made clear except for the glaringly obvious fact that I was a gaijin and gaijins, by default, were never married to salarimen who used his sports facility. In fact, as far as I knew, this hallowed ground had never been occupied by a gaijin before. It was sacrosanct Japanese turf. Finally a gracious subordinate (female), stepped in and put an end to all the nonsense and I proceeded with my swim in peace, apart from getting tangled up with the lane walkers, but that's another story.
Suffice to say, I am hoping things will be better this time around. The sports club manager is still there and this time he didn't refuse me entry. Even when chibi-chan pulled out all the neatly arranged swimming goggles from the display case. Things are looking up!