Crowded trains: more complex than you imagine

These last nine days my husband has again been in hospital. He had surgery last Wednesday for a skin graft over the area that they excised due to suspect skin cancer in September. His hospital is in Shinjuku, one of Tokyo's main city centres.

I've visited on five occasions so far, the final time will be tomorrow when he's (hopefully) discharged. The journey is an hour via two to four trains—often standing—and involves numerous flights of stairs and walking about 1.5 km. I love going to see him, but the journey really takes it out of me. 

Most of the trains I've been on have been okay, but on Monday I stayed for dinner and came home around 7.30pm. The first train I hopped on was not a fun experience. 

My first clue it was going to be difficult was when the train arrived and no one got off. It already looked full. But people in the line in front of me literally pushed their way in and I had little choice but to push in too (the next train was unlikely to be less crowded). The lady in this photo could have been me. I had to check to make sure neither of the bags I was carrying were protruding into the space where the door was going to shut.

But that was only the start of the "fun". Standing jammed in like that is technically fine as long as either:

1. the people getting out at the next stop are next to the doors, or 

2. everyone is getting out at the same stop.

But that is rarely the case in an inner-city line where there are lots of intersecting train lines (it was a different experience I described here when I headed into the city from the suburbs and almost everyone was headed for the end of the line in the city). So at the next stop I got "spewed" out onto the platform while the train disgorged itself of people who were buried deep inside and needed to exit. 

Then we repeated the previous action of pushing our way back on, except that this time I got to be buried deeper inside. Which is not necessarily better. 

Thankfully, though I am only 157cm high, Japanese people aren't as tall as Australians on average, and I usually get some air, but still, being jammed such as your body is touching four or five other people is not fun. You can end up in very awkward situations. I've had my hands jammed to my sides, so I couldn't reach my face, been stuck behind a lady whose long hair swept over my face and tickled my nose, and most commonly, had someone's elbow or shoulder or hip pocking into me. I am thankful that I've never experienced wandering hands, but in a situation like this, it does not surprise me that women are harassed.

Here is a photo I took the other day at a quiet moment on my way into the hospital mid-afternoon. This is the standard layout of seats on a Tokyo commuter train. In a crowded train there is usually three lines of people standing down the middle between the people sitting down and then a tonne squeezed into that small area near the door. That's where I got stuck on Monday.

The aforementioned cycle of "shoving into the train—travelling one station—people disgorging—people pushing back on the train" happened eight times in my journey of 16 minutes. I only got pushed out onto the platform once, but it was a great relief to get off the train finally and change lines to a train where I wasn't squished up against strangers nor having strangers pushed past me or pushing me so they could get onto the train. For a nation that can be characterised by generally "no touching" and "not being a bother to others", this pushing-shoving experience is quite strange.

It is all quite quiet too. Quiet enough for me to hear someone exclaim, "There's a foreigner here" when I first got on.

The other strange thing about it is how orderly this is (there are even arrows in the stations to help modulate the flow of foot traffic). Lining up, pushing on, jiggling around so we all fit, pushing off again. There's generally a quiet sense of order and no rudeness (though I have experienced rudeness beyond the general shoving required). Certainly being aware of people around you and doing your best not to take up more space than you have to is part of it. It is routine for people to wear backpacks on their fronts to take up less room.

What's interesting to note is that the culture of orderliness and taking care of others as best they can in such crowded situations on trains has spilled over into the use of elevators. My husband is in a 19-floor hospital and the elevators are very busy. They aren't as crowded as trains, but we've seen the same practice of people close to the door hopping off the elevator if someone behind them needs to exit.

Needless to say, I am glad that I don't have to commute every day in conditions like these. I will also be very happy to have my husband home again and not have to visit him in hospital again soon!

A local scene

I captured this scene on my way home from meeting a couple of Japanese friends on Friday. 

This family I've seen for years walking their dogs. First it was the elderly man and his wife walking a beautifully-kept, elderly, large dog. They could often be seen urging a reluctant-to-move the fluffy white dog from the spot where he'd stopped in the middle of the road. Then sometime in the last couple of years the dog disappeared from these walks and I haven't seen the elderly man in ages either. Now most often I see the elderly woman and their son walking a younger, more energetic dog.

What caught my attention this day was that when I first saw them they'd stopped to greet the dog on the other side of that wall (you can just see his/her head on the right, just out of the shadow). This is the most extroverted dog in my neighbourhood. It is very common to see someone leaning over this wall and chatting to the dog, or to walk past and see the dog with his/her nose poking out looking for people to talk to. Granted there is plenty of foot traffic. A kindergarten is about 20m down the road and a little further away a swimming school and a primary school. But still . . . 

When I come face to face with this couple I exchange greetings. But they're always pushing onwards, walking their dog. It doesn't take much to imagine that their days revolve around their dog and taking that walk.

There are a lot of lonely people in Japan. I'm glad this family has each other, and their dog. But my heart aches for those who have no one. I long that they would know Jesus and have a church family to lean on.

Slipper conundrum

It's pretty well known that Japanese don't wear their outdoor shoes inside their houses. It's one of the big cultural things to get used to when you first come here. I've always liked the idea, but sometimes it is a challenge if you don't have shoes that are easily removed. 

I remember hosting a visiting OMF doctor for a brief visit (just an hour or so) one time. She'd never lived in Japan and was on her way to the airport at the end of a trip to Japan to do medicals for missionaries. She blustered into our apartment and said, "You don't mind if I don't take my shoes off, do you? I'm tired of doing that."

It is something we even do in our own house in Australia when we're there.

But I've got one exception to the rule. When I answer the door I usually go out in whatever I'm wearing: slippers or bare feet. You can't answer our door without stepping into the "outdoor" zone that you can see in the photo. The dark-coloured place where outdoor shoes go. The accepted practise is that you don't step on the "outdoor" floor area without outdoor shoes on. Which means, sometimes, tricky manoeuvring if the area is full of shoes. I took this photo when all four of my guys were at school. Once they're home it is harder to get a "parking spot" close to the "indoor" part.

Usually there is no problem and people don't pay much attention to what I've done when I answer the door. But in the last 10 days I've had Japanese people freeze in this area, not knowing what to do with their shoes. That's really unusual. Taking shoes off in an area like this is as natural as breathing to Japanese.

The reason they've faltered, I'm guessing, is not so much because we're foreigners, but because my big, furry indoor slippers (Ugg boot lookalikes) look like outdoor shoes to them. And because I've worn them into the "taboo" area for slippers as I answered the door then worn them back into the house.

So, what should I do? Take the extra moments I need to change my shoes to answer the door? That seems especially inconvenient when it is usually a salesman or postman at my door.

Citrus tree at a local house

This last week of the month is once again proving to be very busy. I've got lots going on to write about, but no good time to do it. Hence another short "cheat" post based around a photo.

I took this photo this afternoon. This is a short, quiet street near us that I often walk or ride along, sometimes multiple times a day. I love it that even though Japanese often have almost no yard, they usually use the space well. It is not uncommon to see fruit trees. This citrus tree just looks scrumptious (I'm not sure exactly what kind of fruit it is, though, there are many, I wrote about the most common ones in a post back here in March.)

Courteous cyclists and decorous drivers

This is the bike/pedestrian path near our church. It's fairly spacious but there
 isn't much room to pass if two people are walking side-by-side or a bike
is haphazardly parked.*
By the way, if you squint a little, you can see Mt Fuji under the powerlines.

When riding on Saturday with my Australian friend from Taiwan, we stopped a few times for her to take photos of things that struck her as interesting, especially when on the bike tracks (not so much when we were on the road portion of our journey). I suggested once or twice that she pull her bike further off the track so that we didn't block anyone else. She complied but noted that that's not something Chinese people bother about: taking care not to block other people.

Japanese drivers are generally very law abiding, different to what I've seen
in some other parts of Asia.

She was also shocked at how polite the drivers were: they gave way to us many times even at intersections. We saw none of the pushiness you see in Australian drivers and, apparently, Taiwanese drivers too.

Both of these aspects of life here are almost second nature to us (I mentioned the golden rule of life in Japan in this post in April). When out and about we're usually on alert for being a bother to other people. But we also expect that drivers will be fairly polite (though Australian win in stopping at pedestrian crossings, but I guess that is a law difference).

*I really wanted to add "polite pedestrians" into the title, but that might have been a bit much, especially as I didn't really talk about those. But polite pedestrians will not block the whole path if they are walking as a group, or will keep their ears open to hear a bike bell and move to one side.

More news on dual citizenship in Japan

Today a follow-up article on dual citizenship appeared in the news as the Japanese politician I mentioned the other day admitted that she did indeed still have her Taiwanese citizenship. 

The law is that you are supposed to choose by the age of 22 and if you choose your Japanese citizenship you can't keep your other citizenship. Apparently, though, (and we have heard this) it is common to just not say anything about the other citizenship and it's fine. In 31 years of having this rule, there have been no penalties awarded (i.e. removal of Japanese citizenship).

But this is a real issue for many people we know. In CAJ's school profile it lists the number of nationalities as 35, with 34% of the student body (464 students) as having dual passports. Not all of these are Japanese-non Japanese families but a high percentage are.

Here is a telling portion of the article:

Accepting it [dual nationality] officially would be very difficult politically, as Kono [a politician who tried to introduce legislation allowing dual nationality] found out in 2008, and touch on lots of sensitive issues related to nationality identity. It is pretty much politically taboo at this time.

This isn't just an issue being discussed in Japan. As you know, globalisation is happening around the world:

Since 1960, the number of countries where citizenship is automatically lost after an individual chooses to acquire another nationality has halved to around 60 — or 30 percent of the nations on Earth — according to a recent Mexican study. At the same time, the number of dual citizens has risen dramatically in countries that collect data on this issue, on average doubling in the decade or so between censuses. 

Who is Japanese?

Just 1.5% of those living in Japan are foreigners. Japan is a monocultural country. It is something they pride themselves on and something that's being increasingly challenged. Not so much by immigrants, but by Japanese people marrying non-japanese people and having babies. 

When you have the image that a citizen equals someone who has 100% of their genes from one race, to have people who consider themselves Japanese but who don't have 100% of their ancestors as 100% Japanese, that's challenging. The other day some Japanese friends said to me that they think Japan is unique in this day and age in this regard. I beg to differ, but I can't think of an example off hand, perhaps you can?

A former OMF colleague from Canada has recently become a naturalised Japanese citizen and through him I discovered a fascinating English blog about the topic of naturalisation in Japan. Notably it says:

If it comes up, I never say I'm just "Japanese" (日本人Nihon-jin) because the word is overloaded with multiple meanings in both the English language and the Japanese language. It can mean the following things with respect to people, in order of assumption:

1. Japanese race
2. Japanese ethnicity
3. Japanese nationality

Predictably there is discrimination in a society like this. But I was particularly encouraged by this blog post about the positive personal experience of the writer (a naturalised Japanese) of ethnically Japanese people's responses to finding out his citizenship was Japanese.

Multicultural JapaneseMulticultural Japanese are making an impact in this country, even if small. There have been several multicultural Japanese people in the news recently.

Several of the multicultural Japanese represented Japan at the recent Olympics, for example Aska Cambridge, who was part of the 4 x 100m Japanese relay team who won a silver medal. This article in the Japan Times explains the issues surrounding this topic very well.

For the second year running Miss Japan is not 100% ethnically Japanese. See an article about it here. That has ruffled some feathers, challenging the nation's concept of who is 
Japanese.

And a politician was vying for the top spot in a party leadership election has a Taiwanese father and Japanese mother, provoking discussion about the dual citizenship laws in Japan. As far as I understand it from this article, dual citizenship is not allowed in Japan, however no one has lost their citizenship since this law came into place in 1985.

Immigration
Immigration is low compared to where I come from. Only half a million people since record taking began in the 1800s. However that is a tough comparison. Over 25% of Australia's population are immigrants, one of the highest rates in the world, higher than the UK or USA, Canada, or New Zealand.

Interestingly, many people think that becoming a Japanese citizenship is hard. But  I've discovered that according to statistics only a couple of hundred are denied every year, and over 98/99% are approved. There are rumours that people are discouraged from being citizens. Indeed apparently many people do pull out some time during the course of their application, but the reasons listed in this article don't include intimidation by authorities, though that doesn't preclude that possibility. I've also heard that spouses of Japanese citizens aren't allowed to become citizens, but this article is written by someone married to a Japanese citizen who became a citizen.

The rate of naturalisation is about 15,000 per year. In fact the rate of acceptance in Japan is commensurable with other countries with a similar number of applications. According to this blog post, Japan is in the top 15 countries in the world in terms of countries where people want to become citizens. It turns out there aren't actually that many countries in the world that people want to emigrate too!

I'm not intersted in becoming a Japanese citizen. But I've found it interesting to learn about the issue. I'm wondering how much this land is going to change in the years to come, especially with an increasing rate of multicultural marriage? And will the immigration rate go up? 

Japanese women's joy

Two older ladies approached one another at the station, left hands raised up as if to give one another high fives. Their cheerful greetings rang out as they closed the several metres between them. They ended up not clapping hands but clasping hands in the same way that Australian female friends might hug one another. 

Later, across the carriage from me two ladies in their 50s or 60s carried on a relaxed happy conversation. 

I've been out on the trains today. Travelling around during the day on trains in Tokyo is not the lonely experience it can be in Brisbane. There are still plenty of people around and you still often don't get a seat, but there's also plenty of space between those standing. It's more casual than the rush and squish hours. I find it particularly delightful to watch friends enjoy one another, to see the joy in relationships that you don't always connect to Japan. Sure, some of it is not heartfelt, but often it seems safe to assume these older ladies have known each other a long time and are very comfortable in each other's company. 

Yesterday I read an article about Japanese women, portraying the older generation especially in a different light to how you might imagine. I read a book about Japanese women back in 2009 and pulled out some points in a blogpost that are remarkably similar to what's in this article. Especially, 

(Japanese) Women have had considerable freedom. With their husbands earning the wage that supports the household and being away most of the time (for example 6am to 9 or 10 pm hasn't been unusual), their wives have the freedom to do what they want with their time.

I'm still happy to be an Australian woman with a husband who comes home by about 5pm and with whom I have a mutual, loving relationship. However it's good to have some more insight into the lives that the Japanese women around me lead, especially the joy they have in relationships with one another.

The goodbyes begin

Yesterday I said goodbye to these ladies. One is a friend I've known for more than eight

years, since our children were in Japanese kindergarten together. She's helped me in many, many ways over the years.

We've enjoyed a number of "coffee" times together over the last year. It was sad to say goodbye. I had the perfect phrase, though:

Itsumo osewa ni narimashita.

Literally it means "Thank you very much for the care/help/aid you always give me." 

I don't know if I said it perfectly. I think I threw in an arigatogozaimasu (thank you), that could have been a bit superfluous. But it was understood and it was a much better thing than anything I could have said to them in English. We made it through our see-you-later without tears, but I felt teary on the train home.

It is hard to make Japanese friends. Our first years here were very lonely. So I don't take my Japanese friends for granted!

You get used to lots of goodbyes in this lifestyle, but, as an adult former-misisonary kid said to me on Tuesday, "Just cause you get used to it, doesn't mean you like it!"

Volunteer Culture Clash

We've been the recipients of many "please volunteer" emails for parents in recent weeks, and repeat ones, saying "We've not got enough volunteers." It's been mentally difficult to deal with because I want to be involved and I want to help, that's the sort of personality I have, but I've had to limit my involvement in order to do my other jobs.

Thrift Shop is another place that has struggled with volunteers
in recent years. It relies on hundreds of volunteer hours to
get the job done.

I had a conversation with a couple of CAJ staff after church yesterday. It was interesting to get a staff-member's perspective on this, particularly those who've been around a lot longer than I. The percentage of missionary families at the school has decreased over the years and that is where they get most of their volunteers from. The other families are largely Japanese or Korean and have a different culture when it comes to volunteering at your child's school.

My limited experience of Japanese kindergarten and school volunteering showed me that it is more like a compulsory volunteering that happens at the beginning of the school year. At kindergarten we'd have a parents-of-students meeting and they'd lay out all the volunteer needs for the school year. Everyone was expected to volunteer for at least one duty. I can't remember ever being asked to volunteer for something else. Maybe I was?

CAJ is an American-style international school. They ask for volunteers in the Western way: throughout the year, when an event is coming up and needs volunteers. Apparently, when Asian mums who don't know the system volunteer, they often group to one side and chat. They don't take initiative or take on the responsibility of supervising the students. Which, you can imagine, causes lots of difficulties when the teachers are relying on parent volunteers on an excursion.

An interesting aside in this is that Western parents seem happy to direct children who aren't their own, but this doesn't seem to happen with Japanese parents, in a group they stick to looking after their own kids, and perhaps the children of a close friend. Another cultural difference? I wonder how many times I've stepped on another mum's toes by telling their kids what to do?

The added difficulty at CAJ is that parents are asked to volunteer for events that many Asian parents have no experience of themselves, like running a party with games or, I presume, an overnight camp situation like I was in last week.

The elementary classes at CAJ have a high percentage of Asian kids, higher than the older grades. Ironically these are the years that they ask the most often for parent volunteers! So, the burden can fall quite heavily on those, like me, who have a flexible schedule and live quite close.

All that being said, I need to get back to the work I neglected while volunteering out in the wilds last week.

Our Hokkaido Adventure Day 15

You can see our beleaguered tarp-annex here just before
we gave up on it on Sunday morning.

Sunday 7th July

Nishi Okoppe

On Sunday we had a slow start, which was good because we’d had a lot of gusty wind in the night that knocked our tarp-annex around. Three times between 3.30 and 5.30am David and I had had to go out and re-erect it.

A three-wheeler that we could use for a small fee at the
town park we were camped in. Lots of energy expended
on these for an hour or so.

At 11 we joined a very small group for church. It was held in someone’s home and centered on a live broadcast from a large church in Sapporo. Our family of five almost doubled the number attending. It was a good experience: to see a tiny bit of the isolation and challenges that Christians in rural areas face.

We all (apart from the one lady who’d joined in worship for the first time) went to the local hotel for lunch. I tried venison for the first time. My thoughts? It was a bit dry and would have been nicer with a bit more sauce or gravy. It also reminded me a little bit of liver.

After lunch our enthusiastic hostess showed us many things, including the local library, Japanese garden, complete with an authentic teahouse. 

The three wheelers were easier to ride than
I thought they would be. But I wouldn't like
to ride them on the road!

Then we saw Komu, the Museum of the Forest (wooden toy center), where our boys spent most of the afternoon. We too enjoyed this remarkable attraction. It was very interactive and a relaxing place to hang out. Also cool on a relatively hot day.

At 5pm we set out, with the family we came to visit, to a restaurant on the coast and then for an enjoyable bath at an onsen on the beach. The meal was fantastic and while bathing, we were able to watch the sun go down over the water. We got home quite a lot later than we wanted to.

Venison. A bit dry.

The only Christian man in the village. He is a large animal
vet and trained in the Japanese tea ceremony. Here
he was showing us an old authentic tea house. He explained
the various parts of it and their meanings. Fascinating!

Outside of the tea house.

The woodwork museum. The town has applied for this
wooden-ball "pool" to go in the Guiness Book of Records
as the largest of its kind in the world.

It was surprisingly comfortable to sit or lie in. This is David.

The museum was full of puzzles and toys. Here my
boys are trying to put the pieces back into the vertical
triangle puzzle on the wall. Even with a picture, it was hard.

More puzzles at the museum.

Indoor wooden playroom.

I didn't take any photos at the onsen. But the view of the sun setting over the ocean was pretty spectacular. There are a couple of photos at their website.

The town of Nishi Okoppe, nestled in a valley.

I've just done a little bit of research about this village: Nishi Okoppe. It has a population of about 1,190. The elementary school has less than 10 children. But the town has its own TV station which they use to broadcast local news to their citizens! Industry in the area includes a lot of dairying. Controlled logging also is a part of the local industry, and they're trying hard to bring in tourists. Nishi Okoppe also has a guitar factory!

It was fascinating to get a deeper glimpse into one of the small towns we drove through on our journey. We had a very friendly welcome, but a little overwhelming at times. These rural Japanese people are certainly great tourism promoters. They'd have had us stay in Hokkaido till the end of summer, with all the things they were recommending do and places they recommended we go!

Unexpected cultural divide

Many years ago an older friend with three children, who had five siblings, some of whom were single, told us it was a challenge to cope with the differences between the single aunts and married siblings. The singles had more resources: time and money, to heap upon nieces and nephews than the married ones did.

Divide between multiple children families and single children families

This level of formality for the end of middle school
seems extreme to my Australian eyes. The next day
an elaborate lunch was organised after numerous long
meetings (in classic Japanese style, the numerous
meetings, that is).

Now I'm finding a similar divide, not in my own family (all our siblings are married and have children), but with fellow parents at school. There seems to be a larger number of one child families around and I find that difficult. Mostly because they have more resources to devote to that single child: time and money. I love my kids no less, but my time and energy has to be split between the three of them. And our budget too, accommodates three children, not just one.

This becomes especially noticeable at school events. We cannot be at everything all our kids do. Nor do we have the time to devote huge amounts of it to one child's celebratory event. I guess our laid-back Australian-mess comes out then too. We just don't do formal celebrations to quite the level that other nations seem to.

I'm a conscientious person and I find that I struggle with guilt on these occasions. I say, "No," to participating in or planning various events, but then suffer with guilt. Occasionally it all gets a bit much and, instead of thinking about things rationally, I start to get resentful about a situation and other people. Not right thinking, I know, but I do struggle with it.

Divide between Western and Asian cultures in celebrations
Last Friday and Saturday were classic examples. Despite CAJ being a largely American-style school, about 1/3 of the students are Japanese by nationality (and many others have American nationality, but have one Japanese parent), another good percentage (?17%) are Korean. Both Japanese and Korean people are big on ceremony. This strongly influences the school in many ways. We keep hearing from people who've been around here longer than we have about the changes that have seeped into the school over the years (I'm thinking especially about the ones that aren't Leadership Team directed).

So, we end up with large celebrations at the end of middle school. Something that doesn't happen in Australia or America (as far as I know). I had to pull myself into line on Saturday and realise that what we were seeing happen was significant to those from different cultural backgrounds than my own. Different, not wrong. And because it was significant to others, it was important to honour them.


So, I got a double dose of culture shock at the end of last week: from Asian families with only one child.

Culture shock doesn't end after those first couple years of life in another country. Sometimes it broadsides you later on too!

Exciting meeting

Yesterday I met with two Japanese friends for coffee. Doesn't sound too unusual, does it? But there's a lot of back story!

One friend, T*, I've known for seven years. We met as mums at our children's Japanese kindergarten. We've done many things together, and she's helped me with various bureaucratic things (get driver's licence, various errands at the city hall etc.). We ran an English club for mums at the kindergarten for three years. Now that we no longer see each other as we drop our children off to kindergarten, it takes a more deliberate effort to see one another, but she works near my hairdresser, so I usually drop by and see her at her stationery shop on those occasions. She also loves to come to CAJ's theatrical performances.

The other friend, M, is a newer friend. I got to know her because she married an Australian five years ago who supported us (though I'm still unsure how we met him). We've been meeting in the last couple of months, to "exchange language". So we talk in English for a while and then switch to Japanese. Both of us benefit! It's been really enjoyable too. Motivation to learn Japanese has always been a problem for me, but these conversations have piqued my interest in a way that no language lessons ever did.

It just so happens that the mid-way train station between M's house and mine is (approximately) Shin-Akitsu station. This is the station right by T's shop. Last time M and I met, I "ran into" T on my way back to the station! She wanted to know why I was in the area, of course, and I told her about my language exchange. A keen student of English, she immediately wanted to join in. M agreed and yesterday we met for the first time.

It certainly upped the level of Japanese conversation challenge for me! But it was a very enjoyable time. We had a number of things in common, not the least being Australia. T spent a year in Australia in her young adult days and M, is not only married to an Australian, but has spent a total of five years there at various times.

Wow, I came home really buoyed by this coffee meeting! The biggest thing I'm excited about is that we've been praying for T for seven years. She's not interested in the Bible or knowing about God. M is a keen Christian. Because we're exchanging language, there is no pressure. But I'm waiting to see how this interesting "God-incidence" (as opposed to a co-incidence) will progress.


*I've not told you their real names because I'd hate for them to be embarrassed by me telling this story.