Observations and Inferences

By Molly Lauer

Living in a foreign culture has been quite the experience for me.  It’s very different than traveling.  Rather than just noting the beautiful architecture, tasting exotic food, and trying to learn something interesting about the differences and then go home, I find myself needing to learn about the culture in order to function on a day-to-day basis and survive here!  As my friend Katie Aiesi said, “Part of being foreign is being awkward…just try to laugh at your mistakes.”  Below is a collection of 14 observations I’ve made in the past few weeks and my inferences about the culture based on those observations (however right or wrong I may be, so please excuse my errors, they’re all out of ignorance, not spite).  

1. Public toilets often come with bidets.  I’m terrified and have yet to try them.  Usually I’m fortunately enough to find a Western-style toilet and not to have to squat over the porcelain Japanese holes-in-the-floor. 
2. Rice is good.  And filling.  And, most importantly, cheap!  Fruits, vegetables, and meat are all expensive so I can see why they’re eaten sparingly ($4/6 slices of lunch meat, $2/apple, $1.50/loaf of bread – only 6 slices though!, $2/quart of milk or juice, which doesn’t even come in gallons or even half-gallons).  More evidence that we’re on an island nation I suppose. 
3. Cell phones all have charms attached, some sort of personal decoration.  Usually with a little bell.  From what I can tell, people text just as much but talk on them a lot less, at least in public spaces, than they do in the US.    
4. There are no yards.  Houses have small patios with potted plants, or sometimes rice fields if you live in a single-family home.  
5. People regularly hang their clothes out on the line to dry.  Not sure why they haven't adopted the dryer concept yet… 
6. Meals are served with small portions of many things, each in a delicate little bowl.  I find it absolutely adorable!   
7. The language is complicated.  In addition to having 2 alphabets (hiragana and katakana) instead just one, each has 46 characters (“letters”) as opposed to our 26.   AND there’s a 3^rd writing system, Kanji, which consists of pictorial symbols of words….a few thousand of them that must each be learned individually!  So far, I’ve learned 56 of 92 letters and 2 Kanji!  :)
   
8. Because of this, shopping is difficult/hysterical at the store for me. I can find and identify most items I need okay (except I couldn’t decide if it was flour or sugar and had to wait until Benno could go to the grocery with me), but paying is something else.  When I go to the register, I imagine the cashier says something very sweet like, “Hi, welcome to our store.  How are you today? Would you like me to put this in a bag for you?”  But of course it’s in Japanese so I have no idea what they actually just said.  So I just smile, nod, and say “arigato gozaimasu” (thank you) because that is all I know.  They stare at me quizzically and wonder if they should bag my meat separately or not, which is what they probably just asked.  Eventually they make their decision without me and I say thank you again.  Fortunately, the total on the register is in our numbers, as it is on the coins too, so I can pay okay, and smile and say thank you again once more before I leave, just for good measure.  Benno says I’m probably bubbly and friendly enough I can get away with it.  :) 
9. Recycling is also complicated.  I bought many bins to try to separate the trash the way they want it to be – glass, cans, plastic bottles, bottle caps, clear plastic food containers, styrofoam food trays, newspaper, paper, cardboard, burnable trash and nonburnable trash.  I appreciate the emphasis on recycling and the 25-page guidebook the local ward gave us to explain it but, wow, where do we have room for this in our tiny apartment?!   
10. People dress nicer and more conservatively.  All the women look great in their fashionable dresses and skirts – I almost feel bad that they never get to just wear sweat pants!  (Of course it seemed different when we went to a rural village so perhaps this is related to the ritzy area we live in.)  I felt scandalous wearing my running shorts (adults don’t wear shorts here as far as I can tell, only children and pre-teens, unless they have leggings on under them) and there’s no hope of me feeling comfortable in my athletic tank tops.   
11. People are very respectful of moral codes.  Benno tells me there are few public trash cans because they’re not as necessary; the city knows people will just hold onto their trash until they get to a trash can.  When I left my camera on the bus in Kyoto, it was available for pick up at the terminal the next day, of course! Benno says.  Most people don’t even cross the street at a crosswalk unless it says too!  If there aren’t cars coming, at all, for a really long time, and I cross when it’s red, I swear they drop their jaw in astonishment! :)  
12. There is very little PDA – rarely do I see couples holding hands (Benno and I are the scandalous pair as he puts his arm around me in church or on the train :).   
13. School children are in uniform.  Navy blue and white, always.  The girls wear little sailor suits and hats.  It’s also adorable.  
14. People are still people.  I’ve seen 3-year-olds throw temper tantrums at the store, a business man scurry to catch the train, an old man stop to rest on a park bench.  Despite our different approaches to life, I think we all share a common strain.

Approaching Midsummer

By Benno Lauer

It's the night before the day before Midsummer's Day in Japan--though the solstices get rather short shrift in this country in favor of the equinoxes--and I recently got home from Day 3 of my 40-day internship.  A summer internship sounds long, two months sounds a little shorter, and eight weeks shorter still.  But when you put it in terms of working days, it helps explain why the time just flies, doesn't it?  I guess it's already 7.5% of the way done.

On Friday, June 10, Molly and I went in to the company's Tokyo office for a brief pre-internship meeting.  Good thing we did--otherwise I think I would have shown up a few days early.  The office manager and the human resources liaison outlined the timeframe they had in mind for the internship: precisely eight weeks, starting Thursday, June 16, and ending Wednesday, August 10.  They gave us a care package of snacks produced by the company, and cups of delicious boysenberry juice.  And I got my first bit of homework: to choose the most natural-sounding English rendering of a new company slogan.

Sunday evening, June 12, Molly and I agreed on several possible translations which all sounded pretty natural to us, I emailed them in, and we rushed to the bus depot near Tokyo's Shinjuku Station for a quick overnight trip to the city of Kyoto.  We left at 11:50 p.m. and snoozed the whole way until we arrived at 7:30 or so at the bus pool outside Kyoto Station's Karasuma Street (i.e. north) entrance.  A two-day whirlwind ensued, with a brief overnight on actual bed cushions (Japanese futon are just cushions, not couches!) in one of the Tour Club hostel's private rooms.  I think we saw five major sites each day.  No wonder that our knees, legs, and feet ached in various places as we groggily navigated Tokyo Station Wednesday morning after our return night bus.  The famous Tsukiji Fish Market--our reason for returning to Tokyo Station rather than Shinjuku Station--was closed, so we hobbled home more relieved that nap time had come early than disappointed that we'd missed an eleventh sight.

Thursday I started my internship.  Excited and, when it came time to be greet everyone after I was introduced at the forty-strong morning meeting, more than a little nervous, I had a lot of paperwork explained to me and filled some of it out.  Friday and today I finished the rest of it.  All three days I worked on an English translation for the contract and examined the company profile's English version, partly to learn about the company, partly to spot unnatural-sounding wording.  Thursday I was sent home with two cell phones: an iPhone for my use and a phone for Molly, too.  Today on my lunch break I ordered a name stamp ("Lauer" in katakana) from the nearest stationery store, and after my return home I purchased a monthlong commuter pass at the station.  I feel as if I'm starting to get into the swing of things, though I'm thinking my assigned tasks may get a little bit more intense soon.

Molly memorized 16 Japanese phonetic characters today: 8 hiragana and 8 katakana, and was already spotting them at the grocery store when we made a quick run to add hotdogs to the rice-and-jambalaya-sauce dish Molly had cooked up.  Maybe we can get into the habit of doing some language study together--I certainly could stand to learn a lot more Han ideographs!

And Molly and I are getting settled in here at home, too.  After our initial cleaning frenzy, we've slowly made progress on the odds and ends.  Friday she got the towel rods to stay up, yesterday I cleaned up a pile of papers in the bedroom, and today she cleaned the little back balcony where the washing machine is located.  She's quite the expert now at using Japanese ATMs and train lines, and we were able to open a video rental account in her name thanks to the passport photocopy she had in her purse (PA/DC driving licenses would not count for identification, we were told).  Friday night using said account we watched The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck).  At Molly's request, we listened to the English original rather than the Japanese overdub with English subtitles (my usual preference in this country, for the language practice).  :-)  Saturday we took a run and went to Molly's first hot spring bath.  Sunday we attended a morning worship service at Tokyo Union Church--for the second week in a row!

So the "normal part" of our summer seems officially to have begun; with it comes this first post from me.  Hopefully my posts will follow Molly's a little quicker most of the time.  Thanks for keeping tabs on us, and feel free to contact us personally as well!

Transitions

By Molly Lauer

First employed to unemployed (for the now at least...).
Then Miss to Mrs., single to wife, Metcalf to Lauer.
Next came home-owner to landlord and subtenant. 
And finally Elizabethtown to Japan, Okinawa to Tokyo.
What a whirlwind!

I have hardly had time to process all my thoughts.  Last month, in preparations for all of these transitions, I was so busy I didn't time to think or feel.  I was overstimulated by busyness and emotionally apathetic to what was happening, knowing if I paused to consider it all it would take me days to process it!  And now, well now I have more time for sure, but it sort of feels like it all just sort of happened and I'm adjusted, ready for this new chapter.  Not quite sure how that happened.  If you know me very well, you know I think critically and feel deeply.  So analysis of anything is typically a very thoughtful and heart-felt process for me.  I thought that, once my life slowed down a little, the deep analysis would begin.  And yet it hasn't.  Or at least, hasn't yet.  I have so embraced these changes that they already feel a part of me, a welcomed part of life.

Not to say it's all been easy!  Some of these transitions have been a lot smoother than others, for sure!  Resigning from Manheim Township High School, where I've taught for 7years now, was very bittersweet.  I absolutely loved my colleagues and my students.  I felt like I played a significant role in that environment, which cultivated my feelings of success, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time there.  Teaching is a hectic life though, at least it was/is for me, so I can't say I didn't welcome summer break coming 2 weeks early for me! :)  It was nice to step away for a break and I'm excited as I anticipate where I may end up working come August when we return to Washington D.C. (another school? public? private? a science museum?).

Miss to Mrs., single to married, Metcalf to Lauer has been a much more joyful transition for me!  I have absolutely LOVED being Mrs. Benjamin Cody Lauer.  I have felt nothing but undivided attention, devotion, care, grace, and provision from my new husband in the past 13 days in which we've married as we've journeyed through these transitions together.  He's ever asking how I'm doing and what else he can be doing better - today I told him he had to stop doing that because I felt guilty never reciprocating the sweet gesture! :)  When he ran an errand for a few hours yesterday, I realized that was the first time we'd been apart for more than a bathroom break since our wedding!  I have felt so blessed to have had TIME together, time to relax on the honeymoon, time to set up a new apartment in Tokyo, time to explore the city, and time to just be together until the next transition when his internship begins next week.  Married life has certainly been a sweet transition!

Moving away from Elizabethtown was much harder.  I'd made a home there for the past 11 years, almost as many as the 18 years I'd spent growing up in Kentucky.  I went away to college in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, and then just...stayed.  A wide and deep circle of amazing friends kept me well rooted.  Cleaning out my house was painful; it evoked memories of every Derby Day, Homecoming, Holiday Dinner, summer cook-out, girls' dinner, etc I'd ever hosted.  I realized I was almost the last of a big group of college friends to move away from Etown, our college town (except for sweet Kelly :).  I was losing a 5minute run to my friend Melissa's house to borrow a mower or table or some tool I didn't own.  I was moving out of the first house I'd ever bought, a house which had well served its purpose in hospitality to friends and family.  I was moving out of a house with a beautiful haven of a yard, where I landscaped and started my first real garden, to move to a huge city and a small apartment, from the suburban life I'd always known, to a very urban life I am not at all familiar with.  I chose this move and am glad I did (see married life paragraph above :) but still it is a more difficult transition.

Leaving Elizabethtown took us newlyweds first to Okinawa for our honeymoon and most recently to Tokyo, Japan, where we will be until August 15th while Benno has his internship (he can tell you more about that later :).  What a difference "place" makes!  Okinawa - a beautiful, tropical island in southwest Japan, closer really to Taiwan and China (perhaps even the Philippines) than the 4 main islands of Japan.  Such a paradise that place was!  Such a PERFECT honeymoon location, particularly for weary individuals, such as we were upon arrival.  Glistening waters of all different shades of blue and green, changing colors with each new depth.  Abundant diversity of fascinating sea creatures, especially for a biologist!  Sunshine and warmth, yet coolly moderate temperatures (26C = 78F), made ideal weather for long walks, lying by the pool, and swimming.  Unique foods made meal-times interesting:  tiny sea-grapes that burst sweet flavor in your mouth, salty shabu-shabu pork fried above open flames, gourmet sauces of all different exotic flavors, and sweet & salty Okinawan chinsuko cookies that reminded me of Girls Scout Shortbread cookies.  It was magical, to say the least.

And now we're to Tokyo.  A flight from Naha, Okinawa, to the Narita Airport, outside of Tokyo, an express train into Shibuya, Tokyo, where we were met by our local contact, Izumi, who took us by taxi to our apartment in Setagaya, Tokyo.  The area is absolutely amazing!  It's totally new and we're immediately next to a complex of shopping malls - 4 of them to be exact, with 2-7 stories each!  They have everything here:  clothing, food, grocery, pharmacy, banks (where Benno has a pre-existing account)--we even found a dollar store! (Everything that is, except for an electronics store, but more on that later...). The train station is here too - all of this just a quick 5 minute walk (6 if you have to wait for the light) from our apartment.  It's all new, trendy, and lively, especially from 5-11pm for some reason!  Beyond that is a huge river with a 50km (31mi) walking trail.  Let me just say I cannot wait to restart my daily runs there - so many places to explore! 

Our apartment is a slightly different story.  It is...cozy.  25 sq meters total (that's a mere 265 square feet!).  It has a tiny bathroom and tiny galley kitchen (the same 7" of counter space as Benno's DC apt, except no awesome peg board to hang stuff on) and 2 tiny rooms (8'6" x 12' and 8'6" x 9', Benno insisted that we measure it :).  It's actually quite suitable for our purposes for the summer...now.  Let me just say, we're very grateful to have all of us this arranged for us and to have a place in such a nice area.  It's just that, well, when we moved in, it took some work to get it functional for us (a major understatement!).  Let's just say, if you are a cat-owner, do everyone a favor and please, please, please thoroughly clean out your place before you sub-lease it to anyone!!!  There was cat hair EVERYWHERE - layers of cat hair dust on everything - the floors, the walls, the sheets, the loveseat, the furniture, the kitchen counters, the bathroom, you name it.  Honestly, I wasn't sure how we were going to sleep here that first night and burst into tears when our wonderful host left.  We managed, and spent the next few days buying as many cleaning products as we could find and scrubbing the place down thoroughly.  It was at that time that I found myself extremely thankful for the small size!!! That, and Benno's amazing attention to detail and endurance - give him a filthy fridge and he is glad to carefully scrub it until it sparkles, even if it takes 45 minutes!  Together, we made our first shared home sparkle...and then set out to make it livable. It was really only semi-furnished initially.  Among our first purchases were plates, spoons, knives, and forks. Not to mention a kitchen table, as there was none here!  Thank goodness Benno has a Japanese Amazon account that will deliver a small, cheap table to us in a few days - I can't wait to stop eating meals off of a bedside table!

All of these tasks were complicated by 2 things, 1)we were in Japan and therefore didn't know where to find anything, and 2) we didn't have Internet initially and so couldn't look things up.  We required Internet immediately, mostly so we could contact you all :)  That was much more difficult than we could've imagined!  Coffee shops, even the local Starbucks, don't have free Wifi here like they often do in the States.  And the Internet cafe took us the rest of the day to find.  Once found, we contacted the amazing Izumi who set it up for us and we thought we were running...until we got home and realized our 3-prong laptop cords didn't fit into the Japanese 2-prong outlets.  So off to find an electronics store.  A full afternoon of searching later, we were set and could finally communicate with the outside world once again.

An adventure it has been!  Full of so many transitions, bittersweet, frustrating, sad, and joyful.  Change has never been easy for me so this is certainly a growing experience.  But I am so thankful to have such a great support system, both far in all of you, and near in my dear husband.  I'm excited to continue to share with you all of our continuing transitions...and promise to keep it shorter in the future!

Posted more pictures of our apartment, our area, and our Tokyo explorations on Facebook, but here's a few of them...

 Flying from our honeymoon in Okinawa, to Tokyo's Narita Airport

 Shibuya Crossing, one of the busiest places in Japan

 Our local train station, Futako-tamagawa

 Tokyo

 Japan's Diet Building (read:  equivalent to our Capitol Building in DC)

 Visiting Roppongi Hills neighborhood of Tokyo, the ritzy area

 Outside of our train stop.  Our apt is just behind the 7-story shopping center in the back left

 Our living room

 Our bedroom, looking into our dining room

 Ok, so our living room and bedroom are really one 8'6" x 12' room :)

Room #2 is our dining room / closet / dressing area

 Kitchen. Note the 12" of counter space, 7" utensil drawer, dorm-size fridge, 1 stove top, and lack of an oven. We decided it's a down-grade from Benno's DC apartment's kitchen, especially as it lacks his cool peg board! :)

 Pantry / foyer

 Bathroom, part 1

 Bathroom, part 2

 View from the front door in, down through the 3 rooms

 Back deck / laundry room

View from the back deck looking down through the 3 rooms the opposite way

Welcome!

By Molly and Benno Lauer

Welcome to our blog!  There are so many exciting things happening in our lives right now and so many loved ones we want to share all these updates and stories with, we thought this might be the easiest way to reach you all.  We plan to blog at least through this summer while we're in Japan (May 31st - August 15th) and perhaps even thereafter.  Stay tuned for exciting updates about our adventures! :)