The beginning of a cultural ordeal, two hours in

I was excited to be writing up a post about all the fun and exciting things I've done since the new year began (we went to sakura matsuri/cherry blossom festival up in Nago yesterday), but this morning, HP and I received a flurry of calls and an apartment visit to say that his eldest uncle had passed away.

This was the uncle I was unofficially not allowed to meet. He was considered something of an embarrassment, and whenever he was brought up in discussion or mentioned, he was waved off or the subject was quickly changed. This, I've come to understand, is a very Japanese way of treating it.

Needless to say, an uncle is still an uncle. And funerals are a big affair here. So HP called his father, who had already been notified (and is not flying over), and was only irritated by the lack of helpful information his father offered as far as what to do.

There are two issues at work here, culturally:
1. It's very hard to explain customs that just are. It's a part of your life, your culture, something you don't even think about - so when someone asks you what to do in a situation that you're just supposed to understand, it gets tricky.
2. We're not sure where we fit on the "family/foreigner" slider. We're not sure what's expected of us or what to even do, as we're family from overseas. There's a whole set of rules that no one seems able to explain (not the fault of any one person, it's just a cultural obstacle), and neither can anyone tell us what role we're needed to play, if any.

So far, all we've been told is "take the day off of work tomorrow" and "stay in the area." HP is getting quite testy from the stress of figuring things out, and I have no idea what's going on in general. But I'm going to stay in the city, make sure he's fed and okay, do my best to communicate with the OkiFam, and do some research.

And so far, google-fu just tells me "be supportive."

Maybe HP was right when he said earlier that we're in something of a unique situation, and that we're just going to have to tough it out. In that case, the least I can do is document what the process is like for foreign in-laws for the funeral, and maybe help someone else in a similar situation be able to focus more on the grieving family and not have to worry about offending a house full of mourners.

あけましておめでとう [akemashite omedetou]

I know it's been a while. One of my New Year's resolutions is to post more, and catch up on the backlog of posts I've promised myself that I'd write.

But that's not why I'm posting.

Words cannot describe the New Year's I just had. But ima try.

So I made us a huge New Year's dinner of okinawasoba and tempura and we watched Fright Night until 10:30, then switched on NHK to watch a Japanese celebrity impersonator competition which included a male Lady Gaga and a Simon and Garfunkel manzai duo. Hilarity. Japanese TV is awesome. But it is unimportant to the story. Anyway!

HP brought me out to the balcony during the countdown because it was "more romantic, gawd." And as we kissed, we heard the gong of the first of the 108 bell tolls of the Buddhist temple. We strained to hear the reverberations, and then he turned to me and excitedly asked if I wanted to go find it.

We raced to get our shoes on.

We wandered via echo, jogging and stopping like meerkats to listen for the reverb against the buildings (sometimes it lies!) and winding our way through the backstreets and over canals in the absolute silence except for the giant bell.

And then we found it.

It wasn't a big temple, nor was it fancy. It was pea-green in the odd nighttime light, in fact. It had its big golden altar in the middle floor, and a spiral staircase to the top floor where, under the roof, the enormous bell was being struck by a mounted log, battering-ram style. From the street, we could see the abbott (honest-to-goodness, robes and rosary and everything abbott) and one of the monks, and HP tugged on my sleeve with this look on his face and said "let's go up and see."

I protested, but my feet said otherwise as we walked up the spiral steps and to the top, where we bowed to the monks awkwardly and when they bowed back, they waved us over and handed us the reins to the bell.

I must've looked absolutely petrified, as I protested "Is it really okay? I'm a foreigner!" in Japanese and they laughed before showing me how to do it. So the husband went first, then I did (and I could feel the vibrations in my toes and in my chest), and after dropping money in the donation box, we bowed, wished the monks あけましておめでとう, and descended the stairs...

...only to find the local shinto shrine right next door with the festival in full swing. Booths, snacks, lanterns, garlands, and tons of people. It was pretty packed, but I vowed to come back and take pictures some other time.

We wandered home holding hands, listening to the remaining tolls and talking about how absolutely fucking cool that just was, and when he mentioned that he wished I'd had my camera, I agreed at first, then corrected myself. I was glad I didn't have my camera, in the end, because I had this odd feeling that stopping to shoot would've kept me from really enjoying where I was and static pictures would've cheapened it. Maybe this post does, a little. But I needed to share how I'm feeling right now, because it's awesome.

We made it up the steps, poured some sake and grabbed some mochi, and toasted to the new year. And now we're sitting here, warm and dry and pantsless with chai and ginger tea, mellowing out and remembering how the wet pavement looked and the chilly sea air on our faces and the crowded, labyrinthine neighborhoods and the bridges over the canals and the lantern-covered shrine and the lime green temple and the abbott who welcomed the wide-eyed foreigner in flip flops and a messy cardigan to ring in the new year with him in his temple.

In a little while, I'm going to go salt the salmon filet in preparation for being broiled for breakfast tomorrow morning, which will be the first day of 2012. We'll probably visit a shrine with his family to welcome the new year at some point in the day. There will likely be a crowd, and maybe some noodle stands, and perhaps even a taiyaki vendor or two calling me over with their fish waffles like a siren song.

But it won't be nearly as epic as the adventure we just had, chasing bells in the middle of the night.

Edit: Tiny cellphone snapshot of the pea-green temple.

Haz vs Washer

Today, I translated the eight modes on my washing machine. Until now, I'd only ever used two: normal and gentle. And none of the others were in my kanji phrasebook, so I rolled up my sleeves, copied them onto a post-it, and set down with the online dictionary I use.

If I know the reading, I can use that to narrow it down. Otherwise it comes down to stroke numbers and the radicals that make up the symbol. However, one unfortunate side effect of living with a math major is that I've slowly lost the ability to count properly, leading to some confusing translations.

Japanese lesson of the day: The kanji for "dry" and the kanji for "virginal" are one stroke apart. My washing machine does not, in fact, have a "virginal" option.

It's that clean.

You're welcome. Now I need to go wash my dirty, dirty laundry.

Moon Viewing Parties!

They are AWESOME.

I just got back from two moon viewing parties. They usually happen after the fall equinox and HP's two schools had them on the same night.

School A (the high academic one): Tall grass/wildflower arrangement, sushi, sanshin music (with electric guitar solos, which was pretty epic), mochi, toasts, and people sitting at a long table. We stayed for about an hour.

Classy to the max with a little bit of rock 'n roll thrown in.

Party B: Sanshin music by three somewhat toasted dudes, party games, totally plastered attempts at folk dancing (oh my god so great), at least three kegs, tarps spread on the ground in the courtyard, and AN ENTIRE GOAT. We stayed for the whole night.

You know what I did? I ATE GOAT SASHIMI.

RAW. GOAT.

I ATE YOU

Okinawa is turning me into such a badass. I am so pumped.

There was a game where you had to guess who it was based on the three secrets the emcee read from the slip of paper, from easiest to hardest. (he could read my handwriting, but had trouble with HP's HA BEST AT WRITING) My three secrets were:
1. I do not wear glasses
2. I like Okinawa Pro Wrestle
3. I am in the KGB! (Courtesy of Masashi-sensei, who I had told that I was part russian and had a gun permit.)

HP couldn't think of a third "secret," so Masashi-sensei scribbled "I LOVE MASASHI-SENSEI KISS KISS" in english across the bottom and it was great. They're notorious around the school, apparently. They're like two crazy people teaching kids english and they are total ridiculosity-bros. AND Masashi-sensei is his direct supervisor and I'm pretty sure that there is photographic evidence of Masashi chasing HP around yelling "HARD GAY HOOOO ADAM KISS KISS" at least twice.

HARD GAY HOOOOOO

And I totally got invited to like, every drinking party and school event ever by all the staff, who asked the english teachers how to say it so that they could tell me how much they liked me and I spoke in Japanese to people and it was so chill. Seriously. Tarps and kegs and a stage and a goat. Best. Party. Ever.

Unless you're the goat.

Also, it is really late and I might be drunks.

First major (minor?) dog crisis

Elsa was due today for her heartworm pill. Like most pills, you give them once a month and it kills pretty much all internal parasites. Luckily for me, I'm on a schedule trying to get her "stuff you have to sit still for ten minutes to get done" (advantix, pill, nail trim - I do it all in one go) day to the first of the month, so I've been doing it a few days earlier every time.

This is what it's like. 

I'd noticed that she'd been acting oddly for a few days. She'd either scarf her meals down like she was starving or peck like a bird, she'd wake up early and cry for an hour, she was sleeping a lot more and attacking a lot less, and a ton of little things that you notice when you have a totally-healthy-and-not-at-all-unreasonable-obsession-is-kind-of-a-strong-word interest in your dog.

I gave her the pill on Monday, a few days before she was due, and since the moment I gave her the pill that morning, she started having accidents in the house. HP got incredibly frustrated, since she'd been doing so well on the housebreaking front, and I told him that it was because she'd been doing well that this was a bad sign.

She spent the rest of the day being restless and overly affectionate and refusing to eat. I got increasingly worried. Sure enough, that night, she passed a small, but unmistakably adult roundworm.

A picture of a baby wallaby instead. Because roundworms are gross.

Despite having seen infested dogs in my time working with them, that night I engaged frantically in many rounds of Ask Dr. Internets on all sorts of questions. Everything pretty much said the same thing: dog roundworms are common, easy to kill, and even if they do pass to people (rare) they can't survive.

The next morning, I was at the vet as soon as it opened, asking them what I should do. I gave the techs and doctors a good laugh, even the ones who didn't speak any English - apparently "oh god what do I doooo" panic translates just as well as it does in the States.

"Let me guess - first time she's had worms?"
"Yes!"
"Did she eat this morning? Poop? Want to play?"
"Yes..."
"She's fine; the pills kill everything. Even the eggs. She'll be clean in two days. Stop letting her eat dirt and grass and bugs."
"...Bugs, too?"
"Yep, good luck with that."

Apparently, there's no monthly med on the market that prevents worms, just kills them on a regular cycle. Worms here are very common, and the girls told me that as long as I kept up with the pills, I may see the occasional one every few months or so. It's the people that don't give their dogs the pills and don't clean up after them that cause the big problems, they added, and that meant that the lot behind my house where Elsa goes to the bathroom is probably a haven for all the stray cats (huge problem here) and lazy dog owners (huge problem everywhere).

I thanked them profusely for putting up with me (they told me it was funny and that crazy dog owners are the same in every country) and even though they said it wasn't necessary, I washed all of Elsa's bedding and toys. For my own peace of mind.

BECAUSE IT MAKES ME FEEL BETTER OKAY

I felt guilty at first, because I strongly believe that it's my responsibility as her owner to make sure that she's healthy, but both HP and the vet reassured me that I was doing everything right and that common parasites are totally normal in humid subtropical climates. Also, Elsa probably didn't have any damn idea what was going on.

Vet recommended that if I really wanted to help her out after the de-worming, I should make sure all of her nutritional needs were okay. Sweet potato, thoroughly-cooked salmon, and a bit more food than usual would give her a good start. And changing her pee spot. So now we're back to a litterbox, except it's outside on our porch. She's doing well so far - and now she doesn't whine about having to go out in the rain. Less wet dog smell, too.

And I'll bet anything that all Elsa remembers from this whole ordeal is that one day she slept a lot, but the next she got big chunks of two of her favorite foods and doesn't have to get wet to pee any more.

Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

Meeting the neighbors

Being home so much lends itself well to bumping into neighbors.

So far, I know we have:

An American, Matt, who lives with his Okinawan wife on the first floor (they're an older couple, she wanted to come back home, so they moved here a few days ago)

A very friendly Japanese firefighter, also on the first floor, who loves the dog

A young couple with an infant who live on the second floor

Two small children in the house next door whose mother tells them to go practice their English with foreigners, so they ask Elsa questions in broken English

And various other people (mostly singles) who now know me enough to know that it's okay to greet me in Japanese whenever we meet. And squee over Elsa.

Japan sure does live up to the stereotype of loving adorable and tiny things.

No nosy old ladies yet. But I'm not going to let myself get complacent.

Woodland Creatures, aka My Foray into Japanese Fabrics and Indoor Mall Things

The fashion here is pretty great. I really like the aesthetic, if it is a tinge too girly for my tastes.

Not feminine. Girly.

Ruffles. On. EVERYTHING.

One fad in particular that I really like are the long skirts. Lovely tea-length numbers that had two major problems: elastic waistbands (unattractive crinkle and painful, nothing good there) and the aforementioned ruffles.

But I wanted one. And then it occurred to me to make one. As this thought sank in, I got excited with the prospect of using Japanese fabrics, having heard so much about them and seeing the brilliant parades of kimono and yukata plastered across anything having to do with Japan ever.

I headed over to the Main City shopping center (one of a chain of mini-mall-type-things) and went to the sewing section of the department store.

Quick note about many malls in Japan: they don't have walls to separate the stores. Just wider aisles. Like a big open-air yet indoor market that makes you want to wander forever. I love it.

Anyway, -

OH AND I TOOK THE BUS THERE! I rode the bus all by myself without using any English and got off at the right stop and everything and it was glorious.

I found the fabric section. It had nifty maps on the shelves to show you where in Japan the fabrics had come from. Hokkaido, Aomori, even Okinawa - they were arranged by color and pattern and were all sorts of neat.

Even in a small department store-sized section, my head was swimming in all of the bright colors. And the colors here are intense. Like, just-looked-directly-at-the-sun-for-a-second-now-the-visible-spectrum-is-wonky bright. I already have plans for some of the beautiful fabrics I saw there. If I have to live in a house filled with throw pillows, I am willing to make that sacrifice.

And just try to stop me from making a bright yellow Power Rangers-patterned party dress when I get hold of a pattern. Go ahead.

One thing I can say, though: the Japanese are so not afraid of prints.

No, not you. 

I found this linen-y blend printed with woodland animals like deer, squirrels, birds, and rabbits. And it was my favorite colors. I had to have it.

It took me all of a few hours to whip up (I used an old pattern with some heavy modifications like HUGE POCKETS), but here it is. My Woodland Creatures Tea Skirt.

Worn a couple of ways. Photos sans dog.

Click for a better view of the awesomely adorable print.

And now my head is swimming with all the sewing I want to do. Especially with Japanese fabric - it's either super gorgeous or cartoonishly great, both of which suit me just fine.

Moral of the story: after I get a job, maybe go buy a sewing machine. Even a small one.

Oh, and put pockets in everything.