Culture Shock! Crazy Boys

Despite my lack of language skills, I have interacted with female and male Japanese humans of all ages. Everything from four year olds staring at my braces to my older neighbors asking if I live in the village. There are some differences in behavior from American humans of course, one difference being in the behavior of young boys.

In America, young boys can be crazy but by the time they are in middle or high school they tend to be more quiet. There is usually that one crazy guy in each class, but that's only one guy. In Japan, at least 50% of them are that crazy guy. The majority of my male friends are quiet and like computers so pretty much any craziness is surprising. However, I don't think I have ever seen American boys be this crazy. I asked my Japanese instructor about it and she said it is because in Japan boys are seen as entertainers.

To show you what I mean, I will tell some stories about my interactions with crazy boys.

Part of my program is visiting local schools and the first school we visited was a local middle school. My friend and I picked a second year class (so 13 and 14 year old kids) and played a game of some sort with them in their English class. Everyone seemed fairly calm aside from the one kid trying to get answers from his friends in the back of class and the kid who found a rubber band and was putting it on his head. However, come break time, the kids were running around the room. Realizing my friend speaks Japanese, a group of boys came up to us and were talking to him. They all had their arms over each other's shoulders and the one with the best English said "we're bros." One of them suddenly pointed at us and said "couple?" (my friend is a guy, you see). After realizing what he said, we both denied it. Another boy proceeded to ask the same question. A third boy proceeded to point at us individually and ask. Were they convinced? Nope. They walk past the main house on the way home from school and whenever they see me they start saying "couple" or the name of my friend. They don't even know my name. The just call me Lion boy's girlfriend. They know it annoys me so they just give me this mischievous smile and keep walking.

We have visited many schools and also visited a kindergarten one day. The kids were very excited to see us and talked nonstop. At one point a group of girls were crowded around me and saying something about my sunflower hair clip and then were staring at my braces. I had been squatting down to be more their height but I decided to stand up so my braids hung down in front of me. The girls just stared at them and found it interesting but a couple boys came along and started punching them. Not sure what the logic to that is. This has actually happened a couple more times since then. If my braids hang in front of me (like I'm leaning over or something) little boys will come punch my braids.

One weekend one of the staff from the program took some of us to the beach. I was in a car with her, my housemate, and one of her friends. Her friend didn't really speak much English so he just spoke Japanese at me. He was saying something that sounded funny so I was laughing but the lady told me not to laugh because he was saying something along the lines of "she has a hot body." When we got closer to the beach he started chanting "うみ！うみ！うみ！” which is "ocean" in Japanese. When we were at the beach him and my friend ran around with the kids there and otherwise were crazy. Him and my friend also decided to dig a hole and bury my friend in sand. He drew funny stuff over where my friend was buried in sand.

After the speech contest, somehow the director ended up having a janken (rock paper scissors) match with one of the young boys over who paid for dinner after the event. The boy lost and dramatically flung himself on the floor yelling and so did his friends. They repeated the process and he again lost so the dramatic act continued. Mid way through the dinner, we had everyone switch seats and the director of the program switched seats with me so I was sitting across from the boy who was in the janken match earlier. He called himself "crazy boy" so that's what I will be calling him here. So Crazy Boy introduced himself like you normally do, then continued to say all sorts of crazy stuff in his less than perfect English. He was saying stuff like "I like girls," "I work in car metal factory," "funny funny funny personality," and pointed at a picture of a kpop idol on his phone and said she was his girlfriend. He told the French girl he could speak French so she asked him to prove it and he said "un deux trois." He said some kinda questionable stuff and his friends laughed a lot and corrected him. After the dinner, some of us decided to go to karaoke. He called one of his friends the King of Karaoke and that kid decided to go with us but Crazy Boy was going to drive the rest of his friends home. King of Karaoke hadn't spoken much up to this point, but as his friends were leaving he yelled "fuck you bitch!" Crazy boy responded with "oh, so I'm a bitch?" Hearing kids with broken English swear at each other is hilarious, in my opinion. Later at karaoke, King of Karaoke sang passionately or headbanged to various songs. One of the staff guys was with us and he danced to a silly Japanese song so that was also pretty funny.

We went to a small festival a couple weeks ago and a drunk middle aged man walked up to us and started talking to us. He pointed at one of the boys and the girl standing next to him and asked if they were a couple. They said no and as the conversation progressed various girls interacted with the boy in question and the guy would ask if that girl and the boy were a couple. He went through all of us girls and then went back to the original girl. Him and his wife also wanted us to drink with them, but we politely declined. I'm pretty sure he knew most of us were underage, too.

So those are some of my experiences with crazy Japanese boys! It's definitely interesting how the culture is different and how that changes people's behavior. Hope you found my stories entertaining 😁.

Culture Shock! Right Of Way And Other Car Stuff

So in America, pedestrians have the right of way, even when they don't. There are clearly marked areas for pedestrians and cars. If the crosswalk says a person can pass, cars have to wait for that person to finish crossing. People in cars will wave for you to cross the street before them. Oregon has particularly polite drivers, but in general in America cars stay where cars go and do their best to avoid pedestrians and cyclists. In Japan, that is not the case.

When you cross the street in Japan, make sure to look around because most likely cars aren't going to stop to let you pass unless they are literally going to hit you if they don't. Even then they will get close to you. There are no sidewalks in some places so bikes and pedestrians are on the side of the road and cars go past you. Mind you roads in Japan are narrow. However, the gutter things usually provide a sidewalk like thing for you to walk on so you won't get hit by a car. Also, if there even is a sidewalk, it's extremely common for cars to be parked on it. There isn't really that much street parking so sometimes cars either park partially in the street or up on the sidewalk. I have to walk around a lot of cars trying to walk down the sidewalk in the village I am staying in.

Another time I was walking back from the convenience store and saw a car drive out through the crosswalk. That was pretty confusing but it's a space with no curb I guess. Cars are very small here. Like I'm as tall as most of the trucks (which are the tiniest) and a Prius feels like a big car. Most cars only have two seats across in the back. We have had to fit five people in those cars before (until we found out it was illegal and you can get deported), which was a very tight squeeze.

The roads here are quite narrow and this weekend we were going up a mountain road where it was one lane with no turn outs. Lots of plants so you couldn't see much but there were mirrors set up. We were in a Prius which isn't a particularly big car but still probably the biggest car you could fit on that road. At one point the driver was trying to text while driving down the roads until the lady in the passenger seat told him she didn't want to die so he stopped. Should have gotten a picture.

I also spend a lot of time wondering "how the hell did you park there?!?" because in Japan people fit their cars into the craziest places. Like between a big plant and a garbage container, under a tiny awning where there are literally bumpers up against the wall so they can pull up as close as possible, backing into tiny spaces and missing other cars by inches, on the sidewalk, and the one that is the craziest, in my opinion, is this one:

So near my guesthouse there is this little parking lot area with three or four spots and two normal sized cars park there (and one time a small truck but that's a story for another day). They back in, like most Japanese do, but here's the catch: the parking lot is on a hill so it's a drop off and these people back up their cars until the tires are INCHES from the edge. Like the back of their car hangs over the edge. Trying to park there would give me a heart attack.

Also, people don't wear seat belts that much.

Culture Shock! Door Handles And The Like

It's time for a new series! This time it's culture shock. I did a lot of research before I came here, so I was prepared for a lot of stuff but some things just came out of left field and took some getting used to.

Most doorways here are pretty short, and many of the boys in my program are about as tall as or taller than doorways. That is expected and people will tell you about that. However, the doors that aren't sliding doors (and many are) have lever type knobs verses the American round knob. This isn't the shocking part, though. I shall explain the shocking part through a little anecdote.

So I have just arrived at the place I will be staying and decide to visit the toilet room (I did my research and was aware of the separate room, sink toilet combos, and bathroom slippers). However, I hadn't found anywhere that the flush mechanism points down, not sideways. Perplexed, I decide to try pulling it towards me. It works. I go to leave the toilet room and after unlocking it push down on the lever handle to open the door. The door doesn't open. I try again. It doesn't open. I make sure the door is unlocked, and it is. Not wanting to embarrass myself by getting locked in the toilet room my very first day in Japan, I think a little bit and decide to try lifting the handle like I did with the toilet. It works.

So essentially all handles lift up here. Door handles, toilet flush things, locks, any lever type thing. In America it is the exact opposite. You push down on door handles, push the flush mechanism down, and twist locks down to lock them. After a couple days I was completely adjusted but it was definitely something I did not expect to be different. To my American brain it is more intuitive to push something down than to pull it up, but it must be the opposite. Doors also open the opposite way than expected most of the time. For example, in my house the front door opens into the entryway, the bathroom door opens into the bathroom, and my bedroom door opens into my bedroom. In Japan, the front doors open onto the porch, the toilet room doors open into the hallway, and my bedroom door also opens into the hallway. 

Also, light switches are sideways and often on the outside of the room they like. Means you can mess with your roommates by turning off the lights when they are in a room. It's great.