The Payoff

In early January of 2009, one evening, I made the decision to go to Japan on June 3 2011.  I decided I would have to know a fair amount of the Japanese language but that more important would be a feel for the etiquette. By etiquette I mean of course not which side the dessert chopsticks go on, but how the average Japanese person (about which another time) feels about a handshake instead of a bow, whether and how to look a newly-introduced person in the eye, and in general how to be a 6'1" blond in a country of people from whom I would stand out even if they were all tall and blond.

So I've spent two and a half years doing a lot of things, but perhaps nearly chief among them has been trying to learn the etiquette.

I have a fairly substantial library of etiquette books at home.  American etiquette, I mean.  Again, far less than 1% of that is where to put the fish fork and that sort of thing.

Service knife connected to the -- fish knife

It's principally about how Americans generally can go through their day without materially injuring their fellows.  We do injure people all the time, by, say, spontaneously commenting on their apparent weight loss when comment about their weight is something they'd just as soon we keep to ourselves.  Etiquette books of the kind I'm talking about are pretty much for people who want to keep from causing injury and are trying to find out how to do it. Hence, for example, the half-minute-fix rule, wherein you might privately mention to a friend spinach in the tooth or un- uh, fastened apparel that can be fixed rapidly, whereas the rip in the shoulder seam just doesn't exist.

An equivalent library of Japanese etiquette would take not one shelf but perhaps ten.  Two people meet -- the issue is not whether to bow but how low, how many times and for how long each person bows, and often these numbers are different for the two, and often they do not both know these numbers, perhaps even their own numbers, going into the bow.

Whereas English language has tense, number and sometimes gender, Japanese has limited tense and normally  no number or gender, but it does have politeness and formality levels.  One may use a verb that has one level of formality with a co-worker and a different level with a family member, or different levels between siblings and parents.  "Good morning" is said with one level to one's classmates and a different one to the neighbor across the street.

You don't talk on the phone on trains and you change slippers upon going into and coming out of the bathroom.  You bring a present to your host, you tell them that it's really worthless but it's the best you could do (the host praises it to the sky but doesn't open it in front of you).

Your winnings, sir.

After two a half years my goal is just to allow me to look as though I'm trying, because with this level of  intricacy it's not going to get any better than that.  But, I suppose, beginning Friday, when I board my Japan Air flight, I'll see how far my two and a half years of study have taken me.  To wish me "good luck" or "hang in there," you might say ganbatte. Ganbare, a slightly harsher form of the very same word, you would reserve, perhaps, for a wayward student --  it's more likely to mean "please try harder!" 



P.S.

As an update, for those who have been following from the beginning, or for those who just know me.  Tsuyu, the rainy season, has just started in Kyoto.  I really can't wait to get there.

Sumimasen

It appears an apology is in order.  So, Avocado san, sumimasen, I ask your pardon.  I did not mean to suggest  that you are not a worthy sushi ingredient, no, not at all.  You are a tasty morsel, despite what I consider to be an unfortunate f/c, and you belong in salad, you belong in guacamole, and you belong in all sorts of luscious cuisine.  You belong in American sushi for those who like avocado in their sushi, and may I say that two of my dear readers, one a relative and one a non-relative friend, told me that they like avocado in their sushi.  And so they have every right to do.  Sushi with avocado . . .  mmmmmmmm.

Avocado  gooood; fire baaaaaad

No, what I meant to say but didn't, very clearly, is that I think the majestic and honorable avocado is a worthy and delicious, despite its unfortunate f/c, fruit, and has every reason to be a valued member of the sushi team.  Whole chapters, nay, volumes could be written on the culinary value of the mighty avocado and its delicate yet sublime addition to the sushi line of cuisine.

All I should have said was that what avocado in sushi is not is Japanese.  It is Californian. Southern, if I might hazard a guess.  So, I was just pointing out that Japanese Tea Gardens in California are not any more Japanese than California rolls are.  Very lovely, very beautiful, just not Japanese.  That's all.  Californian.

So, on to Port Royal, and more about Japan, and perhaps a little less about California, beautiful and charming as it is, next week.

Yay!

This, I think, is what is meant in Shizuoka-ken by "Tea Garden"

My friends and I have finally been able to agree on a time for the tea garden thing.  They're driving down from Tokyo and I'm taking the train up from Kyoto.  So, that will be Monday the 6th of June -- Tea Day.  Bad pun so sorry.  Anyway I'm very excited about it.  This is a tea garden near a town called Kakegawa in Shizuoka-ken (prefecture)  I'll be taking the train, I assume, right near a large inlet called Ise Bay.

I first started learning about foreign countries when I was in third grade, O.J. Stivers Elementary, Mrs. Harned.  I noticed then than Kyoto and Tokyo were anagrams of each other, though of course they aren't, in their own language; but I wondered if there were something about that.  Apparently, no, it's like God and dog -- anagrams but not in their own languages.

Well no, it's not ALWAYS sunset at Port Royal. 

Oh, mini-break this weekend, Friday through Monday, and how great is that?  Memorial day long weekend (we'll be away in Port Royal) and then back for three days and then off to Japan.  Very nice.  "Sweet" -- that's what the lad would say.

So, if you're reading this, and admit it, you are, I'll be back Tuesday.  I packed my camera and its little cord today.  Now I just have to hope the Japanese computers like my little camera cord.  Oh come on, it's Japan.  Their computers can do just about anything, right?

Nine.

I got my passport and rail pass out today.  I could have left them in their little home for eight more days, presumably.  It's not that I'm so organized that I have a check-off schedule that says "Nine days remaining:  retrieve passport and rail pass."  The real reason's a bit simpler of course:

My sometime next-door neighbors and normally full-time residents of Tokyo and I are, I hope, about to decide to meet one day at a Tea Garden somewhere between Tokyo and Kyoto.  Although I'm not sure exactly what the term "Tea Garden" means, it sounds very nice and it combines two of my favorite things, both way ahead of whiskers on kittens and bright copper kettles.

Come on, Maria, really?

  All the pictures I can find on the web of "tea gardens" appear to be situated in California, and while I have special affection for California in many ways, and I love the fact that there is Grand Japanese Influence in parts of it, I am just a trifle skeptical of a "Japanese Tea Garden" in a place that gave us avocados in our sushi.  I hope you'll pardon me for this bit of hysteria.  For now I just want my Japan to be in, you know, Japan.

So that's good, anyway, because it will be a surprise and I won't really know what a true Japanese Tea Garden, or at least this particular one, is until I go there.  I am however told reliably that they are willing to part with their tea in exchange for yen.

So, passports and Tea Gardens.  Considerations for Japan minus nine.

And, oh! Grazie, Italian person, whoever you are!  My first non-USA visitor.   Benvenuta or Benvenuto, as the case may be.

Good Thing I Called

Maybe I should have regarded the name as a warning:

When I called United Air Lines today, ten days before my flight that I booked in February, to make sure my frequent flyer miles are being justly credited, there was a moment's confusion while they reminded me that my return flight had been rerouted and I would need to make sure my issuer, the aforementioned

had informed me of the same and had issued the changed tickets.  Needless to say, I had not heard a thing from

So I called my friends at COA, and they routed me efficiently to the applicable public service office, which was not, I'm pretty sure, located anywhere near My Home Town If You Know What I Mean, where one of their efficient agents spent about 20 minutes on the computer/phone issuing me an email that verified that I was now not only scheduled on the rerouted flight but also had a ticket and corresponding right, I hope, actually to board the aircraft.

Woh.

Only imagining now what might have happened in Terminal Whatever of Chicago O'Hare when I had landed after 13-some-odd hours of cattle-class flight (albeit on Japan Air Lines which, in my imagination, pours each contented customer hot green tea from a porcelain pot into a porcelain cup atop a silk napkin) only to find that I was not authorized to fly any further because you-know-who hadn't bothered to notify me, you know, IN ADVANCE that my previously ticketed flight wasn't going to be, uh, taking off on that or any other day.

When CheapOAir gets its own airline.  Flight attendant and Keith Richards look-alike Amber Michelle Gorish offers passengers the refreshment/meal choice of Water or, uh, Not Water

Happily, I DID call United and the nice person there DID happily mention the flight change and suggested, in response to my cry of astonishment, that I contact my friends at COA and straighten it all out with them.  Thank you United.

These are the JAL Flight Attendants assigned to me.

Japan Air Lines, of course, isn't changing anything.  I already know what that flight's going to be like anyway.  I already told you about the tea and porcelain and silk.  I should also mention that, at least on the plane, Japanese babies don't cry or spit up or soil their diapers.  The children are respectful at all times and the 5-year-old behind me will not spend the entire 14-hour flight (headwinds on the way over) kicking the back of my seat.  I think the only difference between first class and the moo section is that in first class the sushi chefs are all members of the samurai class and the geisha are all from the Gion Kobu district in Kyoto.

Typical JAL in-flight activities, except I think I might be the only passenger on the plane.

Yes, that's going to be one dreamy flight.  Thank you JAL.

Sumimasen

This is only a test.  If this had been an actual blog, I would have filled it with photos of my stay in Japan, if I could.  As it is, I am only posting a stock internet photo of Kyoto no tsuyu, Kyoto in the rainy season, which apparently is usually the first two or three weeks of June.

I bet it's not really this rainy in the rainy season

If there's any weather I like in the summer more than rain it's probably a combination of rain and fog.

If I can get this blog up and running and if I have frequent access to the internet when I get to Kyoto and if my camera is compatible with it and if one or two other things, I will be posting, I hope, from time to time, while I'm in Japan, mostly because people have asked me whether I were going to do that.