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12.25.02
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Another Christmas has come and gone.
One of the toughest things about living abroad
is missing out on all of the annual rituals
and family get-togethers back home. You take
them for granted when you're young, but when
you're older and you don't have access to
those events, you miss them.
Christmas here was subdued, but it was still
pretty cool. It felt great giving presents
to Jack even though at age one and a half
he was just as interested in the wrapping
as he was in the presents themselves.
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Two of Karen's friends from Vancouver,
Julie
and Mark, are coming today to stay
for a
week or so.
What this means for you is that there should
soon be a lot of new pictures on Hunkabutta
of the various tourist attractions around
Tokyo.
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I came across an interesting article on the
politics of consumption today via wood s lot. It was written by Juliet Schor. Dr. Schor seems to be one of those rare academics
who can write a scholarly paper that has
the feel of popular literature but doesn't
seem trite or condescending.
Her work on the economics of consumption
is tied in to some interesting social debates
and grassroots organizations such as The Center for a New American Dream.
12.22.02
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Yesterday our friend from the neighbourhood,
Kayako, took us to a small bonenkai (end of year) party at a little school about
an hour outside of Tokyo where she teaches
English a few times a month.
She reserved a room at a local community
center. There were only about six or seven
kids and their moms, but it was fun. We sat
around on the floor, ate chips and donuts,
and played English bingo. Jack had a great
time running around with the other kids.
Karen has been calling me 'Mr. Donut' all
day because of a certain faux pas of mine:
I ate my Mr. Donut cream puff without waiting
for everyone else to get theirs first. Looking
back on it, I should have known better, but
I was just too hungry to wait.
It's customary when eating communal food
to wait until everyone has a portion before
you eat your own. I've known this for a long
time. But yesterday when I was the first
person to get their cream puff my stomach
got the best of my cultural sensitivities
and I immediately scarfed it down in about
two bites. Karen pretended to be mortified,
but I guess it wasn't really that big of
a deal.
Nobody said anything about it, but then on
the other hand, the people here are so tactful
that I could have run through the room naked
and screaming and nobody would have said
anything.
12.19.02
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Jack has a cold and he kept us up the other
night coughing and whining -- poor little
guy. He's fine now, so don't worry. That
night I hardly got any sleep, but of course
I had to go into work the next morning anyway.
So, do you know what I did? That day at work
I took a long nap while sitting at my desk.
I just slouched down in my chair, leaned
way back, rested my chin on my chest, and
drifted away.
This might sound strange, but sleeping at
your desk at work is okay in Japan, people
do it all the time, though I generally try
to avoid it. This is not something that is
done in secret. Most Japanese offices (in
fact all the ones that I've been in) are
open concept, so when you sleep you're right
out there in the middle of the room for everyone
to see.
Once I even saw a guy lie a tarp down and
sleep on the floor beside his desk.
There are a few reasons why sleeping at work
is permissible here even though there is
generally a very strong 'over work' ethic.
First of all, if you sleep at your desk people
assume that it's because you worked late
the night before and didn't get enough sleep
at home. This is kind of counterintuitive
to most Westerners -- The more you sleep
the more you appear to be a hard worker.
A second reason why it's okay to sleep
at
work is because people do often work
incredibly
long hours, so they really have no
choice.
If you're at the office for 14 or 15
hours
a day, and spend two hours a day on
the train
commuting back and forth to work, then
nobody's
really going to begrudge you a cat
nap.
Finally, people sleep at work because they
come in no matter how sick they are. There
is no such thing as 'sick leave' in Japan.
If you stay home sick, then that time comes
off your 'holiday' time, which I think is
usually about 10 days a year. Sick people
need to sleep, it's as simple as that.
It's after 1:00 a.m. now as I write this
and I'm feeling pretty sleepy. Maybe I will
take another nap at work tomorrow...just
this one last time.
12.16.02
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I don't have time to write anything today
so I'm just going to leave you with some
pictures of the going away party that I went
to last Friday. It was at a yaki-niku
(grilled meat) restaurant.
Enjoy.
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I can't help but mention this really cool
new google viewing utility that I came across on ericalba.org. Check it out now!
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