Gardeners Amongst Other Frustrations
Folks may have noticed that our blog has been pretty inactive. Well, we just haven't had much going on lately. Mike is still playing catch up with his photography and I've just been doing the typical Mommy stuff. Be prepared, for this blog post will include ranting...
We took a ride to Yokohama to check out the World Fair at Yamashita Park. They had tons of good food from Brazil, Thailand, Mexico, Belgium, Germany, France, and many many more countries. It was a nice morning trip and we were able to make it back home in time for Josh's nap.
On our way home, we were noticing all of the nice homes by our train station and having a little bit of renters remorse about our townhouse. Then it got us both on a rant about the differences between home maintenance here in Japan vs. the US. Our biggest pet peave since we've been here is the typical Japanese gardener. The process of lawn and shrub maintance is pretty much non-existent here. In fact, we specified that we get a gardener in our rent contract. We foolishly assumed that this would mean a person coming weekly to maintain our yard. Most of the time landlords in the US will have someone come once a week to mow the lawn and trim the shrubs. Here, they come just about every 6 months, butcher the grass, shrubs and trees leaving nothing but sticks and then let it over-grow for the next 6 months till they come and annihilate the yard again. This is also the general practice at most of our neighborhood parks. To us it just seems so silly. How is this process efficient?! If anything, it lets the grass and weeds overgrow giving the weeds time to polinate and spread to neighboring yards, making our neighbors daily pull weeds out of their flower beds. It's also disgusting to walk in an overgrown park where dogs like to pop a squat or lift a leg to do their business. We never know when our shoe will fall victim to poo. Why not just come every week, do an hour's job trimming and be done with it? Something I will never understand.
Not only is it yards and parks, but also homes. Many times a house is built and just not treated properly. Most houses are still built "on the cheap", but many places over 10 years just look horrid. Wallpaper peeling off, shoji papers are not replaced in the sliding windows, retaining walls crumbling... WTF? The reason many people rebuild their houses after 7-10 years is because they just don't seem to take care of them in the first place!
OK, OK... I know that this has turned into a rant/soapbox moment. We really do like the location of our place. After all we do live right next to the ocean. I suppose most of the frustration just lies with our landlord in this case and maybe our champagne tastes. There are just certain things that a landlord in the States is pretty much expected to provide that I suppose a Japanese landlord is not.
Another thing recently that I've noticed is the slippery tiles in the train stations. As soon as it rains it's like walking on glass. It rains so much in this country. I'd think the engineers would plan for a little more traction for train commuters.
Oh, and there are never enough elevators at train stations. Sometimes there is an elevator for one platform and as soon as we get to the next one, there is no elevator to be found. Better yet, there is an elevator but we have to climb a set of stairs to get to it. There's also the poeple who get on elevators that just don't need one. Especially the extremely rude salarymen that cut in front of old women and strollers. One day, I'm gonna clip one with my stroller... then look at him wide eyed, "OH, GOMEN NASAI, GOMEN NASAI!!!" (still ramming him in the process). Maybe then he'll get the message.
I know, I know. If this is all we have to complain about, we have it pretty good. I suppose now more than ever we are plain just missing home. I particualarly miss not being scrutanized constantly by the general public. If someone is rude to me in America, I know how to handle it. Here, for the most part we have to suck it up. Not only because we don't know how to handle it otherwise, but also because when we arrive here in Japan, we take a class offered by the military where it is drilled into us over and over again that we are all acting as embassadors for our country and for us to be on our best behavior if not better than our best behavior. This whole process has really helped us understand what immigrants coming to America must go through.
We enjoy Japan for the most part, along with it's people. Again, we just plain miss home. Which brings me to my next announcement. We will be taking a trip to the states in early 2007. I'll be spending about month there with Josh and Mike will go for about 2 weeks. Luckily I have the kind of job where I can be on the move. Mike, on the other hand, needs to stick around at work and make his visit/vacation a little shorter.
Apologies if this has brought anyone down. Again, we always talk about what fun we have here. We just haven't had much of an opportunity to vent about what frustrates us.
We took a ride to Yokohama to check out the World Fair at Yamashita Park. They had tons of good food from Brazil, Thailand, Mexico, Belgium, Germany, France, and many many more countries. It was a nice morning trip and we were able to make it back home in time for Josh's nap.
On our way home, we were noticing all of the nice homes by our train station and having a little bit of renters remorse about our townhouse. Then it got us both on a rant about the differences between home maintenance here in Japan vs. the US. Our biggest pet peave since we've been here is the typical Japanese gardener. The process of lawn and shrub maintance is pretty much non-existent here. In fact, we specified that we get a gardener in our rent contract. We foolishly assumed that this would mean a person coming weekly to maintain our yard. Most of the time landlords in the US will have someone come once a week to mow the lawn and trim the shrubs. Here, they come just about every 6 months, butcher the grass, shrubs and trees leaving nothing but sticks and then let it over-grow for the next 6 months till they come and annihilate the yard again. This is also the general practice at most of our neighborhood parks. To us it just seems so silly. How is this process efficient?! If anything, it lets the grass and weeds overgrow giving the weeds time to polinate and spread to neighboring yards, making our neighbors daily pull weeds out of their flower beds. It's also disgusting to walk in an overgrown park where dogs like to pop a squat or lift a leg to do their business. We never know when our shoe will fall victim to poo. Why not just come every week, do an hour's job trimming and be done with it? Something I will never understand.
Not only is it yards and parks, but also homes. Many times a house is built and just not treated properly. Most houses are still built "on the cheap", but many places over 10 years just look horrid. Wallpaper peeling off, shoji papers are not replaced in the sliding windows, retaining walls crumbling... WTF? The reason many people rebuild their houses after 7-10 years is because they just don't seem to take care of them in the first place!
OK, OK... I know that this has turned into a rant/soapbox moment. We really do like the location of our place. After all we do live right next to the ocean. I suppose most of the frustration just lies with our landlord in this case and maybe our champagne tastes. There are just certain things that a landlord in the States is pretty much expected to provide that I suppose a Japanese landlord is not.
Another thing recently that I've noticed is the slippery tiles in the train stations. As soon as it rains it's like walking on glass. It rains so much in this country. I'd think the engineers would plan for a little more traction for train commuters.
Oh, and there are never enough elevators at train stations. Sometimes there is an elevator for one platform and as soon as we get to the next one, there is no elevator to be found. Better yet, there is an elevator but we have to climb a set of stairs to get to it. There's also the poeple who get on elevators that just don't need one. Especially the extremely rude salarymen that cut in front of old women and strollers. One day, I'm gonna clip one with my stroller... then look at him wide eyed, "OH, GOMEN NASAI, GOMEN NASAI!!!" (still ramming him in the process). Maybe then he'll get the message.
I know, I know. If this is all we have to complain about, we have it pretty good. I suppose now more than ever we are plain just missing home. I particualarly miss not being scrutanized constantly by the general public. If someone is rude to me in America, I know how to handle it. Here, for the most part we have to suck it up. Not only because we don't know how to handle it otherwise, but also because when we arrive here in Japan, we take a class offered by the military where it is drilled into us over and over again that we are all acting as embassadors for our country and for us to be on our best behavior if not better than our best behavior. This whole process has really helped us understand what immigrants coming to America must go through.
We enjoy Japan for the most part, along with it's people. Again, we just plain miss home. Which brings me to my next announcement. We will be taking a trip to the states in early 2007. I'll be spending about month there with Josh and Mike will go for about 2 weeks. Luckily I have the kind of job where I can be on the move. Mike, on the other hand, needs to stick around at work and make his visit/vacation a little shorter.
Apologies if this has brought anyone down. Again, we always talk about what fun we have here. We just haven't had much of an opportunity to vent about what frustrates us.
posted by Unknown | 1:26 PM
9 Comments:
Wow - this post hit home with me. I lived in Tokyo for a year and I did love it so, but the closer I got to the end of my time the more frustrated I became with what you mention here. It really is such a different culture and things are done in a way we don't understand. The inefficiency is what irked me the most.
Hang in there - your month back in the states will remind you of everything you love about Japan!
One very important word you both might have forgotten about in regards to the cheap houses: Earthquake.
I think that here in Tokyo they won't even let you build cheap houses and are systematically removing every wooden house they can and replace it with something made of steel reinforced concrete. Probably because fire was the biggest killer in the past quakes, not the quake itself.
It's hard to build a nice house here that isn't built like fortress, because anything we Americans would consider nice is going to get destroyed when the next big one hits.
That's my take, anyway. :)
Nicki, I agree about the salarymen. It's quite obvious that women's lib never hit here nor will it any time soon.
I was walking on my way to the ATM and a lady carrying several packages dropped something. A few suits walked by before I bent over and picked it up before (she was rearranging packages to make the attempt.) She was very grateful for my help. It was suprising to me that no one had helped because
1. It's the right thing to do.
2. She was pretty attractive.
It's one of things that just isn't he same here and is never going to be.
Well, I agree to a degree about the earthquake thing but, I'm a California native both Northern and Southern close to both fault lines and have seen houses there still standing after 50-100 years. (Sometimes more). It's not so much the structural aspect but more the looks of a place. Just different ideas on what is important. Funny, I was looking online at American homes last night and saying to myself, "I can't believe the size of this place....what can anyone do with all of this space!" I was looking at 3 bedroom 2 baths. That's when I knew I had been here a long time. It will be interesting to see what types of reverse culture shock I go through when returning!
Thanks anonymous-thanks for the words of enouragement. We really are enjoying it here for the most part it's just the little things....
Wow! You've helped me ponder a stereotype of Japan that I didn't know I had..but come to think about it, have noticed without realizing it.
I've seen quite a lot of photo posts regarding life in Japan. And there were a number of pics with, um...less than tidy landscaping. I chalked it up as the odd homeowner/park.
Is this something in say, your area or is it more common? I think many people have images of the neatly manicured shrine gardens, bonsai's, etc. but obviously it isn't quite like that "everywhere".
Seems all I can do to keep the yard cut and trimmed, whack the hibiscus down monthly (ours appear to be on steroids and I have abandoned all hope of neat pruning). Maybe remember to water the Aloe Vera plants (one thing besides the hibiscus I seem unable to kill). I'd probably be like your neighbors.
I was reading your comments and the post by Jeff d reminded me of these....
Sushicam's post on loosing a wallet in Japan
and
Stormtrooper returns found purse to local cops
Most of the folks and places you run into seem nice enough....at least those you have a personal relationship with...
Glad to hear you get a rotation home! I'm sure it will be relaxing!
Hey, guys! Bless your little optimistic hearts for apologizing about "bringing anyone down"....but it's your blog. The REAL and hardcore stuff you post is as equally wonderful and profound as the travelogues. I read it for the good times and the challenging times, so keep up the GREAT work.
Having just relocated back to SD, we understand to an amazing extent the homesickness that hits at sometimes strange an inopportune moments. We didn't realize how much we actually missed being home until we GOT home. Strangely enough, we're also -- simultaneously -- homesick for Yokohama. This human strangeness makes no sense, lol!
Rich is dictating over my shoulder at the moment, and he notes that he mostly misses the PEOPLE there (NOT the weather and NOT the spiders). Which would include the wonderful company of your blog ambassadors as well as our other pals on the Kanto Plain. This is a strange world though....and people who reach out online tend to meet up again with the best of luck.
Thanks for posting your honest thoughts about your current life situation....you guys always both make for fascinating and beautiful reading!
It is absolutely amazing about the gardening issues in Japan! Here, the typical stereotype is that if you live next door to a Japanese person, their yard will always look fabulous! I feel guilty if I don't mow for 2 weeks, and we are behind in our trimming too. At least the front yard should look presentable. However, here in Sacramento, you'll find that most people pay gardeners instead of doing the deed themselves. That 60.00 or so a month is worth it to most. I love to read about your adventures as much as anyone! Although I get to talk to you often, I still love the stories and photos! Mike, practice must make perfect, because your photos just get better and better!! I am waiting to hear aobut those huge candied grapes you had last year at one of the festivals--was this the one? Anyway, keep writing (the good and the bad). It is like living a little of the adventure with you!
Love, Mom
Hi guys... It's so wonderful to read about your adventures in Japan. It's funny, but some of your frustrations sounds so similar. I used to gawked at in Naples, it made me so uncomfortable that I eventually only go out during their afternoon nap times. On my more confident days I'd tell myself they've never seen a good looking Asian chick.. :) Doubt it, but it beats a less optimistic way of looking at this issue. A shot of America will do you some good. I'm hoping that when I come back I'll really appreciate living here more...
Ciao!
Nicki- thanks for sharing your honest feelings- it really is so important to talk about the frustrations and challenges of living here, as well as the fun adenvtures!
I know when you are living here, it can be hard to find an outlet to vent frustrations. If you talk about it to folks on the base, you get the "abassador to your country- suck it up" bit, and you don't want your Japanese friends to misunderstand your frustrations about their country. I can be a real catch 22, but I really enjoyed your blog! What you said hit home for me in a lot of ways!
I think you will really enjoy your trip home; it will do you a lot of good! When I was back in California for 2 weeks, it gave me just the encouragement I needed to push on through the frustrations and things I don't understand.
I don't think this post brough anyone down, if anything, it can encourage and reassure people who are feeling the same way, but aren't sure how/where to vent their frustrations!!
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