Things I Learned
about “Inaka” (Countryside) Life in Japan
1.
You need
Japanese to interact with people in Japan. Doh! When applying for my job
position, I was told that I don’t need to know Japanese for the job. In
reality, I do need Japanese to
communicate with my principal, vice principal, students, and well, everyone
else at my schools. Oh, and everyone else in the community (the bus driver, the
grocery store cashier, the bank teller, the waiter at the restaurant...). When
I go to Tokyo and other big cities, I’m able to talk to some store owners and
some people at the train station and airport in broken Japanese and simple
English, but daily life in inaka Japan without Japanese is really
difficult.
2.
It’s
really, really hot in the summer and really, really, really cold in the winter. This
might sound obvious and or even sound exaggerated to you, but I lived most of
my life in San Diego, California, where neither ‘really, really hot’ nor
‘really, really cold’ exist.
3.
You gotta
learn to adapt to a low-tech lifestyle. My apartment is about 45 years old:
it has tatami mat floors, cement walls, and about 0 insulation. If it’s -2°C
outside, it’s -2°C inside. For warmth, my options are a kerosene stove, a space
heater, and a kotatsu table (a coffee table with a heater built into its
underside) with a blanket. When I told my Japanese friends about central
heating back home (about the wonders of setting a temperature on a thermostat
and warming the entire house… and that, believe it or not, you don’t have to
wear jackets and outerwear inside the house!), they were appalled and amazed,
as though I had just told them that I use a hover car and jetpack to get around
back home.
Since my heater only warms the living room,
I nestle away in that corner of the apartment during the winter and try to
spend as little time as possible in the kitchen, where the food in the
refrigerator is kept warmer than food left out on the counter. In keeping with
the low-tech home lifestyle, my apartment doesn’t have hot water on tap. To be
fair, most of the other apartments and about 1 in 5 public restrooms that I’ve
gone to have hot water on tap, but sinks do not. Needless to say, washing
dishes when it’s below freezing in the kitchen with no running hot water feels
like going fishing with your bare hands in the arctic.
Luckily, to in the shower room, I have a gas
stove next to my tub to heat up my water. Unfortunately, for my particular
shower, I have to choose between piping hot or a cold shower. This is actually
an easy decision in the extremes of summer and winter, but it gets trickier in
the springtime and fall.
4.
Deodorant-as-we-know-it
is impossible to come by. Some people will try to tell you that deodorant
exists here, but at best, you’ll find deodorant-like products at drug stores.
These products are more like baby powder than deodorant. Deodorizer body spray
(essentially baby powder in water) is popular here.
5.
When
going out to eat, be prepared to choose between the following three options:
1) Japanese food, 2) Spaghetti, 3) Pizza
topped with mayo and seafood. It’s sometimes fun trying to make simple
Japanese dishes at home (like ramen, soba, takoyaki, and shabu shabu) because
all ingredients for these dishes are so readily available, but I eventually
came to miss international variety in my cuisine. Now, whenever I go to bigger
cities, I stock up on spices, nuts, beans, Thai curry mixes, pre-made
tortillas, pre-made Indian naan and basmati rice…
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