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I may have written about this in the past, because I know I’ve thought about it several times. If so, too bad.

In Japan, they love giving gifts. Not necessarily big gifts, but small little presents, usually some kind of food. And they love giving these presents all the time. Seriously, the reasons to give gifts to your co-workers, friends, and estranged family members who live deep in the sewers are far too many to count. These include (but are not at all limited to) birthdays, someone getting married, quitting your job, going on a trip, going on a day trip, getting sick, someone else being sick, recovering from being sick, making someone sick, and being happy that you didn’t get sick when everyone around you is dying of the plague. And as if that wasn’t ridiculous enough, they also give gifts in return for GETTING A GIFT. Just as you imagine, this is a horrible, endless cycle of getting rice crackers, small individually wrapped cookies, and other random little things filled with sweet red beans.

Before I go any further, I will say that I enjoy receiving these little gifts, as any selfish human does. But is it worth it? OK, back to the complaining about the parts of this gift-giving system that I don’t like. As much as I’d like to say “it’s the thought that counts,” in Japan most of these gifts, especially in the workplace, have no thought or feeling at all attached, save for maybe the all-important-in-Japan feeling of obligation. People go through the motions of giving gifts because, like a lot of Japanese traditions, everyone else does it, and if you don’t do it, everyone notices and thinks there’s something socially wrong with you. People don’t care about giving boxes of cookies – they just do it because they have to. They don’t select individual gifts for their co-workers, but rather they stop by the many souvenir stands at train stations and airports to buy a standardized box of cookies, which are the same throughout the country with a different box listing it as a specialty of that area.

Sure, people do give gifts to people and mean it, but the gifts that are exchanged just as a formality become tiresome, especially when you have to consciously leave room in your suitcase anytime you go somewhere because you know you are expected to buy some kind of snack for all of your co-workers. I don’t know how much money is wasted on this industry in Japan, but it has to be pretty high.

Note: I originally got the idea for this post on Thursday morning. Between then and now I received yet another gift (a rice cracker) at work, for someone having a baby. Yes, the new mother sent the office a huge box of snacks. I am unaware of any gift sent to the mother.

Well hey what do you know? I think fall is finally here! The weather this morning was a brisk 75-ish degrees Fahrenheit, with relatively low humidity and a nice breeze. Compare that to the usual summer weather conditions of over 9000* degrees with 1000% humidity and constant sandstorms. OK I guess that’s a slight exaggeration – the sandstorms subside every afternoon for a 4 hour acid rain shower. But at least this morning I got to come to work without smelling salaryman BO all the way into Tokyo. Ding dong, the summer is dead! (I hope.)

More on Japanese seasons in my next post.

* IT’S OVER 9000!!

It’s already September (say do you remember)!? Time seems like it’s been going by pretty fast recently, almost entirely due to working every day then having a pretty full schedule every weekend. A week goes by like nothing, but I haven’t decided if that’s good or bad.

I’m enjoying work a lot more than I guess I originally thought I would, with the worst part still being the long hours. I technically work a normal 8 hour day (or less), but with the hour+ long commute it feels like I’m working 12 hour shifts. I usually get home after work, relax just a little, then have to go to bed soon after so as to not sacrifice precious hours of sleep. Then I wake up and head back to the trains to go to work. But enough about that.

I saw a movie over the weekend, 20th Century Boys (２０世紀少年). It’s based on this super popular mystery/sci-fi comic book which I had never read. I’m not going to go into any of the plot details, but it was a pretty sweet movie spanning several decades focusing on a creepy cult leader intertwined with a group of people who went to elementary school together. Yet somehow the movie makes sense. This is the first of a trilogy, and even still it was 2.5 hours long. It was entertaining, but still, this is getting ridiculous. Why are movies these days so long?? Even Dark Knight, which I loved, was way too long. I’d rather directors cut out some of the unnecessary action scenes or some of the retarded CG sequences and leave the movie at an hour and a half. 2 hours is acceptable, but anything longer than that is painful. Come on!

I’m still waiting for fall to fully kick in and cool this country off.

Time for one of the obligatory “oh my god Japanese summer is so hot” posts. Because it is so (expletive deleted) hot! Seriously, summer here is probably one of the worst experiences a foreigner can have on this little island. I guess the heat is fairly comparable to everywhere else I’ve lived, but the humidity really does you in. On top of that, you walk a lot more here than in the US, and even trains and stations aren’t always that great on the climate control. This, of course, means that when you arrive at work in the morning, you already have the sweat and stench of someone who just ran the Boston Marathon. That is, if the Boston Marathon took place on the sun.

The humid conditions outside make commuting or even just stepping outside a chore, and with my new hour+ long journey to get to work in the morning, the first leg of my day is usually the worst. I’ve quickly adapted to the Japanese salaryman routine of wearing a short-sleeve business shirt and carrying my jacket folded over my arm/briefcase. On the train I alternate between sleeping and using a fan while looking like I could pass out at any moment. I also have gotten really good at hurriedly putting on my tie either right before my stop on the train or in the bathroom of my office lobby. There is also the constant search for a seat on the crowded trains, which I was going to write about when I realized I already have.

Mornings suck.

Thankfully my office is nice and air-conditioned, meaning once I actually get to work and cool off with my Dragonball fan, I’m good to go. It’s just the coming and going that’s a pain, because the sun and humidity turn the Tokyo streets into a wavy, brightly-lit wasteland that I try to avoid as much as possible. At night, the temperature goes down considerably (maybe a whole degree even), but the humidity remains. With any luck, summer should start transitioning into fall by mid-September, meaning life will be about 50% less painful, and I’ll just have the constant lack of sleep left to worry about.

And so it begins, new daily routine.

Just the other day I was thinking how I’d like to take a trip, but probably won’t because I don’t want to spend the money and stuff. Hong Kong and Seoul were awesome last year. But then I talked to my parents on Monday and guess what…

I’m heading to China next Friday. Haha, yep. I’ll be there for about two weeks to help my Dad with some work. Should be a pretty sweet trip. I’m going to Beijing then maybe some other cities from there. It’s good timing since I don’t start the full-time position until later in June, and I’m pretty free right now. Had to cancel a few of the lessons I’m teaching, but luckily I was able to arrange that. I don’t know how much time I’ll have to do sightseeing while I’m over there, but I’m sure at least the weekends should be free.

I wonder how much Mandarin I can learn in a week and a half.