Seat Belts

If there is one example I can use thus far to differentiate my Vietnam experience versus my Japanese experience it is this: Seat Belts.

Nobody in Vietnam wears seat belts. It just doesn't happen. Every time I've been on a flight in Vietnam I've had to help Vietnamese people put on their seat belts because they simply couldn't figure it out. Huyen knows how to put on a lap belt but once she got a little tangled up putting on a shoulder belt. I looked at her as she struggled with the shoulder belt and just said, "Really?" I'm sure this sounds odd but people in Vietnam just don't use seat belts.

In Japan EVERYONE wears a seat belt. I realized this on my first day when my cab driver turned around and told me to put my seat belt on. People in the states often don't even wear seat belts in cabs. Well, at least they usually don't in big cities like NYC despite voice overs from celebrities saying to wear seat belts.

They are so serious about their seat belt use here in Japan that the other day I took a bus from one city to another and everyone on the bus was wearing seat belts. Seat belts on buses? I bet not even 50% of school buses in the states have seat belts on them.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Japan is just a really really safe country versus Vietnam which, well, isn't always so safe.

DUI

One thing I've always found interesting/perplexing about the United States is that every state has a different DUI level. To me it's interesting what each state considers too high of a BAC to drive with.

In Japan there is no debate. If you have a drink in Japan you are not allowed to drive. Anything over basically a 0.0% BAC is illegal. On top of that, if a restaurant or bar serves someone a drink they are responsible to make sure that person does not drive. If the person drives and gets caught, the bar/restaurant will get a huge fine. Even harsher, anyone who knowingly lets someone drive after drinking is also held responsible if the person causes an accident.

These laws may seem harsh, but I think the Japanese are on to something. Every year in America thousand of people die from DUI related accidents. How much lower would that number be if there was a zero tolerance policy?

My Classroom

Here's a picture of my classroom. I know what you're thinking, it's not quite as nice as the classroom you had at your university. Perhaps you're saying that because of the retractable walls (nearly the same one my high school gymnasium had), or because of the 1970s rug, or because of the random pieces of paper I've taped to the wall. Yeah, I'll concede that it isn't exactly an American standard lecture hall. That said, it totally serves its purpose.

At my university there are 11 periods every day. Each one of my classes is 40 minutes long. On one hand this is great because after being used to teaching 1.5 hour long classes, 40 minutes flies by. On the other hand, I teach up to 8 classes every day which is almost double the most I ever had to teach in Vietnam. It can be pretty exhausting. The other tough thing is that the students don't come to the same period every day. The students can basically come to whichever time slot they have free on that particular day. This means I've had classes with 12 students as well as classes with just one student. Needless to say, this presents some interesting challenges.

There's actually a lot of challenges that I've noticed in my first week or so. For one, my classes are 99.9% male only. I'm teaching at the engineering school which is probably 90% male and literally none of my classes have guys in them. On occasion I teach a high level class and those have a couple of girls. Having a room of all dudes is very different than my mixed classes I had in Vietnam. Also engineering students generally don't tend to be Type A personalities. It would be fair to call the majority of them introverted (actually, not having girls in the class I think helps in this regards because they aren't as embarrassed to talk). Getting students to talk and have fun is a little more of an effort than it was in Vietnam.

Another challenge has been the extremely different pronunciation problems that the Japanese have versus the ones that the Vietnamese have. For example, the Japanese have a very tough time saying the phonetic /v/ and /l/ sounds. My ear had become very well trained in Vietnam to understand Vietnamese broken English. Here in Japan, I constantly finding myself asking students to repeat things because I had no idea what they said. It's gonna be a challenge, but after week I can already hear a big difference in a few of my students. I think after three months there will be some very big strides...despite the gymnasium classroom.

Eel

Eel has always been one of my favorite things to eat at sushi restaurants. In Japan, they have specialty restaurants that only serve eel. Of course had to try one out.

After work the other day, I rode my bike around my neighborhood until I found a sign that had a drawing of an eel on it. Since I can’t read Japanese, this was clearly a big help. I parked my bicycle in front of the restaurant and walked in. The first thing I noticed was that I was the only person in the restaurant. By “only person” I mean there wasn’t even a waiter or a cook. I let out a little cough and sure enough, the cook/owner/waiter popped into the room. He looked very surprised to see a foreigner. He started to speak to me in Japanese and quickly realized I couldn’t speak a word. He then pointed at the menu on the wall which of course was in Japanese. Prices too.

From what I could gather there were three options on the menu. He kept pointing at the first Japanese kanji, so I said one of the three words I know, “Hai.” That means yes.

The man then proceeded to make me an absolutely amazing meal. Besides the huge portion of eel and rice, he also gave me the greatest tofu I have ever tasted. I’m not a tofu person but this tofu just melted in my mouth. He also prepared a fresh plate of vegetables and a delicious soup for me. At the end of the meal he sliced me a Japanese apple and even gave me one to take home with me. While I ate the man kept trying to make small talk with me and through gestures I told him how much I was loving the meal. He seemed very pleased.

The chef/owner could not have been any friendlier. As I ate the scrumptious meal I kept thinking, “I’m gonna come here ever single week.” That thought ended though when the man gave me my bill: 2,200 yen or roughly $27. Okay, okay, I’m cheap! I’ll go ever two weeks!

Goshiki-numa

(PICTURE: Paula in front of the first lake.)

Paula, my unofficial tour guide, recently took me on a famous hike in the second largest national park in Japan. Apparently Fukushimi is located right near Bondai Mountain, a volcano that erupted 121 years ago (killing 400+ people and destroying villages!).

The eruption formed a whole bunch of lakes and ponds which have different minerals in them causing each to be a slightly different color. The hike winds in and out of these colorful lakes and ponds and is fittingly called, "Five Colors Lakes."

The 8 KM hike was really nice, and despite the day's fog, we could see the various colors ranging from turquoise blue to mustard yellow. As we passed one of the sign markers, Paula pointed out that the Japanese translation signs said that the lakes were actually swamps. My mom’s voice immediately popped into my head: “You didn’t need to go to Japan to see swamps. You could have stayed in New Jersey.”

Toilets and Pajamas

Last weekend I went to Tokyo for a work conference. Westgate put me up in nice hotel around the corner from the conference site. My hotel room was about half the size of a standard Holiday Inn room but had some nice amenities. Specifically there were two things that stood out. First there was the most advanced toilet I’ve ever seen. The thing had a heated seat with a remote control next to it. One button was for a bidet. One button was for a “spray” (a butt shower which somehow differed from the biday). And other buttons/dials that controlled the pressure of the spray and bidet Needless to say, I did a lot of reading at the hotel.

The other cool amenity was a giant shirt/pajama thing that was left laid out on my bed.

I don’t usually wear pajamas to sleep but of course I had to try it. Frankly, I looked pretty good in it:

You know you're in Japan when...

...you're at the gym and King Kong is playing on the treadmill TV screens. Unfortunately, it was the Peter Jackson King Kong.