Tag: culture

Asia?  Really?  Really

Who would have thought that I would spend a year of my life living in Asia?  I never even had any real desire to go to Asia, until I met my circus acrobat friends, who are from China.  But the desire that developed out of those friendships was merely a cultural trade among friends – I had shared it of my home with them, and now they wanted to give the same to me.  In essence, I want to go to China to be with my friends, not because I am specifically aiming to see China.  Nothing against China, of course – I just have never had a real desire to see it.

On that note, – let’s roll with the thoughts here – I feel as though I have a rather ability to distinguish between my real desires and my that-would-be-cool desires.  I explain.  When I have what I am currently calling a “real desire”, it is something that I intend to pursue.  With general desires, they are things that would be nice to pursue, but I have no deeper intentions to pursue them.  These are, of course, both to varying degrees.

Being a multi-millionaire would be amazing.  I desire it.  I truly do.  However, it is not something I intend to pursue, as much as I may wish to attain it.  It is a general desire for me.  Returning to German-speaking Europe for Christmas markets is a “real desire”, as I am calling them (Can you tell that I don’t much like my current terminology?).  No, I will not do it this year, most likely, and probably not next year either.  However, it is in my thoughts, and I intend to do it at some point.

This is where the varying degrees comes in for distinguishing.  This is one of my middle-range real desires.  Yes, I want to do it, and yes, I believe I will do it.  No, I am not in a hurry to do it.  Having a frozen margarita in Texas is more of an immediate real desire.  I will not wait for this one to come up somewhat conveniently, and then take action, or casually plan for it in my some time soon future.  My mother is picking me up at the airport when I arrive home to Houston, and she has known for months that I want to go have margaritas the day I arrive.  We are getting margaritas within hours of my arrival to Texas, and are only taking that long, because I want it fresh, customs and immigration and baggage take time, and the airport is a ways away from good margaritas.  Essentially, I am pursuing this desire as soon as it is possible for it to be fulfilled.

One other example, just for clarity (or to confuse you more, if this all doesn’t make sense to you), could be in my desire to bungee jump off a bridge that is over water.  Something a long time ago gave me the desire, but it was more of an unreal desire for me.  I didn’t expect my life to have it ever be an option.  However, once I went small-scale bungee jumping with friends, it began to shift to a real desire.  I was afraid to pursue it, so I left it in the gray area, ready to be pursued, should the opportunity arise.  Now that I have lived somewhere that offers such a thing, – Ibaraki, Japan – I see myself pursuing it.  I notice that it is not huge in my list of desires, but it is a real one.  The opportunity presented itself two weeks ago, and I made arrangements to go jump.  Of course, timing was such that I got dreadfully sick the day beforehand, and so rescheduled with my friend.  I am now scheduled to go with a different friend next week.  If it doesn’t work out, I’ll be okay.  This is a real desire that I have, but it is so much on a non-time limit that I am okay not doing it now – I know I will get around to it at some point, so I don’t have to hassle myself extremely to make it work at this one place.  That being said, I really do want to handle it all now, and bungee off my bridge in Japan, partly because it’s one less thing for me to think about in the future, and partly because it makes for a fun story.  And I used the word “handle,” not because I dislike the situation, but because a lot of things here recently have kind of been a real hassle for me, and so I tend to think more in terms of ‘managing’ things in life for the next two weeks, as opposed to just ‘living’ life and ‘creating’ things, and all that jazz.
Anyway, that was a fun tangent for me.  I could have explained it loads better, but I didn’t.  I hope that’s okay for now.  I’m sitting on a train to go up to my final festival in Japan, and I really need to pee, but don’t want to bother using what might be a gross train toilet (notice that I have no concern for leaving my belongings at my seat – score one big one for Japan on this point), when I know I can make it all the way to the station.  So, I have written this to help me pass the time without wandering thoughts on the discomfort of a filling bladder (the realness of the discomfort can be evidenced by the fact that my shorts haven’t been buttoned for close to an hour already).  I dislike writing on my phone, and for more than one reason (physical slowness of thumb typing and high error rate are two of the main ones).  Therefore, I’ll end with this:

I never expected to end up living in Asia, for any period of time.  I especially did not expect it to be for longer than I had lived in any country other than my own.  I like Europe.  I would have expected my doing a year there long before I even visited Asia.  But here I am, one year through (and very through, I do believe) life in Asia.  It has turned out that Japan is not a very good place for me to live my life, but that I really do appreciate Asia.  I actually have real desire to return to Asia, and to experience more of it.  Japan, Korea, and Singapore have only gotten me started, it seems.

In a way, it is stressful, because there are now even more places I want to visit.  However, I will just roll with what life offers to me, and aim for returning for at least one visit for a start, hopefully within the next few years.  I’d say that this is a middle-range real desire, similar to, and likely above the Christmas Market one.  It’ll happen, I believe, as I have full intentions for it to happen.  It’s a real desire I have.  Life does what it does, though, so we’ll just have to see.  For now, I’m at the end of the train line in the next minute or three, so I’ll go wrangle my baggage – giving away loads of nut butters, smoothie boosters, and spices, as well as my Magic Bullet (c) (Is that right?) – and head for my friend who is meeting me at the station.  Then I’ll use a bathroom either there or at her nearby home.  And then we’ll enjoy fireworks and a festival, possibly in the rain.  Whatever the case, we will enjoy it, which is a main part of what called to mind my thoughts on having lived here in the first place.

Post-a-day 2017

My feet sit still

I have been sitting here for over an hour, not going home.  The semi-excuse was that I was talking with my mom, but the phone call has finished, and here I still sit.  I also had a high level (for me) of caffeine this afternoon, and so I wanted to get the jitters out as much as possible, while I still had the chance to walk around outside and all.  Now I feel the sleepy sliding into place, wishing me to bed.

And yet, here I still sit.

I do not know if I am afraid of tomorrow, and am letting that stop me from ending today, or if I am afraid of tomorrow, but have some other reason that I still sit here on my little piece of green-light-backed bench.  Either way, I can see clearly that I am afraid of tomorrow beginning.  I leave in 12 days, and the planning I didn’t want to do would be coming into effect now, if I had done the planning.  Instead, the events are all floating around, wondering if and when they will be accomplished by me.  I can almost see the Super Smash-like challenge at play around me, each item fighting happily for a place on my life this week and next.  But they all have so many lives, it is taking forever to figure out who ranks where – the current lowest position might still come through and win the whole thing in another 40 lives.

It is such a beautiful night right now, right here, I want to keep it.  I want to roll into a hammock out here in the plaza, and sleep with the cool breeze brushing and rocking me all night, clouds floating slowly by above me, and slight coty noises rumbling off and on in the nearby distance.

But, even still, I don’t want to close my eyes.  I don’t specifically have a desire to remain here on this bench. I also don’t specifically have a desire to walk the block home or to go to bed.  It is not apathy necessarily.  I just can’t figure out what feeling is there.  Because I know that there is something there…

And so I sit, writing this, and taking my time to do so, pausing so as. It to finish and have no other reason good enough to keep me here on this bench.  Here, I am intentionally on my own, alone.  Once I move onward, that will not be the case.  While I am here, there is not much of anything for me to do but to sit and to enjoy.  Once I move onward, again, that will not be the case.

…

However, the plaza decided for me just now, as it turned off its lights.  No longer is my bench wall green, and no longer are the ground lights shining.  The plaza now sleeps, and I accept that as encouragement enough to send me home.  I still do not want to go, but I certainly prefer that to being in trouble with the security guard who already stared me down earlier, when all the lights were still glowing.

Anyway… yeah…

Post-a-day 2017

Oxymorons and Dichotomies of clothes

I simultaneously want to live a simplistic, minimalistic-esque life, and one in a huge house, with lots of awesome things in it.

How do I go about making that happen?

Well, I don’t know.  However, I have a feeling that my best friend would simply say that I’ll find a way somehow – I always seem to do so with whatever comes up in life.  Don’t know how?  Well, I figure it out anyway, and make it happen.  So she claims, and I mostly agree with her.

Perhaps this is a perfect time to apply this thinking to my current state of affairs (i.e. Minimal money, needing insurance for the first time when I move to the US next month, needing a place to live, needing to find good work for after my temporary position ends around the end of September, and how to get rid of so much stuff that I know I have waiting for me in a packed room at my mom’s house.).  Yes, I think it is.

Post-a-day 2017

Why you gotta be so…?

Why are we ever mean to others?  Really, truly… why?  

Can we go Taylor Swift on the situation, and have the cycle end right now?

I see potential in this, but are we brave enough?  Is bravery even what it is that we need?  Perhaps love is all we need.  And not even in the cheesy way, but truly.  Beatles it all the way, because all we need is love.

Post-a-day 2017

Hospitality Notes

I found one of the best notes ever, when I woke up the other morning at my friend’s house.

It was on the counter of the bathroom (technically, the room with the toilet).  It read:

Hannah 1/3

Good Morning!
I have few things to tell you.

  • Please make yourself at home ! ! !  Do not stress your self to worry things.

    2/3

  • Use anything in the house.  Do not buy things you do not bring to U.S.
  • Stay as long as you want.  even after I left for U.S.  I trust you.

    3/3

  • Let S—— out from my bed room after you get up in the morning.  So she can stay at the living room. (for food and water)

I was just delighted when I reached the end of the notes.  They were incredibly southern hospitality and totally Japanese at the same time.  The hearty welcome to make myself at home, combined with the fact that the sticky note pages were labeled with page __ of __.  I loved it (and still do).  I love good friends.

Post-a-day 2017

Don’t play favorites?

We grow up always hearing about not playing favorites.  “Don’t play favorites,” and, “Treat everyone equally,” everyone always seems to say.

And yet, I struggled through the constant questions of “What’s your favorite _______?”   I even made up a favorite color, because I didn’t have one, but people constantly asked what mine was.

What’s more, if we look at it purely on a human perspective, not to play favorites, then does marriage even really work?   Exclusivity in relationships would be impossible.  How could I treat someone else with the same passion, love, care as I do my partner?  And then, how could I treat everyone that way?

How could I have an intimate and loving relationship with my mom, if I am to treat her as I treat all others, despite the fact that I spend most of my childhood with her, and not the rest of the world?

I’m not looking to cancel exclusivity or marriage or anything, here.  I’m just wondering at our concepts of ‘treat everyone equally’ and ‘don’t play favorites’.  There seems to me to be a sort of inconsistency in the thinking here – something is missing in our mentality, and I want it to come beautifully to light to save the day… something like that, anyway. 😛

Post-a-day 2017

City Surprises

Making my way through the nonsense that is the Shibuya Crossing on a holiday afternoon, I am feeling almost desperate to be on a train home.  There are just so many people in my way, with no respect for my desire to be not here. Not that I actually expect them to know I want not to be here – I am merely noting their ignorance to the matter.  I am almost to the station, when a small but clear opening appears right ahead of me in the shuffling crowd.

I hardly have to think – in fact, I think I know what it is without thinking – to recognize the colorful lettering on the page of that folded-open notebook being held just above people’s heads.

FREE HUGS

I hesitate a moment, verifying that the holder of the sign is respectable/huggable.  Despite my being in Japan, I accept that this young Japanese guy is holding the sign, and trust that he knows what it means.  Perhaps especially because I am in Japan, actually.  

He’s young and Japanese, and he looks trustworthy.  I throw open my arms, and instantly see his face light up, as he says an adorable “Sahn kyuu!” (How the average Japanese pronunciation goes for ‘Thank you.’)  We embrace, and it is solid and long and wonderfully perfect.  I return the verbal thanks, with emphasis on thanking him for the hug (as opposed to his thanking my willingness or whatever on my end), give a gloriously contended smile, and go on my merry way the last few yards to the station.

I savor the experience, and especially the loving hug, as I wander goofily through the crowds up to the tracks.  Thank you, God.  You gave me just what I needed in order to feel I was heading the right way just now.  I am in the right place right now, and it is perfect.  Thank you.

Post-a-day 2017

The Body Talks

Let’s talk about sex, baby.

Well, sort of… That’s what my body kept saying to me today.

Today was a day in which my body felt like it was in a state of panic.  In a way, it was in a state of panic (or bordering on panic, anyway).  To my body, this panic was expressed as a painful desire, né need to procreate.  

“Hannah, I need to reproduce – it is what I am designed so well to do, and I’ve waited so long already… let me go!!”  

Sigh.

Such was the sort of conversation my body and I had today.  It complained and begged and reasoned, and I sighed and just accepted the complaints.

Now, the kicker to all of this is that I am almost entirely comfortable and at ease now (despite being quite sleepy).  Why is that?  The same reason (-ish) that my body has been panicky lately – I need physical contact in my life.  Good, real, physical contact, corporal contact, person-to-person skin-to-skin touch is an absolute necessity for me.

And living in Japan has given me almost none of that.  It has quite truly driven my body into a state of panic, in fact.  

How did I go from freak-out to calm?  I hung out with friends and went dancing with them.  In this time, I leaned on them, they leaned on me, we rubbed backs, hugged (the real kind), held hands, stood with our arms draped on one another’s shoulders or around the waist or hips, touched this or that spot on someone to get his/her attention.  In short, we had a nice amount of physical contact with one another.  No, it was not anything compared to what I am accustomed to having back in the US, – we are So touchy-touchy in Texas, and especially at dance there – however it was tremendous when compared to my average day and week of zero physical contact here in Japan.

I went to a dance event in Korea just a couple weekends ago.  I danced like crazy there, and I hugged people and had lots of physical contact with people who love me and whom I love.  I think that going from a weekend jammed full of corporal contact and love, back to the solitude and non-touching life I have here right now, my body had a sort of shock.  After having gone so many months with only a bit of physical contact here and there in a month, I was accustomed to it.  But, after spending a weekend filled with physical contact, it has been difficult to go back to the zero-touching lifestyle.

And so my body cried for a while, until it at last had some loving physical contact this afternoon and tonight, at which point it is ready to take on this next week (until I head to the beach next weekend, at which point the physical contact occasions will resume). 

So, instead of listening to the crybaby body make excuses about its evolution and its original design for existence, I just get myself some physical contact, some hugs and snuggles and such, and things work out beautifully.

Cheers to loving physical contact! ❤

Post-a-day 2017

Adding to the Bucket List?

“It’s not ON my bucket list.”

“Well, then add it right now.”

We laugh.  I consider, and then accept.  We all take a photo or video or two, and then Richard asks, “Who’s first?”

“I am,” I say.

“Okay, are you ready?”

“No, but go ahead anyway.”

As the suction cups grabbed hold of my tongue’s taste buds, I reacted with small and sudden shudders, but kept calm and chewed away.  Thank you, God, for allowing me the gift that is my life, such that I be granted this experience.  Thank you for the gift of this animal, and thank you for the camaraderie and friendship that its life has developed within this group of people with me now.  The taste and texture were quite acceptable, and the only movement I noticed was due to the fact that it kept grabbing my tongue in different spots, somewhat sporadically, with it’s tiny suction cups.  And then the live squid was no longer live, and it went into my stomach.

Only one other person (I believe) had the suction cups grab at his tongue, but most everyone tried a bit of this wriggling, writhing squid that somehow reminded me of maggots – a fact I happened to mention aloud just as we were about to begin tasting.

So, that was a fun thing to add to and then check off of my bucket list.  The mental one, anyway.  I actually have a written one here at home.  It’s rather in-depth, I think, and I only occasionally have anything to add to it, as I spent so much time initially thinking things through as I began the list in the first place.  Anyway, straying from the topic…

 

Another thing that I suppose I unintentionally added to and then checked off of my bucket list was changing clothes.

We were doing a little tour around town (Seoul, South Korea), and that was the reason for the squid in the market.  Before we arrived to the market, however, I found that I much needed to lose my pants and to switch to my shorts.  We were walking outdoors and in the sunlight a bit more than I had expected.  However, I had prepared by putting my shorts at the very top of my bag, for easy access.

My being who and how I am, and thinking as I do, I had already considered various ways for me to change into shorts, should the need arise.  Therefore, as we were going through the subway station, I announced to a girlfriend that I needed to change into my shorts, and what did she think?  We were easily on the same wavelength, and she lent me her sweater that she’d been wearing around her waist.  I tied her sweater around the back, and my own around the front, making a sort of two-toned skirt-type garment.

Standing in front of two of our guys, – and I must say that it seemed to me that they were rather unaware of the events unfolding directly in front of them – I calmly and quickly defrocked my lower half (shoes included), handed the pants to the girlfriend, slid up my shorts, and slipped on my shoes.  It was a beautiful and near-flawless performance on both our parts, the girlfriend’s and mine.  Essentially, it was just about perfect.  The only thing that could have improved the matter, would have been someone’s noticing that I had been in pants before, but was in shorts the rest of the day.  However, it was still worth the fun for the two of us, despite no one else’s having noticed anything… at all.  😛

 

Anyway, this feels to be poorly expressed, but I feel myself to be in a somewhat poorly state – think extreme exhaustion.  Therefore, I accept this story-telling as it is.  I hope you still enjoyed it, despite my feelings of its being utterly insufficient.  Peace and love.  Beware of squid suction cups, and go do something fun and crazy for yourself this week.

 

Post-a-day 2017

 

A glimpse of Japanese culture

Tonight, I stopped in at an udon restaurant that is a similar style to Luby’s (pick up a tray, grab side dishes as you will, and order the main hot dish fresh when you get to that section, pay at the end of the sliding bar line) for dinner.  I initially hesitate, figuring out what I want to eat. As I decide upon something, I realize that I don’t know how to say what I want, because the first half of the name is written in kanji.  If it had been reversed, with hiragana first and kanji second, I could have faked my way through.  However, how does one start a word/name with only the end of it?

So, I figured I’d just stumble through verbally, and eventually get someone to lean over the counter a bit to see which picture I was indicating.  As I arrive at the ordering section, and attempt to do just as I had planned, explaining that I can’t read Japanese, but I want this one, please, the man in line behind me does me a solid, and reads aloud the name of the dish for me.

Now he totally didn’t need to do this, as the restaurant worker easily leaned forward to see the  picture anyway, but he, for whatever reason – and I word it this way, because this has not often been my experience here, having people be oh-so-willing to help out the foreign girl – decided to help me.  Therefore, despite my terror of getting caught in a language mess of trying to explain and risking not getting my way, I told the lady at the register to put mine and the man’s meals together.  She seemed a bit caught off guard, but accepted my request, likely assuming that I was actually here with the guy after all.

I paid, accepted my change, thanked the cashier, thanked the man once again as he walked up next to me in line once again, and walked off to my seat around the corner.

A minute later, I went to get some tea from the water and hot green tea dispenser, and saw the man there getting water for himself.  When he saw me, he did the Japanese “Oh!”, though a bit subdued, and thanked me in a very fumbly sort of way (I imagine he isn’t quite accustomed to such a scenario, based on his general appearance and fumbliness.), opting to use the version of thank you that literally means “excuse me”, and bowing as best he could holding his tray and water.  I told him that it was nothing, and thanked him again for the help.

Still sitting at my seat a while later, watching a small spider tiddle across the countertop, I notice the man coming over to me, and I look up at him.  He thanks me again (and again in a very fumbly way), looking a bit embarrassed, and bows a couple more times (which I return with a smile and bow) before leaving the restaurant.

It was quite simple, but I found so much culture in the situation, I wanted to share it.  Plus, this older guy was, in a grandpa sort of way, so cute, I wanted the memory to live on somehow in others.

So, thank you, again, old man.  Really, I appreciated your help, and gave you your meal easily and with delight – it was almost an honor for me to have provided you this token of my gratitude.  Thanks.  🙂
Post-a-day 2017