Well, Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and as they say, “love is in the air.” 🙂 Of course, come February 14, in Japan it would be women giving out chocolates to men, not the other way around. Years after living in this country, I still find this to be a rather strange custom. And I’ve never handed out chocolates to anyone, not even my own husband. But I’m sure he understands. He has gotten chocolates from the secretaries in his lab group, by the way. 😉
Category Archives: Life In Japan
Misconceptions
Sometime ago, I asked Aya if she knew exactly what kind of work we do. Turned out that she didn’t. So I told her: “We’re scientists. You know, I do experiments everyday, just like the experiments we do at home. Tatay does stuffs on the computer. We’re both hakase.” Hakase (??) refers to someone who holds a doctorate. Aya knows this word because she watches Powerpuff Girls on TV, so I thought I’d use the word to give her an idea. In the cartoon series, the girls refer to Prof. Utonium as “hakase.”
Aya laughed out loud and said: “Eh? Hakase si Tatay? Ikaw rin? Pano ka naging hakase eh babae ka?” (What? Dad is a PhD? And you too? How could you be one when you’re a woman?)
Thanks a lot to the people who created Powerpuff Girls. You’ve inadvertently given my daughter the erroneous idea that for someone to be called Dr. or hakase, that someone has to be a man. But for now, I’ll reserve my rants about gender issues in another blog entry.
I couldn’t forget that incident, because it illustrated perfectly how many of our misconceptions could start early on in our lives, no thanks to the crap that we are inevitably fed by the media, friends and families, the very environment we grow up in. The images we see on TV or movies are very powerful in influencing our perception of so many things. (Image taken from www.tv.com)
Why I Love my (Old) Honda
I was walking back towards our office when I saw a BMW car pass by. I thought, wow, what a really nice car, I wonder who’s driving it? Must be one of the guys on the 9th floor (the powers that be, the ones who run this institute). Then I saw the driver. To my surprise, I recognized the person driving the car. It was one of the janitress whom I occasionally see walking around holding a bucketful of stuffs for cleaning.
Another car drove by, not as stunning as the BMW, but it looked fancy just the same. And just as I thought, I recognized the driver to be another janitress who cleans our toilet. Both of them probably just got off from work and were on their way home. I couldn’t help but smile to myself. In this country, the people who clean the toilets get to go home earlier than the rest of us schmucks, and they get to drive those fancy cars. Only in Japan.
Moving out, Moving in
Moving out is always a painful process, no matter how convenient and easy the moving companies make it out to be. In retrospect, they probably did the easiest part. They only had to lug the big stuffs from Point A to Point B. The new settlers, meaning us, have to do everything else from a) packing, b) unpacking, c) arranging, and d) decorating the place. Well, of course they also have a “plan” where they do everything from a) to d), but it will definitely cost us an arm and a leg.
But oh, what a price to pay. I’m so tired. So dead tired everyday. We haven’t even begun with b) yet. So far we’ve only opened boxes that would allow us to function normally in our day to day lives. I shudder to think of the weeks or even months ahead that we have to spend to make this place decent enough to live in.
My Most Favorite Tree in Autumn
When I was in the university, there was a big tree near our cafeteria that turned bright, golden yellow each autumn. It stood alone, apart from the other trees, as if in embarrassment because of the stinking smell of its seeds which fell on the ground. But its striking color easily made it my most favorite tree of all, and it became something to look forward to every autumn season.
Class Concert
I just want to share video clips of Aya playing the piano while practicing for her performance in their class concert. It’s still a good two weeks away, but she has already memorized the notes by heart. I took her video so we can watch it together and see her mistakes. It’s also a pretty good way to evaluate her performance so we can correct errors and see how else we can improve it. Well, I’m not a piano expert, so I just try to give suggestions based on what they learned in class so far. Maybe the piano experts among you could give suggestions and comments? 😉
Without further ado, here are the videos I’ve uploaded to YouTube:
It’s Dyahhhhni!
My mind’s not working.
Or rather, it’s working so hard nowadays, I couldn’t slow down to blog. I’ve an upcoming conference next week (nooooo!!!), and I’m up to my neck in preparations. So bear with me and my sporadic blog posts for now.
Last Saturday found us visiting for the nth time the one and only place where kids and adults could have fun (read: we’re suckers for Disneyland). Well, actually, I got lucky again this year. Every year the recreation department offers super-duper discounted tickets for Disney Resort (Disneyland and Disneysea) to employees and their families. I applied as usual. And as usual, there were more applicants than available slots, so they decided by lottery. Lucky us, we got chosen!
Matsuri Tsukuba 2007
The first time I heard of the word “nebuta,” it was while watching a TV program featuring the famous floats that the “Nebuta Festival” of Aomori is known for. Although I lived in the Tohoku region for more than three years, not once did I have the opportunity to visit Aomori (I got as far as Akita, though).
Fortunately, right here in Tsukuba we can still enjoy a smaller version of the “nebuta.”
Yatta! Yatai!
If there’s one thing that I absolutely LOVE about festivals, it will be the ubiquitous yatai, or food stalls. Yatai are set up temporarily for Japanese festivals, selling foods for spectators, such as yakisoba, kakigori, takoyaki, and okonomiyaki. You can also buy barbecue and other grilled food, french fries, frankfurters, and fried chicken (chikin karaage). Mmm…love that grease!
How does a typical yatai at a Japanese festival look like? Well, let me show you! Here are some images taken at the recently held Matsuri Tsukuba. 🙂
Takoyaki
My sister told me that in the Philippines, “Takoyaki” is known as “Samurai balls.” Yummy. lol
Five Years Ago Today
I was browsing through our old photos, when I chanced upon a couple of photos taken almost exactly around this time, five years ago: August 16, 2002. I couldn’t help but feel so nostalgic.
What were the circumstances then?
Me and Aya, when we were both five years younger. 🙂