japan update

So yeah, I haven't updated in what, nineteen days? I've been in Japan since the 30th of June and haven't really had much of a chance to write. My host sister is currently at piano lessons, so I thought I'd throw my diary some buttered bread and a glass of water.

I love Japan, really. But damn. I don't fly back to the United States until the 17th, and I was prepared to leave Japan after the third day. I took a lot of things for granted during my fifteen-year residency in America. For instance, if I was meandering along a busy metropolitan street, I would sell all of my worldly possessions and possibly even my bodily limbs to yell to some numbfuck that flying bats are invincible umbrellas (a message I saw written on a T-shirt) and have him at least understand what each individual word means, if not the entire phrase. You know what else I'd like? To know what the fuck I'm eating. Not to say I don't like Japanese food -- most of the time it's delicious. But I find it vaguely alarming that before I begin eating, I have to ask my family what it is that's slathered over my plate, and usually they need the help of a translator in order to tell me. I would sing "I'm A Little Teapot" in front of my entire school if I could walk down the street and fully understand every sign in every storefront I passed. I want to watch TV and not have to derive the plot based soley on the facial expressions of the actors. I want to be able to talk fast and pour ebonics and slang all over my speech like butter on popcorn. Popcorn in the first place would be nice.

The other day when I went to the grocery store with my host mother and sister, and they told me in their disjointed brand of English that anything I wanted to eat, I could throw into the shopping cart. I asked them for bagels and peanut butter -- that's all I wanted. Bagels apparently are nonexistant, and no one knew what the hell peanut butter was. A store clerk lead me to the peanuts and jelly, and miraculously it was there. There is one brand of peanut butter in the entire nation of Japan.

A few days ago a monkey ran into a train station, jacked some potato chips, ran out of the station, and then popped open the bag and ate them immediately.

When I went to Hiroshima, I sang karaoke with Nick, Di, and Nicole, one of our chaparones. We sang "Puff the Magic Dragon," which is a surprisingly lengthy piece of narcotic-oriented music.

Damn, my second host family gives their dog cantaloupe! Odd. Wish they'd throw me a slice.

Today we went shopping for the second time I've been with my second host family that I was assigned this past Tuesday. I bought a shirt last week that read "I will love you pleasantly," and two shirts today. One depicted three chipmunks -- the first chipmunk was gripping a sunflower seed, and "eat greedily" could be read below it; the second chipmunk had the sunflower seed unsuccessfully jammed into its mouth, and the message beneath it said "gluttonous"; the third chipmunk had its head buried in its hands with "ashamed" written underneath, along with something about how "the chipmunk herself glutted with sunflower seeds [sic]." On the back it announced that the chipmunk was ashamed of herself. I also bought a shirt with monkeys on it, but it had no words, unfortunately. [edit: I later purchased a shirt with a lemon that read "LOT OF SPARK." I was disheartened when one of my friend's host sisters asked me what "spark" meant, and I had to whip out the electronic dictionary.]

I was browsing the T-shirts with English messages as my host sister shopped around, and one of the T-shirt brands was "Asshole." If anyone sends me e-mails claiming that such a brand name in a country like Japan, where girls are ashamed to speak words like "pimp" and "shit," does not completely and utterly shock the monkey, the e-mail will be laughed at and then deleted. On the cashier counter, it said in large letters, "The emperor seriously needs to understand factiogeographical cognizance." My first thought was, "Sweet Lord, even I don't understand what factiogeographical cognizance is." Apparently, neither did the store clerk.

Nothing else to say for now, so the end.