The Hairy Smelly Barbarian

This really is a foreign land, and there are plenty of opportunities to embarrass myself. Some examples:

1. In my first week in Furano, we were taken to meet the mayor. Quite an honor. I came bearing gifts, bowed and clumsily fumbled with the proper Japanese greetings. We sat to chat. The mayor was impressed to learn that morning I had already taken a stroll along the local Sorachi River. He said that Furano is known for its delicious water and lack of crows (because city services keep the trash picked up). I wasn't quite on my toes at that point and mentioned that I had seen several crows out on the river that very day. Disagreeing with the mayor was probably not the best first impression. . . but that water sure is delicious!

2. I was visiting my acupuncturist and went in to use the toilet. In Japanese homes they place little slippers in the toilet-room so that you don`t dirty your socks/feet by touching the floor. The slippers in the acupuncturist office are particularly fluffy and cute; I think they have cartoon characters on the toes. When I finished my business I forgot that I had the slippers on and walked out into the treatment room with the slippers still on! That is basically the most disgusting thing one could do.

3. Sometime just before our Thai vacation, my supervisor was aware that we were tight on money and apparently told his boss this fact. The boss, who is a weird-but-nice guy, paid for one of my expenses with the equivalent of $300, as a loan. I didn`t want the gift and as soon as I discovered the fact I withdrew $300 in new bills to return the money. I looked in the stationary section of the office supplies and chose a pretty little envelope. I placed the envelope on his desk and painstakingly wrote, in Japanese, `thank you very much`. There was some flurry in the office. A few hours later they asked me why I had put the envelope on my boss` desk, and I explained I was paying him back. Apparently the envelope I had chosen is specifically used for funerary gifts. When Japanese people give funerary gifts, they choose new bills if the death is unexpected. I laughed and apologized profusely. They didn`t really laugh. . . they just thought I was very very weird.

4. There is a teacher who I really like. She sings and I have attended one of her concerts at the local city hall. After the winter holiday vacation I noticed that she had gotten a very flattering new haircut. I was trying to compliment her on the haircut and said kawaii soo かわいいそお. I thought this meant `it is so cute`, but, unfortunately because of an irregular usage of this particular adjective, I actually said `wow, that is too bad`. The whole office stopped moving when I made the mistake, and the teacher`s face turned bright red. My JTE quickly corrected my mistake and everyone laughed. (I hope the teacher forgives me. . .)

5. I eat apples りんご, whole. This habit is not particularly noteworthy where I come from, but apparently Japanese people find this to be extremely distasteful. In Japan, if one eats an apple one cuts it into exacting pieces. I am unsure the gravity of my offense, but my students stare open-mouthed as I eat apples in the lunchroom. Here if one eats a mandarin orange みっかん, one carefully opens the peel in the shape of a flower, so that the flower-peel can be folded together and neatly discarded. As a general rule, people here do not eat raw vegetables. Our friend Ido has taken to purposely shocking his students by bringing a whole carrot to school lunch, and eating it like a horse.

This is "grassroots internationalization" at its best and worst.