Old habits are hard to change. I never was good at writing letters and I am still not good at it…even in blog form.
Valentine’s Day is old news, I know, but I can’t let this year go by without saying thanks to my man. He bought me roses! Now, any American female is going “but that is not anything too special, it is Valentine’s Day. But you see, in Japan things are reversed.
Valentine’s Day in Japan has women buying gifts of chocolate for the men in their life…true love and those they just want to get in good graces with. There is the “honmei-choco” or true feelings chocolate and there is the “giri-choco” or indebted chocolate, usually given to male coworkers and bosses.
Unfair! you may say, but the men are then indebted to give back chocolate on White Day on March 14th. Celebrated in Japan and Korea, it was started by some ingenious Japanese marketing. If this return gift is for honmei-choco, then it better be way more expensive than the price of the chocolate given by the gal…otherwise the relationship could be in danger.
Personally, I never could get into the giri-choco thing, but dutifully go along with giving chocolate from the group of women at work (we’re usually outnumbered 3 to 1 so it can get hard on the pocketbook). And so I have always tried to instill in our marriage the western idea of Valentine’s Day, preferably centered around the man giving the gift.
And this year without having to give too many hints about romance and what-not, he came through. Besides having a dozen stemmed red roses, he also had a whole box of rose buds which are now decorating our living room and bathroom. And he thought that up all by himself. I am so proud.
Ahhhh…it has been a long time since I have been on “international time”. In Japan, especially Shizuoka, things run to the second; schedules are planned and followed and people do not upset the system in general. It is funny how all that meticulous planning can go down the toilet when international time is brought into the picture.
Currently Shizuoka City is hosting a tourism working group meeting for APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) with representatives from over 15 areas. I am helping with some of the interpreting (at dinners and other fun stuff; nothing juicy).
Already on the first day the schedule is out of whack; meetings running over the scheduled time, meetings finishing up early, people arriving at the last minute…all in all not going according to schedule. Not that the meetings aren’t going well, because it seems that they are. It is just entertaining to watch the non-internationalized Japanese run around with their foreheads all wrinkly trying to change schedules and plan ahead while always playing catch-up.
International time is the clear winner in this case. Luckily for us, the trains here are still on staunch Japanese time.
The 7th annual Shizuoka Samba Carnival was held in downtown on May 3rd & 4th. Samba dance teams from around Japan come and participate.
Samba teams in Japan?! Actually Brazilians are the 3rd largest foreign nationality in Shizuoka City (and the largest in the prefecture). Brazil and Japan have a deep relationship which started with thousands of Japanese immigrating to Brazil in the early 20th century to work. Now there are many ethnic Japanese Brazillians who are coming to Japan to work (thanks to special laws for ethnic Japanese or “nikkei”).
With them has come Brazillian-owned restaurants, stores, music, and Japan now has more opportunities to experience Brazillian culture and (hopefully) catch a bit of the Latin spirit.
While there weren’t many spectators today dancing along to the music, the streets were so full of people that security had to push people out of the way so the samba teams could go through.
