steph's blog

When they say that Japanese homes are poorly heated, they aren’t kidding. The only heating I come in contact with here is the kotatsu at meal times (breakfast has been moved there from the dining table now that it’s cold), my lovely electric blanket, and the heated toilet seat (which I no longer find creepy but rather a necessity!). There is no heating whatsoever of the rooms. Which means that my time at home on cold days is spent moving between those 3 points as necessary.

I sometimes get confused by the contradictory things Okaasan does.

• She’s worried about conserving resources when it comes to food, even telling me I was being wasteful when I cut the ends off the onion and threw them away when making spaghetti bolognese, rather then peeling and using every little bit. She saves all leftovers for another day. But when it comes to other resources she doesn’t seem to care at all – when doing the dishes she leaves the tap on the whole time, wasting heaps more water then necessary. And she has electric fans set up in the garden, at least one of which seems to have been turned on 24/7 since I’ve been here. Apparently it’s because the air is too dirty so the fan is helping clear it so the plants will grow better? Also, she has set up some kind of small electric blankets outside for the cats, which is lovely of her but doesn’t seem normal to me.

• She’s also super-paranoid about illness. I have to wash my hands and gargle as soon as I come home every time (not that I’m complaining about that) so that I won’t get the swineshin-gata influenza. If I even mention that I’m feeling a bit cold she tries to give me more blankets to take upstairs with me, even though I already have more than I need, so that I won’t catch a cold. After we watched a TV programme about some sort of virus to do with the liver (I didn’t exactly understand the whole show, but it might have been hepatitis?) she went to the doctor the next day to get tested for it. But on the other hand, she has no idea about food safety! The dishes are washed in cold water, which surely isn’t getting them properly clean. Meat is left out on the counter for hours. One time she was going to be away so prepared my dinner of fried chicken in the morning and left it out on the table all day (under a food tent, so at least flies weren’t getting on it, but still). I actually secretly threw that out because it seemed so wrong to me :/

So yeah. Only two weeks until I’m home, and I’m sure there’ll be some things there that used to be normal that will feel strange (like driving! I’m a bit nervous about it actually!)