Kelly Azuma

I was really looking forward to Christmas. Usually we sit around twiddling our thumbs and looking at each other on Christmas day. Well since we made quite a few friends in the area we built our house, this year we got an invite to one of our new close friend’s house to have Christmas dinner with her family. We were meant to sleep over and all go out on Boxing day (next day) too.

Then yesterday Yasu dropped the bombshell that he was working both Christmas day and the next day. I was very upset, how could he do that to me? When my mum and sister found out he was working they just looked at me like something weird was going on. They think it’s rude because everyone wants the day off to spend with family. Everyone except Yasu.

The thing is, we had just gotten through talking about the Japanese house guest from hell (JHGFH), and what she had done wrong. Yasu had told me that she was in the wrong because she “had gone against our culture.”  Now he’s doing the same thing!!

I don’t know about other countries that celebrate Christmas day, but in Australia it’s unheard of to work if you don’t have to. And he doesn’t have to. He wants to get some work finished before the other workers get back from their holidays. Holidays! What’s that?

He can’t even see how embarrassing it is going to be for me to go to our friend’s house and have everyone wondering why he’s not there. The conversation will be something like this:

Person: “Hi! Merry Xmas! Where’s Yasu?”
Me: “He didn’t come”
Person: “Oh, why not?”
Me: “He’s working today”
Person: “What? He’s working today? Why?”
Me: “Because he wants to..”
Person: “Oh…”
Awkward silence. Person makes an excuse and crosses to the other side of the room so they don’t have to look at me.

Tonight i was wrapping presents, he didn’t offer any help. He hasn’t come Christmas shopping with me, i had to lug all the ingredients for tomorrow’s food home on the bus because he wouldn’t come pick me up.

It makes me feel so mad. Can’t he just go along with our culture? Just for two days. Christmas is a very important time for me. It’s not a time for feeling abandoned and alone. I should be spending tomorrow with him at my friends place but i’ll be alone at my friend’s place. Of course, i’m happy to be with my friends and they don’t mind, but the point is, i shouldn’t be celebrating without my other half. And why did he have to do it now we have a place to go? I just don’t want him to insult our friends like that by telling everyone at the last minute he’s working. It makes them feel like he’d rather work than go to their house.

Also, if he knew he was going to cancel Christmas on me, why didn’t he just tell me at the beginning of December instead of two days before? How come he celebrated all the Christmassy things when JHGFH was here but not with me. The mind boggles.

So tomorrow i will be doing my best to have a good day without him. Hopefully he’ll have gone to work before i get up so i don’t have to see his face. Otherwise i’ll just remember get mad again.

To all my readers, thank you for reading and i wish you all a very Merry Christmas! I hope you all have a great day wherever you are in the world.

Love,

Kelly

After lamenting the fact that a friend had received a Summons To Juror earlier this year, and that i had never, it was such a surprise to find one in my letterbox yesterday afternoon!

On January the 19th i’ve been summoned to attend the court to sit in on jury duty. On the documentation received it states that jurors usually sit for between 1 and 5 days, or longer depending on if the accused pleads guilty or not guilty.

For my time i get paid $30/day plus transportation costs to and from the court house. I had no idea they paid people. My interest is mainly about seeing how it works and if it’s as good as watching Criminal Intent on tv. Somehow i think it will be different in real life, especially as it’s real people’s lives that are on display.

Since Japan has only recently started to bring jury duty into effect in Japan, Yasu has never served as a juror so he is quite interested in it too. Sadly for him he won’t be able to serve as a juror unless he becomes an Australian citizen, which won’t happen because that would mean he would have to give up Japanese citizenship.

My mum thinks i’m nuts for getting excited about jury duty as every time she has been summoned she wrote in an excuse why she couldn’t serve because she hated the thought of doing it. I think most people are like that. I guess i’m just an oddball who watches too many crime shows on tv!

Whenever i meet new people and they find out my husband is Japanese, the first question they ask is “can you speak Japanese?”

As these people gradually become my friends, over time, i’m starting to get badgered about what i’m doing with my life. At least once a month a friend will turn to me and say something like “why don’t you make use of your Japanese language abilities? It’s such a waste.”

Others seem to think that if you don’t have a high paying job using your abilities then all that study has gone to waste. I’ve never felt that way.

I started studying Japanese in 2nd year of high school and continued until i left. I picked up Japanese very easily and found i had a natural ability for it. I got A’s all the way through school and finally became Dux of Japanese in 1994.

When i left high school i didn’t have any clear ideas about what i wanted to do with my life so i enrolled in a 1 year diploma of Japanese at Tafe (a government college). After completing the diploma i started applying for university and was accepted at Murdoch university where i completed a 3 year Bachelor of Asian Studies, majoring in Japanese.

As i grew up in a poor family, it was not the done thing to do something just because i liked it. I had to have a reason. I convinced myself i wanted to be a Japanese translator. Whenever someone found out what i was studying at university and they asked me what i wanted to do, that was the answer i gave them.

By the end of my degree i had met Yasu and we had started living together. We got married, and my language abilities became useful for communication with my in-laws as none of them speak English.

Some people find it hard to believe that Yasu and i don’t speak Japanese. Yasu just doesn’t want to speak Japanese to me. But that’s not really a problem for me, i don’t really mind. I think he feels that he would rather speak English as we are in Australia, not Japan.

I speak Japanese with Yasu’s family and my own Japanese friends. I also write letters to my friends and Yasu’s family in Japan, in fact his mum and i are just like pen-friends, we write to each other every week.

It’s taken me a long time to get to the point where i think it’s ok to say, the reason i studied Japanese for so long was for fun. I enjoyed it, and i still do.

I study on my own still, with a textbook, online, and with some Kanji programs on Nintendo DS. I like to practice, but not because i’ll forget. I’ve never had trouble remembering Japanese, it always stays in my head, even if i don’t study.

So all those years ago, if i had come out and said i was going to university because it was fun, i wouldn’t have made a burden for myself. I wouldn’t have friends and family expecting me to do great things with my ability.

Simply communicating with my in-laws and friends is enough for me. I also like being able to read the labels on Japanese food products. I like to be able to read the kanji of signs when i’m in Japan, and any documents that i have to fill out. I like to be able to go on Yahoo Japan and buy things online or read the daily news. I like to use my Softbank mobile phone and send messages to friends in Japanese. I love watching Japanese tv and understanding everything they’re talking about.

For me it’s not a waste.

There has been a cat meowing around our house for about 2 weeks. At first i thought it was a tom cat looking for a mate, but when i had an up-close look it’s very skinny and it’s bones are sticking out. My mum and sister had told me to befriend it and give it some food but i thought i shouldn’t as Yasu is very much against getting a pet.

This morning it was raining and thundering and i heard it meowing in the backyard. The humanitarian part of me just couldn’t ignore the poor thing any longer. I got a small saucer and put some milk in and crept out the back to the side of the house. It wouldn’t come near me, and skitters away at any move near it, which leads me to believe it may have been abused.

I crept as near as possible and put the saucer of milk down and went away. It furiously lapped all the milk up, but wouldn’t respond to my “here puss puss”, so i got some more milk for it, but it started to rain so i went inside. When the rain stopped i went back out and the milk was all gone, but so was the cat.

I didn’t think anymore of it, but while i was typing i saw the cat creep past the window, it came to  the side door and sat there meowing.

I went and scrounged around in in the pantry but the only tuna i had was some lemon and cracked pepper flavour. I put a spoonful in a saucer and moved it towards the cat, and lo and behold it came up and devoured it. It was licking the bowl like it wanted more so i put the rest of the can in the saucer and watched while it ate it all. It kept licking the saucer (this is more like a Japanese sauce bowl, so not a big saucer), so i found the other can of tuna with lemon in the pantry and emptied it into the bowl. I left the cat to eat it alone, and just now when i checked, the saucer only has a little bit left and the cat is sitting very satisfied under the patio table.

I’ve put a box out there, laid on its side with a folded up towel inside, just incase the cat wants to get in. I’m not sure if it will, but i want to let it know that it’s safe here.

Yasu will be none too pleased when he finds out, but my concious won’t let me be if i ignore the cat any longer.

I would say i’m not a “cat person”. I’ve always been surrounded by dogs, and have had my own pet dog who passed away 2 years ago. I wanted to get another dog but Yasu wouldn’t hear of it. Somehow this stray has come into my life…

I will keep you posted on what happens with the cat. It will be a slow process if this cat really has been abused. I don’t think it will ever trust humans again. The only thing i can really do is give it food and love but keep my distance.

I’ll have to get Yasu to take me up the shop tonight so i can get some proper cat food and biscuits.

Have you ever taken in a stray cat or dog? Do you have any advice or comments?

I suppose you can guess from the lack of posts here that something went wrong. My aim was to post every day about the week we spent with Yasu’s highschool friend and everything we did. I didn’t because it turned out to be my worst nightmare!

Firstly, we picked her up from the airport and she was gushing that she was picked up on the plane “ナンパされた!” by a worker from Marubeni. She was gushing how he works for a famous company yada yada. As she is single she was immediately attracted, not to him, but to where he works. Then ensued 5 hours of discussion at home about whether or not to email him (he gave her his business card) which ended in her getting drunk and laying on the floor while Yasu emailed him for her, she was too drunk at this point and couldn’t get the keys right.

The guy never emailed her back because he gave her his work email which was on autoresponder, but somehow they have made arrangements to meet up in Tokyo in the future. I can’t fathom going out with someone just because of where they work, i would rather hope for a love match, but desperate times call for desperate measures maybe. She said that because she’s 33 there is no hope for her to find a love match, and if she got married to someone who works in a great job, even if they don’t love each other, she wouldn’t have to work at her job anymore.

My feeling is, if you don’t like your job, change it. Or try to change your circumstance even a little bit. Everyone has a choice.

Anyway from that day on my life was hell. I will summarise below in points.

* She didn’t offer to help me with anything and left her half empty cups, bowls and glasses laying around for me to take to the sink. (Regardless of her seeing Yasu taking his own to the sink). She left her rubbish next to the bin on the floor instead of putting it in there. She never once offered to help wash up the dishes or set the table.

* She never made an effort to learn any English, despite knowing for one year that she would be coming. As a consequence, when I spoke to her in English she ignored me, even while she was looking at me. Sometimes she even walked off when I was mid-sentence. She spoke Japanese constantly to Yasu and didn’t try to converse with me at all. Ok i can speak Japanese, and i did at first but i don’t speak Japanese all the time, and was it wrong of me to expect her to speak just a little English?

* She constantly wandered off while we were out together. We would all be in the supermarket and we would look around and she would be gone. She never told us if she was going, she just went. Luckily Yasu had his mobile. One time in the city she went missing and Yasu didn’t take his mobile, and I don’t have her number so we spent two hours looking for her. When we finally found her she never apologised.

* She made us go hunting for jewellery she had seen in magazines. When i finally tracked down the store in the city, she went in there and exclaimed “oh, it’s bigger than i thought” and didn’t buy it. I stood there trying not to strangle her

* When we went shopping for souvenirs in the department stores she would constantly pick up all these things, wander around, then put them all back on the shelf, then pick something else up, wander around, then put it back on the shelf. Yasu and i were in David Jones for 2 hours while she did this repeatedly. In the end, more out of frustration, Yasu and i started a running commentary about it and made a joke, otherwise we would have gone insane. After doing that in DJ’s for 2 hours and finally deciding she didn’t want to buy anything, she asked Yasu about a jewellery store she had seen on the other side of the city. I could just about see the steam coming out of Yasu’s ears by this point as he found out he would have to backtrack where we had just came from.

* The store was Pandora. She went into the store and found a necklace called “the love pod“. She asked if she could try it on, and the sales lady obliged putting it around her neck. Then she said she wanted a diamond love drop, Yasu and i just looked at each other, because she’d been crying poor all week. The sales lady went on a man-hunt for a diamond and finally found one in the display cabinet. I said to Yasu, does she know it will be expensive? Shouldn’t she be asking the price? Yasu told her to ask the price but she said that is not the way they do it in Japan, you try it first and ask the price afterwards. I just “grrr’d” to myself. I felt like saying “we’re not in Japan you idiot, we’re in Australia!” Finally, at the end of it all, when the sales lady thought she was getting the sale, she asked the price. It was $1025.00. Then she turned around and said no, she didn’t want it!! I felt like i could have crawled under the floor and died. Yasu and i walked out of the store in shame. After all that she had the nerve to ask to go back to David Jones because she wanted to look for a “クロエ” bag. I didn’t know what that was and neither did Yasu. When we got there we found out she was referring to a “Cloe” bag which cost upwards of $2000 per handbag! She looked at the tags, the one she wanted was $2300.00. Then she said she was disappointed because it wasn’t cheap here. It was the same price as in Japan. I just said to Yasu, what did she expect? Bali prices? By that stage Yasu and i had had enough and i wanted to go home. At that stage I was ignoring her. I’m a fair person but i can only take so much.

We had to get ingredients for dinner on the way home and you guessed it, when we went into the store she took off again.

* The following day at her request we took the ferry over to Rottnest Island for the day. We took the bus around the island, and thanks to her, ended up walking 3km each way from each landmark in the boiling hot sun. Even though i wore suncream i got terribly burnt on my legs and chest, which she completely ignored. Later on we went down to the beach as I was looking forward to a swim. I got in the water and it was beautiful and cool after all those hard yards. We saw her go up the jetty and half an hour later we still hadn’t seen her come back. Yasu was starting to worry as he knows she can’t swim. An hour passed and it was time to catch the ferry home but we couldn’t find her. Just before we started to panic she waltzed up to us and never said a word, not even sorry for going missing. Then on the boat ride home, we got our seats on the outside deck, and some of the island workers who commute back and forth each day sat down next to us and we had a bit of conversation. One of the guys sat next to her and said “hello, how are you?” and she ignored him because she didn’t want to speak english. Then he said to her “oh, well i’m fine THANKS FOR ASKING!” in a really loud voice, and looked at me. Another of those times i just wanted to crawl under the seat and die.

* When we got home she announced to us that it wasn’t enough time at Rottnest for her and she wanted to go back again the next day. She asked Yasu to ask me to book her a tour with a Japanese speaking guide to go around the island the next day. Never mind that i was horribly sunburnt and exhausted, i then had to start ringing around tour company’s to book a tour for her the next day. She didn’t even thank me for doing it! The only good thing was that Yasu and i would have a break without her for one whole day. Yippee! Even Yasu said he could “have a holiday” without her.

* Our one day holiday turned into a big fight between us when Yasu dropped the news that she was loving it here and she had told him she was coming back next year with two of her friends. I just about lost it and said to him “you’ve got to be kidding right???” He had no idea of my feelings during the week, but he did understand where i was coming from. We ended up yelling at each other before he stormed out. He came back later and apologised and said he would talk to her and tell her she
should study abit of our culture and language before she comes back again.

* That night we went out to Sizzler (a buffet) for dinner and right in the middle of dinner she suddenly started crying (because of what Yasu had said to her earlier about learning English and some culture). She put on this big sob story and Yasu had to sit there hugging her while she cried and all the other patrons looked on. I felt like spewing in my chocolate mousse i was so p’d off. That was her way of getting Yasu on her side. When we went home i couldn’t even look at her and i refused to. By that time i was so fed up with her i was sick of the sight of her. I was waiting for the next day night when she would go home. She had scheduled the flight for 11pm knowing full well that Yasu had to get up for work at 6am the next morning but obviously not caring.

The next day Yasu and i were so tired, and all this week we have been sooo tired, because last week Yasu took time off from work as our holiday, and we thought we would be relaxed, but instead she took over and made it all about her, so we didn’t actually get any rest. During the week we went to Morley Galleria, it was Yasu’s first time, but she had a look at a few shops and declared she had finished looking and wanted to go home, even though we had only been there for half an hour. I put my foot down and made her walk around the entire shopping centre, just because i wasn’t going to have her tell me what to do.

We had dinner in the food court. Actually Yasu and i decided we would meet at a certain point, and he told her to meet us there after getting her food. Yasu and i met up at the point but she never came. After half an hour waiting and our food getting cold Yasu had to go look for her in the shopping centre. He found her at an ATM trying to get money from her card. She had failed to mention that she didn’t have any money and didn’t know how to use our ATM’s but she just went off to find one anyway without telling either of us. In the end she bought a kebab and had them put chili sauce in it. All the way through eating it she kept saying “it’s too hot” even though she’d asked them to put it in there. She said she thought that “chili sauce wouldn’t be as hot as that”. I don’t know but i’m pretty sure everyone knows chili is hot?

Anyway, i was glad to see the end of her. A couple of days after she left Yasu and i sat down and talked and we can both see that we’re too old for that sh*t. We’re not getting any younger. Yasu has to work on Christmas day this year, so that was supposed to be our holidays, but we never really got any and Yasu is more tired than he was to begin with.

I’m desperately trying to think up a plan so she can’t come next year. Yasu is too kind and said he couldn’t tell her not to come at the airport, it would be too mean. I’m scared she will book the flight here without telling us first, then i’ll be stuck with her. I couldn’t stand another week like that, especially with her two friends! I’m pretty sure not all Japanese girls are like her, or i would hope, but jeez, she doesn’t seem to care about us at all, she seems so selfish.

When i made up her guest bedroom i did it up like a hotel room for her, when she left it was messy with water bottles around the floor and she hadn’t even bothered to make the bed. My mum stays in that room too and  bothers to make the bed, so why couldn’t she do it? That’s just disrespectful. And one more bitch, the whole week she stayed here, ate our food, and Yasu drove her everywhere, and she never offered us any money for food or petrol. I wouldn’t say she had to pay for everything, even just petrol money would be nice, or at least an offer, but she offered nothing.

Any ideas on how i can dissuade her from coming back? I told Yasu if we have kids she definitely won’t be coming to stay, but aside from that, if i’m not pregnant by then, how can i get out of having her here?

I suppose you think i’m a big whinger after reading this but i have never met any aussies that have treated me like that…ever! I’ve met rude people before, but most people who have stayed with us, Japanese included, have never ever treated me that way.

Your thoughts….please!