Kelly Azuma

Today was stinking hot again. Read more

Yesterday (Sunday) was a day for catching up with friends.

Firstly Yasu and I went into Perth city to meet a friend that I studied Japanese with in 1999. We mainly use Facebook to keep in contact but because my friend is also friends with Yasu he wanted to meet up in person.

We had a nice time and chatted about quite a few interesting subjects like theology and Japanese taxes.

Afterwards we went to Jo’s boy’s birthday party at The Beach House Fun Centre in Osbourne Park. It was his 4th birthday. I had also organise to catch up with a Japanese friend and her daughter at the fun centre, who we hadn’t seen for a year due to some miscommunication on my part.

It was really good to see her and we spent the next 3 hours gabbing while Yasu took off to play with her 9 year old daughter. haha. He’s such a big kid!! I guess because she’s Japanese he enjoys talking to her in Japanese rather than English.

We had a great time chatting and in that time Jo came over and we started talking about dancing which Yuka also seems interested in, so we made a time in the school holidays to go out salsa dancing at one of the clubs that have free lessons in the city. As school holidays are in easter it won’t be too far away.

At about 4:30 pm the party ended and Jo asked me if I wanted to meet them in Hillary’s boat harbour for fish n’ chips with them and her parents and I agreed. Yasu had somehow run off again to play and so Yuka and I went to find them and we stood around gabbing for another half an hour haha…reminiscing about ramen.

We finally left the fun centre at 5pm and went up to Hillary’s and had some fish n’ chips which was yummy, then we sat around talking, and Yasu ran off with the two boys to play on the grass for a while and then finally came home.

When we got back at 8pm I was so tired I changed into my pj’s (hello kitty of course) and fell into bed and slept until this morning. Phew!

Tonight Jo has assured me belly dancing is on, so in a few minutes I’ll be making dinner and getting ready.

I also start teaching english to migrants this wednesday at a local women’s medical centre, so that should be interesting and fun!

I was looking on the net at a website called J Shoppers that sells and sends Japanese products worldwide. While browsing this website i came upon quite a few products that i considered to be really wacky or way out. I’d like to share them with you.

1.   Juvenile Pink Cream – “6-day intensive care for problem areas like lips, armpits, busts and bikini lines. With arbutin, it is gentle on your skin.” However please note the two pictures on the bottom left-hand corner. Looks like nipples doesn’t it? Also the image on the packet is mainly of a breast. My idea of this product is that it’s pinking-up certain areas of your body. I may be wrong, but that’s what it looks like. This must give people the idea there is nothing that can’t be fixed with a bit of cream.

2.  Small Face Mate – “Sagging at the cheeks and jaw are a sign of the expression muscles weakening. These are muscles that are not usually moved, but by concentrating and exercising them they can be tightened for a sharp faceline. Strengthen your expression muscles using the force of the springs in this simple exercise device.” Need i say more? Look at the picture below. Would you use this thing?

3.  Organic Socks For Dogs – These come in a 4-pack, and are made from organic cotton. For when your dog gets a little old and finds it hard to walk around, they have non-slip bumps on the bottom for convenience. Most dogs i know would probably bite them off. Japanese dogs though….?

4.  Fancy Cut Rain Hood For Dogs – Yes, the absurdity. A rain hood for dogs. Surely they realise that the back of the dog is going to get wet? Nevermind the poor dogs ego when other dogs see him in this! Poor thing!

5.  3D Face Shape Supporter – Go to bed looking like yourself and wake up looking like someone else with this face shape supporter! The blurb says “While wearing, all of your facial skin is being lifted up, for the look of a different person with great skin and contours!” Oh yeah…it’s a pity you can’t choose who you want to look like though!

6.  Medicinal Virgin & Pink – Maybe this should go on a list entitled Weird Japanese Product Names. What is Japan’s obsession with the word pink? It seems to be everywhere. Everyone wants to be pink. I have no idea why the word virgin is used, maybe they think virgins have pure skin?

7.  Eye Enhancer – When cucumbers and tea bags fail to remove those bags under your eyes, why not try electricity? Just stick these eye enhancers on your bags and give them a few volts and ta-da! bags are gone! Or so they say. Maybe they will be burnt off.

8.  Calorie Off Breathing Device – When all else has failed to shift those extra fruit mince pies on your hips, don’t give up, try blowing into a long pink thing! Yes, just by doing what you do every day – breathing – you can lose calories! But beware, it might become a trade-off between your weight and your dignity! This should come with the tag “this is not a toy“.

or a Happy New Year to you!

This post is somewhat late, but i thought i would just put a note about what we did new years eve. Yasu worked until about 6:30pm, and was home at 7pm. At 7:30 pm we sat down and began to watch 紅白 on NHK (Kouhaku means Red/White, in this case Red Vs White, Women Vs Men).

I was looking forward to seeing Sexy Bucho make an appearance, and we also saw the cast from the movie Ponyo on the cliff by the sea (崖の上のポニョ). The little girl was sooo cute, and now i can’t get the song out of my head! There’s a great video clip of the song on youtube  here.

They had the usual performers like Smap, Hamasaki Ayumi, Speed, Aiko, Exile, Kiyoshi, Akiko Wada, and Perfume (Yasu’s favourite of the night) and ALOT of Enka singers, in fact, way too many for my liking. It seemed like an NHK concert night with a few jpop-ers thrown in.

Nakai-san from Smap was the host for the night, and was also joined by a few guests like Hige-danshaku but sadly no DJ Ozma, but i noticed one guy lost his pants down to a fundoshi, no doubt that will give the old ladies something to complain about.

Yasu and i were a little bit disappointed with the talent, or lack thereof this year and kind of glad it was over. The last half hour they showed people going to temples and shrines to pray for the new year and we had a conversation about western people making new year’s resolutions. It seems that Japanese people prefer to go to shrines, pay money and pray to make the God’s carry out their wish or resolution for them. Western people seem to struggle with making a resolution or keeping them, maybe the better way is what the Japanese do, pay someone else to do it! At least we can’t blame ourselves if it should fail.

This is the only New Year where we haven’t had a drink. Neither of us felt like it. We both stuck to Coke Zero and juice. Older and mellower? Maybe.

We rang the parents in Japan and they were getting drunk on Shochu with Yasu’s sister. Yasu’s dad asked when i was going to show my face in Japan again, and said he wanted to hug me. haha. Weird. I told them they should be asking Yasu that question but they said no, they would rather see my face! Yasu doesn’t mind, he’s happy we all get along so well.

And that’s about it really! Yasu and i said Happy New Year to each other, Yasu said 明けましておめでとう to me and bowed, and we went to bed.

The next day i went to work with Yasu, but basically it was uneventful.

Happy New Year to you! I hope 2009 will be a great year!

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.

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!

I found this somewhat offensive. The term “gaijin” or “outside person” is somewhat derogatory, they could have used “australia jin” to refer to me.

What gets me is that, once you go out of your native country, YOU become the foreigner! The Japanese people i have spoken to seem not to realise this!

So how do Japanese people feel about being referred to as a “gaijin” themselves? According to our friends, it’s not a word they would use to describe themselves. How about “Jap” then? As alot of people in Aus seem to call them that, unbeknownst to them.

I don’t know about you but it’s just one of those things that really ticks me off. All these double standards. It makes it seem like Japanese people think they are higher than other races because they never refer to themselves as “gaijin”.

What are your thoughts?