Easter in Japan
This will be the last time I miss Easter. It really sucked getting up this morning and knowing I wouldn't even be able to go to Mass, much less wear a pretty spring dress and sing all my favorite Easter songs, and then go home and have ham and pineapple sauce with my folks. (It is a beautiful day though. I have my laundry all hanging outside to dry for the first time in a while.)
I managed to just barely survive the seminar thing this weekend (actually, it was from Thursday all the way up to this afternoon), just got back a few hours ago, and not a moment too soon, I was ready to rip some people's heads off, I swear... >___<
First of all, as someone on a temporary internship, I was participating in the new employee seminar more to see how everyone else gets started than to learn the ropes myself. So, there were a lot of things these kids were going through that I already knew, like how to do morning ceremony. Also, I'd already seen a lot of the informational videos and such, so the only new stuff was some of the speeches from the higher-up guys, and the general feel of the seminar itself. With its strict attention to timeliness and manners, even going down to proper sound pronunciation, it felt something like a cross between preschool and boot camp. No, really.
There were forty guys, and six girls including myself. Yeah.
We started on Thursday with a company entrance ceremony. Again, as someone who's only here temporarily, I was largely there as a sort of... I don't know what you'd call it... an honorary Ichimiya employee?? This was extremely awkward throughout the seminar, where these people would be going on about what it means to be a "member of society"--I guess you're only part of Japanese society if you're working for a company, since they kept on saying the difference between students and company workers, as if there's nothing else in the world but those two groups of people--and I'm all like, "Nope, I'm going home, where we have all kinds of members of society." (...Have I mentioned lately how grateful I am to be an American?) I knew Japanese society was restrictive, but I had no idea. It was like brainwashing, how they made us all dress alike, all stand up straight, sit up straight, feet a certain degree apart, (guys and girls are different degrees apart, too, which pissed me off because there was no good reason for it), repeating simple greetings over and over at the top of our lungs... They were like, "Now that you're members of society, you have to..." or "As members of society, you must..." and there wasn't a rhyme or reason to it, nor any attempt to make it sound like something grand or noble, or even worthwhile. It was like a parent telling a child, "You'll do it because I said so," over and over again.
We learned the Ichimiya theme song, practicing it about a bazillion times... are there any American companies that have a theme song? I know my first high school, St Joseph Academy, had one, but I don't remember ever singing it. Ever. (However, we could get extra credit for playing it on the recorder in music class. XD) We also learned all the history of Ichimiya Group (I'm already quite familiar with it by now), and on our way to Ozu, where we'd be staying, we stopped at one of the factories they own, which I'd already visited last year.
The high point of the trip was the stop right before our place in Ozu, Shirataki Park, where there were a series of beautiful waterfalls. I forgot to take my camera off the bus with me, but Tanaka-senmu always takes lots of pictures, so maybe I can get some from him.
Speaking of, I really like Tanaka-senmu. At least with me, he seems to be a fairly easy-going type of old man with whom I can usually make at least a little polite conversation from time to time. He drinks, but he doesn't smoke, which definitely helps. (All the other old guys smell so completely awful it's hard to be comfortable around them.) I probably should speak more politely with him, but since he was the one who picked me up at the airport on the first night and I wasn't sure at the time where he stood on the totem pole, I was just kindof in the middle (-desu, -masu, nothing special) and it was kindof too late to fix it even after I realized he's much higher than coworker-level. But it doesn't seem to bother him. ...So, it really surprised me how strict he was with all the new employees on this thing. On the first day, we were all given a bento lunch, and we ate together in the hall where we had the entrance ceremony. Afterward, Tanaka-senmu demanded to know how many people had said "Itadakimasu" before eating, and when no one raised their hand, we all got a hell of a scolding about how important it was to give thanks for food someone else made for you. Now, as much as I understand the sentiment, I thought it was strange for a boss to care if the kids said anything before or after the meal, it seems to be a private thing. And what if you don't want to say anything, but you do feel/think it? I mean, I don't pray over my food before I eat it in public, and I especially don't do it here. (Of course, this is coming from someone who's been raised in America, where the whole prayer in school thing is a big controversy, so I guess to me I understand people just wanting to keep some stuff to themselves...) And after that, we were *reminded* several times by different people to say "Itadakimasu" and etc. before and after eating, which felt to me like we were being treated like kindergartners. Besides, when you are told/reminded to say "thank you," does it mean anything? Just like whenever someone forced you to apologize for something you don't regret doing.
We stayed at this place in Ozu that was described to me as a Japanese equivalent of the YMCA, but it felt more to me like a cheap boarding school, since the facilities were so bare-bones.
I was forced to pretty much stay with the five other girls throughout the thing. We slept all together in a Japanese-style room on futons, which was an interesting experience for me, but I would've much preferred to stay in such a room with friends or family. Aside from a brief period of showing them some pictures of my cosplay and other crazy outfits, and a sadly brief discussion with one of the girls about anime, we didn't talk much aside from little snippets consisting of whether I was cold or not, or whether I could use chopsticks, and etc. (Oh, and I showed them a picture of Phillip and they really liked him, so I was sooo proud. ^_^;;;) But the rest of the time, I just couldn't bear to hang around them, because all they'd do is whine about how they were tired, or cold, and etc. I mean, sure, I wanted to complain too, but I realized nothing was going to change by doing that, so I tried to show a little backbone, dive in, and get everything over with. And most of the time that served me quite well.
...I still don't understand why American guys like Japanese girls so much, I find most of them vapid and immature, and way too concerned about their looks... There's a difference between caring and putting in a little effort, and letting it take over your entire life. Every single minute of free time they didn't spend whining or checking their cell phones, they were reapplying makeup. I mean, I suppose they're cute, but... so what? That doesn't last forever, after all, and then what are you left with? Every minute I had, I was running back to charge my iPod, or play one of the three pianos I found while exploring the facilities. I think that was what kept me sane, even though after a long break from playing (thanks to that huge blister) I only remembered a few pieces...
I wanted to go try hanging out with the guys, but they were so damned shy around me any time we were all together, and they had to stay in a separate building from us, so it wasn't like I could just casually pass by their rooms and say hello. It was dumb. >.<
I was surprised and annoyed with how little confidence they all held in their ability to speak and write their own fucking language. We reviewed formal/polite speech and proper telephone etiquette, and they were impressed that I was able to answer so many of the questions, exclaiming stuff like, "She's better than us! Look at her writing!" And I'm thinking, "Well, duh, I was taking back-to-back Japanese classes every day in college, where you had to get a high grade if you wanted to proceed. What's your excuse?" After having to memorize so many really long, difficult Japanese phrases and conversations and literature passages for Japanese class, remembering just "Hello, is so-and-so manager there? Oh, then I'll just call back later." was no problem at all, and everyone else was all like, "I can't do this! No way!" Weird. I memorized the phrases in about fifteen minutes, and they were nervous just reading off a cheat sheet. I kid you not. Don't they teach this stuff to them at some point? Have they really never had to speak politely to anyone before this? I had to take heavy-duty English grammar classes in sixth grade, and I've remembered and used my lessons from then all the way up through now.
There were not many long breaks during the day. Usually they forced us to meet ten minutes before the actual start time of the next lesson or whatever, but then someone would come tell me to come five minutes earlier than that. The classroom where we did most of this got humid just by shutting the doors and having someone talk for about ten minutes. You'd go out for a bathroom break, the hallways would be freezing, and you'd go back to the classroom and it'd be like a sauna. It was bizarre. All the sinks had cold water only. You can bet I looked forward to my evening bath every night, the only hot water to be found was in the bathrooms, though going down so many halls and flights of stairs to get there was quite annoying.
I will say this, though: I ate extremely well the entire time I was there. It was buffet-style, so I could pick out as much of the vegetable dishes I wanted (hold the cabbage please) and also get a bit of meat and fruit to balance it all out. Almost everything was nice and hot, and the miso soup was delicious every time. There was fish at every meal, so unlike at the central comapny building, where the Lenten no-meat-on-Friday thing was really difficult to follow, I didn't feel like I was sacrificing proper nutrition to follow the rules (though I did miss out on some really tasty-looking dishes...) I will miss that cafeteria...
What else... oh! Of course, there was an ending ceremony for when we got back to the central building, in which we each had to get on the stage and present a card with a word representing a sort of goal or decision for ourselves as members of society. Since I'm leaving this company, and the only thing I know I want to strive for in the future is something involving creativity, that's the word I chose. I said it was because I want to be a novelist in the future, and using creativity/imagination, I want to do my best to make beautiful, interesting work. (it's difficult to translate just right, but that's the gist.) It felt kinda like I was giving everyone else the finger, because they're all like, "I'm going to work hard!" "I'm going to always do my best!" etc, and I'm all like, "I'm going to go make pretty things!" which has absolutely nothing to do with this company. XD
Thank God it's over. Tomorrow I have hanami after work, which I would be looking forward to if I were feeling normal, but right now I just feel like my precious weekend was stolen from me, and now, while I'm only just starting to recover, I'll have to go right back to work. >___<