Laments
So these are the two biz cards I'm currently debating. Many minutes of precious consideration went into these (please ignore the purple boxes). I hope to get them printed soon. **EDIT** By mass approval, the top card was chosen**
So its not really my style to complain (right!) but having lived in Japan for three years I feel certified to make some complaints about certain aspects life here.
**EDIT** What follows has been edited. I'm sorry but the original post was written too much from anger and too little from irony. And yes, I have been re-reading a lot of George Grant recently**
Exaggerated facial expressions are common in Japan. Put something delicious, disgusting, sweet, spicy or really anything in front of a Japanese person and get ready for the comedic ride of your life. Inevitably these facial masterpieces are accompanied by the appropriate sound but don't let that distract you- your host has undoubtedly spent many hours in front of the mirror practicing his/her "Sweet Jesus this is sour!" face and to not reciprocate with an equally twisted reaction of your own would be rude. My favourite has always been the "hot hot hot" face that has the ridiculous panting with the ludicrous fanning motion. You know, like how a child would do.
Walking in a straight line or in any civilized manner is an art lost on the Japanese (like Sumo, only foreigners seem to be able to do it). Everyone walks like an autistic kid on roller skates with nary a concern about their fellow man. The amount of times I've come to a screeching halt because the imbecile in front of my decided to admire the subtle things in life (or more often, whatever stupid thing is in the shop window) are unaccountable. I've since stopped stopping. I simply plow into them; be they man, woman or child.
By talking to oneself I don't mean the couple of words we sometimes mumble to ourselves ("wait, what was I doing?" or "what was the square root of 32 again?") but full on conversations. I have co-workers that carry on complete conversations with themselves with two or more voices! It's annoying mostly because I keep thinking they are talking to me. When I first came here I used to look for cellphone earpieces but am now content to label them 'crazy' out of hand. Especially eerie are the ones who talk aloud and twitch. Thank god it's so hard to get firearms in Japan.
Stating the obvious can almost be grouped with the above but annoys me to such a degree it gets it's own section. Especially about the weather, Japanese people love to comment about how hot (atsui) or cold (samui) it is. Really? NO $HIT! I can also feel the temperature and I don't need by the minute by minute updates Cpt. Obvious!
Everyone has their favourite Japanese word (mine of late, has been 'bakageta') but Kawaii is a word that should carry the death penalty to anyone who dares utter it. I hate the word simply because the type that use it are so often idiots who have that vacant look on their faces (for an example of this type 'ayumi hamasaki' in your favourite search engine).
The ability to sleep anywhere is almost a badge of honour for the Japanese. They sleep on the train, the train station and everywhere in between. They like to tell you that it's because they work so hard but really, most of them work the same amount of hours as anyone else in any other country. I suspect its a big competition to convince the guy next to them that they work harder. In the past couple of days I've seen no less that six guys pretending to sleep standing up, because even when there are no seats you got to represent!!