Something I take for granted is how comfortable and easy it is to stay in the country in which you were born. I realize now that I take Canada for granted, and I think I appreciate it more now that I’m gone – even though I’ve only been gone for about 2 weeks!
Being an ESL teacher, my students tell me about their hardships learning English and trying to struggle with the language as they make Canada their new home. It’s difficult, especially at first, because they are illiterate (of course written Chinese looks nothing like English!). It’s also hard to distinguish what products are, based on the name. I mean, even if they can read the word “detergent” how are they supposed to know that just means “soap”?
Well, I’m sure you can all see where this blog is going. That’s right, the Japanese language is nothing like English, except when things are sometimes “English-ized.” The hardest part so far is, like my students, functioning on a day to day basis with the local people. Unfortunately for me, my skin colour makes me look rather Japanese, and so most people assume that I’m Japanese, and they just talk really fast to me. I might be able to understand sometimes, but they just zip things out in a blur so that I have no hope of catching their message. The first time I went grocery shopping took about 2 hours, because I was walking around and carefully trying to read labels. I wanted some curry, but it took me a while to try to guess which one was hot, and which was perhaps medium or mild. In the end, I decided that I couldn’t read the label, so I went with the green box, thinking that red usually denotes spiciness. The curry ended up being very mild (yay me). Today, I wanted to buy laundry detergent. Wow. I’m not entirely sure what I bought was correct, but I’m really hoping that at least it’s not bleach. I sampled a little bit in the sink to wash my nylons (that’s another rant in itself – I hate wearing nylons), and it looked like laundry soap. My nylons also stayed the same colour, so I’m hoping that’s a good sign it’s not bleach. That experiment was good enough for me, so I emptied it (I bought a refill-pak) into my existing laundry detergent dispenser, and mixed it up well with whatever was already in there. Now all I have to do is remember what the package looks like for the next time I need to buy detergent.
This all certainly gives me a greater appreciation for what immigrants and illiterate people have to go through. To think that my mommy went through all this frustration just to come to Canada to give us a “better” life, makes me feel like I’ve been quite ungrateful. And I definitely think that my students are very brave indeed for attempting to overcome all these barriers – just to come and take care of their grandchildren. I hope these kids grow up one day to realize how lucky they are to have such dedicated and loving grandparents.
On another note, maybe I’m being assimilated already…but as much as I complain about the comparatively high prices of produce, I find a lot of things actually taste much better than back home! Take that, Monsanto! I bought some cucumbers today, and they look just like ours, but look like they’ve been picked a few weeks earlier. They are still very spiky, and look like they haven’t quite filled out yet. They are much crispier and taste very flavourful, even compared to English cucumbers. I also bought some tomatoes and they taste great! They’re also exceptionally flavourful, and taste like they were picked and packed at the peak of perfection (just like the Del Monte commercial). Needless to say, I had a very delicious salad tonight. I had tomatoes and cucumbers with shredded cabbage (seems that no one eats lettuce salads here – maybe it’s because cabbage is much cheaper than lettuce) and slathered in “goma” dressing. I think goma is sesame. We need to have good goma dressing in Canada. I’ve already gone through about half my bottle already!
And, in the latest in my quest to have Okayama’s specialties… I’ve already conquered the peach, and today I have tackled the other famous fruit – the Muscat grape! Up until today, all the grapes I have seen were prohibitively expensive ($40 and UP for one bunch). Oh, and by “bunch,” I mean about 20-25 grapes. These are large grapes! Each grape is about the size of a smallish to average strawberry. I saw some today for only Y398 ($3.98 if you haven’t gotten the hang of the conversion). It was too cheap to pass up! These grapes looked as if they were just a tad past their prime, because they looked a wee bit soft, and had a few spots on them. These ones happened to be green, by the way, but there are pricey purple grapes available as well. I picked the best-looking package, and I ate one as soon as I got home. I must say, they’re very tasty, but I highly doubt that they are worth like, $2/grape. They taste different from the green grapes back home; they are sweet with a more subtle taste. They have a hint of a flavour that I can only describe as “gummy” as in the taste of a fruit gummy candy. Actually, I know you can buy Muscat flavoured gummies at Kowloon Market, and I think it’s a pretty accurate flavouring. Now for the biggest complaint: these stupidly expensive grapes bloody well have SEEDS in them!! I didn’t pay premium pricing (by my standards) for grapes with SEEDS!! I refuse to eat grapes with seeds back home, even when they’re free! The somewhat bright side to this is that since the grapes are much larger, there is a higher grape : seed ratio. I’m still not happy. Conclusion: delicious, but definitely not worth the money. I don’t think I would even buy them again at the same price. Compare that to the peaches which were heavenly and, at the right bargain, I would buy them again.
That’s all for now! Next post will be about my weekend trip to Naoshima Beach, on an island in the Seto Inland Sea. For those who are geographically challenged, my area is separated from another of Japan’s main islands, Shikoku, by the (you guessed it) Seto Inland Sea. There are a number of islands in the sea, and these are the basis for the famous Seto Ohashi Bridge. It’s not really one bridge; it’s a lot of bridges that hop from island to island until it hits Shikoku.
On a side rant, the name of the bridge bothers me a little. It’s like saying “SIN number” or “chai tea.” Ohashi means bridge, so really people are calling it the Seto bridge-bridge.
Well, that was a great day trip! I woke up nice and early and met everyone at Okayama, and from there we went to Uno station in Tamano. Our friend Lauren lives there, and her neighbour Barbie is really great to have along, since her Japanese is fluent. So we met up with Lauren and Barbie, and we ate lunch at an Italian restaurant. We had wonderfully delicious pizza (thin crust, of course), and then had gelato. I was surprised at how cheap the gelato was; I got 3 scoops on a cone for only Y252.
After that, we hopped on a big ol’ ferry and headed to Naoshima. We landed at the port and had to take another bus to the beach, but it was quite pretty. Most people wanted to spend the night there, but I had planned on coming home at the end of the day, so I didn’t pack any extra clothes. I just planned to wade around in the water, but then Lauren tackled me and tossed me in the water. I really didn’t fight much, because the water felt great! That was like the warmest water I’ve ever swam in, not to mention the first time I’ve ever swam in ocean water. I got a mouthful of salt water, which reminded me why it’s better to stay in Ontario and swim in lakes. I called the other girls to jump in because the water was SO warm. They got as far as their knees before they were shaking, and they decided never again to trust another Canadian when they say the water is SO warm. We all horsed around the beach all afternoon, then hit squeeeezed into the bus again and back to the ferry. We ate dinner at a ramen place in Tamano, and then everyone was going to stay the night there at Lauren and Barbie’s. They had wanted to stay on Naoshima, but there weren’t any vacancies left since it’s O-Bon festival time. Marshall and I decided to make the long trek home. When we got to Uno station, the train was waiting, so we ran for it, but ended up in a fenced-in parking lot. We decided to jump some fences in order to save time, and somehow we ended up inside the turnstiles! We figured we’d just pay the fare adjustment later, but it was kind of funny. Meanwhile, the train sat there for another 20 minutes before leaving the station, so we really could’ve found a normal way into the station.
At the end of the day, it was a nice day-trip to the beach. First time I’ve ever actually swam in an ocean, but I did wade in the Pacific in Vancouver, and the North Sea in Newcastle, but it’s much too cold to swim! It was a blast just chilling and playing in the sand and surf!
