Battling Through the Storm
Before any of you get worried, we aren’t having fights with any of the people here. This is a literal storm. As I write this, Japan is being hit by a Typhoon (the Pacific Ocean equivalent of a hurricane, for all you east coasters). This one isn’t bearing down directly on our location but is providing Hikari with a good amount of wind and rain, similar to what the north-eastern United States experiences with a gulf coast hurricane. Today was the only day this week that we really have enough free time to do some shopping (groceries and otherwise) and Theresa and I were determined to get it done. So we grabbed our raincoats and our umbrellas and headed out. In the end, other than having wet shorts and having to grab the umbrella with both hands, it wasn’t all that harrowing of an experience.
One of the things that we have been noticing as we are out and about is the Japanese dress. The Japanese are similar to most Asian countries in that people almost always wear pants when they are out in public. Some people (like those in SE Asia) do it for practical reasons to ward off sunburn and bugs, but the Japanese seem to do it simply out of a sense of propriety. You feel a little self conscious to be the funny looking American walking around town so oddly dressed. The more you learn about Japanese culture, the more you begin to understand that politeness and propriety are significant concepts and much that the way the Japanese behave is centered around those standards. More on that next time…