It was the night of my Japanese girlfriend’s birthday party. While I sat in my apartment awaiting her arrival, I scanned the rooms for anything that I might have failed to clean, prepare, or hide in the closet. I had labored long and hard doing a variety of things to get ready for the private engagement. I had heard that many Japanese men don’t know how to cook, clean, or do anything else except rely on the kindness and self-sacrifice of their mothers and girlfriends. So I had decided to show my girlfriend that we American guys know how to do more than just play football, speak loudly, and belch the alphabet.

My girlfriend’s presents sat neatly piled in order – least expensive to “guaranteed passion generator” price. The spaghetti sauce sat warm in its pan, slowly steaming in anticipation of being consumed. Two candles, that I had purchased from a 100 yen store earlier that morning, flickered gently on the table casting an orange glow on the walls (or was it a white glow on dirty walls?)

I felt that everything was perfect: the presents, the food, the atmosphere, and even the cute little bouquet of flowers that sat between the candles on the table. I felt that I really lucked out with the latter. I remembered going into the flower shop and looking at all of the expensive bouquets and flower arrangements and thinking to myself “There’s no way I can afford any of these. And one or two flowers in a vase just won’t do.” But then a section of “mini-bouquets” caught my eye. They were the perfect size and the perfect price! I snatched one up immediately and went to the counter to pay.

I placed the bouquet on the counter and waited patiently for the cashier to finish ringing me up. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see two of the sales clerks looking at me. Their eyes seemed to project a mixture of confusion with a dash of apprehension thrown in. I was unsure how to take this: was I the first real foreigner that they had ever seen or was it something else entirely? Since I’m one of only a small hand-full of foreigners in my town, I decided that it was the former and dismissed it. The sales clerk handed me my change and I strode confidently out the door with my purchase.

The door bell rang, snapping me out of my flashback.

“She’s here!” I thought as I made my way to the door hiding my anticipation behind a cool and calm exterior. I opened the door and we kissed with that still unperfected and slightly awkward new-couple kiss. I led her into the main room and watched as her face exploded with sheer joy. She clasped her hands together in front of her as her eyes welled up. “Thank you!” she exclaimed hugging me tightly. She released her grip around me and looked at everything once again: the food, the presents, the candles, the presents again (what do you expect?) and finally her eyes landed on the bouquet of flowers.

That’s when she gasped in horror.

Gone were all the traces of joy and happiness that radiated from her just a second earlier. Her eyes took on the appearance of someone who was about to cry from sadness and not from joy. She covered her mouth with one hand and backed out of the room finally turning away from the sight.

“What’s wrong?” I asked using the best Japanese accent I could fake. She turned to me with tears in her eyes and said something in Japanese that I didn’t understand. “What?” I asked again, now even more frightened that I had committed some irreversible insult. She riffled through her bag and pulled out her Japanese/English dictionary. After a few seconds of flipping through its pages, she turned the book towards me and pointed to one of the entries.

Then it was my turn to gasp in horror.

Remember that great bouquet of flowers that I was so proud of? Well, it turns out that they serve a special purpose. They are the bouquets that are specially made to fit into the vases that adorn the tops of the gravestones in Japan.

Happy birthday, sweetie.

(Reprinted with permission from David J. Radtke)

About two weeks into my new teaching job in Japan, my supervisor – a soft-spoken Japanese man of roughly 50 years old – said the following to me, “David, I know that you have been very busy lately – adjusting to your new life in Japan, Japanese food, and your new job. But some of the teachers are planning on having a little party tomorrow night. If it’s not too much trouble, do you think you could stop by for a few moments? I understand if you are too busy or too tired to come.” I replied with, “I think I can make it for a few minutes. But I’ll see how I feel tomorrow night.” Looking quite pleased with my response, my supervisor settled back into his chair, took a long sip of his green tea, and resumed his monotonous daily tasks.

On the night of the party I wasn’t feeling overly tired but decided not to go nonetheless. I really wasn’t in the mood for having my coworkers stare at me with that “look what we got the foreigner to eat” gleem in their eyes. I opted instead for the more Western route – hanging out at the local Mc Donald’s with my English speaking friends.

The next day when I went into work, my supervisor, as well as most of my coworkers, were unmistakably upset abut something. “What’s up?” I asked my supervisor, “Did something bad happen?” He looked at me with the normal calm and cool expression of a Japanese office worker, but with eyes that smoldered with anger. He said, “Weren’t you feeling well last night? You seemed quite healthy during the day.” “I was feeling ok” I replied, “I just decided that I needed some time alone” (an obvious lie.) “Well, everyone at the party was expecting you to come. We brought gifts, ordered expensive food, and even made this banner for you.” He pulled out a large scroll of paper and proceeded to unroll it. The message written on the paper made my mouth gape and my heart sink. It said: Welcome to Japan, David. Good Luck! My supervisor continued, “All the teachers and the school staff members showed up to welcome you to Japan and our school. Don’t you have welcome parties in America, too?”

The moral of the story:

In polite company, Japanese people avoid being direct with their requests. It is a part of the culture that is meant to help keep relations unruffled and flowing smoothly. Unfortunately for foreigners living in Japan, this kind of vague speech can be the cause of embarrassing situations or even nerve-rattling problems.

If I had been a Japanese person in the above situation, I would have quickly picked up on the vague clues and gone to the party. But being a child of Western culture, the soft-spoken request from my supervisor gave me the impression that it was a request that didn’t necessarily need to be acted upon.

Ahh… live and learn I always say. I’m just afraid what will happen when I return to America.

Submitted by: D. Hintz – Akita City, Akita

In the early 70’s I was living in Akita with a several other gaijins. Akita is known as the bijin (hotties) capital of Japan, though they must have all been living on the other side of town when I lived there. We were on a very meager budget and ate cheaply.

We bought 10 kilo bags of bread heels (bread crumbs — pan no mimi), mugi (a wheat and oatmeal mush), and other assorted bulk items from a local farm supplier. Most Japanese will not eat such food feeling it is barely fit for their pigs and cattle.

During breakfast one morning, our supplier came by. He had just made a delivery the day before, so we were surprised to see him. He asked if everything was okay and we said, “Yes, thank you.” He then asked if we had eaten any of the margarine from the big tin he delivered the day before. We said, “Yes, in fact we were eating it just now in our mugi.” We put globs of it in our oatmeal to cream it up some because it was barely edible without some oil to let it slide down. That day’s mugi was particularly good. His face showed us that he was obviously concerned. He asked if he could trade the old tin with a brand new tin of butter. Now we were confused. We asked why, and he finally admitted that he had accidently delivered floor polish to us the day before in a tin that looked ever so much like the tin that butter comes in. Not being able to read kanji, we were none the wiser.

We went upstairs to get the floor polish, but before we returned it, we plopped a huge glob of it on a plate and used it to clean the floors after we finished our mugi breakfasts later that morning.

To this day, I don’t believe there is a significant chemical difference between Japanese margarine and Japanese floor wax–I know they taste the same!