Back to Kansai Part 2 – Turning Japanese

In the end, two weeks is a really short time to spend anywhere and it was soon over. I was planning on writing something during the trip, but I didn’t have enough time to finish it before I returned. Therefore I am going to write this second part now that I have returned to Finland and I’ll try to briefly summarize the experiences I had in Japan during those two weeks.

During my trip I realized to my surprise how familiar Japan has become to me. Even if I was there only for one year, returning there felt much like returning home, as much of a cliché as it sounds. The airport proceedings were a routine and the whole transportation process from the airport to my girlfriends home felt like something I had done plenty of times, despite the fact that I hadn’t gone there from the airport and had to follow instructions to get to the right bus and train. This sense of familiarity struck me as odd, taking away the adventurousness of my trip. I also realized that I had made some progress with kanji, and I actually could read signs and place names with less effort than before. That alone made me understand how far I have actually got in my studies of both the language and the culture.

Enjoying the hospitality

I spent the two weeks mostly in my girlfriends home as a guest of the family. I had spent the last weekend of my previous stay there, and the family was really happy to see me again and I was happy to see them as well. Staying for two weeks on someone else’s household always bothers me a bit since I feel like I am being too much of a trouble to everyone. I do appreciate having someone make me food and do my laundry, and I am forever grateful for the hospitality I received during my stay. I merely hope that my stay didn’t disturb them or otherwise negatively affect their everyday life.

That being said, I noticed that despite all the cultural knowledge I have gained through my studies and previous stay in Japan, I ended up in a few situations where my foreign habits or mere thoughtlessness could have been considered rude. One of these situations was when my girlfriend pointed out that I had left my Miso-soup unfinished after the meal. She had said that if I’m full I don’t have to eat everything, so I had thought that it would be fine to leave it and thank for the meal, but I was supposed to apologize to her mother for not finishing my Miso. On hindsight, it is obvious that I should have done that since I would have done so in Finland as well, but being in a foreign place and conversing in a foreign language bring their own issues with them. I haven’t felt as Gaijin in a really long time.

We also visited my girlfriends grandmother in Hiroshima, who had been kind enough to host our stay there last time and welcomed us there again. Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to spare, so we ended up going there just for the weekend. It was really nice to see the grandmother again, and since we stayed there only for the weekend, I didn’t feel as much of a nuisance as I otherwise would have had. She did treat us nicely though  and took us to a really expensive crab-restaurant that she had wanted to take us to the last time I was visiting Hiroshima. While I do understand that she wanted to show me, a foreigner, some traditional Japanese foods, I felt a bit bad about making someone else pay for all of it. Then again, it is a common courtesy and an act of hospitality, so I guess I shouldn’t worry about it too much.

Entertainment and souvenirs

Since we didn’t do much sightseeing, which I didn’t actually mind at all, we spend more time back home. We did go to the Den Den Town shopping area in Nipponbashi, Osaka. The place is known as the Osaka version of Akihabara, and the comparison was quite understandable. I found some retro games for a friend of mine and did some other shopping as well. We even went to a Maid Cafe, which was the first time for me. It was a nice experience, and although I strongly dislike the moe-attitude I enjoyed the fact that we were kept company and had someone to talk with us during our stay there.

The sign of the Maid Cafe we visited.

Before I had left Finland, a lot of my friends had requested some Japanese snacks or other things that I should bring back with me when I return. I also wanted to buy some snacks and foods for both me and my family as well, so I started to think about what I need to buy well in advance. This was also one of the reasons why I had taken a big suitcase with me but it was only half-full when I left Finland. When I came back, it was almost as full as one can pack a suitcase and still get it on-board without paying extra. Filled with souvenirs, the suitcase weighted 22 kilograms and was certainly as troublesome to move around as one might expect.

This is all the food and snacks that I brought with me from Japan.

Japan was as fun as always, and being able to spend my time in a Japanese family I felt less like a foreigner, despite my shortcomings and silly mistakes. I certainly hope that next time I will have learnt my ways and not embarrass either myself or the people accommodating me. One step at a time.