Today, Mrs. Potato Head is having trouble remember ALL the rules / customs of the house.

Okay, so I didn't update yesterday because I had a huge mental break down.. bad enough to buy skype credit, call my mother, and proceed to spend over an hour talking to her on the computer. I've had some health problems lately, besides my cold (let's just say "digestive" problems), and I was freaking out for a few reasons:

1) The clinic I went to ONLY SPOKE JAPANESE. I mean, this is one of those "Duh, Lynne" moments, but honestly.. it was BAD. In broken katakana, I could kind of understand them, but it got so bad that I broke down in front of the doctor, probably with the most hilarious (but not hilarious at the time) thing I've ever said involving Japanese:

"Watashi no nihongo wa chou heta da kara  (Because my Japanese is so bad), I can't understand a damn thing you're saying"

I feel like I should make t-shirts of that.. I don't know if it would fit on a t-shirt, though.

Anyway, so eventually I calmed down, and the receptionist doctor was SO NICE, she actually TOOK me to the pharmacy and walked me back... I bowed like, a million times and thanked her so much for taking care of me. I felt really bad for freaking out on her earlier...

2) Communication with my family. My family's English is probably worse than my Japanese, and that says a LOT. They are SUPER nice people, and they try SUPER hard, so I feel SUPER guilty. But we can barely talk sometimes. last night I just cried in front of my host mom cause I was trying to tell her I was having "digestion problems" and neither of us could understand one another. Since then, it's gotten a tiny, TINY bit better. However, I am so glad to be getting my phone tomorrow, so I can get a jisho app like, NOW.

Today has been a lot better. I actually got to do laundry (yayyy), but with that, there is a LOT of rules / customs in Japan / my family, which I feel the need to write down, mostly so I remember them. They are in order by time of day.


1) First thing in the morning: open the curtains and tie them back
2) Shut off the air conditioner once I leave the room
3) Unhatch the bathroom door and.. use
4) Wash hands in sink on top of toliet and dry (no.. soap?)
5) Hatch door back on hook so it stays open
6) Start Breakfast with "Itadakimasu"
7) Wipe hands with wet towel
8) Spoon jelly with separate spoon, then spread on bread with knife
9) Use the tall, skinny strawberry glass with Engrish on it, the other one is my host sister's
10) Say "gochisosama" when done eating
11) Stack dishes and set either on counter or on ledge
12) When taking a shower, put down bath mat, then put my own SMALLER towel to serve as another bath mat
13) DON'T WASTE WATER
14) hang up everything in the exact place when done
15) Keep bedroom door closed when air conditionning is one
16) When leaving, take off slippers, and put in shoe closet.
17) Step into my outside shoes
18) Say "ittekimasu!"
19) When I come back, say "Tadaima!"
20) take off shoes without stepping into genkan in bare feet

21) Put slippers back on (or bare feet if you are made of a potato)

22)Turn shoes so that you when you're leaving, you're ready to go

23) Do all the same stuff at breakfast, except at dinner
24) CLOSE CURTAINS WHEN DARK
25) (insert a bunch of stuff after sorting garbage and such which I'll probably write about later)
26) Collaspe from trying to remember all this stuff



 
To be fair, a lot of this are basic things... it just feels like if I don't do any of them, I'm a terrible, terrible guest.

Things are looking up a little. My mom brought up a very good point: "You went to Japan with all these expectations, and they're turning out a LOT different than you expected."

Aka, Welcome to the wonderful world of culture shock.