Mottainai

もったいない (mottainai) is a regret felt toward waste, a concept deeply rooted in Japanese culture. It applies to everything in life: energy, food, water, garbage... It's the reason why most Japanese homes have small space heaters and A/Cs rather than central heating/cooling to save energy. It's why Japanese cars are tiny and fuel-efficient (lots of Priuses!). It's why garbage is sorted into I-don't-know-how-many types, all collected on different days. To reduce waste.

Before coming here, I knew that Japanese people were, generally, more eco-friendly than their Western counterparts. At one of my orientations (gosh, I don't know which one. They all blur together.) I learned the name. I didn't really understand how it would feel, though, until coming to live with my host family.

もったいない is very important to my host family. They attempt to waste nothing. When meals are made, they either eat every scrap or save what they can for breakfast or lunch the next day. Even a single bite's worth of potato salad is saved, appearing on the side for dinner. My lunches are always made from pieces of previous meals. My host mother saves all the plastic bags, from grocery-store bags to used Ziploc baggies (after being washed out, of course), in a drawer in the kitchen. The family is very particular about which trash goes in which bin, but I have yet to figure out exactly what goes where.

I love the idea of waste-reduction, of attempting to minimize what we take from the Earth and what we put into it. I've always tried to live consciously of my waste, to recycle what I can, and to not use anything excessively.

But at some point it gets exhausting.

I worry what they think of me, if I'm being too wasteful for their standards. I went out with my host sister, Sakura, and her friend and we ate curry and rice. We were given huge dishes, and I was obviously slowing way down with mine about three quarters of the way through. I had stopped for a bit when Sakura said, "If you can't finish, Hinano will eat the rest of yours." At first I was a little bewildered and thought, "Okay, I'll gladly let her finish it..." It wasn't until later that I realized that that's it; that's もったいない. I'm left thinking, "Oh, crap... should I have actually eaten the rest?"

I think もったいない is also why my host family has labeled me as a 少食家 ("shoushokuka", a light eater) and gives me smaller amounts to eat than the rest of the family (except my host mother, who eats nearly nothing), so no food is wasted. This was established on my first night here.

They put so much effort into it, even scraping and attempting to eat all the sugar that had fallen off a donut onto a plate.

Like I said, I have yet to figure out the trash bins. Just throwing something away becomes a big worry for me because I don't want to put it in the wrong place, and I'm left standing in the kitchen unsure of myself for a good while before making a decision.

I don't know if my family is extreme or normal by Japanese standards, having no other family to which to compare them. But I do understand that the sentiment at least is common to most households here.

It's both beautiful and draining.

The First Few Days (in brief)

When we arrived in Tokyo, we were all already sick of orientations. The day and a part we had spent in Los Angeles prior to our departure was enough. But, alas, we faced three more days' worth. Our first night was spent in a pretty nice hotel with everyone who arrived the same day as us (I think that's what is was... there were a ton of different countries...). We were then split into three groups according to where we'd be living and sent to three different locations for orientation.

Our (those of us placed around [relatively] Tokyo or in Hokkaido) orientation was at the National Olympic Youth Center, which was some kind of multipurpose superfacility or hostel or something. There were a ton of dorm-like rooms in different buildings, different meeting rooms, a cafeteria, classrooms.... and a variety of groups were there, from high school sports teams to businesspeople to a group of African children... It felt kind of like a university campus, but not? I don't know; none of us were really sure what the place was. I do know the people who used it were the ones who cleaned it.

At this orientation we were separated into smaller groups by country and we had two Japanese AFS returnee volunteers to each group. Those volunteers would guide us around to our different sessions of being told the same information repeatedly and then eating. We all got pretty comfortable with each other, so leaving was like a real goodbye with hugs and all that.

For the two nights we were there, we stayed in tiny dorm-like rooms, one person per room, several dorms to a hallway and common lounge. We bathed at night in the facility's sentou, which is a public bath.

Pretty much our whole group was paralyzed when we were told that we'd be in a public bath. I didn't make a big deal of it, but another girl and I kind of got used to the idea by poking fun (in an entirely light manner) at one girl who was adamant about finding a way around the whole situation. Come to the actual moment, I didn't get too worked up. I mean, obviously I didn't want to go naked in front of a room of other people, but I also knew that it couldn't be that bad if it was such a deep part of Japanese culture and they're all like, "whatever" about it.

Walking into the changing room, there was the initial shock of "butt!", but after that I calmed down and it felt all remarkably normal. The actual sentou was very dark and steamy, so that helped, too. We all washed ourselves at the shower stations and then sat in the giant bath, then walked back to our dorms slightly refreshed and feeling proud of ourselves.

Saturday morning we dispersed to go to our host families. There are five of us in the Obihiro area, so we flew together. We left from a Tokyo airport that wasn't an international airport, so everything was slightly less English-friendly. Kind of scary, but things were still fairly clear and we made it to the tiny Obihiro airport safely.

We were met by our host families before we all went into another meeting, which was given in Japanese with a white guy who lives in the area (from the US; he's the guy who will be teaching our Japanese lessons) translating for us students. Then we dispersed and went to our homes.

I'm pretty comfortable here. It's all kind of awkward, with me not knowing what to do and them not quite sure how to show me everything, but I'm sure it'll smooth out. Sakura's really quite good at English, so she tells me things. I worry, though, that it's becoming a crutch. I need to start speaking Japanese, but I still don't feel forced to. (I can't get much more forced, though... bahh....)

They seem like a quite relaxed family. It hasn't been too strange for me. It almost feels like they could be relatives, like an aunt, uncle, and cousin. A different family with different habits and things, but nothing incredibly strange yet.

My host mother cooks three full meals a day. And I mean full. Always a salad, a main dish, usually something traditional Japanese on the side, and fruit for dessert. I'm always so full. I'm going to get so fat... ahhh... 

Yesterday we went to the school to watch a basketball game (Sakura's a manager for the boys' team). I don't know if it was any sort of official game or a scrimmage. Ohtani (our school) was demolished by the other team, but the whole game was kind of sloppy. Lots of missed baskets and strange passes, and very few fouls were called. It was entirely student-run, though, from what I could gather.

After that we went shopping for a few things for me at a huge department store that was cramped, filled with signs, and nonsensical divisions between sections. Not even divisions, really, it was like a Walmart with two stories and when you walk across the aisle from appliances to home goods you're actually stepping into another store (? I think?). Like a mall without extra space or walls.

We also went to a DVD rental store. Lots of stuff.

Yesterday we went to some kind of Japanese-exclusive race where they race clydesdales pulling a plow-like contraption over what I think was gravel. I think Obihiro is known for it. Sakura's grandfather (I assume my host mother's father because we met her brother there) breeds horses for it. I didn't know whether to feel excited or horrible for the horses. It seemed excruciatingly hard to do.

Gateway Orientation

In the first step of this long adventure, I flew out today to Los Angeles to attend my gateway orientation before I leave to Japan tomorrow.

I've been able to meet all the other students going to Japan from America, all of whom are very energetic and enthusiastic. We'll fly together tomorrow to Tokyo.

The orientation was very low-key, basic, "this is what to expect" information. A long lecture that put most of us very close to sleep.

It's late, though, and I've got a big day tomorrow. A more inclusive post can be expected soon.

Thanks for all your support!

日本、今行くよ!