{"id":29495,"date":"2018-03-21T16:00:44","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/?p=29495"},"modified":"2025-01-06T16:20:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T07:20:02","slug":"changing-habits-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/en\/blog\/changing-habits-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing Habits in Japan: Lessons in Food and Mindfulness"},"content":{"rendered":"

I bow on the phone now. I\u2019m not the only one.\u2014And I never feel silly about it, because everyone around me here does the same thing. It\u2019s this slight chin dip that comes with every \u201cun<\/em>\u201d or \u201chai<\/em>,\u201d a simple confirmation of what the other has said. It\u2019s one of the habits I\u2019ve picked up in my five years here\u2014habits that range from small to genuinely life changing. I think it\u2019s worth noting that I spent four years on a small rural island, and now live in a small rural town in northeast Hokkaido.<\/p>\n

My life here has always been in the countryside (\u7530\u820e inaka<\/em>), so it may differ from somebody in Tokyo; but it\u2019s Japan, and it has instilled in me some habits that have forever changed me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/h2>\n

The munchies<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Back home in California, food selection is endless. Authentic insert-ethnicity-food from an auntie running a small shop around the corner is accessible with a couple taps in Google or Yelp. Craft beers, fusion food, and fast food are always a short drive away. When I moved to Tanegashima, it all changed. There are zero fast food places in Tanegashima. No gastro-pubs, no new places opening, no exotic foods.<\/p>\n

Tanegashima locally sources nearly all of its food. This means everything is seasonal and meant my first change of habit in Japan. When certain fish or vegetables are in season, they\u2019re cheaper and more delicious at the market<\/a>. Markets close around 7 or 8 pm, so I did my shopping after work. No more late night runs, no more stopping by to grab a burger or order a pizza for delivery. It was either home, or the local izakaya<\/em>. And I liked it. I grew closer to my food.<\/p>\n

When I worked in schools as an assistant language teacher (ALT), I sat down and had lunch with the kids every day. Every day somebody would stand up and announce the ingredients of the day\u2019s lunch, as well as where each ingredient was grown and sourced.<\/p>\n

I think seeing all of this has changed the way I look at food. It was a lot easier before to pick something or grab it off the shelf without thinking about additives or time, but nowadays, I think more about what I eat. It\u2019s a mix of everything: well-being, convenience, morals; but doing so has made me a lot happier about what I\u2019m putting in my body, and it\u2019s definitely reflected in my health.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/h2>\n

Changing habits in Japan: The unexpected<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I\u2019m from the US, and as such, had some learning pains when getting used to driving on the left side of the road with a right-hand drive<\/a> vehicle. Driving on the right side in a left-hand drive vehicle was a habit instilled in me since I got my hands behind the wheel next to a driving instructor back home. It\u2019s fine now, but on occasion when my mind has wandered and I\u2019ve been making a turn, I\u2019ve caught myself pulling into the right lane and jerking back into the left. Woops!<\/p>\n

I can successfully squat on a squat toilet without my knees feeling like they\u2019re going to explode! That one took some training.<\/p>\n

Back home I always washed and dried my laundry in machines, but here I\u2019ve never had a dryer. Everything is washed in cold water (I\u2019ve never had a hot water pump running into my machine) and then hung outside to dry. This was a huge problem on the island, as the June rainy season means everything has to stay inside in what is already usually 100% humid weather. The last time I came home to visit my parents, my mom asked me why I felt the need to hang everything up when the dryer was right next to the washer. It\u2019s definitely made my clothes last longer!<\/p>\n

My recycling is on point! Plastics, glass bottles depending on the color, newspapers tied up neatly separated from cardboard, aluminum cans, steel cans, you name it! It goes in different specified bags at home and recycled on set days.<\/p>\n

Lifestyle<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I think I\u2019ve become a little shyer than how I was before I came here. In my opinion, American culture can be more open and more boisterous. It caught me off guard after coming back to the States when I stood in a grocery line and had the person in front of me turn around for small talk. I never get that too much here and almost forgot it wasn\u2019t an odd thing. It\u2019s not that Japanese people are cold, I think there\u2019s a lot more thinking about others\u2014sometimes thinking too much\u2014and thus not wanting to bother others. On that note, it\u2019s become a knee-jerk reaction to pour everyone\u2019s drinks before mine.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s shopkeepers always greet guests, and so when I walk into a store back in the US and don\u2019t hear anything, I\u2019m almost a bit taken aback. This is no one\u2019s fault. No one\u2019s being mean. It\u2019s just a difference in culture, and I\u2019ve gotten used to it over here. So much that I\u2019ve started having dreams in Japanese. Now that has been a trippy experience.
I\u2019m permanently spoiled with such convenient access to vending machines. My mind can\u2019t comprehend why there isn\u2019t one around every corner when I\u2019m thirsty back home and looking for instant gratification.<\/p>\n

Changing habits in Japan is inevitable. Some are good, some entertaining, and some unsettling. If there\u2019s one thing though that I\u2019ll put my foot down for, it\u2019s that I refuse to slurp my noodles<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I bow on the phone now. I\u2019m not the only one.\u2014And I never feel silly about it, because everyone around me here does the same thing. It\u2019s this slight chin dip that comes with every \u201cun\u201d or \u201chai,\u201d a simple confirmation of what the other has said. It\u2019s one of the habits I\u2019ve picked up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":29515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[401],"tags":[663,690,684],"class_list":["post-29495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-japan","tag-experience","tag-living-abroad","tag-moving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29495"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156296,"href":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29495\/revisions\/156296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogonihon.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}