Maneki Neko

Whenever my friends start a new business, I give them as a present a Maneki Neko.  This is a ceramic or wooden or  papier-mâché cat with its paw raised. There doesn't seem to be a clear explanation on what it means when the left paw is raised versus the right paw.  Mostly it seems though, the left paw raised will bring in customers to a business, that is the Maneki Neko that I give to my friends.  The right paw is just in general for good luck.  However, I have heard some people think it is the other way around.  Not sure when I learned about these cats.  They were always in Japanese stores I went to but I never really thought about it until I got older and then learned why they were in the stores.

Daruma

I don't remember when I learned about "Daruma" but I think it is an interesting concept.  When you first buy the Daruma, both eyes are blank.  The Daruma is very light weight and is made of papier-mâché and is hollow.  You make a wish and color in the "left eye" as you face the doll.  When the wish comes true, then you color in the other eye.  I have one little Daruma that I have colored in both eyes and a bigger one, still waiting for that wish to come true!  There are also Daruma festivals that are meant to celebrate good luck and they sell Daruma all over the place.  I think having the one eye colored in  is to remind you of the wish or goal.

OIOI

One of my favorite department stores in Japan has a big sign that looks like "OIOI".  I thought the name of the store was pronounced "Oh E, Oh E".  I mentioned that one day to a Japanese friend and she thought it was the funniest thing she had ever heard!  The store's name is Marui which means circle, so the "O" s are to represent the circles.  Well live and learn...

It Just Fits

One thing about Japan, I really do love is that many things just fit me.  When I rode on the trains the rings that hang down so you can hold on when the train moves around, are just the right height for me.  When I tried on jewelry, the rings and bracelets just fit.  I couldn't believe it.  I didn't need to re-size things.  The one thing that I really remember is that the shoes fit.  I have a really hard time finding shoes in the United States, especially sandals.  They just don't fit right.  Every shoe I tried on in Japan in my size fit.  It was just amazing.  Even now, I have dreams sometimes that I went to Japan and came back with tons of shoes.  Clothes, though, I seemed to be so big.  In the U.S. I can wear the smaller or medium sizes, there I needed to wear large.  Oh Well... guess you can't have everything!

OODS

I went to Japanese School every Saturday when I was in elementary school.  I can honestly say I felt it was a total injustice that I had to go to school on a SATURDAY.  However, I did have some memorable experiences.  I was sitting in class one Saturday and the teacher was teaching us some Kanji and new Japanese words.  He started talking about "oods" and then he wrote in Japanese what that was.  I turned to the girl sitting next to me, who was from Japan, and I said, "oods? what is that?".  She said, "you know oods".  I looked at the blackboard and saw in English, the teacher had written the letters "oods" on the board.  I was quite perplexed because everyone else seemed to understand what he meant.  Finally, the girl sitting in front of me moved her head slightly and I saw he had written, the word "woods" on the board. 

How to Use a Dressing Room in Japan

I went to a Japanese department store and saw some clothes I wanted to try on.  In the center of the clothing department was a little dressing room with a curtain that you pulled once you stepped on the platform.  There was a mirror in the room and looked just like a dressing room you would see in the United States.  Once I was in the room, I heard this commotion.  There was a woman yelling at me.  I wasn't sure what she was saying so I just poked my head out from behind the curtain to see what she wanted.  She seemed distressed.  I then saw her pointing to my feet and saying "kutsu, kutsu".  I then realized she wanted me to take off my shoes before entering the dressing room.  She had a very infuriated look on her face, so I was sure to say in English, "I am sorry, what is the problem?"  She was taken aback as she was so sure I was Japanese and just being rude.  I told her I was American.  She instantly became kinder and then pointed for me to take off my shoes.  I apologized, took off my shoes and thought, I better remember that!

Shinkansen - Be on TIME!

When my sister came to visit me when I was living in Japan, we decided to take a trip to Kyoto from Tokyo.  The quickest way to get there is by Shinkansen,  often referred to as the "bullet train" because it goes so fast.  It is a marvel to see how precise the Japanese are in ensuring their bullet trains leave exactly on time.  We got to the train station early because we knew that we needed to be exactly on time.  We grabbed some lunch and then had a little time to do some shopping.  If you have ever been in an underground train station in Japan, you will notice that everything starts looking the same after awhile.  Well, it was getting time to catch the train,  since there were no definite landmarks, I kind of got lost.  I finally remembered a store that was in the right direction we were to head and told my sister to RUN.  We were carrying our bags, since when you travel on the bullet trains there isn't very much space to store anything.  We RAN as fast as we could and jumped on the bullet train and just then, the doors closed.  I turned to my sister and happily said, "we made it".  Well, my sister was quite mad at me, her glasses were askew and her bag was wrapped awkwardly around her body.  That was her first experience riding on a Shinkansen.

Ikebana

Ikebana is the art of arranging flowers.  My mother enjoyed doing Ikebana on occasion and I would have to say she had a really good eye at doing that.  Her flower arrangements were clean and simple, not as ornate as some I have seen, so I preferred the style she did.  I attended an Ikebana class with her once just to see how it was done and thought I may want to take up Ikebana.  The Japanese teacher stood at the head of the class and instructed us on how to do the design.  The students then worked on their own arranagements and the teacher would walk by and help to point out how to make it look a little bit better.  She was like the "Tim Gunn" of flower arranging.  Well there I was, thinking I had done the right thing with the 3 levels of flowers, representing heaven, earth and man.  The teacher came by and said to me, "Beautiful, just beautiful," but as she was saying that she started re-arranging my flowers until it turned into a completely different arrangement then I had done.  I do admit it looked way better then what I had done but that day I decided, this was going to be my last Ikebana class.

Kinokuniya - Cool Book Store

Kinokuniya is a really cool Japanese book store.  Since I don't read Japanese well enough to read novels, the books aren't really why I go there.  They have the most fascinating stationary products.  Erasers shaped like sushi and little animals and the widest variety of pens I have ever seen.  They also carry beautiful Japanese paper and fun little toys.  I sometimes go there just to browse as they always have interesting items.

Translator

When my sister came to visit me in Japan, it was towards the end of my stay so I had picked up some Japanese, albeit, not a lot.  I thought I would be able to translate a little.  While we were out and about, I began to realize that what I was translating was not Japanese, but the English that was being spoken with Japanese accents.

The good news is that my sister was teaching English as a second language in the United States so was actually pretty good at understanding what people were saying.  Since she knew some Japanese the interspersed English and Japanese, didn't throw her too much.