Daily life differs between Japan and the United States. Or maybe it’s just that life is different after almost 15 years.

Content Note: non-graphic discussion of sex

Transcript

K: So, lately I’ve been thinking about the difference in my day to day routine and daily life here in Japan versus in the United States, and the thing that really pops out to me is consistency. I feel like my life is way more inconsistent in Japan than it was in the United States. What’s the biggest difference for you, do you think, for daily life?

C: I think it’s almost the opposite. I feel like I don’t have to be consistent here in Japan because Japan itself is consistent. 

K: (laughs) I think – see, I think the opposite, but go ahead.

C: So, like the… I take public transport; you don’t take it often: we’ve talked about that. So, I can count on, unless there’s some extraordinary event, it’s going to run on time. So, I can consistently leave at the same time and get to a place at the same time if I want to go someplace. Whereas in the U.S., it might take ten minutes, it might take an hour depending on traffic. 

K: But how often did you go out in the U.S.? Did you leave the house?

C: I left the house more than I leave the house here in Japan because I had school… and Rasta had school, and I was often the one who took him to school or dropped him off before… we tried to curtail my driving. And, so, I went out quite a lot, actually. I did a lot of shopping.

K: Yeah.

C: It was a time when there was not as much online shopping, so I don’t know if I would still go out as much just by virtue of living in the U.S. or if it’s like it was before Amazon.

K: No, there was Amazon.

C: But Amazon was just books and things. Amazon hadn’t become the behemoth that it is now.

K: The thing that we mostly shopped for was food and books.

C: Yeah, but we did not shop for food from Amazon when we were living in the U.S. They hadn’t moved into food, yet.

K: Yeah.

C: So, yeah. Online. Here, it’s food and books, but I can get groceries delivered. That’s a whole other thing because they will just substitute if they don’t have…

K: Yeah, like if we order parmesan cheese, they will send us parmesan cheese dressing if they are out of powdered parmesan cheese. 

C: Yeah. Which, salad dressing and cheese, hey; completely the same thing. 

K: But not at all. (laughs)

C: Just like if I order my favorite kind of ramen noodles and they don’t have it, they will send me like cyanide flavored ramen noodles because, what, it’s all the same. Who cares that it’s not edible?

K: Yeah. (laughs) 

C: So, when I order from them

K: So, then how are you getting consistency for Japan? That Japan is consistent. I feel like it’s consistently inconsistent.

C: They are consistently wrong with the orders, and I think there’s probably a button somewhere that says, “don’t make any substitutions”, and I just don’t know to push it.

K: Mhm.

C: Probably hidden somewhere behind a popup or something. I don’t know. But I feel like… I can count on Japan to be itself. And sometimes that’s good, and sometimes that’s not good.

K: Yea.

C: Like, if I go to the bank, I know that if I have a single stray mark on a form at the bank, they will tell me, “just redo it.” There’s never going to be a teller who’s like, “eh, no big deal.” 

K: Yeah.

C: They’re going to be like, “no, you’re going to need to redo the form. I know it’s 40 lines long, and the only thing that you did is your 1 was a little wobbly, but that 1 is really wobbly, and we can’t accept a defective form.”

K: Yeah.

C: So, I find that the saying of “the customer is always right” or “the customer is god”&