following upon my rant about japanese tv last night, i thought i'd say a few things about cleanliness, a subject that seems to come up everyday in my new life here:
*first of all, I hate the concept of the genkan; i'm not going to rock the boat about it in my house but i can't deny it bugs me, no matter how much of a gaijin that makes me sound like. and it's not like i want to wear my shoes in the house, 99.9% of the time i don't, but for that .1% time that I want to, I should be able to and not have to worry about it. what a PITA everytime i'm about to leave the house and realize I've forgotten my shades or an umbrella or the keys, if these things aren't in easy reach on the shoe-cabinet shelf, i gotta untie the laces etc....and anyway the genkan is filthy, and after removing my shoes i'm standing in that filth before I step up into the house, so what's the point? and am I the only one who gets peeved to find his/her shoes turned around facing out or arranged in some different manner? don't touch my shoes! the other thing is that no one ever seems to think it's okay to just say "fuck it" once in a while and break the rules, the house could be burning to the ground with a child trapped inside and they'll still take off their shoes before running inside to save the kid!
*i don't mind (too much) taking a bath in the same water that the other 3 members of my household have already used, i realize water here is expensive and it would be mendokusai to have to refill the tub everytime. However, and sorry to be a bit gross here, but am I the only one who wonders if the others are washing their butt cracks and other nether regions as assiduously as I am during the pre-bath shower? and another thing...
*wtf is up with saving this bath water overnight, and then using it via a pump to wash clothes with the next day, in a washer by the way that already has water saved in it from the LAST time the clothes were washed, two days prior. I haven't seen the bill but no water can be THAT expensive to necessitate these extreme conservation measures, can it? is my house an exception or is this normal here?
*naturally we don't have a drier and i'm not desperate to buy one, i don't miss home that much and besides where the fuck would we put it. BUT, don't try to tell me that hanging the clothes outside is somehow better for them. it may be better for the environment, I'll grant that, but considering the pollution in this place is it really doing the clothes any good to be hanging out there?
*speaking of hanging outside, this whole hang out the futon and blankets thing bothers me as well, can you picture some american housewife dragging the king mattress out onto the patio to air out? supposedly according to my nurse mother in law who should know these things our bodies perspire a glassful of water every night. okay fine, i can see why airing out might be a good idea....
*HOWEVER, if this is true, why don't they see that perhaps they should take their shower/bath in the morning instead of at night, i don't know but if i'm oozing a glassful of sweat each night I'll be damned if I'm not going to clean myself in the morning.
*speaking of baths, my in-laws think it's weird that I'll put on clean socks after my bath and wear them to bed, they think it's kitanai. huh? if the socks are kitanai, why the fuck are we so concerned about the shoes then? i don't get it.
*this isn't concerned with cleaning, per se, but it relates to that conservation thing: do all japanese obsessively unplug their appliances after using them or is it just my family? it drives me bananas that everytime i want to use the coffee maker or the microwave or the rice cooker I've gotta search for the plug dangling somewhere. Again I know this stuff ain't cheap but how much current can pass through the outlet when the device is turned off?
comments anyone, am I off-base here?