How to deal with Japanese naysayers?

[Greji]

Driving in Japan is hard enough without some little Munchkin acting incredulous because I'm not ready to turn my life over to his decisions.

And the little asshole is not the one who is going to take an Izuzu dump truck broadside at about 60 klicks, based on his directions.... yet he still doesn't have a clue...

[james]

That kind of stuff sends me into giggling fits. It always amazes me how some people think that translating only the simplest words in a long rambling sentence will somehow make the whole mess more understandable. If I don't understand any of the context of what you're saying, having you translate half of the really simple nouns for me isn't going to help much...

exactly, except rather than it throwing me into giggling fits, i find it excessively obnoxious and not at all amusing. if i've already demonstrated that i'm fluent or reasonably conversant, don't fucking insult my intelligence or impede real communication by feeling you have to throw in a barrage of english bastardizations like "リットルウォーター" (she apparently meant "pond") to get your point across.

was in yonago last weekend and needed to ask for directions. this person's insistence on doing this was becoming such an impdiment to communication that i right out told her that i don't speak english. things went much more smoothly after that.

[james]

on the subject of naysaying, it's a regular occurance in my household, with my wife more often than not being the naysayer. every once in awhile though, i turn something on its head..

the other day i came home to find poultry sitting on the counter.

me: "why is there chicken on the counter?"

her: (exasperated) "it's defrosting"

me: "uhh.. you shouldn't thaw poultry at room temperature.. ever.. even if 'room temperature' in this house happens to be 9c at this time of year."

wife: "this is japan, we do that"

me: "this is my family, we don't.. unless of course you really enjoy salmonella poisoning"

wife: ". . ."

me: "diarrhea, fever, vomiting, abdominal cramps.. thaw it in the fridge and if you need it to thaw faster run it under some cold water"

wife: "ok"

[ttjereth]

[ttjereth]

on the subject of naysaying, it's a regular occurance in my household, with my wife more often than not being the naysayer. every once in awhile though, i turn something on its head..

the other day i came home to find poultry sitting on the counter.

me: "why is there chicken on the counter?"

her: (exasperated) "it's defrosting"

me: "uhh.. you shouldn't thaw poultry at room temperature.. ever.. even if 'room temperature' in this house happens to be 9c at this time of year."

wife: "this is japan, we do that"

me: "this is my family, we don't.. unless of course you really enjoy salmonella poisoning"

wife: ". . ."

me: "diarrhea, fever, vomiting, abdominal cramps.. thaw it in the fridge and if you need it to thaw faster run it under some cold water"

wife: "ok"

Dude, my wife and kitchen hygeine seriously don't get along. Not just thawing chicken, but frigging cooking things thoroughly, leaving food out for DAYS (a pot of soup made in this house sits in the pan for 4 days, no joke). Veggies and other stuff going to rot in the fridge, it's horrible...

[omae mona]

Dude, my wife and kitchen hygeine seriously don't get along. Not just thawing chicken, but frigging cooking things thoroughly, leaving food out for DAYS (a pot of soup made in this house sits in the pan for 4 days, no joke). Veggies and other stuff going to rot in the fridge, it's horrible...

Your wife actually puts the veggies in the fridge? You are lucky!

I throw out about half the food we purchase to prevent my wife from poisoning herself. I am not worried about the kids, because my wife knows I will strangle her if she ever tries to make anybody besides herself eat it. Apparently this state of affairs is all better for her than going to the trouble of transferring the pot or opened items to the huge refrigerator 2 feet away.

Anybody have statistics on home food poisoning incidents in Japan versus other countries?

[ttjereth]

Your wife actually puts the veggies in the fridge? You are lucky!

I throw out about half the food we purchase to prevent my wife from poisoning herself. I am not worried about the kids, because my wife knows I will strangle her if she ever tries to make anybody besides herself eat it. Apparently this state of affairs is all better for her than going to the trouble of transferring the pot or opened items to the huge refrigerator 2 feet away.

Anybody have statistics on home food poisoning incidents in Japan versus other countries?

Dude, as we type here, there is a tray of... something, with BLACK POTATOES sitting on my kitchen table. It's been there for three days, but my wife swears she's going to eat it. I stopped throwing all this stuff away myself in the vague hope that her finally getting around to it and having to clean out the foul smelling dishes on her own would break her of the habit, but no such luck thus far...

She puts stuff in the fridge (some stuff anyway, "X belongs in the fridge, X doesn't belong in the fridge" is standby arguement number 14 at my place), then she puts the newer stuff in there on top of the older stuff. When she uses it, she uses the newer stuff first, and things just continue that way until we end up with a bag of mush at the bottom of the vegetable drawer that used to be some sort of fruit or veggie...

[Adhesive]

I think it is common among Japanese to assume that things that can be reheated to a boil do not need to be refrigerated (stews, curries, etc.). I don't know if that's true or not but it grosses me out. Fortunately, my wife has adopted my habit of putting things back into the fridge immediately after serving.

Another Kitchen hygene antidote is putting things in the kitchen sink, which I've had to explain to my wife a million times is less sanitary than a toilet seat. She used to defrost chickens by just laying them in the bottom of the sink, and then go on to lay a strainer full of vegetable down in the same place after a simple rinsing.

To be honest, I don't really know if these things are actually harmful to Japanese who may have built up immunity to certain things...but I do know that I don't have such tolerance and hate seeing food mishandled like that.

[Grumblebum]

Sounds like I'm pretty lucky - my wife is a very good cook, and is fastidious about cleanliness and food management(whatever you call it).
The biggest problem I ever had in the kitchen was after we got our big imported dishwasher - I had to convince my wife that she didn't need to 'pre-wash' dishes before using it.

Regarding the whole 'naysaying' thing, it seems to me that things have changed a fair bit over the last 5-10 years - these days it seems that I see Japanese people questioning authority or how things are done a lot more than I used to.

Certainly still a long way to go, but things are changing.

[FG Lurker]

Sounds like I'm pretty lucky - my wife is a very good cook, and is fastidious about cleanliness and food management(whatever you call it).
The biggest problem I ever had in the kitchen was after we got our big imported dishwasher - I had to convince my wife that she didn't need to 'pre-wash' dishes before using it.

Sounds like our wives are pretty similar.

[james]

It doesn't usually upset me. I had a friend who used to go off on people about it all the time. He'd yell at cashiers and such, and tell people if they want eikaiwa time they were gonna have to pay em, otherwise speak Japanese.

holy crap.. i certainly wouldn't yell at people. if some old fart is being really obnoxious though i'll usually let him know.

What irks me is going out with the wife or any other vaguely asian looking person and being completely ignored by staff even though I am the one ordering food, paying etc. I especially love it when I pay them the money and they give the change to my wife...

yeah, i've had this happen a lot as i have a fair number of friends of asian ethnicity. for all intents and purposes, bananas (yellow on the outside, white inside, monolingual native english speakers). when showing them around here, guides / service people would often ignore me, speak to my friend or whatever. occasionally though after talking to my friend and getting little more than a blank stare, and giggles out of me a few of the brighter ones manage to figure it out.

as for your wife getting the change, this almost never happens to me, though the reverse does - if i put out my hand after my wife pays, the cashier will often give me her change. i think they just instinctively give it to whomever puts their hand out first. might want to see if maybe your wife is beating you to the draw

[james]

Dude, my wife and kitchen hygeine seriously don't get along. Not just thawing chicken, but frigging cooking things thoroughly, leaving food out for DAYS (a pot of soup made in this house sits in the pan for 4 days, no joke). Veggies and other stuff going to rot in the fridge, it's horrible...

yeah.. this is japan.. we do that..

same thing in our house. at least in the winter though, the kitchen is literally colder than the fridge (i shit you not -1 - + 2c in there at night) so i don't worry as much. i do get annoyed though in the summer when stuff is left out.

our kitchen however, is well past being a disaster. i'm more or less waiting for a disaster to take it out. i may renovate with some napalm while my wife and kids are over in canada this summer.

[james]

we have two fridges in our kitchen. short story long , one "broke", a replacement was bought. the "broken" fridge was looked at by our hardware / repair guy and started working again and has been going strong since. it's about 25-30 years old now i think. circa 1980.

i can totally empathize with the whole "new stuff shoved in fridge on top of old stuff shoved to back and piled / compacted in". it drives me insane to open the fridge and never being able to find what i'm looking for because stuff has just been piled in there, moved around etc with crap spilled all over it.

got very sick of this and throughly cleaned out both fridges last year. without exaggeration, i found stuff in there dating to my first visit to my in-laws' house 11 or 12 years ago. the product labels almost completely faded, this stuff had best before dates of heisei 8nen..

one convo with the mrs. went like this:

- "i'm gonna throw 99% of this stuff out"
- "well just make sure it's no good first and don't throw out anything my mom might want to keep"
- "uhh.. yeah.. no problem. jesus you have stuff in here that says best before heisei 8!"
- "what month?"
- ". . . you are kidding right?"

when i was done, we had two fridges each barely half full, two completely empty freezers *and* an ice-cube maker, which for 10 years prior the existence thereof was unknown to me.

[ttjereth]

I think it is common among Japanese to assume that things that can be reheated to a boil do not need to be refrigerated (stews, curries, etc.). I don't know if that's true or not but it grosses me out. Fortunately, my wife has adopted my habit of putting things back into the fridge immediately after serving.

Another Kitchen hygene antidote is putting things in the kitchen sink, which I've had to explain to my wife a million times is less sanitary than a toilet seat. She used to defrost chickens by just laying them in the bottom of the sink, and then go on to lay a strainer full of vegetable down in the same place after a simple rinsing.

To be honest, I don't really know if these things are actually harmful to Japanese who may have built up immunity to certain things...but I do know that I don't have such tolerance and hate seeing food mishandled like that.

Oh, the sink! I had forgotten about the sink! Yeah, we don't do that anymore (since I started throwing away anything I ever found in there and refused to eat anything that was cooked after being handled that way, regardless of how many hours she put into cooking it).

We also don't keep the disgusting basket of raw garbage in the sink either.

[ttjereth]

Sounds like I'm pretty lucky - my wife is a very good cook, and is fastidious about cleanliness and food management(whatever you call it).
The biggest problem I ever had in the kitchen was after we got our big imported dishwasher - I had to convince my wife that she didn't need to 'pre-wash' dishes before using it.

Regarding the whole 'naysaying' thing, it seems to me that things have changed a fair bit over the last 5-10 years - these days it seems that I see Japanese people questioning authority or how things are done a lot more than I used to.

Certainly still a long way to go, but things are changing.

You're lucky... I married a Tokyo girl brought up in the bubble when her father was making a ridiculous amount of money... needless to say her domestic skills are somewhat lacking...

[ttjereth]

holy crap.. i certainly wouldn't yell at people. if some old fart is being really obnoxious though i'll usually let him know.

Yeah my friend was a little high strung about those things, but he was here for years before me and had a pretty difficult time of it. I don't even explain it to the "offending" Japanese person. Most times I'm trying too hard not to laugh at the absurdity of them trying to hold a conversation with their 100 or so words of English rather than my Japanese (which if it is good enough to understand what the hell my wife is talking about half the time, should be good enough for just about anything).

yeah, i've had this happen a lot as i have a fair number of friends of asian ethnicity. for all intents and purposes, bananas (yellow on the outside, white inside, monolingual native english speakers). when showing them around here, guides / service people would often ignore me, speak to my friend or whatever. occasionally though after talking to my friend and getting little more than a blank stare, and giggles out of me a few of the brighter ones manage to figure it out.

I had a friend here a few years back who was a nikkei kanadia-jin. She obviously looked Japanese, and spoke perfect Japanese, but everytime we went out together she would refuse to speak Japanese and just look at people puzzled when they spoke to her, then I'd cut in in fluent Japanese and then pretend to translate into English for her. It was hilarious.

[quote="james"]
as for your wife getting the change, this almost never happens to me, though the reverse does - if i put out my hand after my wife pays, the cashier will often give me her change. i think they just instinctively give it to whomever puts their hand out first. might want to see if maybe your wife is beating you to the draw ]

There are definitely times when the wife "morau's" the change, but even if no one puts their hand out they always seem to turn to the wife. Even the bloody immigration people do it.

[ttjereth]

yeah.. this is japan.. we do that..

same thing in our house. at least in the winter though, the kitchen is literally colder than the fridge (i shit you not -1 - + 2c in there at night) so i don't worry as much. i do get annoyed though in the summer when stuff is left out.

our kitchen however, is well past being a disaster. i'm more or less waiting for a disaster to take it out. i may renovate with some napalm while my wife and kids are over in canada this summer. __________________

Our kitchen is cold in the winter too, but that still doesn't mean food should be left sitting in direct sunlight...

we have two fridges in our kitchen. short story long ]are[/I] kidding right?"

when i was done, we had two fridges each barely half full, two completely empty freezers *and* an ice-cube maker, which for 10 years prior the existence thereof was unknown to me.

Yeah, I get fed up and completely clean out our fridge probably about once every six months. But it's generally back in the same shape within a week... My grandmother would empty out the fridge completely and wash down the entire inside EVERY WEEK after she went shopping and before she put the groceries away... Thinking about it now almost makes me want to cry.

I am tempted to have separate fridges for me and my wife and parents-in-law when we finally get the house built... I'd have separate bloody kitchens if I could afford it

[james]

Even the bloody immigration people do it.

so that's how you got in - slipped taro a tenner at cutsoms, did you

[dimwit]

All barnyard question I refer to Greji.

[Greji]

All barnyard question I refer to Greji.

Baaa(h)!

[eddie]

Dude, as we type here, there is a tray of... something, with BLACK POTATOES sitting on my kitchen table. It's been there for three days, but my wife swears she's going to eat it. I stopped throwing all this stuff away myself in the vague hope that her finally getting around to it and having to clean out the foul smelling dishes on her own would break her of the habit, but no such luck thus far...

She puts stuff in the fridge (some stuff anyway, "X belongs in the fridge, X doesn't belong in the fridge" is standby arguement number 14 at my place), then she puts the newer stuff in there on top of the older stuff. When she uses it, she uses the newer stuff first, and things just continue that way until we end up with a bag of mush at the bottom of the vegetable drawer that used to be some sort of fruit or veggie...

that may not necessarily be a 'japanese' thing...

[eddie]

i must admit i do get frustrated when i'm spoken to in...english?
even after i quite clearly display a solid, if not excellent, command of nihon-go.

i suppose it's a fair guess i'm an english-speaker...but imagine if the show were on the other foot. if i laid some slick mandarin on a nihon-jin in ny, he or she might be a tad put out.

anyhow, quite simply, it's dumb to force english into a conversation when you can't speak it.
let's do this in japanese...it'll be a lot easier.

[ttjereth]

[quote="eddie"]that may not necessarily be a 'japanese' thing...]

It's not limited to Japanese by any means, but does seem fairly common in Japanese females of a particular generation.

[Adhesive]

Well, it seems the tables have turned as I have found myself on three seperate occassions explaining to my Japanese relations why it's not a very good idea to drive around with our two-year-old daughter sans child-seat. Apparently I'm paranoid because I doubt the safety provided by my wife's diminutive lap.

[Catoneinutica]

How to deal with J naysayers? Cast your argument in terms of equating regimented groupthink with primitive societies. Something like:

"The ability to accommodate individualistic behavior within a group is an indicator of an advanced society. It means that the society operates according to a layered set of rules: on one level there are expected modes of behavior, yet on another leverl rules can be broken. But for such a society to succeed, its members must posses a mental agility that would not be necessary in a social system based on a rigid behavioral pattern."

[Catoneinutica]

Our kitchen is cold in the winter too, but that still doesn't mean food should be left sitting in direct sunlight...



Yeah, I get fed up and completely clean out our fridge probably about once every six months. But it's generally back in the same shape within a week... My grandmother would empty out the fridge completely and wash down the entire inside EVERY WEEK after she went shopping and before she put the groceries away... Thinking about it now almost makes me want to cry.

I am tempted to have separate fridges for me and my wife and parents-in-law when we finally get the house built... I'd have separate bloody kitchens if I could afford it

George Carlin had a classic routine about weird, derelict fridge contents: ancient pudding that had mutated into a fault-ridden skin ball, brown stuff on a plate that might me meat or might be cake - "it's meatcake!" - and of course, finding an empty dish in the fridge and being forced to conclude, something ate something else.

[james]

George Carlin had a classic routine about weird, derelict fridge contents: ancient pudding that had mutated into a fault-ridden skin ball, brown stuff on a plate that might me meat or might be cake - "it's meatcake!" - and of course, finding an empty dish in the fridge and being forced to conclude, something ate something else.

wow, i actually remember listening to this routine on the dr. demento show late at night when i was about 14 or so and laughing quite hysterically. i was completely unaware however that it was george carlin that did it. cool.

[ttjereth]

Well, it seems the tables have turned as I have found myself on three seperate occassions explaining to my Japanese relations why it's not a very good idea to drive around with our two-year-old daughter sans child-seat. Apparently I'm paranoid because I doubt the safety provided by my wife's diminutive lap.

There's an easy one for that. It's illegal. Had to sit through the whole boring lecture when I renewed my license a few weeks ago.

[ttjereth]

George Carlin had a classic routine about weird, derelict fridge contents: ancient pudding that had mutated into a fault-ridden skin ball, brown stuff on a plate that might me meat or might be cake - "it's meatcake!" - and of course, finding an empty dish in the fridge and being forced to conclude, something ate something else.

Funnily enough, I just this morning took out of the fridge a plate, covered with plastic wrap, but with nothing on it...

I think my wife is just messing with me now...

[amdg]

Uh oh! Looks like she's trying to summon a god of guilt from the fridge!