springdaycomedy

Vday

springdaycomedy — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:26:51 +0000

Valentines Day is approaching and I get more and more fed up with the ” holiday” every year. In Japan, women and only women give chocolate to the man or men in their lives and the men are to reciprocate with white chocolate, lingerie or some other gift at least double in value on March 14th, a.k.a “White Day”. I am not the only person fed up with the practice. Many companies in Tokyo have banned Valentines Day chocolate gifts because many women and men are tired of the expense and energy involved in buying each and every member of their department their own box of chocolates, especially if the person in question is an asshole. The fear that if they don’t give a box of chocolates, the employee may be passed up for a promotion or opportunity is in the back of many people’s minds.
Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE chocolate. I love giving it, I love recieving it (not white chocolate, white chocolate is NOT chocolate, it is blasphemy ). It’s the expectation that kills me.
A male friend who just had a baby told me that his wife has been trying, unsuccessfully, to wake him up in the middle of the night to help take care of their 4 month-old son.
I said, ” What are you doing for Valentines Day?”
He said, ” I am waiting for my wife to give me a present.”
I said, ” Do you think she’ll be able to wait until Valentines Day to give you a kick in the head?”

In Memory of Jon, the best boss ever

springdaycomedy — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 04:28:43 +0000

This week, my boss unexpectedly died of medical complications. He is without a doubt, the best boss I’ve ever had and he is sorely missed by everyone who knew Jon, especially those who were fortunate enough to work for him.

He was a master in the powers of persuasion. I will never forget his soft voice asking me, ” Would you mind doing such and such, Spring?” Then, after I’ve agreed to the request, he’d turn to a manager and say, ” Spring said she’d love to do it.”

He looked out for all of us and always brought the staff American sized bags of candy we’d almost forgotten existed, such as the frosted pink and white elephant crackers and Reese’s peanut butter cups as souviners from his latest weekend trip to Guam.

A fellow techie geek, he was always helpful with personal computer problems, and if he didn’t know how to fix it, he’d let you know who could. When I was contemplating buying a NetBook earlier this year, he offered me his old one for ten bucks, saying, ” I’ve got a better one now, I’ve just been using that old thing as a flashlight.” He even recorded the Macy’s parade for me , the whole thing, when I commented that I kinda missed watching it.
He always approved every staff request happily, in a country where heming and hawing and a dash of guilt is often a prerequisite for any approval given by management.

I will miss sitting with him in the office chatting and joking about TV shows, the eccentric people in our lives and the random information he’d gathered living in Japan some 30 years. ( i.e. Japanese and East German dentists used the same material for fillings and crowns so if you’re of a certain age and go to an older dentist in America, he’ll assume you’ve lived in East Germany.)

My coworker worried, ” Do you think he knew how much we loved him?” I think he did.
When it was announced last month in the break room that he’d be transferred to another office in 2012, it was met with a barrage of “That sucks!” and other expletives I won’t write here. I remember Jon smiling at that.

Jon, we miss you and will never forget you

The Tokyo Taxi Driver

springdaycomedy — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:59:47 +0000

Tokyo taxi drivers come in two distinctive types, the silent Shunsukes and the chatty Kentaros.

I don’t have a preference for one or the other. I just hope they don’t overcharge me or try to pass off a one yen coin as a one-hundred yen coin when giving me my change. ( that’s happened to me three times and I’ve called them on it every single time.)

One late night, coming home from a party after all the trains had stopped, I got into a chatty Kentaro taxi. He asked me the regular questions, ” Where are you from?” ” How long have you been in Japan?” ” Why don’t you go home?” He also gave me the standard compliments, ” You speak Japanese very well!” and ” I’ll bet your parents miss you. You should go home.”

Then the driver asked me if I ever went to any of the U.S. bases. I said that I had been to the bases a few times for special events but hadn’t been to any in a long time. The taxi driver went on to praise the “open mind” of Americans and how wonderful it was that they brought it to Japan.
” Sure. OK.” I said.

He went on to describe how wonderful restaurants and clubs near the base were.
” I wouldn’t know.” I replied.
When the taxi reached my apartment, he didn’t let me out. (Tokyo taxi drivers have control of the back seat doors and are supposed to open them as soon as you reach your destination, giving you the light you need to find you wallet and pay the driver.) The driver turned to me stared into my eyes and informed me he was going to go to an S&M club that weekend and waited a minute for me to invite myself.
I panicked, in other words, I smiled the biggest smile I could muster and said, “YOU HAVE A GREAT TIME! I’M SURE IT WILL BE FANTASTIC! ” I stayed in my frozen smile for a few seconds as the taxi driver realized I wasn’t going to go with him and that not all blonde American women act the same as the ones in all the porn he’s been watching. He deflated a bit, sighed and opened the door to let me out.
It’s not the first or the last time I’ve gone Pollyanna on someone’s ass to get out of a jam. I just hope I don’t run into anymore creepy Kensukes.

It’s already Christmas in Japan

springdaycomedy — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 13:24:57 +0000

Japan’s pornographic food

springdaycomedy — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 02:29:00 +0000

I will never understand how the Japanese, with a world renouned and highly esteemed cuisine, have such a high regard for Spam. You can find it in the supermarket between the escargots and the caviar. To be fair, Spam does have an exotic aura about it in the West, albeit an aura closer to a tropical disease than a delicacy.
In Tokyo, the gorgeous 500 dollar melon on display is not what everyone buys, (There are delicious 10 dollar ones too.) But they are not uncommon and make you triple check your chosen produce. ( lest you spent your rent money in a salad fit for an emoperor ..)
“Who spends 600 dollars on mushrooms that aren’t magic?”
is a question of mine that never really got a satisfactory answer. I asked the store clerk why the mushrooms were so expensive. Her answer? “They are very good mushrooms.”
This answer made me picture
the mushrooms winning a spelling bee and then a marathon, the only kind of “good mushrooms” I can imagine being bought for 600 dollars. Sadly, I couldn’t call them “lucky” as they were now dead and displayed in a plush coffin garnished with a pretty pink bow.
Poor bastards, they had so much potential….

Cuteness is King

springdaycomedy — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:17:02 +0000

It is impossible to overestimate just how important being cute in Japan is.

Cuteness is a valid reason for buying rainbow coloured toe socks or having a child in this country. The longer you stay in Japan the more your senses are bombarded with Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Hello Kitty, Barbapapa, and Pingu merchandise at every turn. Hello Kitty’s stony, blinkless face is inescapable. It’s imprinted on clothes, plates, wallets, waffle makers, feminine napkins and toilet plungers.

“Hello Korporate Whore” is what I like to call her.

Sadly, no matter how hard or how long you resist, you will gravitate towards and eventually choose a favourite. This character (most likely dangling from your cell phone or handbag) will act as your signature/ ambassador at parties and will be the topics of conversations fit for an elementary school playground.

I say this because it happened to me. In my case, Mickey Mouse was too corporate. Pingu was too clay animation creepy. Winnie the Pooh was too obsessive compulsive. (I do have a soft spot in my heart for the slightly suicidal Eyore.) Barbapapa’s color scheme was too nauseating and the Smurfs were too political. (I’ve been told at a few playgrounds that they are communists.)

In the end, I chose Peanuts. Somehow, Snoopy seemed like the most sophisticated, even spiritual choice.

I now have a Snoopy coffee maker and a Snoopy wallet.

Things haven’t gotten out of control yet.

Don’t worry. I draw the line at Snoopy contraceptives. Anyone who gets pregnant after using one of those forfeits the right to be surprised.

Japanese Hugs Suck

springdaycomedy — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 12:28:43 +0000

Having lived in Japan for over ten years and staying in Scotland for a month this past summer, I’ve realized something about myself. I hate Japanese hugs. I love Japanese people but Japanese hugs suck. Nothing makes me feel more like the carrier of a potentially pandemic disease than when a Japanese person tries to hug me without actually touching any part of my body! I can see it in their faces, the calculating of how they are going to avoid the physical contact that they themselves have initiated!

And these are just the hugs from the people I’ve slept with!

I never got that in Scotland, in Scotland I got wonderful bear hugs that made me feel loved and accepted.

A few people did grab my ass but I didn’t worry about it. We were in Scotland, the weather was shit. I just thought their hands were cold.

FYI, in any Japanese TV love story, more emphasis is put on the first hug than the first kiss. The hug can get pretty intense. Depending on the camera angle, it can look like one of the lovers is trying not to fall off a cliff or if they are going to fall, they’re determined not to plummet to their death alone.

Like many things, this TV version is infinitely better than the reality.

It’s Sports Day in Japan and here I am in front of my computer….

springdaycomedy — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:50:04 +0000

Today is a national holiday in Japan, it’s Sports Day. Sports Day is on the second Monday of October.

Declaring national holidays is the only way the Japanese government knows how to tell it’s people to go out and spend their hard earned cash to save the economy. ATM’s are routinely closed on the holiday, forcing people to withdraw more cash than they need the day before. Inevitably, all of the extra cash is spent on a nice sushi dinner with the family or a new bike for the son who forgets who his father is because he’s at work all the time. (hopefully the bike will jog his memory. )

I know what you’re thinking, “Why don’t they just use a credit card? ” Japan, believe it or not, is still a cash-based society thanks to the fact that street crime is very, very low. The people who get their wallet stolen are the ones with a fat billfold sticking three inches out of their back pockets unchained, just begging to be taken. The people you really have to worry about in Japan is your family. They will spend more of your money faster than any pickpocket would.

Anyway, I had big plans to get a lot of writing done, put up a video from DVD on YouTube and then take it easy. We all know that was never gonna happen. My computer didn’t recognize the format the video was in and I’ve spent most of the day looking for free software that didn’t look too virusy to download. Ultimately, I chickened out. If anybody knows how to do that stuff, let me know. I need nerds in my life right now.

“So Spring, what did you do for Sports Day?”

“I hunted.”