First Impressions

So, the point of this blog is to keep all you lovely people reading this updated on our travels, and to give any future White Horse actors who are coming to Japan a taste of what it will be like. Which, I warn you now, will taste pretty fishy!

We're now two days into the tour, and I'm not sure if it's hit us yet that we're actually here! It's amazing and bewildering all at the same time! We're currently living in Seminar House, like student halls for International Students (although at the moment it's mainly filled with school kids, as it's the holidays). It feels like we're living in the Jungle; a cluster of strangely designed buildings scattered amoung lush greenery, populated by noisy cicadas and neon coloured lizards, with an intense humidity to match.

NB: Bring loose, thin clothing! The humidity is intense, it's like when you have clammy hands, but all over your body (not literally though) !

Everyone is incredibly polite here too, and very softly spoken! Replacing handshakes, hugging and any form of physical contact with simply bowing takes a bit of getting used to (especially when everyone is so lovely, and the children are sooo cute!), but gives regular, everyday tasks a soothing, ritual quality, which is very calming. However, this might not be the case with more Westernised Japenese; the first time we met our Administrator, Yoshiko (who is 67, but closer resembles a small firecracker!) she almost knocked us over when she ran and hugged us!

The Japanese are slaves to attention to detail and order, the combination of which makes most interaction and chores much slower. The pace of life here feels a bit like living in a small village! However, we're yet to experience Tokyo, which I've been told is very different!

Our first evening here, our administrators, Yoshiko and Fumiko, took us to a traditional Japanese restaurant. I hadn't really expected to experience the stereotypical Japan you see in the films, paper walls and beds on the floor etc, but this was the full works! Sliding, wooden doors, hanging linen sheets and a little booth with a low table where you had to take your shoes off before entering! And my first experience of Sake too! (wasn't so sure at first, as it's very strong, but, like the Japanese, has a very inoffensive flavour, which you certainly adjust to!) This was poured for us, again, in the traditional manner; you hold your cup out while someone else pours it for you out of the decorative clay carafe.

And the food kept coming! Plate after plate of beautifully presented sashimi (slices of raw fish), salads with smoked fish shavings and sesame seed dressing, chicken teriyaki skewers, miso soup, rice triangles filled with salmon, tuna, and all kinds of fish, wrapped in seaweed, and so many more I could write a whole other blog about them! We've not yet had a chance to eat out again since, but we're hoping the atmosphere at that restaurant will be similar at others in Japan. The multiple, small, shared dishes that were brought out gradually throughout the evening complemented a chatty, laid-back vibe, free of formality or pretence. And you could hear Japanese people at other tables talking and laughing loudly, which made us feel free of the guilt English people sometimes feel abroad when we are (naturally) loud in public! And best of all, so much of the food is healthy here. So although we were full by the end, we were free from the awful stodgy, bloated feeling that sometimes accompanies a large meal out in Europe!

Of course, if you have been cast in a White Horse Japanese tour, and have never eaten Japanese food before/are a fussy eater, I would seriously recommend trying some in the year before you come here. There isn't a vast, cultural diversity in the food (or from what I've seen so far), and everything is eaten with chopsticks. Although, saying this, the food here is a constant source of wonder, nothing is what it seems! Everything tastes different to how you would imagine, for example we received some gifts the other day as a present, which tasted so different to grapes back home, they almost deserved a new name!

I have found the language barrier a bit of a problem, mainly because I haven't learnt as much as any of the others in the group, and there are not many people here who speak English to a high standard. I had a Picadilly Circus incident in my room the other day, when two maintenance men turned up to fix my internet connection, at the same time as two cleaning ladies. I was so shocked at the volume of people in my room all speaking words I couldn't understand, I even forgot how to say 'Yes' in Japanese! I also attempted to give the man who finally repaired the internet a gift (as is custom here in Japan, see more below), to which he replied a very firm 'No!'. I wasn't sure if this was because he didn't have a gift to exchange in return, or maybe it wasn't the correct situation for gift giving. However, I found out later it is customary to decline a gift the first time it is offered! Japan is full of these slightly ambiguous social conventions, I'm still not sure if I did the right thing!

In terms of gifts, we've been told that it is traditional that when you are formally introduced to someone (for example, when we have met our administrators or other people who have organised our performances) we should present a small gift for them. The Japanese, apparently, like presents to be wrapped three or four times, and it is in fact the presentation of the gift, and not the gift itself that counts. However, it is also the custom to present gifts in the bag they were bought in (usually a posh paper bag). So far we only been given gifts in paper bags, leaving our slightly bemused hosts to struggle with our 5-wrapped-6-times-with-loads-of-sellotape-and-ribbon-gifts for five minutes in awkward silence. Giving business cards on a first greeting is also traditional; however the only time this has happened to us we were caught short without a card between us....

JAPANCY THAT!

So, I'm totally stealing this from Chris Sprason's blog, sorry Chris! This is the section where we include the one strange or random thing we've found today! Mine is Spam. In Japan. Enough said!

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