The Life of an Imported Housewife

Since my rent for staying at her place was cleaning her house, I was both relieved and terrified at how messy everything was. Nicole had left little stick-it notes around the house, in case I arrived before she could get out of work. The note to my room read: “Your room/Closet.” It’s a tatami mat room, about one and half mats by two mats, and it usually serves as where she hangs her laundry to dry. It also has a western-style closet and her dresser, so she was using it as a bit of a walk- in dressing room.

She had set out a futon for me and laid out all the blankets she had on top, along with a rice pillow and a western pillow. I knew I didn’t have to, but I had brought a set of sheets—one fitted, one flat—from home for just this occasion. But I took one look at all the dust bunnies and decided I would cleanse the area before using my sheets.

You have to understand: I lived with Nicole at Wesleyan, and I know she’s not a hoarder or true slob. But it was obvious she didn’t have enough time to do a “proper clean up” as my mother would say. In Nicole’s defence, my room WAS the cleanest. The rest of the house she asked me not to photograph at its worst, so I didn’t. Suffice to say, my fears about taking advantage of her were unfounded. I had LOTS of work to do.

First, I dealt with the laundry in my room. In Japan, washers are in pretty much every home but dryers are REALLY expensive. So to compensate, the Japanese have evolved the old-fashioned clothes hanging method into an efficient mix of rectangle frames with clips for clothes and circular frames with clips for underthings. They still have huge outside metal rods for big things like sheets and blankets and futons, as well as clothes. Nicole had some already clean but not put away clothes I could attack first, so I did. I rearranged her closet as well.

Now, it’s not like I’m a neat freak. Because I like my chaotic mess as much as the next person. The thing is that Nicole leads an extremely busy life, though it doesn’t sound like much on paper. She teaches/stays at work for at least 8 hours a day if not a little extra (I’ll explain the BOE later) and then attends kendo at the local sports center. On top of that, she’s 7^th chair first violinist in the Obihiro Orchestra, though she got promoted to 5^th chair during the concert I saw (another one I’ll get to- sheesh! Give me some time here!)

So, she works full time and has two extra activities. Big deal, right? Well, it’s more the physical strain that takes a toll with Kendo that wipes her out at least twice a week, and for orchestra she has to drive around 45 minutes to an hour both ways to Obihiro for practice, on top of learning and practicing her individual part. She really doesn’t have much time to breathe during the week, and when she does it’s spent trying to relax rather than dealing with the Japanese garbage system.

Taking Out The Trash-- A Study in Culture Shock

This is something I’m going to hit on right here, since it’s been the bane of my existence. In America, we think we recycle. We sort our aluminum and cardboard, maybe our glass. Then we pitch the rest. In Japan it’s not so simple.

There’s burnable garbage like biodegradable stuff and paper. Then there’s cardboard, which should be broken down if it’s a box. Then you have PET bottles, which are the staple bottle of the Japanese vending machine and are to be washed before recycling. Next is regular plastic, though if you get food from 7/11 or the plastic Styrofoam bentos those should be washed and sorted as well. After that you get to aluminum and glass, which should be washed and sorted into separate containers. After that you have non-burnable garbage which takes care of clothing, metal, etc.

And to top it all off everything needs to be in it’s own special bag provided by the government. In Nicole’s town you have to go and buy “Burnable” bags from the convenience stores, which have the burnable logo on them:

Luckily the rest just has to go in plastic bags unless its “Non-Burnable” which goes in a blue bag. I’ve seen places that have up to five different colored bags for trash, though, so it can get worse.

So the way Nicole’s place got so bad is really simple. You’re hungry or thirsty: get something from the convenience store. You’re on a time table, though, so you wash the stuff but it has to dry. You say, “I’ll put that away when I get home” and leave: Get home and totally forget/crash for the night. Repeat steps until you have something like this:

Main Living Room/Dining Room, in the process of sorting and cleaning

And THAT is after I’ve been at the place for a while. These are the rooms I’ve already hit: 

Entry Way

         

My Room/Closet

Kitchen Area

And I suppose you’ll have to take my word on the improvement. The only room I haven’t really touched is this, which I will post here as a reference point:

Yeah. Lots of work. So I ended up getting behind on this blog because I a) have a job to do and b) just really, REALLY want to be able to live in semi-cleanliness. But now I've made a dent, and we just got back from a two-day trip to an onsen which deserves it's own set of posts, so I'm doing my own relaxing and catching up here.