Kiyo over at KEC Journal suggested that I should blog about the different “cleanliness-conscious aspects” between Japan and America. He’s been on a “toilet” kick recently, and a few days ago mentioned that Japanese are cleanliness-conscious, and I begged to differ.
(As an important aside, let me strongly urge you to visit Kiyo’s blog if you haven’t yet. As the owner of a Hokkaido English school, Kiyo has wonderful insights into various aspects of Japan, the English language, and differences between Japanese and other cultures. He also uses English extremely well, and I feel blessed that he’s chosen to use this language for his blog so that we can have access to his unique perspective on things. He’s also built up a nice little community of dedicated readers and so most posts have an array of follow-up comments, including occassional ones by yours truly).
Well, I actually have written before about some aspects of Japanese cleanliness that strike me as strange, way back in April, about a month after arriving in Japan. I wrote it in the form of a post called “cleanliness next to buddha-ness” to Fucked Gaijin, which was my brief receipient of Japan-related commentary back then before I had this blog. I’m going to resurrect it here in entirety (sans one unrelated paragraph about electricity consumption), as I think it’s a humorous unexpurgated look at my mindset one month after arriving, and fairly well captures some of my “huh?” reactions to Japanese concepts of cleanliness.
(Please keep in mind that I wrote it in the style of a “rant” and so the tone I adopted is a bit, uh, roughhewn. I should also add that the post makes it sound like I was on the verge of catching the next flight home. Most of the elements I comment on however are on the order of pet peeves, and most I’ve come to grudgingly accept in the ensuing months since I wrote this.)
*first of all, I hate the concept of the genkan [a small entrance way or vestibule once you enter the front door of a dwelling]; 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 [pain in the ass] 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 [a hassle] 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 [clothes] 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 [dirty]. huh? if the socks are kitanai, why the fuck are we so concerned about the shoes then? i don’t get it.
Heh heh, spoken like a true foreigner in the throes of culture shock. However, upon reflection, I stand by most of what I wrote. I might also add these aspects of cleanliness that continue to confound me:
* When dining, my family doesn’t use napkins of any sort. Granted, I think eating with chopsticks you get less food on your lips and mouth area, but not to use a napkin when slurping noodles or eating spaghetti with tomato sauce?
* Speaking of chopsticks, each member of the family has their own chopsticks, and these are never exchanged. Now I prefer using the same chopsticks because I’ve gotten used to their feel in my hand, but if someone else used them when I wasn’t home, it wouldn’t bother me one bit. But this is apparently a no-no. Why then isn’t the same standard applied to the forks and spoons we occasionally use, or to the plates and dishes as well?
* Because the toilet is in a completely separate room than the shower/bath/sink, in our house on the opposite side of the living room (in most Japanese homes the toilet is housed separately from the shower/bath), it’s a pain in the ass to have to traipse across the living room to wash my hands after doing my business. Granted, there is attached to our toilet some funky sink contraption that automatically spouts out freezing cold water for about minute once the toilet is flushed. But I refuse to use this, because one, it’s fucking cold, and two, I have this ingrained belief, perhaps from something my mother said long ago, that only with warm water does one truly clean oneself. Furthermore, there’s no soap!
* Related to this, apparently there are certain towels in the clean towel cabinet that have been deemed only for use in the toilet, and I’m not allowed to use them otherwise. This again I just don’t understand, it’s not like these aren’t laundered the same as all the other towels (albeit in old recyled water and then hung out in polluted air with the rest of the laundry).
* There are NEVER paper towels in public restrooms. Now, many of these have those hot-air blowers (and quite sophisticated ones at that) for drying hands, but many don’t, especially in office buildings. You’re supposed to just fling your hands dry, and use your pants, or, as Kiyo claims, use your handkerchief. This is the same handkerchief, mind you, that in summertime you’re using to wipe off the profuse sweat running down your face.
* Oh, and speaking of handkerchief, these are not to be used for blowing your nose. This is fine with me, as I’ve always regarded the sight of American males sneezing into their hankies and then stuffing them back into their pocket with revulsion. However, it ISN’T fine with me for Japanese males (mainly) to sneeze into their hands and then with these same unwiped hands hold onto handrails or grab handles in trains. It’s a wonder I haven’t caught more colds here than I have.
I could go on and on, and likewise I’m sure many Japanese could comment blisteringly about confusing American values of cleanliness, or some other culture’s. To each their own, it’s what makes the world go around, as the old saw goes. However, I don’t think any culture can claim to occupy the hygienic high ground of “cleanliness-conscious”, because each culture’s mores of cleanliness are bound up in traditions, superstitions, religion, etcetera, and have evolved over many many years. One person’s clean is another person’s filth, and so it goes.