Last night I baked some butter cookies, and cut them into cute shapes for my ESS (English Club) students to decorate at lunchtime. Although it kept me up late, and I was tired today, it was worth it! They were so excited, and did some beautiful decorating!

We had Thanksgiving a couple of days late, but hey, Thanksgiving isn't a public holiday in Japan!

It was my first Thanksgiving experience. My American friends were all very excited to celebrate Thanksgiving in Japan. Ashley (the host!) was cleaning her house and getting ready from 6:30 in the morning! I made a Pumpkin soup at 10am, and then went over to her house to help her make the pumpkin pie, deviled eggs, and prepare the roast turkey!

We had fun cooking together. At about 4pm, everyone started arriving. The turkey was nice and juicy! I have eaten turkey before, but many many years ago, and I don't think I liked it much back then, but this time, I thought it tasted great. Like chicken, but more flavor.

We had a great time, I'd do Thanksgiving again!

Foreigners are treated like amusing animals in a zoo here.
How about you pay me a little money to 'practice English conversation' with me while I'm out trying to have a relaxing dinner with friends?

Actually, it doesn't happen to me, because the Japanese all think I'm Japanese (I'm NOT!) and they ... ignore me when I'm with a group of 'real Gaijin' (um, foreigners who look 'foreign', here in Japan, that would be European or American).

Ok, what happened was, I was having a very late dinner with my (foreign looking) friends on Friday night. We were relaxing and feeling rather sleepy. When suddenly, a Japanese woman (aquaintance from just being a restaurant regular) came up to one of my friends, and said that her friends (some Jap men) wanted to speak English to us.

ooh, dudes, watch me roar at the Foreigners, they roar back, aren't I cool? I can speaking Enrish.

So, this Jap man swaggers up, speaks 'English' in a really loud voice, subtly showing off to everyone that he can speak to the foreigners. Shakes EVERYONE'S hand EXCEPT MINE!!! (Because he thinks I'm JAPANESE!!) shouldn't he be polite and introduce himself to everyone, including a "Japanese" who is obviously part of the 'foreigner's' group?! UGH!! His ignorance really pissed me off.

So I was really pissy the whole night, and told them I was from NEW ZEALAND (to their great surprise)Oh, am I ruining your stereotypical ideals about life and society and the world in general? and said "No I can't speak any Japanese"(even though I've been here 2 and a half years) Actually, I can speak some Japanese but when I'm out for a relaxing dinner with my "Foreign" friends on a Friday night, after spending a stressful 5 working days in a Japanese environment, do you think I want to speak it?? Especially after having being treated so rudely? Oh, another thing I want to mention, is that even though I said I was from NZ, they still spoke to me in Japanese (asking me if I could speak it), while they tried to speak to the others in English (just because they 'looked' English).

And this Jap man finds out that Michael can speak Spanish, and he says "My friend can speak Spanish too!" and to his friend, "come here! Speak Spanish to it!" But turns out this man can't understand hardly anything Michael says to him.

Yes, and I'm probably being ignorant too by saying "The Japanese" instead of 'most Japanese' or 'these Japanese people whom I've encountered'. But as you can see, I'll give what I get.

The temperature has really dropped now in Kyoto, but we are still not allowed to use any heating at school until the end of November! My toes and fingers are freeezing! I even put 'heat pads' into my socks, but they don't seem to be generating much heat.

I've started knitting a new scarf for Danielle! But not going to describe it or put a picture of it because she might read this blog!

Hmm, not much interesting has been happening lately. Just looking forward to going home in ... 3 more weekends!! I can escape winter in Japan for 3 weeks! 3 extra weeks of summer in NZ, it's gonna be great.

This week is a short week, because Thursday is a public holiday. Yay!

In the weekend, Michael and I will be going to our first "Thanksgiving". I used to think that it was "Thanksgiving Dinner" but apparently people eat all day on Thanksgiving Day! Looking forward to helping Ashley prepare the Pies, Turkey, and stuffing!

Hmm...I'd always suspected there was something unnatural in working too hard

In Japan it is estimated that 60% of older women have a common problem - their husbands. Having spent years "married to their jobs", retired men are having an extraordinary effect on the health of their partners.

Takako Terakawa finds that buying teddy bears relieves her stress

Takako Terakawa shares her cramped, two-room flat in Osaka with a cat the size of a small child, 400 teddy bears and her husband.

The bears are neatly stored, and filed according to colour and size, in a cabinet in her bedroom.

She brings them out to inspect and groom them each day.

As she does so, her whole body relaxes.

This seems to be what she lives for.

The bears are a replacement for her husband.

Drifting apart

Mrs Terakawa suffers from Retired Husband Syndrome (RHS), an illness born of a particular set of social conditions.

Women brought up during the 50s and 60s - the baby-boomer generation - are sometimes seen as a commodity by their husbands, someone to do the housework and look after the children.

If the husband doesn't try to understand, the illness becomes incurable

Their husbands may be "salarymen" or white collar workers, who leave home in the early hours, and return merely to sleep.

These couples can gradually drift apart, carving out separate lives for themselves.

Then, when the husband approaches 60 - the national retirement age in Japan - the wife gradually realises she is going to be thrust into the permanent company of a man who has grown to be a stranger.

It is at this point that wives in Japan have started becoming ill, showing signs of both depression and physical illness.

"When I thought about my husband being at home, I developed rashes on my body and had stomach ache," admits Mrs Terakawa. "On occasions I would throw up after I had eaten.

"Sometimes just being in the same room as him made me physically sick."

The syndrome was discovered by Dr Nobuo Kurokawa who, over the past 10 years, has been treating a steady flow of Japanese women of a certain age with the same symptoms, including depression, skin rashes, ulcers, asthma and high blood pressure.

Dr Kurokawa, who has a surgery in Osaka, believes that 60% of older women are affected by RHS and says that if it is ignored, the symptoms will just get worse.

"If the husband doesn't try to understand, the illness becomes incurable," he says.

In the West, of course, when relations have sunk to such a low, divorce would be a way out.
But in Japan, particularly among this generation, it is far less culturally acceptable.

Not only that, but a divorced wife has no rights to her husband's pension and would usually be unable to survive financially should they decide to part ways.

A change in Japanese divorce law (giving wives a share of their husband's pension) is scheduled for early 2007, but for people like Mrs Terakawa and the others we met in Japan suffering from RHS, they will not be taking that route.

This is largely because the syndrome has a strange twist at its core.

Many women suffering from it actually want to keep their husbands. Stranger still, the husbands are completely unaware that they are part of the problem.

The Aoyamas are now planning a happy retirement, together

One of the other sufferers we met was Yukie Aoyama.

Her escape from her husband came in the form of an obsession over young pop star Kiyoshi Hikawa.

Her walls are plastered with his image and her diary is organised around his appearances.

She sees her husband, a salaryman working away, just once a month - and then just for a few hours.

We met her husband during one of his visits home.

I had imagined a monster, but he was a small, timid man who was genuinely completely taken aback when I suggested his wife might be suffering from RHS.

She had never had the nerve to tell him.

I asked him what he would do if his wife decided to leave him.

"It never occurred to me, but I think I would be in trouble," he said. "I am getting old. If my wife asked me to live alone I would fall apart... I am not strong enough.

"Our generation is not good at expressing feelings."

What really surprised me is that I thought RHS would be something talked about in hushed tones at pensioners' clubs. But, it is actually the subject of discussion between young people on the streets of Tokyo who are determined to learn from the mistakes of previous generations.

Within 10 years, a quarter of Japanese will be over 65. Coupled with the fact that life expectancy in Japan is the highest in the world - 81 years - it has become a serious talking point.

The syndrome has featured in TV debates and is discussed widely in the newspapers.

I'm so glad the young Japanese people are learning from this. They really need to learn the motto : "Work to Live, don't Live to Work". and they need to be more emotionally-open too. This culture...can be so cold and sterile!!

Is that a crochet hook? Or a Japanese-style knitting needle??
I dunno. But I learned how to knit a chunky scarf with it! Giving it to Michael for his B'day!

Thank god it's Friday.
Man, this week has dragged out so long and slowly!
Feels like such a strain to get to Friday afternoon!!
Now I've finished my classes and am ready to go home, but it's not 4:15 yet.

Taught my students how to pronunce "L" vs "R", "V" vs "B" and "S" vs "TH". Those are letters that Japanese people have real trouble pronuncing. It was funny coz I have to show them the position of the mouth and the tongue when I'm pronuncing these letters, and they have a great time trying to mimic me.

Going to do Yoga again tonight. Actually really looking forward to the stretching.

Practiced Yoga with Ashley last night. Lucky she knows what she's doing! We are just following a video, so no teacher to straighten us up or tell us if we're doing something wrong, but she's done it lots before, so she makes sure I'm not stretching my limbs weird or anything.

It was very invigorating. Never have I spent one hour so aware of my breathing and posture. We're going to do it again on Friday, then eat 'Nabe' (Japanese hot pot) and knit. Hopefully Sarah will join us too.

Ok, going to help my ESS (English club) student with her speech now. She's entering a speech competition, and doing her speech on 'a healthy diet'. Apparently most of her friends think they're fat or want to lose weight, and I've seen them, they're so small already. I want to lose weight on my round moon face, anyone know of any face exercises?? haha.

Was feeling really frumpy lately. And so was Michael. So on Saturday, we spent a month's worth of his extra tutoring money on a shopping spree. He bought some new clothes. I spent all the money in the cosmetics department of Takashimaya. Totally revamped my facial routine - using Shiseido facewash, toner, and moisturiser now, and a Clinique anti-wrinkle eye cream! And bought a new foundation from Lancome (I'm a brand whore)... don't care what brand, as long as it does amazing things and looks pretty. haha.

Back to scrimping and saving now... for Europe, the wedding, and Christmas!

Back at school today, woke up feeling much better! Must have been all that restorative sleep I had yesterday, and Michael cooked me a yummy Chinese-style chicken soup for dinner (he knows I miss my mum when I'm sick). I'm glad I took the day off school.

A teacher asked me today (last minute) if I would play 'BINGO' with her students in the last 15 minutes of class time. I said 'ok' but if she needed a tape to play calling out Halloween Bingo words, it would've been the same. It was so lame, the students (whom I haven't taught for a year) were from the 'lowest-grade, naughty class' and they weren't even enthusiastic when I walked in the room. They weren't enthusiastic to play a game, might as well have given them a test, or some vocab to learn, it wouldn't have made any difference. Well, maybe a few more would've dropped off to sleep. What a waste of my time and energy. Mind you, I was also unenthused to be seeing those 'naughty loosers' again. I teach the 'advanced classes' now, and don't miss the bratty students one bit. They can all go work at McDs the rest of their lives for all I care.