fuchu tora

@OopsGuess They absolutely do tell white folks that they need to be cremated. I walk in a cemetery every day and every western name I see is also on a Japanese style haka.

So have the Japanese ever told Western white Christians: “If you want burial, go back to your own country”? Of course not. When white Westerners come, it’s called internationalization. When Muslims come, it’s called a cultural threat. So let’s stop pretending this is about “cremation culture.” It’s not tradition. It’s hierarchy. The Japanese know exactly who they want to exclude — and exactly who they still bow to.

@audrey_seawood @hizaga 😂😂 yeah in Japan no one has tattoos and if they do, they hide them carefully!

@haradatora @hizaga How about tattoos? I always want to ask, or say ' hold still, I am reading your tattoo'.....tattoos way outta control here. I know its a whole other thing in Japan. No tattoos in hot tub! Hot tubs here like reading NYTimes

I was told today that it is rude to ask where a person is from upon first meeting. Will have to let the list of people who’ve asked me that daily for the last 20 years know that they are wholly impolite.

@audrey_seawood @hizaga Exactly. I’m not sure why she thought asking that was rude, Especially in a place where people move in and out of constantly like Minato ku. I’ve lived in regular Japanese society for 20 years and it’s just a normal thing we ask.

@haradatora @hizaga I also dont want to be rude, but curious, and want to make friends

@audrey_seawood @hizaga That’s a good one! Although she spoke to me in a very American accent so… 😂

@haradatora @hizaga I sometimes ask what is your first language.....

@hizaga Japanese people be asking me that at least 3 times a day. I just feel grateful people care enough to try to learn about me.

@hizaga I’m smart enough to read the room, if I met a bunch of immigrants in a central North American village who seemed a bit vulnerable it wouldn’t be my first question, but if you’re living in the gaijin bubble of Minato ku… sorry, imma ask.

@hizaga If you are faced with a new person and don’t ask anything… that’s rude… and what are you supposed to ask on meeting a stranger?

@haradatora That's kinda odd, I'd think it's rude not to. Of course it's situational and depends but still🤷🏻‍♂️

@timothyjphelan @petervan80 It’s not just for desperation though. People in the countryside are very religious because their whole livelihoods revolve around weather and things that are in the control of the gods. All of my neighbors at my farm visit the shrine regularly for various reasons.

@petervan80 Yes. What interests me is that Japan still has public forms for desperation. A crisis in a local industry can be taken to a shrine without the news needing to explain why people are there.

For 28 straight years, Kesennuma City in Miyagi Prefecture had been Japan’s top port for fresh skipjack tuna. Then last year’s catch plunged. Yesterday, the local TV evening news showed about 30 fishing industry executives gathered at a Shinto shrine to pray for a recovery this season. One was quoted as saying, “We’re so desperate we need help from the kami of the shrine.” In Japan’s supposedly secular public life, asking this can sit naturally inside an economic news story.

@tracybeanz There’s a really good book out recently by dr. Mary Claire Haver (I think?) called “the new perimenopause”’or something like that. Pretty sure it covers everything.

WHY DON’T OUR MOTHERS HELP US UNDERSTAND PERIMENOPAUSE. WHY DID I HAVE TO DO THIS BY MYSELF? They never told us shit. Nothing. Nothing about the actual role of estrogen in like, every single neurological function. Not the anxiety, or itching or PVC’s and palpitations. Not the histamine reactions, or the pelvic floor issues, or the sore joints occasionally. They didn’t say a word about mood swings or how important progesterone is or what it does or what happens during luteal. THAT ENDS NOW. MY DAUGHTER WILL BE PREPARED, DAMMIT. Ladies, if you have a question I have become an effing encyclopedia of women’s health over the past 3-4 months. Holy shit what a disservice. Hot flashes? Ha! I’d trade 90% of this shit for hot flashes.

@Absurdum14 @dadsweb67 Perhaps it’s because I’m a woman, and at the very core, a utilitarian… so when I think… more of me? I could knit 7 jumpers at the same time and one of me could make Bread while the other pops to the supermarket. I wonder what people who aren’t happy with this idea imagine.

@haradatora @dadsweb67 Exactly. But that makes us the odd men out on this one - MOST people you ask this one to can’t imagine it all going smoothly - and honestly, if you can’t imagine living happily with a few more of yourself, maybe it’s time to change something… 😆

I don’t know who wrote this, but I was thinking about this the other day… how each version of me slowly just… vanishes, but there are still remnants… footsteps… ghosts.

@Crochetelo_ If you actually do these crafts, it’s so obviously fake. But I suppose for the average person…. Great idea for a jumper though! Just not in crochet…

Same format, different character. It’s so crazy that we now need to be extra careful and pay extra attention to trying to differentiate real people from AI. and i really hope this doesn’t affect real people like me that are actually running a business and delivering the real deal

@RaraSensei I also feel that cruises are the weirdest thing to want to do!!

I just keep seeing the news of diseased cruise ships and my parents are soon going on one and so is an old friend and I’m like whyyyyyy?

@dadsweb67 @HokkaidoOlaf The only thing that’s a bit odd for me lately is my sudden interest in flowers, but we’re allowed to develop new interests from time to time! My core remains unchanged I think! Sounds like yours does, too.

@haradatora @HokkaidoOlaf Need a cow or two for the milk and butter soon! I went downhill ski->cross country racing->ski mountaineering, so I guess I can say my hobby has been skiing for 20 years. Road bike racing->motorcycle riding could both be called biking I guess. So I have some themes to my hobbies

@dadsweb67 @HokkaidoOlaf I tend to build on my hobbies. Like… in college I started knitting, and then I started spinning the yarn, and then I raised sheep for a while… then I learned how to shear… I like to bake…but soon id like to grow the wheat that requires. Etc etc 😂.

@HokkaidoOlaf @haradatora Still time for that Nobel Prize! Pretty impressive to keep up the cycling for 57 years. I cycle through my hobbies somewhat. Tend to go really hard at something for years and then move onto something else

Every time I spend 300 yen on…anything, I’m reminded that that was the average cost of building a farm house a little over 100 years ago. Life is weird.

Every 30 minutes or so Walter walks over to the fridge and does this:

@Absurdum14 @dadsweb67 One of us could plant the flowers, one of us could water the veggies, one of us could mow the weeds, and the other four could help my husband change out the flooring at the farm. Sounds like a dream for me… not so much for my husband 😂😂

@Absurdum14 @dadsweb67 If we were truly identical, that would mean there would be no feelings of competition and we would have the same interests and goals so I hope we’d all work together, taking turns doing the less desirable tasks in honor of seeing results much more quickly. I’d love that maybe…

@Karai_Dan It used to be how all business leaders communicated 😖

This is just how people communicate in business settings in Japan. Not unique to Miyamoto or Nintendo. Westerners are used to seeing Kamiya or Kojima who are extremely social media savvy and “different” by Japanese standards. That’s not the norm.