send hugs and kisses

I had the strangest dream last night and woke up with an even stranger and completely unrelated epiphany: I might not be hugged for 11 months.

Hugs, and any other unnecessary touching, are not a part of traditional japanese culture. A lot of the younger generation though are really into american culture so it's pretty normal to see them touching in public. In fact it isn't uncommon for teens and 20somethings to have 3 or 4 boyfriends at the same time.

But anyway last summer I was hugged a total of 4 times and by the same woman. The first time, I was really surprised because she was a very typical 30-something japanese secretary and wife. And although her english was better than average she spoke japanese to me 95% of the time and she didn't know much about american culture at all. Maybe it's because of the way the company or society is structured, but even though she worked at a different site 2 hrs away in the middle of Tokyo, she became one of my osewasama's (caretaker). And took me under her wing, especially when I got really lost in my country city late one night, as if I were her child. The sentiment very expected; the hugs were not. But still 4 in 80 days sucks for someone who's use to daily affection.

I was most annoyed by how restrictive japanese culture is when one of the guys in my research group of only 5 transferred to a site in southern japan. One of his good friends at work said goodbye/goodluck/etc etc as she bowed repeatedly for several minutes. Surprisingly most of the people in my company were between 25 and 35 yrs old so I didn't think they would be so traditional. I had only known him for a month, he spoke really fast japanese most of the time in this really ruff, deep voice that was hard for me to understand, and he only knew maybe 15 english words but he was such a great, kind, funny guy that I wanted to hug him goodbye for her. And even though everyone would've just laughed if I had (they loved to point out how wakai (young), kawaii (cute), and american I was), I decided not to disrespect the japanese way of doing things.