Smoke-filled room

This weekend was spent largely in (as the post title would imply) rooms filled with smokers. The American perception of Japan is largely of a very clean, efficient country (or at least my perception)- so it came as a surprise that practically everyone in Japan smokes. Indeed- tobacco has been so taken to Japan's cultural bosom that it is often spelled on signs with Hiragana, whereas pan ("bread," from Portuguese), an everyday word in use for the last 300 years or so, is still designated as a loan-word with Katakana. They just love their smokes.

What's perhaps more surprising is that the Japanese still have the longest life expectancy of just about anywhere (shows what a good diet and health care can do for you, I imagine).

In any event, the first smoke-filled room was a nomikai (飲み会) with the staff at my local board of education. It was unremarkable as far as nomikais go- my Japanese and their English are both sufficiently limited that all we could talk about were hobbies and what America was like and whatnot. Most of what I took away from the experience (besides some leftovers) was a headache from all the smoke (not the alchohol-n.b.).

The second experience was intended to be a brief visit to the store of Tatsuro-san to pick up some Xmas-age, but turned into a 5-hour chat (mostly in broken Japanese), with a visit to an urushi (varnished wood) shop in the middle. I learned (among other things), that Murakami is a sort of center for the preservation of Japanese traditional arts- Taiko drumming, urushi woodworking, tea making, Shoudou, and sake brewing (not that that particular art is in any danger of dying out, mind). I learned a bit about the Japanese generation gap from an older generation source- which was quite engaging. Apparently (and I can confirm this) that the old etiquette of Japan that most Westerners think of is slowly dying out as the younger, more Western youth take no interest in it.

I'd write more, but I'm beat (today was shogakko). Tomorrow we're making Christmas cards! :) More on that later (I'll try to get some photos of the cute ones)