thrifting

I'm kind of cheap. And I like used stuff. So I had a little shopping urge and managed to address it for a mere 780 yen. Thanks, Thank You Mart!

Some other thrift stores in my area:

Kinji: I've never found something I liked there.

B-style(part of the Book Off kingdom): The hundred or two hundred yen racks are cool for a quick skirt.

Thank You Mart: A small, but seemingly more carefully cultivated selection. Everything is 390 yen!

And I always love the city-run Machida Recycling Culture Center. Even though I don't usually find clothes there, I find other random cool stuff sometimes. Loads of zippers. Vintage stickers. Oodles of kimono cheap that make me wish I could quilt or do sakiori. Gocco stuff. Etc.

don't flash the cash

Money envelopes are a big deal in Japan. It's poor taste to show money around, especially in formal situations. So I have about a million pochibukuro, cute little pocket-sized money envelopes that I've received with my private lesson fees. I've been working on re-routing them to my Spanish teacher and my Pilates instructor, so the pile is diminishing a little.

Something else I recently learned is that congratulatory money envelopes and sympathy/funeral money envelopes are handled even more specifically than I knew and differently from each other. It's funny, because this is stuff even my Japanese family members don't seem to know. I got this information from my Japanese teacher, who is about 60 and knows a lot of traditional stuff.

When giving congratulatory money, say, for a wedding, it's best to use new, unfolded, crisp bills. The bills should be facing UP in the envelope – that is, with the face side of the bill looking up toward the front/decorated side of the envelope.

When giving condolence money, like for a funeral, it's important to use old/creased bills. If your bills don't have creases, you should crease them before putting them in. These bills need to be face down, denoting sadness.

In both cases, the money needs to go first in the plain, inner envelope before going into the fancier, outer envelope.

Good to know, although, oops, I've already done it wrong a few times.

So long, and thanks for all the washcloths.

My student Mayu is quitting English lessons after three years because she's getting older and starting cram school. Cram school takes a lot of time. I'm not offended, because I know that she loves me and that her mom likes me too. She came in a shy little mouse, not knowing any English at all, and now she's so awesome, reading and writing with confidence and ease. She's refused to have any other teacher as long as she's been at the school, and her mom has more than once expressed her appreciation. Sometimes kids quit, and they give a reason to be nice, like they're starting baseball or are busy with other things. Really, they aren't happy with the lessons or the school for some reason and want to quit. I don't think that's the case with Miss M.

So her mom came in the other day and told me that Mayu will be quitting after one more lesson. She gave me her sincere thanks and etc., then gave me a small package, giving me the standard line for giving a small gift like this: "kimochi dake", or "It's just my feeling". There's probably a better way to translate that, but there it is, literally.

Later I opened it, and inside was a Burberry washcloth. This isn't the first time I've received a gift like this, and I know what it's supposed to represent: it's a small, but posh, token of thanks. It's just a washcloth (which most women and some men carry around at all times to, like, dry their hands after using the washroom), but it's an EXPENSIVE washcloth. A designer washcloth.

Still, I can't help thinking...
"It's just my feeling... that you should wipe your nose."
"It's just my feeling... that you should wash your face."
"It's just my feeling... that you should, you know, CLEAN yourself more."

hugger mugger

I picked up this awesome phrase from Norman Lewis, in the excellent The Tomb in Seville. What a lovely book! He was in his nineties when he wrote it, and it happened in the '30s. It means chaotic hustle and bustle, or, alternately, secrecy and hush-hush.

In memory of needles

Today is harikuyou (針供養), or memorial day for needles. It doesn't seem to be a well-known holiday, as several folks that I've mentioned it to have never heard of it. It's a day for people to take their broken needles and put them in a block of tofu, then have a memorial service for them at the temple. It seems like it's a holiday for craftspeople, like tailors and seamstresses, who want to honor the service that their tools have given them.

books all around

Swap your books at BookMooch.com

I belong to the awesome bookmooch, a free book trading service that lets you give your read books away for points, then lets you spend the points on books others are giving away. Recently, I was mooched by the Quezon City library, in the Philippines, which is trying to increase its supply of foreign language books for the benefit and enjoyment of the locals. The library used points to "buy" my books, but since it was such a great cause, I sent them the books and also sent the points back to them.

The Quezon City library is only one of many charities listed on bookmooch that people can give points or books to.

I love this service; it combines a few of my favorite things, namely: reading, the post office, and reusing/trading rather than buying new things. Mooch on!

take their eyes out

Today is Setsubun, or the last day before spring. On this day, it's customary in Japan to throw soybeans out the window of your home, shouting "oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi" (鬼は外、福は内), or "demons out, good luck in!" I guess the demons are lured out by the food, like a magical mousetrap. Another theory says that by pitching the beans out, you're blinding the imps, keeping them from being able to see their way in.

I didn't have any soybeans around, so I used dry kidney beans. I hope demons like kidney beans.

oh, the indignity

I've been teaching Nana, Kazu, and Koya for awhile. Nana and Kazu, almost four years now. They're about eight years old these days.

After lesson on Wednesday, I said, "Good job, kids!"
Kazu replied to me (in Japanese, the scamp), "Kids? Kids means children. Please, call us juniors!"

Juniors?? That doesn't even MEAN anything. OK, Junior. On second thought, it fits.

On the balcony is the slanting sunlight of the afternoon and it feels like spring even though it's only mid-January. The weather is practically balmy, although the bare winter branches of the maple pointing brittle fingers at the sky tell otherwise. It feels good to beat on the blankets and comforters with an old badminton racket, watching the dust clouds rise in great billows under the dull, satisfying thwunk of each swing. One of the neighbors is doing the same thing; I can hear her but I can't see her. It's a thoroughly domestic task and I wonder why I don't do it more often. It's better than pulling off buttons and snipping off zippers so that the victim, later, blinks in befuddlement as they realize they can't fasten anything.