Daily life differs between Japan and the United States. Or maybe it’s just that life is different after almost 15 years.

Content Note: non-graphic discussion of sex

Transcript

K: So, lately I’ve been thinking about the difference in my day to day routine and daily life here in Japan versus in the United States, and the thing that really pops out to me is consistency. I feel like my life is way more inconsistent in Japan than it was in the United States. What’s the biggest difference for you, do you think, for daily life?

C: I think it’s almost the opposite. I feel like I don’t have to be consistent here in Japan because Japan itself is consistent. 

K: (laughs) I think – see, I think the opposite, but go ahead.

C: So, like the… I take public transport; you don’t take it often: we’ve talked about that. So, I can count on, unless there’s some extraordinary event, it’s going to run on time. So, I can consistently leave at the same time and get to a place at the same time if I want to go someplace. Whereas in the U.S., it might take ten minutes, it might take an hour depending on traffic. 

K: But how often did you go out in the U.S.? Did you leave the house?

C: I left the house more than I leave the house here in Japan because I had school… and Rasta had school, and I was often the one who took him to school or dropped him off before… we tried to curtail my driving. And, so, I went out quite a lot, actually. I did a lot of shopping.

K: Yeah.

C: It was a time when there was not as much online shopping, so I don’t know if I would still go out as much just by virtue of living in the U.S. or if it’s like it was before Amazon.

K: No, there was Amazon.

C: But Amazon was just books and things. Amazon hadn’t become the behemoth that it is now.

K: The thing that we mostly shopped for was food and books.

C: Yeah, but we did not shop for food from Amazon when we were living in the U.S. They hadn’t moved into food, yet.

K: Yeah.

C: So, yeah. Online. Here, it’s food and books, but I can get groceries delivered. That’s a whole other thing because they will just substitute if they don’t have…

K: Yeah, like if we order parmesan cheese, they will send us parmesan cheese dressing if they are out of powdered parmesan cheese. 

C: Yeah. Which, salad dressing and cheese, hey; completely the same thing. 

K: But not at all. (laughs)

C: Just like if I order my favorite kind of ramen noodles and they don’t have it, they will send me like cyanide flavored ramen noodles because, what, it’s all the same. Who cares that it’s not edible?

K: Yeah. (laughs) 

C: So, when I order from them

K: So, then how are you getting consistency for Japan? That Japan is consistent. I feel like it’s consistently inconsistent.

C: They are consistently wrong with the orders, and I think there’s probably a button somewhere that says, “don’t make any substitutions”, and I just don’t know to push it.

K: Mhm.

C: Probably hidden somewhere behind a popup or something. I don’t know. But I feel like… I can count on Japan to be itself. And sometimes that’s good, and sometimes that’s not good.

K: Yea.

C: Like, if I go to the bank, I know that if I have a single stray mark on a form at the bank, they will tell me, “just redo it.” There’s never going to be a teller who’s like, “eh, no big deal.” 

K: Yeah.

C: They’re going to be like, “no, you’re going to need to redo the form. I know it’s 40 lines long, and the only thing that you did is your 1 was a little wobbly, but that 1 is really wobbly, and we can’t accept a defective form.”

K: Yeah.

C: So, I find that the saying of “the customer is always right” or “the customer is god” 

K: Mmm. Yeah, that’s not true.

C: Japan is a lot more consistent in how it enforces that, which is “you’re wrong if you want anything that is not absolutely, completely standard.”

K: Yes.

C: Whereas in the U.S., sometimes they wouldn’t do things that were standard, but sometimes people would go out of their way to help you.

K: Yeah. So…

C: So, do you find the same thing in the kind of… shopping and such that you do?

K: So, everybody knows I don’t do the shopping, so no. (laughs)

K: But you do souvenir shopping and things. You’re – you buy a lot more

K: If we travel, I do the omiyage, and everybody knows I have a prize box, and I like that they have changing stock at the 100-yen store. Which is basically like the dollar store. I like that. But, for me, when I’m thinking about – because I’ve moaned about the inconsistency and the grocery shopping in multiple episodes. For me, when I was thinking about consistent and inconsistent, for me, I was thinking more about… the inconsistencies that happen in my life because of lack of historical knowledge.

C: Mmm.

K: So, for my business in the United States, I… didn’t have a lot of random cancellations because parents didn’t know that their kids would be out of school. And, so, around schooling specifically, the lack of people understanding the school schedule and school calendar creates a lot of inconsistency in my work life because I work with students and parents. So, students will be like, “whoa I didn’t know I had this week off from school, you’re inconvenient, so I’m going to cancel my appointment the day before.” And, a day before, they’ll be like, “whoa I didn’t know my kid had this day off from school, so I need to cancel.” Whereas, in the United States, you have the historical knowledge of your city, your town, and… all of the schools in that city usually have the same days off, whereas in Japan that’s not the case. Schools in different… wards have different schedules. 

C: I wonder how much that’s still the case with charter schools and magnet schools and that kind of thing. Because

K: But you know like, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Martin Luther King Jr. day, but sports day changes in Japan. 

C: The sports day is always the same day unless it’s on a weekend, but there’s sometimes other holidays. There’s a couple of holidays that sometimes

K: So, you think that sports day is the same for every school in Japan?

C: I think that the holiday sports day is the same.

K: I’m not talking about the holiday sports day; I’m talking about the school sports day.

C: Oh, no, that’s different.

K: So, there are multiple – see, there are multiple sports day, and because you don’t really – you’ve only, you worked at one school for a little while, but you don’t normally deal with parents and kids anymore.

C: No, I don’t.

K: I do. And, so, there is the sports day where it’s a national holiday, and some schools take that day off, some schools do not take that day off. And then there is sports day, when the parents are supposed to go to the school and watch their kids participate in sports. And there’s no ribbons or competitions. It’s just like literally watching your kid do whatever random sport. 

C: Well, and they do demonstrations, and the Japan governing body has recommended that they stop some of the types of demonstrations. So, a few years ago, I edited a whole series of papers about this when I was editing. They have this thing where they do the pyramids with the stacking people. 

K: Is this related to school sports day?

C: This is related to school sports day because they demonstrate on school sports day how big a pyramid they can do. 

K: I’ve never heard of that.

C: Yeah. And at some of the high schools – I don’t think that the international schools do this, I think this is strictly a Japanese schools thing. But some of the high schools would get pyramids of up to seven people high. 

K: Yeah. 

C: And they had an extremely high injury rate. Like, the MEXT, the head of education for Japan, said, “please stop doing this” because a lot of kids were getting hurt with that.

K: Well, then, too, there’s also inconsistency with the schools in that international schools can just do whatever they want – a lot of the international schools, they aren’t recognized by the Ministry of Education in Japan

C: Right.

K: And… a lot of them do, like, they go through IB certification or what-have-you. So, in addition to like – because I don’t want to just talk about schools because I find that to be boring – I’m just going to be real, my kid’s not in school. (laughs)

C: He’s a little bit old.

K: Yeah. The other thing that it causes is that I feel like people do not read or try to read the materials they get from work or schools or institutions, and so they won’t know vacation days. Days that their place of business will be closed, or when they’ll have days off. And, so, they will randomly and spontaneously – and this never happened in the United States – they will randomly and spontaneously decide to leave the country. 

C: Mmm.

K: And just go on a two-week trip because it all worked out for them. So, for Americans, we don’t need visas to go most – to go, to my knowledge, any of the Asian countries around Japan, but other – people from other countries do. So, I find this happens most often with Americans and Australians that will just randomly… just leave. 

C: Be like, “I’m just going to head out to Bali” or

K: And just take two weeks off – yeah. “Sorry, my husband has this day off – sorry, my husband has this Friday off, we’re going to Bali for the weekend.”

C: See, and I think maybe that’s you – maybe that inconsistency is you dealing a lot more with non-Japanese people than Id o. 

K: Yeah.

C: Because my work is online, so… almost nobody there is Japanese. I’m not sure that anybody there is Japanese, but they’re not in Japan, so they don’t really affect me. I know what days I have off there, and what days I’m working and what days I’m not.

K: But the only reason you know that is because they told you, “hey this is the calendar of our days off.” 

C: Yes.

K: And you looked at it. And the Japanese companies, they do the same thing, but in Japan there’s randomly Thursdays off and randomly Wednesdays off. So, I find that my clients will randomly – will randomly be like, “oh, I just found out my husband has Wednesday off, so I’ve asked him to take two of his vacation days Thursday and Friday. We’re doing a long weekend.” And I’m really fortunate that my Tuesday and Wednesday clients don’t mess around, 

C: Yeah, they know better.

K: No, they just really, really – they’re my crew. And they’re usually my longest-standing clients are on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and I’m booked literally years in advance on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And then I find that most of my Friday – I want to say about half of or a third of my Friday clients don’t do it. My Thursday clients… out of all of my Thursday clients, there’s only one that comes to every single one of their appointments and never cancels on me. Of my Thursdays, so my Thursday is the most variable day of the week. Saturday is my second most variable day. Friday is my third most variable day. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually really predictable, and Tuesday is my skype day, so I don’t see anybody in person. So, if someone cancels on a Tuesday, it doesn’t affect me as much because I’m at home anyway. And, then, I usually just tweet or do schoolwork. And then Sundays are the day that you and I spend together. And that’s a holdover from the United States. I always think that Sunday is a fun day.

C: Yeah. And we just want to run day.

K: Yeah. And, so, Sunday used to be the day that we did things as a family. So, now Sunday is the day that you and I hang out, touch base with each other, and see how we’re doing. And that’s been – I think our entire marriage, we’ve checked in on each other on Sundays.

C: For a long time, we both had Saturdays and Sundays off.

K: Yeah. 

C: And then… you started working Saturdays again. So, the only day in common that we have off at the moment is Sundays.

K: Yeah.

C: So, Sunday is kind of the natural day because you have Sundays off. I have Sundays off.

K: And there was that brief period of time when I was teaching English where I would work Sundays but would have Saturdays off.

C: Yeah, I remember that. But I wasn’t working Saturdays, so…

KL: Right.

C: It’s been a while since I’ve worked Saturdays. 

K: I can’t remember the last time – I don’t remember Saturday ever being a day that you worked.

C: I think the last time I worked Saturday was when we first arrived in Japan, and I was teaching English because for English teachers – every English teacher who works for a school works either Saturday or Sunday.

K: Yeah. So, if they work for eikawa, which is a conversational company, or for a Japanese language school, you’re working at least one weekend day.

C: Yeah.

K: It’s – and most people are working both weekends. And… I’ve had – I always tell clients that are fresh to Japan, “do not ask for weekends off. None of your friends will have weekends off.” Everybody, if they’re working in the English Language – English teaching field, if they’re not working at an international school, it’s a Monday through Friday, it’ll be really hard to build a social group. 

C: So, I find it interesting that in my day to day life, I don’t go out all that often, but when I do go out, I tend to notice the notices in the elevator. That’s a consistent thing. I’m like, “okay, three weeks from now, they’re going to shut down the automated car elevator for an hour.”

K: Yeah, I read the notices in the elevator every day that I go out, and I do enjoy that they give us weeks and weeks in advance notice, which is why it makes it so maddening when clients cancel because the notifications that we receive in the mail – sometimes, we receive notices about the local schools around here doing drills or different things, so I know the parents are getting it. But, because we don’t, because they don’t read Japanese, they just ignore anything that comes in flier form. Anything that’s not a bill.

C: Right.

K: And I don’t do that. I used to do that, but I don’t do that anymore. I look at each piece of mail, or – if you’re a Musick Note, you know what I really do is sort out all the bills, then hand the stack to Chad and say, “is this garbage?”

C: Yeah.

(laughter)

C: And I look through it and go, “yes, yes.”

K: And that’s m4e looking through it – I like to say “me” as in “royal me.” (laughs)

C: You have – you have vicarious eyes.

K: Yes, I do. Because I say, “I’m going to do this”, and Chad knows which “I” means him. (laughs)

C: So, that has been part of your day to day life since we met.

K: Yes, since we met, I will always pull out the bills, but the junk mail – you’ve got to look through the junk mail to decide.

C: Oh, I meant you having me do things for you, but, yes, the junk mail thing too.

K: (laughs) I told you when we met, I don’t like to bend over.

C: Yes.

K: I told you that s a real thing – I have bad knees and bad hips. I have a lot of joint pain. I don’t like to bend over. But I can pick things up with my feet. You don’t like me grabbing things with my feet.

C: Yeah.

K: At all. It really bothers you. So, that’s the truth about why you bend over for me. You don’t like me grabbing things with my feet.

C: And, so, we’re talking here in the ordinary conventional sense and not in the hashtag twitter after dark sense. 

(laughter)

C: Or were you talking?

K: (laughs) Oh, but he does do things for me. He knows what I like.

C: (laughs)

K: Ohh, and, see, I’m trying to fight it. 

C: You can’t fight the feeling.

K: I can’t. I can’t. You know, you can get me to bend over. (laughs)

C: Yup.

K: I couldn’t stop myself from saying it. That’s the one time I bend over. There’s one person I’ll bend over for. (laughs) Really, this is – I guess this is kind of a family show. I don’t know. Are we a family show? Do you listen with your family? Let us know. Hit us up on twitter. That would be interesting to me.

C: Well, if we just took it a little bit more steamy, it would be a “soon to be a family show.”

(laughter)

K: No, everybody knows I’ve had a hysterectomy. If we’re having a family.

C: Oh, no, the listeners. Not us.

K: Oh, okay, like we inspire them.

C: Exactly. 

K: So, they did a thing back when – okay, this predates Chad, it’s so TMI, but I can’t help it. One time I was having sex during Johnny Carson’s monologue of the Tonight Show. Shows how old I am. You probably don’t even know who Johnny Carson is, but Johnny Carson was the host of the tonight show before Jay Leno. 

C: Yeah.

K: And he had hosted it for years, and he made a joke that more babies are conceived during his monologue than any other thing, and I was having sex at the time and just started cracking up. Me and the person I was having sex with, we started cracking up, and then we continued having sex throughout Johnny Carson. 

C: While watching Johnny Carson.

K: Yes. While watching Johnny Carson. So… so, that shows you my sex life pre-Chad.

(laughter)

C: Okay. She needed Johnny Carson and the band to spice things up for her.

K: Yes. (laughter)

C: If that doesn’t say something. 

K: And now I just need naked Chad. (laughs) Every kind of Chad. So, I find that… our sex life has also dramatically changed because our beds are on the floor. So, there are certain things that we’ve changed about our sex life.

C: Yes.

K: And, so, we’re talking about our daily life, and our sex life comes into that. And, also, because we have two futons, we don’t have one connected mattress. Our mattresses are together, but every morning we get up and reconnect our bed.

C: I think we’ve mentioned before how they kind of slide around.

K: They do, and it’s always amazing to me. Like, last night, it was so weird to me – I managed to slide every single layer of my bed down. And, so, this morning it was super easy for me because I just kicked all the layers – like I moved the bottom layer, and all the layers moved forward. I was like, “that was an interesting trick, Kisstopher, what did you do last night?” 

C: That is interesting.

K: Yeah. You, on the other hand, your top layer will be halfway across the room, and I’m like, “what are you even sleeping on? How can you even handle that?” 

C: It’ll move by several

K: You sleep on four or five layers that are at different heights and different levels.

C: It’ll move by several feet. Or about a meter, for those of you who use the civilized system.

K: Oh, my goodness, I’m uncivilized. I have no idea.

C: (laughs)

K: Is a meter about a foot?

C: A meter is about three feet.

K: Okay, so that’s not like they move about a foot or a meter.

C: I said several feet. 

K: But… okay. I’ll give it to you.

C: My bed is halfway off, that’s several feet because I’m about six foot tall.

K: (laughs) I don’t think you are. I know you say you’re 5’11, but in my world you’re 5’9.

C: I say I’m 5’10”. 

K: Okay. You say you’re 5’10”, but in my world you’re 5’9”, and I’m 4 foot, no I’m 5 foot 5.

C: No, no. Go back to the 4 foot 5.

K: I’m not 4 feet. I’m 5, I’m actually 5 feet and 4…

C: 4 inches.

K: 4 and three quarters inches. 

C: Yeah?

K: Yeah.

C: I’m going to measure after the podcast because we don’t do that during the podcast. 

K: We don’t. We don’t measure, and we don’t google. Why are you lying? You’re not going to measure me. You’ve been saying for years that you’re going to measure me, and you haven’t. 

C: I didn’t say I was going to do it today. Just sometime after

K: So, sometime in my future you’re going to measure me?

C: Not during the podcast, therefore it’s after the podcast.

K: Okay, right on. So, sometime after this podcast – after this specific episode has been recorded – you’re going to measure me.

C: Correct.

K: Okay. Crack on with that.

C: I find that the… expectation of day to day life is very, very rigid in Japan in a way that it wasn’t in the United States.

K: What do you mean by that? I don’t understand that.

C: I meant that if you ask a Japanese person, culturally Japanese, what they’re supposed to do in a da… there’s a specific answer. Like, if you’re a salary man, which is… there’s not really a better translation, but it’s like

K: Yes, there is. Corporate office worker. At the entry level. If you’re an entry-level employee.

C: Okay. If you’re an entry-level employee at a non-retail firm. Because retail is a different thing.

K: Why do you think this is different from the United States?

C: Well because

K: Do you think personal assistants and retailers – so, for me, this is what I think is exactly the same as the United States.

C: I think the workday is the same, but I think it’s the around the work time. Like, if you’re a salary man here, which is both men and women and non-binary folks, you’re supposed to get up a certain number – a certain amount of time before the day. You’re supposed to hang up your futon so it can dry for the day. Like… get your tea, have your tea. There’s a whole ritual to it. 

K: Okay, you’re stuck in the 1970s right now.

C: See, and I think Japan is stuck in the 1970s a lot of ways.

K: Yeah, but I work with Japanese nationals, and they don’t have the firm idea you have. I don’t know where you get – so, oh, I know what it is. You ha- so, this is something that they don’t know, that I haven’t said to the listeners yet: you randomly go and talk at Japanese societies and organizations, and, so when Chad is talking about the Japanese people that he knows, they’re usually 60 and above. So, you don’t know any 20-something Japanese nationals. You don’t know any 30, 40, like, literally, can you think of anyone who is under the age of 40 and Japanese that you speak to on a regular basis?

C: No. Not a single person.

K: Yeah, so… your Japan is very much, I feel like, the majority of people you know are above 50.

C: Yeah, I think so. 

K: So, yeah, they do – that demographic, I find when I work with them even when they’re coming to see me, they’re impressed with how modern they are the fact that they’ll come and talk to a therapist.

C: A therapist.

K: Yeah. And they boast. But then they often scold me for not having a shoehorn. A long shoehorn that they could use from standing.

C: Yeah because you have a shoehorn, you just don’t have a long enough shoehorn.

K: I don’t have a shoehorn at the office.

C: Oh, we need to fix that.

K: Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it. I do need to get a long, standing shoehorn. I’ve been meaning to do that for over a decade, so I’ll get around to it eventually. 

C: On the other hand, they’re supposed to wear shoes that are easily to slip off, so it’s kind of their fault.

K: Yeah. So… that’s what it is. I was trying to figure out why is your Japan so different than mine.

C: Yeah. I think there really is an age gap.

K: Yeah because I speak with Japanese nationals as young as 2, and the oldest Japanese national I speak to on a regular basis I think is 74? Or 75. I’m not sure. In their 70s.

C: So, when I was editing, some of my clients were in their late 20s or early 30s.

K: But did you really talk to them about everyday life?

C: I was just going to say I didn’t talk to them. The people that I talked to were their mentors who were usually in their late 50s, early 60s. 

K: Yeah.

C: Or they were professors emeritus, and they were in their 70s.

K: Yeah.

C: Like, one of my favorite people – he’s dead, so I’m just going to say his name – but… was a mathematician named Hida. So, Hida-sensei was a statistician. And, I was at Nagoya University when they had the celebration of the 25th anniversary of his retirement. 

K: Yeah.

C: So, that was fun because he had – you had to retire, when he was that age, you had to retire at 65. Some places still have that.

K: Yeah.

C: So, he was 90, and he had retired 25 years before and still came to work every day. 

K: Yeah.

C: Because that was just his routine. That’s what I’m thinking of when ‘m thinking of routine. You’re right that I am thinking of older Japanese people.

K: Yeah So, I feel like when it comes to daily routine for everyday life, I don’t think that everyday life is so different in Japan than it is in the United States for just what you get up and do, but I think as a foreigner how much we interact with – someone was recently saying to me… I was talking with – no, I think was I watching a show on Japan, and they were saying how because everything’s written in hiragana and kanji and katakana that it’s just a void. It’s not – you’re not interacting with any words, and that it creates a silence in their head. 

And that is something that I find. I find that I can choose to tune in and tune out Japanese a lot more easily than I can English. So… like… radio, t.v., people talking on the train, what I’m looking at in the car on the way to and from work, and all of those kinds of things. I can choose to interact with them and read them, or I can choose to not even see them at all.

C: Mmm. Yeah. I think that was a British comedian who did the series.

K: Yeah, but I don’t know if he’s – if he was really a comedian or not. I can’t remember his name. I can’t remember the name of the series either. I watched it back in January, I think, so

C: But I want to point out that when Kisstopher says t.v. she means t.v. at doctor’s offices or incidentally, like on at stores. 

K: Yeah. NHK, we do not have a television.

C: Okay. 

K: We – and we don’t. We really, honest to goodness, NHK I swear to you. So, NHK is… 

C: NHK is Japan Broadcasting Company, and it’s NHK because it’s Nihon Housou Kaisha. 

K: Yeah.

C: Which is literally “Japan Broadcasting Company.”

K: And they are gangster. They are gangster. Because you’re supposed to pay if you have a television.

C: If you have a television, yeah.

K: They will send people to your house. They will trick people into signing contracts. They will harass you by mail, and we like – we had to assign an affidavit that we do not have a television, and we honestly do not have a television.

C: No, we don’t. But now they’re talking to asking people “do you have a phone that can display t.v.?”

K: Yeah, no. I have a flip phone.

C: You do. You have a clam shell.

K: Yeah. I have flip phone, and I’m super proud of that.

C: I’ve been seeing more articles that say, “we need to go back to the era of dumb phones.” Like, not smartphones.

K: Yeah.

C: I’m like, “my honey is already there. She’s ahead of the times.”

K: (laughs) Well, I have an iPod touch, and I have an iPad. And, for me, I find texting to be most comfortable from my iPad. And I tweet from a laptop, so anytime you read a tweet from me, I don’t tweet from the iPad. I like to use the typewriter.

C: Yeah.

K: So, I always tweet from – and I do line from my iPad. I didn’t have line for a lot of years. I have line, and then I accidentally – because line was new, so when line first came out, I got line, and then I allowed my clients to add me.

C: Mm.

K: On line. Which ended up in people using that as a crisis hotline.

C: And that’s not the kind of therapist you are.

K: No, I’m not a crisis hotline therapist at all. And I don’t do e-therapy. They would use it for e-therapy, and they would just send me walls of text. And, with line, it shows you when it’s read. So, I would just have to leave stuff unread, and then also teenagers would cancel their appointments on line – via line try to cancel and make appointments. And I don’t like messenger, I have a handful of clients who only communicate via Facebook messenger. It is so unsecure. 

C: Yeah.

K: And I don’t do my Facebook. So, real talk, it’s not me on Facebook. I have an assistant who does my Facebook for me because I don’t have time to do my Facebook. I write the happiness challenges, but I have somebody else post them for me. Like, I write batches of them, and then I have them post and check for interactions and such.

C: Yeah. So, I find that, like… line is interesting because now they’ve got line pay. So, it started out as a messaging app, and now it’s like

K: Yeah, after the earthquakes.

C: Yeah. And now it’s, like, a payment app. So… March 11th, 2011 was the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

K: Yeah, and we were here for that. And it was three months of earthquakes afterwards. It was a harrowing time. 

C: So, after that, people developed line as a way to check to – check in with your loved ones to see if they were okay. 

K: Yeah. To see if they were alive.

C: Yeah, which is why it shows read, so you can know the other person got it even if they haven’t responded yet.

K: Yeah. I think all the communications app do that now – I think like Facebook messenger does it now, and

C: Most of them do, yeah.

K: I think WhatsApp does it now.

C: Yeah. I think WhatsApp, Facebook messenger, Telegram I think does it. They show the read.

K: So, now I don’t have anybody on line except for you and Rasta. 

C: Yeah.

K: I don’t – I won’t add anyone else. So, sorry, no I won’t add you on line.

C: So, line doesn’t show when you’re typing, so you can be typing away for hours, and then waiting to hit that send button, and the other person won’t know it.

K: Yup. (laughs) But they’ll know when you read it. And also, I love stickers, so I have two line chats – I have one with me, you, and Rasta, and then I have one with just me and Rasta because Rasta and I can honestly have a thirty-minute sticker conversation.

C: Mhm.

K: And sometimes he cuts me off, and I feel like, rude. He’ll be like, “okay I have to get back to work now.” Rude.

C: Does he send you a sticker of I have to get back to work?

K: Yeah, he sends me a sticker and then says, “I have to get back to work” or he’ll say, “I have to get back to work” and then send me a sticker of him working. 

C: Oh, okay. I think you should talk to his boss about that.

K: (laughs) He works for me, so yeah, when he’s saying like, “boss, I have to get back to work. Momboss.” So, he has three different names for me. He calls me boss, he calls me momboss, and he calls me mom. 

C: Yes.

K: So, momboss is when he’s feeling really safe and secure, and we’re being silly at work. 

C: Mhm.

K: And then boss is random. But, if things are bad between us, it’s mom. It’s not boss. It’s not momboss. It’s mom. 

C: Yeah.

K: But even when things are good, it’s mom.

C: Well, and he calls you Kisstopher to other people, but not to you. 

K: Yes. Sometimes. 

C: Sometimes, yeah.

K: Yeah. When he’s doing interpretation in sessions, he says “Kisstopher” or “Sensei.” Which is like respected elder or respected authority. I know it’s often translated to teacher, but no. 

C: Yeah.

K: It doesn’t mean teacher.

C: It doesn’t mean teacher or master.

K: No, it doesn’t. So, that’s a mistranslation.

C: It literally means “person who came before.” So, it’s a term of respect, but not any of those.

K: Yeah. Saying that you are more knowledgeable in this area than I am. In the hierarchy, you are above me in the hierarchy of this dynamic.

C: Yeah.

K: Yeah.

C: I find it interesting how many people adopt the senpai thing of like, “you’re my senpai.” You don’t know what that system is. Don’t call me that.

K: Nobody calls me that.

C: No, nobody calls you that.

K: Do people call you that?

C: I think we only have one person who says that. One of my former tutoring clients.

K: Yeah, and they’re very, very young. 

C: Yeah.

K: It’d be more appropriate for you to be their sensei.

C: Right? 

K: Than senpai.

C: I have the everything.

K: Yeah. So, the senpai kouhai system is – it’s like the person who’s a year older than you in high school is your senpai, and the person who’s a year younger than you, a year or two younger than you, is usually the dynamic is your kouhai.

C: Yeah.

K: And those relationships sometimes carry on for years and years even if they don’t like each other, which I think is weird.

C: Yeah. But I had a lot of friends I didn’t like when we met. And then I had lost touch with them, and there was Facebook.

K: (laughs) 

C: So, if you’re friends with me on Facebook and you’re listening, I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about somebody else.

K: (laughs) And I have several thousand – like, I’m already maxed out on the number, almost maxed out, on the number of friends I can have on Facebook.

C: The only reason you’re not maxed out is because some of your “friends” do things that get themselves suspended which opens up slots. 

K: Yeah. And then I will just fill them. Because I will accept any Facebook friend request. Like, I don’t have to know you. I don’t care. You want to be Facebook friends? Sure, whatever.

C: Yeah. 

K: Because, again, not me. (laughs) 

C: I

K: Because you can’t reach me on fakebook. So, what happens is if you try to reach me on Facebook, my assistant will tell me. It’s not Rasta. I have a personal assistant that does it, so. I have a team. I have staff.

C: You do.

K: I have too much overhead. I feel so bloated. I feel like a bloated whale, and I think that’s the difference – another huge difference in my daily life. Is group practice versus single practice. Single practice means that you have to pay everybody yourself. 

C: Right. Who knew?

K: (laughs) and group practice, everybody in the group practice chips in on rent, everybody in the group practice chips in on the receptionist, and the person who does medical billing, because the receptionist does not have a medical billing, medical billing is its own field because everybody wants it done differently. And then if you need someone to do research – so there’s three or four office staff members that the group helps pay for, and the office space, and the waiting room. You know. Like, you’re really only in charge of having to cover the cost of just your unit. But, me, I’m having to cover the cost of three units and a personal assistant and an office manager.

C: It’s not so common now, but at the bigger practices, if they had subscriptions to the journals or whatever, that was also split. 

K: Yeah.

C: Now, I think you can get most of that stuff online.

K: Well, and now I get most of that stuff through school because I’m in school. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I’m not in school. There was a brief period of time when I wasn’t in school and I was working, but you were.

C: Neither one of us – yeah, I was in school.

K: Yeah. And then a- there was that time when neither one of us were in school, and I felt like huge withdrawal for the research I couldn’t have access to. Like, “what am I going to do? Do I buy this?” We would have conversations, “do I buy this article or don’t I?”

C: Yeah. Texas A&M, I think they gave me access to the library for five years after I graduated, but when they cut me off it hurt.

K: Yeah. And then being a member of the APA, they don’t have a lot of journal access. And then being a member of the JPA, they have access to a lot of journals in Japanese.

C: The APA would send you on your renewal form, but then you decided it wasn’t worth it anymore, “would you like to subscribe to these journals?” If you have said yes to all the journals, it was like five thousand dollars a year.

K: Yeah. So, now I’m just using my school. And I don’t know what I’m going to do afterwards.

C: I’m not sure.

K: I don’t know how I’m going to stay current.

C: Things are moving toward open-access, which I can do a whole thing about open-access

K: Yeah, I like open-access, and I do have several systems that I use that create things open-access because depending on which country you go through, there’s different access rules for each country. 

C: Right.

K: What can be opened what can be closed, and I find that the United States has the most closed access, whereas China has a lot more open-access, Russia has a lot more open-access, and I think Thailand is pretty open-access. And Singapore.

C: And the U.K. too because a lot of the research in the U.K. is funded through things like the Welcome Trust, which require that the papers be open-access and publishers have reluctantly said, “okay fine, if you were funded by the Welcome Trust, we’ll agree with that.” Because they can’t publish your paper otherwise.

K: So, that’s a major change in my lifestyle from the United States in Japan, and this is not just bringing back a digression, this is legitimately: in the United States, I had access to libraries. I had access to research libraries.

C: Oh, yeah, me too.

K: So, here in Japan, I have access to research libraries, but, again, in Japanese.

C: Right.

K: So, I don’t have – because of my credentials, I have access to certain things. And… in the United States, you can go to research – there are research libraries that are just made for people who are in different professions that you can go and do research that are not affiliated to schools. So, here, I wouldn’t even know where to find – I know I could go to the ministry.

C: You’ve asked me for a few papers. It’s been a few years, but you’ve sked me for a few papers, and I go down to Nagoya University, and I say, “I’d like to get this paper” and because I’m an alumnus, they say, “that’s fine” and they give me the paper. But, yeah, it’s

K: It’s been a while since I’ve had to do that. Now, I have pretty good access through my university. And I have pretty good access now that I know that different countries have different laws. 

C: Yeah.

K: So, I can just ask somebody in a different country for the paper.

C: Well, and, now, which I think you’ve mention – might’ve mentioned on the podcast, but you’ve mentioned on twitter, you’re conversing directly with some of the researches.

K: Yes, I am. At least, in my field for my PHD.

C: So, you can just like, “hey can you send me your paper?” And they can.

K: Yes, and they do. And they have. So, that’s like whoohoo, that’s a major difference in my daily life.

C: Yeah.

K: I’m now on a – I’m not a first name basis, although they sign it with – they always sign their emails with their first name, but I still call them doctor. So, I’m not technically their peer because I don’t have my PHD. But they address by my first name, and they sign their first name, so I feel like we’re casually on a first name basis.

C: You are casually on a first name basis. And academics

K: Because they write to me with suggestions, so it’s really nice. It’s a collaboration, and it’s really nice. I collaborate with the leading experts in my field for my PHD. Which is – I’m studying cultural intelligence.

C: And people differ. Like, people with PHDs differ so much about whether they want to be called by their first name or not, and who they think is worthy.

K: Yeah.

C: I’m like, I’m fine with anybody calling me Chad. But I’m not

K: I’m definitely first name basis with the person who runs the center for cultural intelligence, which was founded by, you know, one of the people who coined the term and discovered it. It was founded by both members who created the form to validate it and all of that.

C: But, if you’re going to call me Chad, then I need to call you by your first name.

K: Yeah, I feel like it needs to be even Stevens. 

C: Yeah. 

K: Yeah. No offense to all the Stevens out there. I’m sorry if you don’t like your name being used in even. 

C: You know, they’re being included. Like, sometimes they’re not included, but this time even Stevens are being included.

K: (laughs) So, but I feel like I have to apologize to all the Stevens. So, yeah. So, I’m just really… caught up in how we address people and the importance of respect and inclusion and all of that.

C: Do you think that speaking in Japanese makes that more prevalent – like, speaking to Japanese speakers even if you’re talking in English because there are so many forms of address in Japanese.

K: No. I find that, being a therapist who’s focused on inclusivity

C: Mmm.

K: (laughs) I say that with such disdain. No. I know I’ve been talking about a lot about reading and speaking in Japanese this episode, and I’d like to do my usual disclaimer: I do not read any Japanese, and I do not speak any Japanese. If you hear otherwise, it is propaganda. 

(laughter)

C: Yes.

K: Propaganda and lies, I say. Lies. I like – oh, Al Franken, he’s such a disappointment. 

C: Yeah.

K: Lying – lying, liars, and lies they tell. What was the name of his book?

C: Yeah, I think that was basically the name.

K: Yeah. Al Franken, you disappoint me. It’s rare that I call people out on the podcast, but… he was a major disappointment.

C: Yeah.

K: Like, dude, do better. So, on that sad note, we’re going to – if you want to – we’re going to talk more about this and mix it up more on the take two

C: I just hope he doesn’t die between now and when we have the episode transcribed and posted. 

K: I will still feel disappointed.

C: (laughs)

K: And my disappointment will never go away.

C: I’m just clarifying that, as of this recording, Al Franken is alive. 

K: Yes. But, even if he’s dead, I’m still posthumously disappointed. 

C: Disappointed, yes. 

K: So, there you have it, I said it. What? (laughs)

C: Hashtag do better.

(laughter)

K: You know I love hashtag do better. I will hit you with that with the quickness. If you want to keep the conversation going, you can hit us up on our website or tweet at us or chuck on over the Patreon and check out our take two. Talk to you next week.

C: Bye.

K: Bye.