At last, dinner parties in Japan are looking like dinner parties

“I’m having a dinner party this weekend. One of the guests just cancelled, would you like to join us?”

How would you respond to such an invitation? It depends on the person, but some people may be offended to be invited to dinner at such short notice. Also, only because someone cancelled.

Dinner parties are quite common in Australia, and we usually see it as a chance to catch up with people, enjoy nice food, and relax and chat. A relaxing dinner party is an enjoyable dinner party. Of course, the dinner setting is quite formal and the food is nice, sometimes really nice. However, the most important thing is for people to enjoy themselves; to have a good time - even if the invitation to dinner was only given a day or two before.

I live in Japan, and I still try to hold dinner parties the Australian way. Things are changing, but when I first came to Japan it was quite difficult to hold an enjoyable dinner party.

When I lived in Nagano, people would arrive before the appointed time, they’d bring gifts and they’d be dressed very nicely! Then, after opening the gifts and making people comfortable, I’d go back to the kitchen and continue cooking while the Japanese people made polite conversation with each other in the living room - and ignoring me.

When dinner was finally served, they’d say how wonderful the food looked, eat quietly and only drink when I offered to fill their glass. There was very little laughter, lots of nice compliments about the (plain) food and… exactly two hours after arriving, when they’d finished eating - they would thank me for inviting them and go home. They weren’t the good old days for dinner parties.

Let's fast forward to 2016. I had a dinner party two weeks ago. It was to start at six o’clock and since my kitchen is in the living area, I could talk to my guests while cooking if they arrived, as expected - earlier than six. 

Well, the Takamatsu family finally arrived at 6:30! The food was getting cold and I had to call them - luckily they live in the same building. When they arrived, there were no gifts, just some alcohol. Great! Then, Megumi spent her time in the kitchen talking to Reiko and me and offering to help with the cooking. Her husband, Masanori was in the living room enjoying a beer with the Kameda family. A few days before, I had invited the Kamedas on the third floor. Nobody used a glass, everyone drank straight from the bottle!

At last, dinner parties in Japan are now starting to look like dinner parties I enjoy! However, I still have to wash the dishes by myself. In Australia, that’s a drinking activity…

Being Social and Being Polite

A few weeks ago, somebody told me that I'm most polite to people I don't know. I was surprised to hear it. As you may know, in Japan people are usually polite to people they know and ignore almost everyone else.

Every morning, when I cycle to the train station near my house I try to say 'Good morning' to at least five people. Yesterday, I managed to greet five people. Unfortunately, today it was raining and I greeted no one. However, I did chastise three people - the umbrella cyclists. It's now illegal to ride a bicycle while holding an umbrella.

So, I wasn't polite to four people I didn't know. I simply said to them, "Abunai desu", which is "It's dangerous" in Japanese. One of the cyclists was riding down the middle of a one way street - the wrong way, holding an umbrella with his wife sitting on the rear (very small) parcel rack. Congratulations! If a policeman had been there, at 6:40 a.m., the man could have been fined up to 50,000 yen for using an umbrella. The good news is, having his wife on the parcel rack would only cost him another 20,000 yen.

So, I wasn't polite to those two people I didn't know. I simply was trying to help them save money.

                                                   Oh look! An unhappy bicycle basket.

My autumn years

Well, this week I’m entering my ‘golden years’. I am no longer green (naive), and I don’t feel blue (sad) about turning sixty years old. Hey, I’ve lived this long and I’m looking forward to the next sixty years.

In Japan, when people turn sixty they wear red clothing. I’m not sure why. In Western countries, when older people wear red, it usually means they are trying to look younger than they are. I’ve been wearing red t-shirts and polo shirts for a long time, so if I wear red now - to try and look younger than I am -  the only people who will notice are the people who haven’t met me before.

What’s your colour? Being a boy (guy, man) I’ve been told that blue is my colour. You know, when we are children we are told that blue is for boys and pink is for girls. When I look around me I think I’m moving to the left of the colour spectrum. 

In English, when we think of the major colours we have an acronym; ROY G BIV. When I was a boy and blue was my colour I was close to the right side of the spectrum, and since I’m moving left I should be at the extreme left of the spectrum, a sixty-year-old red lover. 

However, when I look round my home and look at the colours I have chosen for my curtains and my bedding, it seems that I am more earthy. I have yellow curtains and a yellow table cloth. The sofa and the dining suite are ivory. Even my guitar is a light ash wood colour.

Maybe you are not yellow with envy at my choice of home tones, but you can understand that the colours we choose tell us about what kind of people we are. If I am yellow, then I’m a sunny guy!

My Important is not as Important as your Important

Last week, I wrote about social networking sites, especially Facebook and the surprising fact that Twitter is the most popular SNS (social networking site) in Japan.

I think a major reason why Twitter is popular around the world is because it limits how much people can write - 140 characters.

That’s good news for busy people, they don’t have to write as much… or read as much of what ‘important’ things people have to say.

The fact is, my ‘important’ and your ‘important’ may be different. For some people on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram among other sites - might be pictures of pets, food or friends. On Twitter you can post a few photos a day. On Facebook, I’ve seen people upload more than 100 images in a single post!

That’s where Twitter is better. You have to think about what you post. On Facebook, there is no limit and you can write as much as you like, and post hundreds of pictures. I have seen posts with similar images, some out of focus and some which don’t appear to be important… to anyone.

When I look at Facebook, I find that I spend a lot of time scrolling past things that aren’t important to me. I have a lot of friends, and if every friend posted once a day, I wouldn’t have time to look at everything posted on my Facebook page. I use Facebook as a means to keep my friends in one place and see what they are doing - not necessarily every day. I’m not a stalker.

If I used Twitter, I think I’d go crazy. It’s just not important for me to know that every day you’re having a coffee (in Paris) and playing with your dog (in Cape Town).

I try to write about what’s important to my friends, so I post once every two weeks. It’s important for me to be discreet. 

Countries where Facebook isn't the most popular social networking site

Well, lunch is finished and the avocado seed is drying in the sunshine. It's a beautiful day outside and what am I doing? I'm inside on my iMac.

As I wrote before, I spend some time on Facebook. However, maybe not as much as some people. I read recently (on Wikipedia) that university students spend up to two hours a day on Facebook. Perhaps it's because university is when you spend more time socialising with friends.

Facebook is the most popular social media site in the world. Certainly in the Americas (from Canada to Argentina), Europe, Southeast Asia and Oceania. Northeast Asia is a little different. In China, the most popular site is called QZone, it has 645 million users. How about Japan? Well, the most popular site is another American social networking site called Twitter.

Twitter is unique in that users are allowed only 140 characters. In English, that would be 140 letters. Which is less than the number of characters I've used to write this paragraph.

Japanese is a little different since the phonetic alphabet called hiragana/katagana has one symbol for one, two or three letters. For example, the word avocado (7 letters) in Japanese is アボカド (a-bo-ka-do - four letters) which means I've saved three letters on Twitter. The Chinese characters called kanji are even more efficient. As we know, an avocado is a fruit because is has a seed, and fruit is 5 letters. In kanji it is two letters 果物 - . So we saved three letters, a Twitter saving of more than half in Japanese!

Iran is another country where Facebook isn't the most popular site. In Iran, people communicate using Facenama. I think that someone in Iran knew about Facebook before they 'created' their social networking site. Now, look up the meaning of nama in Japanese - 生 and have some fun with the Iranian site's name. 

Uncooked face anyone?

I'm a regular internet user. In fact, I'm on the internet daily, for about two hours a day. Sometimes longer if my train is delayed!

I visit Facebook a lot. I don't contribute very often but it's useful for me cause I can keep in touch with friends and find out what former students are doing.

One thing I've noticed with Facebook is that it's helping me discover new trends, if someone has something interesting to tell us, they can spread the news easily on Facebook.

Here's an example. I love avocado. I eat one every evening at dinner. I used to take out the seed and toss it in the trash. However, did you know that avocado seeds are healthy, possibly as healthy as the fruit of the avocado?

Now, I cut up the avocado seeds and sprinkle them on my salad.

Thanks to Facebook I can spread the good news about avocados faster than I can spread my avocado on a piece of toast!