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Walter: As you saw in Genevieve’s post, we recently had a perfectly delightful day at the beach right in Tokyo. When we found the beach, I pushed Kenji’s stroller right to the edge of sand and unloaded him and the beach toys. Thinking to myself “Japanese people don’t steal,” I took the cameras but left just about everything else including some shopping bags in the stroller. After playing on the beach for a couple of hours, we set out along the boardwalk towards a scaled-down version of our very own Statue of Liberty. We were having trouble with the camera, so we both fumbled with it while Kenji slowly wandered off among the tourists and locals. I looked up to see him some 50 meters away on the boardwalk screaming with delight at his new found liberty. Upon returning with Kenji under my arm, Genevieve asks “where’s the monkey?” We frantically search the whole stroller. Nothing. It can’t be. It was Genevieve’s monkey from childhood and has sentimental value not to mention Kenji’s new strong attachment.
We rush back towards the beach to the place where the stroller was parked. I keep thinking “Japanese don’t steal,” Genevieve says in a panic: “it’s thirty years old” and, reading my mind “I know Japanese don’t steal, but there are tourists!” It hits me like a oversized lump of wasabi: there are tourists. We saw them get out of a bus in front of the raman shop where we ate before heading to the sand. I ask her three times if the monkey left the restaurant. She assures me that she saw it – it was in the stroller when we left the restaurant for sure. I start to convince myself that I had put the monkey up on top of the stroller squeezing him in between the folds of the canopy just before parking it at the edge of the beach. Some tourist boy snatched it while we played near the water. It happened on my watch and what this required now was extraordinary effort. I begin to search the beach eying every stroller, child, and family looking for a somewhat plump tourist boy.
Do Japanese steal? Sure, sometimes they steal and sometimes worse things, but for a country with so many people living in such a small area, the crime rate is amazingly low. I saw a recent statistic that says the violent crime rate in Japan is 7 times less than in the US.
Consider bicycles. They’re everywhere in Tokyo, but I would say less than half are actually locked to something. Sure, most of those unlocked are “mama-charris” (I think of “mama-chariot” to remember this name) – old style bikes with shopping baskets in front and a child seat on the back. But even some decent mountain bikes are not locked or locked with a flimsily thin cable (See the photo of bikes parked at a park near our home).
Is it because there are always people milling about in Tokyo everywhere as witnesses? Maybe. More likely it is the Japanese sense of morality. I’m not qualified to do this subject justice, but it goes something like this: for most Japanese people, they feel a strong connection with their group. Their group could be their family, their work, their school, their neighborhood, their apartment building community and even their country. So, when if they steal or break the law, they are creating embarrassment and shame for their group. Nothing could be worse. They are inextricably connected to their group and feel pressure to live up to their standards and expectations. Shame carries with it a very heavy weight. In the old days, unacceptable behavior resulted in people being socially ostracized. People would commit suicide over shame. These are very strong feelings.
Now take cigarette and beer vending machines on the streets. That’s right, it’s like a soda machine, but it dispenses cans of beer. The beer machines seem to be less common than when I first visited Japan in the early 90s, but cigarette machines are all over the place just inviting every teenager to pop in her 200Yen and light up, right? I doubt it. This risk of shame – for her family, her school, herself – makes this purchase very unlikely.
What would you and your friends have done if there was a beer machine in your neighborhood where you could buy a 12oz can for less than $2.00? It’s a simplification, but the need to belong to the group keeps people on their best behavior. For a more in-depth and entertaining treatment of this topic, I recommend “Confucius Lives Next Door” by T.R. Reed.
***
I walk the whole length of the beach and back. Nothing. Genevieve anxiously waits to retrace our steps. There is a small cop with a flat blue cap and a serious red armband standing at the end of the driveway that leaves the beach. His uniform is full of purpose; a purpose completely lost on us. Genevieve talks to him in Japanese while I wait with Kenji who at this point is totally oblivious to our tragic loss. I suspect she’s asking the cop if he’s seen the plump tourist boy with an ice cream cone in one hand and a Curious George monkey under his other armpit. The picture of this little thief was becoming more and more clear to me. She returns even more frustrated and reports: “I don’t think he understands what I’m talking about.”
We retrace our steps along the sidewalk and things feel pretty desperate now. If George dropped here, it kind of falls into the grey area between theft and finders-keepers. What would someone do with him and how would he ever make it back to us? I walk calmly and consider the probability that we will ever see the monkey again. Genevieve: “I don’t think you understand how important that monkey is to both Kenji and me!” Me: “I understand.” Genevieve, giving up: “This has totally ruined this trip.” As I push the stroller along the side walk I wonder to myself…does she mean this day trip or the whole trip to Japan?
When we reach the restaurant, Genevieve goes inside to ask about the monkey while I stay outside. I examine the windows near the booth that we sat and spot the little cloth primate squeezed between the glass and some Plexiglas partition near the booth. The waiter has to ask a customer to move so they can rescue George. He’s soon reunited with Kenji.
Out on the sidewalk, Genevieve asks: “so…what do you wanna to do now?” We go to the mall, “Decks,” where there are no inventory control tags on the merchandise and you don’t pass through theft detectors as you exit the stores. We don’t steal a thing.
Walter: I’ve been working a long post (Where’s My Monkey Part 2), so that’s why you haven’t heard much from me lately. Here is a short one to keep you going on the product of the week.
There are many ways to get your vitamins around here. There’s a free vending machine at my office that dispenses Japanese (i.e. mini) sized portions of soft drinks, coffee, corn drink, green tea and other things that can’t easily be explained into little paper cups. After my 5th mini-cup of cold green tea each day, I go for the vitamin-C soft drink about mid afternoon.
But one of the more interesting ways I get my vitamins is to go to the 7-eleven and buy this refrigerated Jello-like stuff in a foil pouch (about 200 Y). That’s it in the dish. With the spout on top, it looks like you’re supposed to drink the stuff while running or something — like a no-spill-sports-vitamin-jello-drink-for-people-who-move-around-a-lot. Doesn’t really make sense since you don’t see too many people running around on the streets here and eating and drinking in public is taboo, so who knows. I mixed it in with my cold green tea since I was neither running nor in public.
Also pictured is another carbonated vitamin-C drink. I really like this one because it’s like drinking a mildly carbonated soda that’s less sweet than we’re used to, but I feel like I’m having something healthy when I drink it.
I’m also working on another product of the week piece that involves drinking beer, which I can’t do now because I’m sick. I guess I need to drink more vitamin C-soda.
Genevieve: We took the train out one weekend to visit my uncle Ken and his family in Narimasu. Narimasu is still in Tokyo, but it takes about an hour by train to get there. They used to live in Itabashi, but after the business that they owned went under, they pretty much lost everything and had to move to a much smaller apartment a little further out. That’s what happens in Japan when you own a business–you take care of the workers first and then you make due with whatever’s left. When they lived in Itabashi, I would always stay with them when I visited Japan. On our first visit back to Japan 20 yrs 
ago, my whole family stayed there for a month. That was quite the reunion; My dad hadn’t been back in over 20 yrs.
My Uncle Ken seems delighted whenever any of us visit, although he’s now unable to communicate this verbally. He’s had several strokes and they’ve left him without the ability to speak, although he seems to understand everything that goes on around him. I’ve always been fond of my uncle Ken, ever since my sister, Sachi and I were children, before we’d even met him. He would send us exotic packages from Japan filled with books, dolls, amazingly realistic doll furniture, and of course sweets. (On a sidenote, when his daughter Takiko (who is in her 40s now although she looks like she could be in her 20s) visited us last week she told me a rather sad but amusing story. Apparently one day some 25-30 yrs ago when she returned home from school she found that many of her toys were missing. Uncle Ken had wrapped them up and sent them off to his nieces in America. That realistic doll furniture that we had loved so much had been hers! Upon hearing this, I felt so awful. We could laugh about it now, but I’m sure to a young girl it must have been a bit painful if not traumatic. Takiko said that Ken really loved us. How very lucky we were and are to have an uncle like Ken.)
So anyways, years later Uncle Ken is still a sweetheart. Kenji obviously adores him and vice versa, and although Kenji wasn’t technically named after my Uncle Ken, I let Ken think he was. On this particular visit, an abundance of food and drink was layed out by Aunt Husano. Husano is one of those women who has worked hard her entire life and never ever complains. She amazes me. Anyway, the food was sushi, along with yakitori and uni! Uni is sea urchin–and believe me, it takes a special palate to 
enjoy it. They found out that Walter likes it so they layed out a huge dish of it. I’d never seen so much sea urchin in my life. I think Walter was a bit overwhelmed, but he did his best to make a good dent in it, because in Japan you’re supposed to finish everything put in front of you. The same thing happened 20 yrs ago when my sister said she liked uni. She received uni every day for breakfast for about 2 weeks. Luckily, she still likes it. In my case, I got off easy. I liked ajitsuke nori (spicy seaweed). I still love the stuff and could eat it til my mouth burns up and my nose is running any time of the day.
Sorry for the long posting. I’m feeling chatty I guess.
Genevieve: Many of you have asked about where we live and requested to see photos of our apartment building. The Oakwood is mainly used for short-term rentals (6 months or less), because most leases run for a minimum of 2 yrs in Tokyo. It was near to impossible for us to find someplace else, so luckily it’s fairly nice. There are probably about 10 different Oakwood branches in the Tokyo area, ours being in Shirokane in Minato-ku. We’re told that this area is an expensive area by Walter’s co-workers and my family who live in Japan, but then again where isn’t it expensive to live in Tokyo???
Kenji loves to run around the car turntable by the stacked garage. Since space is such an issue here, along with the turntables to rotate cars in tight spaces, most garages use an elevator system to store the maximum # of vehicles.
Genevieve: Last Saturday, we got the hankering to get out of the city. Only problem is that it takes over an hour to get anywhere that could really be considered outside of Tokyo. So, we decided to check out Odaiba, a beach and entertainment area on Tokyo bay.
The train ride (see video below that I found on You Tube) was entertaining in itself, as you are literally soaring through the air over Tokyo bay in a wide loop allowing you too see 360 degrees of the scenery, including downtown Tokyo, amazing architecture (see Fuji TV building pic), a miniature version of the statue of liberty, and tons of boats—big and small. Someday we thought it would be fun to take a ride on one of the many dinner boats that float through Tokyo bay.
We decided to eat lunch before heading to the beach,
as we’ve finally figured out that all three of us turn into the three (very grouchy) hungry bears if we haven’t eaten. We ate a delicious and satisfying lunch at a good looking ramen shop along the way.
I had the Tan Tan ramen–a spicy broth with a white sesame base to even out the heat. Delicious! Or as they say in Nihongo “Oishii” おいしい！
Finally, we made our way to the beach where the main excitement was (at least for Kenji). The beach is artificial, as in man-made, but it’s fairly big so there’s no shortage of running room (great for a stir-crazed city kid). Even though there were signs not to go in the water, the kids couldn’t resist. Plus there were windsurfers in the water, soI think people tend to ignore the rules. Kenji happily ended up soaking wet, but luckily we had a spare outfit.
***(On a sidenote, in general it seems like the Japanese tend to follow the rules in most situations, but I’ve noticed that this isn’t always the case. For example, on the train there are obvious signs to turn your cell phone off in the disabled/prego/unwell section of each car, but I always always see people madly texting away. However, no one dares to break the rule of actually talking on their phone.) The train is nearly silent most of the time, even when it’s packed full.*** 
Afterwards, we headed to the adjacent shopping mall, Decks Tokyo Beach, where I shopped and Kenji slept and felt bored out of his mind (see pic below).
This place seems like it would be a great to visit in the winter too. A ton of stuff to do inside and lots of places to eat.
Wal
ter: There seems to be an abundance of snack foods at Japanese convenience stores. Some American stuff like Pringles are popular, but you can also buy a variety of sembei (seasoned rice crackers), dried squid and tiny dried fish. There’s a store in the basement of my office building that sells bento boxes to-go at lunch time. I usually get some unagi (eel) over rice. I found this little packet of mochi (rice made sweet by pounding and forming into little “cakes”). You pour the packet of soy bean powder (Kinako) into the main pouch, shake it up and you’ve got a bitter-sweet treat. Tooth-pick is included. Not bad for 120 Yen.
Walter: It’s begun to occur to me that Kenji’s experience moving here and mine bear some resemblance. He’s arrived in a strange land, moved into a new and unfamiliar apartment with an unfamiliar bedroom and had to adjust to a new time zone. He’s probably not sure how long he will be here, why we’re here and when he will see his friends again.
He’s been going to a new preschool – an international school where English is spoken, of course. The place is fantastic – a bright, colorful space with great teachers that have wonderful, positive attitudes. But still, it is all new for him and a bit overwhelming. For the first few days when he was dropped off, there was a lot of crying, but this eventually stopped. If asked if he wanted to go to school, he would say “no!” A new set of kids, being away from Mom and Dad in a new city – it’s amazing how he can adapt.
So, the net effect is that in some ways he’s regressed a bit. There’s a lot more of testing that you usually see in the terrible twos, except the little guy’s protest is more like a revolt on all fronts. Getting out of bed and walking out of his room at night, yelling and screaming in stores, tantrums …all the usual stuff, but multiplied times 10. Slowly we are working on each issue and he has shown real signs of adjustment, but still the connection to all this change is obvious.
Now Kenji has never been that much for cuddling with stuffed animals, but now, suddenly, his Curious George monkey must go everywhere with him. He props him up to watch TV; when we read a book, the monkey is there; when we eat dinner, there’s the monkey. He talks to the monkey, narrates what he is doing when he plays and, of course, sleeps with the monkey. 
Clearly the monkey has become a source of comfort at a time when he was needed the most. You can see the monkey in front of this building in Shimbashi and in the earlier post with Anpanman.
As for me, I’ve been to Japan many times before, I know why I’m here and when I’m going home. But, like Kenji, I have language skills that are at a pre-kindergarten level and I’m dealing with many new situations. I’ve got new things to learn everyday too, you know, like how to use the train to go to work and just about everywhere else, for one. Or, whether I should try that natto-covered tuna or not (natto is fermented soybeans). Most of all, how do I decode so many cultural mysteries in Japan as we live and work here (more on this later); Which behaviors of mine are polite or at least acceptable and which aren’t and what do some of the unusual behaviors or reactions from Japanese really mean? Remember also, that the primary reason for me to be here – work – requires that I learn new business skills in a culturally unfamiliar work environment.
I’ve been taking Iaido classes here in Tokyo (a very old Japanese martial art involving drawing and cutting with a sword, among other things – more on this later). It’s getting more fun, but to start it was surprisingly stressful. I entered a new situation with jet-lag : new people and a sensei (teacher) that spoke to me mostly in Japanese. Like Kenji, I can only understand a few words when people speak to me, so I needed to watch, observe, imitate and occasionally stare with a dumbfounded look and hope that he would repeat what he just showed me – all this during some very hot nights at the Iaido Dojo where most of us sweat profusely while practicing. Ironically, I started Iaido, in part, to reduce stress and improve my mental focus.
Things have gotten easier for me at the dojo and have started to turn a corner overall. There is only so much you can learn and absorb at once. Stress is a normal part of learning and change, but sometimes it all leaves me wondering, where’s MY monkey?
Genevieve: An Pan Man is probably one of the most popular anime characters in Japan for kids. Kenji discovered him during our last trip to Japan in April.
He is the main character of the anime, whose head is a bun made by Jam Ojisan. His name comes from the fact that he is a man with a head made of bread (Japanese: pan, a loanword from the Portuguese word meaning “bread”) that is filled with bean jam (Japanese: an) called an anpan. His weakness is water or anything that makes his head dirty. He regains his health and strength when Jam Ojisan bakes him a new head and it is placed on his shoulders. Anpanman’s damaged head, with Xs in his eyes, flies off his shoulders once a new baked head lands. He was created when a shooting star landed in Jam Ojisan’s oven while he was baking.
We discovered An Pan Terrace, a store solely dedicated to An Pan Man paraphanalia the other day by Nihonbashi Station. Besides, life size statues, the store also had a play area inside along with every toy imaginable. Needless to say, Kenji was in heaven. The only way we were able to convince Kenji to leave, was the promise of an An Pan Man lollipop. We’re suckers (pardon the pun), I know!
So we found out that WordPress.com is a far superior place to blog than blogspot/blogger.com (thanks to my dear friend Catherine). Their site and everything are much more user friendly. So welcome to our new home online!
Genevieve: On Tuesday, Kenji and took the train to Adachi-ku on the outskirts of Tokyo, to visit my Aunt Tomoko and Uncle Yoshiteru (mom and dad of Shinichiro). The train ride took over an hour, but luckily Kenji passed out about half way there.
They live in a big house by Japanese standards and next door is an old dilapidated playground. Not to be overly critical or anything, but for a country that loves new stuff, their playgrounds sure are in rough shape. Half the time I worry that Kenji’s going to hurt himself, but he doesn’t seem to care what shape they’re in. So far he hasn’t lost a limb.
There was a little boy there who informed us that he was 5 and could do just about everything. Kenji who is 2.5 was almost the same size as him, so it was puzzling to the little boy why Kenji was such a clutz compared to him. They had a ball playing together though. Kenji chased him around as he rode on his bicycle in circles, and then they swang side by side on the swings as my aunt Tomoko pushed him.
