Year Two

    I've heard that there are phases to an expat's adaptation in a new country. First, there is the honeymoon phase, where everything is still novel and interesting. When the novelty fades, the homesickness comes, and so do the frustrations. Things don't work as you expect. Things don't work at all because you can't communicate properly. Beyond these frustrations, there is adjustment, and finally, some assimilation. 

    It has been a year since we moved, and I feel like I have finally landed in the assimilation stage. My frustration phase was in the summer, with the unpleasant weather offering an inauspicious backdrop to my homesickness. For me, the redeeming thing about summer has always been the farmer's markets: the abundant vegetables, the succulent stone fruits, and the beautiful berries. While the concept of the farmer's market exists in Tokyo, it is still rare in the city center. There is one near to us, but its offerings are relatively meager. As for stone fruits, there are barely any. As for berries, they are practically a delicacy.

    For the first few months, I bought whatever was easiest from the closest grocery stores. I was a servant to convenience because I didn't have the capacity to do more. I let go of a lot of details: organic, non-gmo, locally sourced, grass-fed, sustainably fished, etc. My goal was just to get a decently balanced meal on the table. That's how I ended up with a lot of Asian ingredients that I didn't know what to do with. (While I am intimately familiar with eating Chinese food, I am not as familiar with cooking it.) So I scrambled blindly from meal to meal, wishing I could just make something like a one pot chili (beans are expensive) or roast chicken (whole chickens and roasting ovens hard to come by). 

    These days, I am better at cooking with Japanese ingredients. I am also better at shopping for non-Japanese ingredients. All in all, things have been easier. I've learned how to better clean my produce, figured out where I like to buy what, and come to terms with what is available. We have a handful of favorite restaurants in the neighborhood. This is to me what the beginning of assimilation feels like. Still, I look forward to the day when I can sit down to a hearty takeaway meal of shawarma, tabbouleh, and hummus. 

Buying organic isn't easy in Japan. I have been using a naturally derived powder for cleaning impurities and residual pesticides. 

Nowadays Cafe, one of favorite neighborhood lunch spots. 

Behold the bright-orange Japanese egg yolk!

    Spending more time at home, however, is one aspect of my new life to which I am still adjusting. "Adjusting" is a polite way of putting it. I have the near-exclusive privilege to sort out the used dishes, the dirty clothes, the laundered clothes, the outgrown clothes, the toys, the groceries, the crazy recycling (though I truly appreciate the opportunity to recycle properly), etc., etc.. When you spend more time at home than your family members, all the above naturally becomes your purview. Doing these things feels different when you are doing it for other people, even if they are your family. It also feels different when you do more of this than anything else. I do almost everything, yet I do nothing. If I am honest, I sometimes grapple with my dignity. 

    Despite this, I am grateful for our life here. Although the society we live in is not perfect, it is safe. And for the first time, I feel like a direct beneficiary of the public welfare state. Allowances for children and subsidized healthcare and childcare are just a few examples (read about my husband's experience as a patient in a Japanese ER here). I'm grateful that my kids have enjoyed uninterrupted schooling at a time when this can't be taken for granted. E's school recently wrote: 

"[S]chools play a critical role in the lives of children – academically, socially and emotionally. As such, face-to-face learning and the ability to physically interact with friends and teachers is crucial for our    students, especially in the third year of an education disrupted by COVID. This is self-evident and non-negotiable.... [A] nuanced, adaptive, and flexible strategy is required to balance health and safety...while prioritising our students' learning. We have to live as a society...with the reality of COVID." 

I feel lucky that E's school espouses a philosophy that I share. 

    Until this move, all my major decisions were natural progressions of the previous status quo. Everything buzzed along predictably. In this sense, this year has felt like a passage to real adulthood. As we begin our second year in Japan, and as Covid-19 restrictions continue to ease, we hope to do less adapting and more exploring. 

It Snows in Tokyo

It has been a snowy rainy snowy week here in Tokyo. It's more sleet than snow, but more snow than rain. Did you know that it does snow here? Tokyo gets a small handful of snow each winter, though it rarely accumulates to a significant degree. Because of this, the city is not really equipped to handle snowfall. And because of that, I panic a bit at the mere hint of snow, as even a little bit can affect biking conditions, and I have become very dependent on my bicycle. 

Rainy snow.

This past week, the snow has mercifully melted by the next day. Last month, it snowed enough to accumulate a couple of inches and the temperature stayed low. What would have been cleared in Chicago in hours stayed on the ground for days here. I've spent nearly half my life now in cold, snowy regions, and have totally taken snow-clearing for granted. I naively set out on my bike only to encounter a road frozen solid with a layer of ice. Having never biked on ice like this, I continued thinking it would be ok. I paid for my optimism with a fall. At least I was going at a snail's pace. I suffered zero injuries and learnt a lesson: don't test the Tokyo roads after a snowfall. In retrospect, the fact that there were zero cyclists - cyclists who ordinarily bike through typhoons - should have been a warning sign. 

In other news, E recently had a birthday which we could not celebrate with friends due to the rising Covid-19 infections. Despite daily infection rates reaching all time highs, there has been no state of emergency due to high vaccination rates and relatively mild symptoms. Still, a party was an unnecessary risk, so we decided on an outdoor walk-by celebration. Her friend's family, wanting to make her day extra special, took E out for a pancake lunch and a playdate at the park. 

Just weeks ago, Covid numbers in Tokyo had been in the single digits and birthday parties abounded. It's all about timing. Although I felt guilty for not giving E the same birthday party experience, I learnt that kids don't care as much as adults think they do. E was just as happy having pancakes with her friend and playing at the park. In fact, her "disappointment" was really just a projection of my own disappointment. There are so many ways to make kids happy, and their happiness is not always proportional to the time, effort, and money you spend. So, despite another Covid birthday, it was a great one. 

To Pacifier or Not

My two year old daughter M, who previously slept like a log from 8:30 pm to 8:30 am, now sleeps with complete inconsistency. Last night she woke up crying four times. Each time, she asked for a sip of water, took a sip, and went back to sleep. Two nights ago she woke us up once. Three nights ago, twice. Each wake-up lasts just a minute and involves no more than a sip of water or a repositioning. This has been going on for the past five days - ever since we took her pacifier away. 

The pacifier issue is a controversial one in our family. Both my kids have used pacifiers from birth. E walked around with a pacifier until she was almost two and a half years old. She slept with one until she was three. Eventually, my husband, who is not fond of pacifier usage, took it away. When the time came, E cried for half and hour and moved on. It was a relatively quick and painless adjustment. 

My husband does not like the idea of M being addicted, in his words, to the pacifier. E was similar in that she would ask for the pacifier, and when denied, would negotiate "just a little bit." She would proceed to take a hit of pacifier for just a few seconds and return it satisfied. This drove my husband crazy. "See? It's an addiction," he would say. I suppose it sort of was, but it didn't bother me. Similar behavior in an adult is a different matter, but when it is a two year old and a pacifier, well, I don't view it as a problem. 

Our different perspectives on this issue stem partially from cultural differences. Pacifier use is not widespread in Japan, and certainly not on babies older than age one. A pacifier becomes a thing that only newborns use. From this angle, it's about emotional independence and maturity. It would seem then that a toddler's pacifier use signals over-reliance on an external source for emotional support. Yet it is a common practice for Japanese children to co-sleep with their parent/(s) well past toddlerhood and into childhood. While parents will lament this arrangement, they accept it as a cultural norm. And while this norm originated from a time when limited space warranted the practice, this is no longer true for many families. 

So here we have two similar but different examples of childhood dependence on external sources. The merits and flaws of each, I think, is simply a matter of cultural perspective.  

At any rate, we took the pacifier away from M with too much fanfare. There were lots of tears and prolonged protesting. In addition to what it was, it also became a symbol of rebellion. It's a loaded issue. We made it impossible to turn back on the decision.