This Could/Will Happen to You

Here is a list of experiences you will almost certainly have if you live in Japan for longer than a couple of minutes:

• Being lavishly praised on your Japanese speaking abilities for stammering out an awkward “good afternoon” in Japanese.


• Realizing after being lavishly praised on your Japanese speaking abilities for saying “good afternoon” in Japanese that it is in fact 6:00-fucking-AM.


• Being lavishly praised on your chopstick skills. Then being shown how to grip them so that you don’t put your remaining eye out.


• Being told the following joke by an older Japanese person: “What did the Germans say to the Japanese after WWII? Next time, without the Italians!”


• Realizing that your years of studying Japanese have given you no knowledge of basic words like “faucet” and “rutabaga.”


• Stepping out of the toilet into a formal dinner party still wearing the special toilet-only toxic waste slippers to the horror of your hosts. (Alternatively, forgetting to change into the special toilet slippers when going into the bathroom to the horror of your hosts.)


• Scouring the area you are in for the one restroom with a non-squat toilet. Seriously... you are supposed to squat facing the hood?! How the hell does that work? How do squat without putting your socks/underwear in the line of fire? Are you supposed to totally disrobe or what? Should I just wear a kilt at all times?


• Pressing an innocuous button on the side of the toilet and experiencing a moment of blinding terror when a jet of lukewarm water shoots up your bum.


• Growing to welcome your new bum-cleansing toilet overlords more and more the longer you are here.