Visiting the Mother-in-Law

[Bob_S]

Staying warmShare

Finally got some rain today, after a week of forecasts for snow, but the storms that were dumping decimeters of white stuff along the Sea of Japan side never made it across the Chugoku Mountain range to the Seto Inland Sea side. We just got mostly clear skies, patchy clouds, and cold wind. Cold cold wind. Not so bad really, if it weren`t for the fact that these old homes are uninsulated. After the underpowered space heaters get turned off for the night, the house quickly equilizes temperature with the outside. The only benefit of a house is protection from the wind and rain.
They did aquiesce to my demeands for a few more meager creature comforts, namely a small space heater for the water closet that only had a heated toilet seat before, and a hot carpet for the tatami room where we sleep on futons. Technically you are not supposed to sleep with it turned on, but if you turn it on about an hour before you go to bed, and turn it off at you climb under the futon covers, it stays nice and toasty warm while ice condences on the windows.

[Bob_S]

O muko-sanShare

My suspicions about the complete lack of homing insulation were confirmed by an unfortunate incident. Earlier in the year, the neighbor`s house burned down. While the old woman who lived there escaped and is now living with her brother, the house is a total loss, reduced to charred timber framing. But in a few places, small patches of wall were still in place, partially burned through, revealing the layers of the construction. If the construction of our house is anything like that of our neighbors, the walls are basically thin particle board separated by a sparse lattice work of bamboo strips. Not much to retain the heat.

As an old woman had been living there a long time, she was unable to properly care for the yard as it should have been, and slowly wild vegetation began to take over. With the owner gone, what little maintenence was done was now completely abandoned, and the backyard has started to turn into a forest, with sapling branches and bamboo stalks overhanging my mother-in-law`s yard, especially around the laundry lines. So it fell to me, as Muko-dono, or O-muko-san, the daughter`s husband, to do something about it. Fortunately, as a foreigner, I possess Gaijin Power. That is the power to act in ways that the locals cannot, such as trespassing into a neighbor`s yard to do a little pruning, because as an outsider, they don`t expect me to know the local rules and customs, such as don`t trespass. So with scythe and saw in hand, I went to town on the overgrown forest along the drainage ditch between the yards, and soon could see daylight between the house and vegetation again. If my mother-in-law hadn`t called me back, I probably would have cleared the whole yard of brush, but that would have been obviously beyond even the polite limits of Gaijin Power.

Yesterday's job was O-shogatsu window cleaning. Earned a trip to a family restaurant for diner.

[Ray]

Hi Bob,

Is that heated toilet seat electric? That sounds dangerous! A guy could get electrocuted if he forgets to put the seat up before taking a leak... 

Is the little one enjoying the trip?

Ray

[Bear]

Wow Bob, didn't notice you were going.

OK, why is it improper to assist the elderly by locals?  Do they have to ask?

Why are the homes built so poorly?

The Bear Family

[Jeff S]

Yep - I've spent plenty of winter nights in Japanese homes huddled around the kotatsu seeing your breath, and nights with a big old canteen of boiling water wrapped in a blanket under the futon. This is even in the city and well-to-do suburbs, also.

Is mama-san making o setchi ryori?

[Dave H]

Hey Bob,

"heated toilet seat before" I have to agree with Ray in that sounding dangerous! MAke sure you don't pee on it! I would have to read a manual to learn how to flush a Japanese  toilet? 

Dave

[Dave H]

I really like Jeff's portable toilet!  It would really come in handy in the Philippines.

Dave

[piglett]

Hey Bob,

"heated toilet seat before" I have to agree with Ray in that sounding dangerous! MAke sure you don't pee on it! I would have to read a manual to learn how to flush a Japanese  toilet? 

Dave

wow Dave i really like the idea of a heated seat...... I can see how it could come in really handy on some of those cold new hampshire nights.  The portable also looks interesting but, is that a 1 time use type of device or does someone get to clean that baby out so that you can use it again & again ?


piglett

[LittleBigFoot5]

wow Dave i really like the idea of a heated seat...... I can see how it could come in really handy on some of those cold new hampshire nights.  The portable also looks interesting but, is that a 1 time use type of device or does someone get to clean that baby out so that you can use it again & again ?


piglett

I'm pretty sure thats a photoshop

[Bob_S]

Is that heated toilet seat electric? That sounds dangerous! A guy could get electrocuted if he forgets to put the seat up before taking a leak... 

Yep, plugged into an outlet behind the commode.  Aim carefully if you value your life.

Is the little one enjoying the trip?

Absolutely.  She loves the trains.  But as she's not familiar with Baa-chan (grandma) yet, she can't handle being without one of us in the same room as her.  Getting some private couple time involves a good deal of planning and coordination. 

Wow Bob, didn't notice you were going.

It's our annual trip.  Grandma's in her 80's now, and we don't know how much longer we'll have her with us, so we want our little girl to remember her by spending as much time imprinting with her as possible.

OK, why is it improper to assist the elderly by locals?  Do they have to ask?
Why are the homes built so poorly?

Well, it's not improper to assist the elderly, but in this case, there was a conflicting social rule.  The house was actually owned by her son (by the complicated rules of Japanese inheritance) who lived in the big city 45 minutes away and never visited even though the care for the house was his responsibility.  So for anyone to actually do anything to help the old woman, you are basically implying that the son was lazy and irresponsible, which was probably true, but you couldn't actually come out and say without disrupting the neighborhood wa.
And one thing I've noticed about Japanese behavior is that they have a set BASIC program of "IF... THEN..." statements for any given social situation on how to react.  It works fairly well most of the time.  But if there's any conflict, the program easily crashes.  Some of the neighbors saw the deteriorating situation and thought "gee, someone oughtta do something", but just froze up as their program hit an "undefined interrupt" error.  So they were surprised and a little bit pleased to see the giant foreigner out there taking care of business.

I asked my wife about the insulation thing, and she gave me the party line about how the homes are traditionally constructed more for the hot summers, designed to be breezy and quickly radiate away the summer heat.  But that's so much bunk since everyone now uses aircon (air conditioning) during the summers, and the cool internal air leeches away from the poorly insulated houses (apparently they don't get the idea that insulation does not just keep the house warm in the winter but can also keep it cool in the summer, go figure).

Is mama-san making o setchi ryori?

No homemade stuff.  We had it delivered.  A large box of enough food for 4 people for over a day.  And even though it is too large to fit in the fridge, we can just store the leftovers in the genkan since it is cooler there than in the kitchen refrigerator.

wow Dave i really like the idea of a heated seat...... I can see how it could come in really handy on some of those cold new hampshire nights.

Come out to visit L.A. and you can pick one up at the local Japanese "Mitsuwa" market to take back home.  Though installation instructions might all be in Japanese. 

[Bob_S]

New Years

December 31st started with the snow that had been repeatedly predicted to fall finally arriving. But it was still warm enough that the flakes weren't sticking, leaving just a light dusting on the vegetation like a heavy frost. And even that vanished soon after the sun broke through the clouds around 10am. It was just as well since my wife had previously volunteered us to do a little community service work. She has a friend who runs an NPO community center and café (that offers a very limited but tasty menu selection), and they were preparing toshikoshi soba, or year-end soba, that more than 20 teams of volunteers, including us, would deliver to all the 80+ year-olds around town. The weather was clearing but icy cold and windy as we drove around the neighborhood bringing noodles and broth to elderly surprised to see someone like me on their doorstep.

Every place has its own New Years traditions. In Japan, rather than being a big party, it is more of a family time, with the evening spent at home. For us, that meant a tasty lunch of toshikoshi soba served hot, and watching the NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen, or Red vs White Song Battle, where the big J-Pop and enka singers of that year gather in the Red team (female performers) and White team (male performers) to compete to see who can put on the best show. This year's special guest for the Red team was Susan Boyle performing her signature song. But the White team ultimately put on a more powerful show and won the night that year.

New Years Day in Japan has several traditions, old and new.  One old one is to get up before dawn to go to the temple, hear the ringing of the bell, pray for the new year, and watch the sun rise.  But as my wife has acclimated to Southern California weather, there was no way she was going to get up that early to traipse up the hill in below freezing dark.  So we stayed home to wait for sunrise, which, as our house is in the shadow of a hill, occurs about 9:30am, after breakfast and coffee.  Breakfast was osechi cuisine, a traditional meal often prepared the day before so the lady of the house could have at least one day holiday off from her normal chores. But our osechi came by delivery service.  Leave these things to the professionals, now.  New Years Day sports here, not college football, but eki-den, a kind of marathon relay race. There were several broadcast over the holiday weekend, allowing for a sort of virtual tour through various neighborhoods and countrysides around Japan.

[Jeff S]

Sounds familiar and about the same around my house. We never miss the soba, Kohaku Uta Gassen, and osetchi ryori the next day. We haven't visited a jinja in quite a few years, though. I think the last one was in Kamakura, where I got hit in the back of the head with some coins since mine usually sticks up above almost everyone else's.

[Bob_S]

Bump.



Flying out tonight to take Sweetie Pie to visit her obaa-chan again.  Don't envy us.  Not a relaxing vacation this time.  Grandma is getting up there in years and we need to look for a home for her.  She's shown she can't take care of herself so well anymore.   

So I'll be incommunicado for the next couple weeks.  Don't burn down the board with any flame wars while I'm gone! 

[piglett]

Bump.
Flying out tonight to take Sweetie Pie to visit her obaa-chan again.  Don't envy us.  Not a relaxing vacation this time.  Grandma is getting up there in years and we need to look for a home for her.  She's shown she can't take care of herself so well anymore.   

So I'll be incommunicado for the next couple weeks.  Don't burn down the board with any flame wars while I'm gone! 

Granny can't move in with one of her children, younger brothers, sisters??
please don't take this the wrong way but in the work i do i sometimes have to go in one of the many old folks homes in the area.
all i can say about those is "looks like most of the people there are unwanted & they are just waiting to die"
i know there are times when it has to be done but i get the impression that many times their relatives JUST DON'T WANT TO BE BOTHERED. 

I myself an a VERY independ person & if i thought that my next stop was the rest home i think i mite decide to go out on my OWN terms. maybe a week in Vegas with the 10 craziest hookers on the planet along with every drug both legal & not.

just my 2 cents worth
pig

[Bob_S]

Mina-san, konbanwa.
 
Back in Japan again for a couple weeks.  Though it has turned a bit muggy, I do prefer the late-spring/early-summer weather to the freezing my butt off winter trips.  No seeing your breath in the morning, no freezing your nads off when you step out of the ofuro (bath).  Wild roses are in bloom, but most flowering trees have lost their blossoms.  Plenty of light-seeking bugs, but too early for the bad mosquito swarms.  Fire flies might start appearing.
 
The MiL lives way out in the sticks.  No wi-fi service, so I'm writing this from a hotel where me, the missus, and young'un are taking an overnight sightseeing trip to Kintaikyo in Iwakuni and tomorrow the Mu Caverns (actually an abandoned mine turned into an amusement attraction).
 
The MiL is doing better.  She refused to move into a home, so my wife arranged an elder care day-service provider/care-taker to bring her mother lunch every day and drop by twice a week to tidy up the house a bit and take her out for activities to a senior center.  My wife still doesn't feel her mother is safe since a gypsie contractor and a parade of door-to-door snake oil salesmen pretty much cleaned her out.  And now that the wife has hired a lawyer to act as her mother's guardian and will initiate legal action against the contractor and salesmen, we're concerned about possible yakuza-style revenge.  Though when it comes to light just how much money was swindled out of her (well in the 6-figures), the publicity alone will act as a sort of protection.  And we don't want any family moving in with her since those most willing to uproot their own lives to take advantage of free housing have issues of their own and will just add to problems rather than alleviate them.
 
Monday the wife contacts the police to file a criminal complaint against the contractors for fraud.  She's been diligent about getting all her ducks in a row, including copies of sloppy and fraudulent receipts, photos of bad-quality workmanship, and even found the bank account of the contractor to give to the lawyer to file a civil suit and freeze their assets.  Then we leave everything in the hands of professionals.  We'll be back in our own bed by Memorial Day.
 
Genki de.  Ja mata ne.

[Jeff S]

Thanks for the update. Sorry to hear of the woes and best wishes for a positive resolution.


Tanoshimi-nasai!

- Jeff

[Bob_S]

We took some videos of our trip.  The wife wanted me to upload some of it to YouTube to share on her blog.  This one is of the Seiryusen train line that runs along the Nishiki River that empties into Hiroshima Bay at Iwakuni (we {the U.S.} have a Marine Corp Air Base there).  The ride from Iwakuni to the terminal at Nishikicho takes about 2 hours.  I had 13 minutes of video of the train ride, but to keep the viewer's interest, the missus had me edit it down to a mere 1 minute 46 seconds.  So here's a brief glimpse of the hills and mountains of inland Yamaguchi Prefecture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c591iuJStpQ

[Jeff S]

Thanks for the video. Yep - looks like Yamaguchi-ken. My FIL lives in Ube-shi at the coast, so you don't get the spectacular mountain scenery just visiting him. Ever make it to Akiyoshido Cave? That's a great visit if you get the chance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akiyoshidai_Quasi-National_Park

[Bob_S]

Ever make it to Akiyoshido Cave? That's a great visit if you get the chance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akiyoshidai_Quasi-National_Park

Haven't made it to Akiyoshido yet, though the wife has mentioned it and it's on our "to do" list for one of these trips.  On this trip, at the end of the Seiryusen line, we took a tour on the Tokotoko Train (tram) that runs through a tunnel that has been decorated by the locals with fluorescent stone murals.  See the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gMFGySWcTU

Apparently the history is that JR once planned to extend the existing Seiryusen line further up inland and so dug a series of tunnels and built connecting bridges.  But then they canceled the extension, so the local towns bought up the land, tunnels, and right of way and made their own little attraction.  They say it is more spectacular when the sakura along the tram road are in bloom.

After that we took a short diversion to the Mu Valley Caverns which are not caverns at all but actually an abandoned gold mine that has since been converted into a sort of theme park where you wander through a select pre-ordained path in search of "lost archeological treasures and artifacts".  Think of the pre-show waiting line area of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, except you're inside a real mountain surrounded by real rock, not a set with sprayed-on plascrete.  The mine's natural air conditioning made it a pleasant walk (about a mile underground from entrance to exit) on a warm humid day.