To Be (Friends) or Not To Be...

Is it bad that I still don't play well with others? 

The most negative thing on my all-A report cards in elementary school was that. Does not play well with others. And I blamed myself. I didn't fit in, and couldn't. When the other kids were playing, I was over-analyzing, thinking too hard about things later proved inconsequential. It later occurred to me that the other kids weren't trying to exclude me usually, and that my sad attempts to fake a normalcy I couldn't understand were off-putting to say the least. Sometime around puberty I gave up the charade and decided to just be me. That was the best possible answer and I try to stay true to it, but ...

Fast forward the better part of a couple of decades and I'm living in Japan, in a culture that I don't know how to get on in. Maybe missing out on those developmental years of friend-making popularity stuff took a toll.

But I do have friends. Not many that I keep up with constantly, but a bunch. I have some close friends in my town or in the vicinity (other foreigners, mostly), and a few I see weekly online to catch up. Others I hear from every few weeks or month or so. Some in Japan I only see once every few months, but when we hang out, we have a great time.

I am satisfied with my number of friends and generally with the amount of closeness to them.

But what of friendship with other moms, the way Japanese moms tend to do? Why not find some people with similarly aged kids and go have fun getting to know them? Great for my Japanese ability, great for my daughter, great for everyone!

Except I don't want to. I have no drive to do this, Is this horrible?

One of my best friends is also a mom, and her experience has helped me tremendously, so I am not knocking having mom friends, but I don't really care to make friends with people only because our kids are around the same age. That's not enough common ground and can breed scary levels of competition and gossip over meaningless crap.

Or maybe it's just the outsider in me refusing to attempt another team sport.

Recently, I made a new acquaintance, another foreign woman with a Japanese hubby living long term in the land of the rising sun. She introduced me to a facebook group for similar folks and that is so awesome that I invited all friends in similar situations to join it, just in case they need the help and friendship they may not have in their given area.

I realize the long-term Japan thing is a huge challenge, and without a network of friends and family, it is all the more difficult, so I implore any lonely foreigners out there to go out and make friends. Do what I can't. Don't let yourself down.

Meanwhile, I am going to try to raise my daughter and keep the friends I have, wherever they run off to.

That Whole Bakery Thing....

Recently, an Oregon couple running a bakery was ordered to pay $135,000 in damages to a homosexual couple they refused to bake a wedding cake for on the basis of their religious beliefs as Christians. The couple sites bible verses regarding participating in other people's sins and believe that homosexuality is a sin, therefor participating in a homosexual wedding by baking a cake is the same as being in a homosexual relationship and condoning all that goes with that.


Personal belief is all well and good, and in general I usually choose the path of putting my money where my mouth is, not giving commerce to people I feel treat me unfairly or make me uncomfortable. Maybe my stance as a liberal Texan has something to do with my lack of desire to legally challenge those who prefer not to serve me. But the laws in Texas are different from the laws in Oregon.


Oregon's non-discrimination law clarifies:

"Discrimination in Public Accommodation 
A place of public accommodation is defined in state law as any place that offers the public accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges, whether in the nature of goods, services, lodging, amusements or otherwise. It is illegal to discriminate in places of public accommodation on the basis of race, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, national origin, religion, marital status, physical or mental disability, or age (18 years of age and older). "

From Oregon's government website, available here.
The full legal definition of "Accomodation" is also available here and states very clearly (7E) that bakeries count.


Once again, personal beliefs are great, but should probably be kept personal, not in business. Anyone operating a business in any state should recognize the laws of that state and know what they can be held liable for. This includes business taxes, discrimination laws, and any other law with which they may conceivably find themselves conflicted.

In the baker's position, were I uncomfortable with making a "gay cake" I would gladly have lied, explaining a difficulty in scheduling or a problem with wedding cake making. I would have lied my butt off, stayed in business, and done my best not to give someone fodder for a discrimination lawsuit. But I am not a proud Christian.

I am also not someone who believes in the notion of a Christian Nation. The very idea negates one of the most beautiful things about the country. When the founding fathers elected to abandon the monarchy, the did not do so to set up a new system of religious rule. For this reason at least, the separation of church and state is sacred and beautiful. We should all be fair under the eyes of the law, so long as our actions do not infringe upon the rights of others.

According to the laws of the state of Oregon, a baker declining to bake a cake based on the sexual preference of the recipients of the cake is discrimination. That's the law. It would be the same if an innkeeper turned them out on the street upon learning of the couple's status. Or a lecture hall turning away someone of a different race, creed, or sexual orientation purely for that reason. This is discrimination as it is laid out in Oregon's legal code.

The homosexual couple went on to sue for emotional damages, as is their right and the reason for the financial aspect of this case. I can tell you first hand that not landing the cake-bakery of your dreams for your wedding can be disheartening. Being told by the bakers that the reason for this is the fact of your sexual preference is beyond disheartening, and definitely rage inducing to say the least. For people in a small town, this is a serious emotional pummeling. Knowing that the same bakery you've been going to for years, the same one that you just knew would be perfect, is run by people who believe in their heart of hearts that helping you on your special day in any way is a ticket to eternal damnation...yeah, that would hurt, especially in a place where bakeries are not a dime a dozen.

The town where this happened is a lot smaller than my hometown, so just finding another bakery wasn't as easy as it had been for me, when I planned my wedding from Japan. After our first bakery option fell through completely, I had only six weeks to find a new bakery and get a cake settled. Given a limited budget and specific desires, I could only find two bakeries servicing the area the wedding would be in that would also communicate with me via email. One of these listened to my desires, negotiated on the price and tasting times, and wound up being everything you could want from a bakery. The other ran me around, quoting prices and ideas for two weeks that were later revealed to be completely bogus. The only thing in my price range was a pre-made plastic cake with a small cut-able cake on top, which was the last thing I wanted.
Even in the seventeenth largest city in the US, getting a bakery for your wedding can be extremely challenging.

Now imagine if I had been marrying my Japanese fiance in the fifties. I would likely have received similar treatment to the gay couple. And if my spouse had been female instead of male? Who knows?

The bakers should have conducted their business in a place like Texas, where it is well known (though not well documented) that most businesses in general may reserve the right to deny service to anyone, depending on the ordinances in their city. Non-discrimination policies don't even exist in many urban areas. In fact, should word get around of their position as a Proud Homophobic Christian Bakery, in many circles, they would attract far more customers.

No, Postman: Adventure 2: Phone Tag With Well-Meaning Imbeciles

My husband came home last night and I told him of my adventures in hiding from the weird post office guy, at which point he immediately looked up the number for the Post Office Complaint line, which he called and was hung up on twice before looking instead for the English call-center line, which he got through on and handed his phone to me.

I explained the situation to a woman with a Japanese-Australian accent, who said she would call the post office and attempt to figure out why the guy had come to my house. She then called back twice for details. Then she called back to say that the post office would investigate and call her back the next day (today) at which point she would call me.

So today, I answered the phone when a strange Japanese number appeared on the screen and was greeted by a completely different woman at the Shiogama Post Office, not the help line. She gave me 7 digits of a phone number, saying it was the help line, before making some "biting the lip" sounds and asking to continue in Japanese, which I didn't understand most of anyway.

I tried to explain that I had already called the help line, yesterday, so I already had the number. I said this in both languages. She said another sentence of things I don't understand.

Because at this time I was balancing my toddler and feeling guilty for taking a call while video chatting with my grandmother, I cut it short at this point. I said, in Japanese. "I am sorry. I am busy. So very sorry." and hung up. I then was so frustrated that I turned off my phone for fear that she would then try to call back.

Is this some girlfriend to a sex offender, trying to make sure he doesn't get in trouble for following a foreigner home by making the process for inquiry so difficult so as to be unmanageable? More likely, this is a coworker of an incompetent jerk who didn't find it strange to follow a woman home, ring her bell incessantly, knock on her door, and not just leave a damned note in her post box.

Now, I am going to eat something. then I am going to call the English help line back and tell them what happened today as well as recount the events of July 1.

Then maybe they will call Shiogama's post office and get a more direct answer than this unending pile of BS.

Oh wait, there's someone at the door.

Update:  In the time it took me to get to the intercom, it stopped ringing.

Update 2:  I called the call center, explained my situation, and was promised a call back, which I got with the surprising news that Shiogama finally called them and let them know the source of all this craziness-- I had labelled one of the packages as containing a toy, and they needed to know if it contained a battery.

Seriously. All that stress for "batteries not included."

Definitely not using that post office again for a while.