Japanese Orphans

Its been about 6 months since I've updated this blog. Since then I've fallen more and more in love with Japan and its culture. Rob and I have been taking Japanese language classes. It's such a hard language! We are determined to learn as much as we can while living here though. =)

I have had the honor of volunteering at a Japanese infant orphanage. The orphanage is a wonderful place. The workers take the best care they can for the babies and try to provide the best life for them. As a volunteer, my job is just to hold babies. Because they don't have parents in the traditional sense, these babies need all the snuggles and love they can get.
I was surprised one day to discover that some of these babies actually have parents that visit. I've done a little bit of research into these Japanese orphans.
My understanding is that there are about 40,000 children in Japanese orphanages. What struck me as even more surprising is that only about 9% ever get adopted. It turns out that most of the children in Japanese orphanages still have parents.
There is a stigma to adoption in Japan because of Koseki. Koseki is an elaborate record of every Japanese person's family history. If a child of a family is listed as having been given up for adoption, it potentially brings shame upon the family. Employers and potential spouses can look up these public records and would view this as a scandal within the family. Because of this, when a family gives up a child to an orphanage -  due to abuse, neglect, or a host of other reasons - they often don't put the child as available for adoption. If they don't sign the child away, there won't be a blight on their family's Koseki. Some families visit their children and try to help. Others, however, leave their child to be raised by the orphanage. Even if there is a documented history of abuse, families don't have to give up their rights to the child.
Because family and bloodlines are such an important part of this society, adopting a child also has a stigma. It is viewed as strange and shameful. If a Japanese family adopts, the family will often move to a new city and tell their new neighbors that the adopted child is their own so that no one knows of the adoption.
I think extremely high of the orphanage that I have volunteered at and I think the workers are amazing and are the doing the very best they can. Unfortunately, the nature of such an institution is flawed. Orphans are offered very little help throughout their lives. As they grow up, education becomes more difficult to attain. Without an education it is extremely difficult to succeed in Japan. When the orphan is a child of a criminal, potential employers look them up on the Koseki and will probably not hire them because of their family history.

I can't stress enough how wonderful my experience with the orphanage has been. I am, however, surprised at this kind of thinking in a culture I consider so progressive.

メリークリスマス

Merry Christmas!! メリークリスマス!! Actually, there is no Japanese word for Merry Christmas so that is the English expression written out in katakana. Katakana is one of the 3 written scripts of the Japanese language.  

This past week leading up to Christmas has been something of whirlwind. I've had an awesome time reconnecting with my friends that made it to the island before me. On Saturday, our friends, Tim and Megan, introduced us to a house cafe. I didn't take any pics because I'm not sure what the etiquette is concerning that. A house cafe is at someone's home. They make the food right in their kitchen and we ate in their dining room basically. My understanding is that some are more set up than others. At the one we went to, there were about 3 tables set up in the living room/dining area next to the kitchen. We had some options printed out on a menu and the Japanese lady pointed out the food on the menu that they were not offering that night. 

Omg. The food. So incredible. We get several different appetizers to split and each was amazing. We even ate whole shrimp (head, eyes, and body), and it was amazing. I have no idea how but even with the shell it was perfectly soft and delicious. Our meals were awesome wasabi pork and beef. It was probably some of the best food I have had in my life.

It turned out that Christmas was upon us this week. Crazy.We found a 7.5 foot fake Christmas tree on sale and it has has made the house feel so much more Christmasy.

I'm probably going to keep this tree up till mid January, just so it can feel like Christmas just a little longer.

Since I just got here 2 weeks ago, I haven't completely adjusted to the time of the year. Its been a nice week and it feels more like fall/summer than winter. In fact, we are enjoying our little convertible and the warm allows us to keep the top down.

Kit loves riding around with the top down! 

Christmas Eve was awesome. My friend, Megan and I (mostly Megan) made all these incredible foods. I went shopping at the Japanese grocery store to try to find all our ingredients. It was quite and adventure and took about forever to try to figure out what items were. I probably would have never been able to complete task if I didn't have Rob with me who was a huge help with his limited Japanese. I love shopping there. I feel like the vegetables, meat and fish are far more fresh than the commissary on base that is probably importing all our foods from the US. The fish selection is, of course, amazing here. There are so many varieties of fish and all look so good and fresh! I have no clue what 75% of it is, but i'm sure it is all delicious. One of my favorite parts of the store is that they have sushi and food fried with tempura that you can buy to take home and eat for dinner. Its like in the States how we have those counters where you can get chicken, potato salad, and whatnot for a quick dinner to take home. Its soooo good and fairly inexpensive too! It took about 2 hours, but I was able to dig up most of the ingredients we needed for our Christmas Eve party.

                        My favorite dish was kimbap, which is Korean dish very similar to sushi. 

Christmas day was fun but also little strange for me. It didn't really feel like Christmas without family. My gift for Rob is still traveling the oceans coming here so the gift part of the day was a little short. I got to Skype with my family back home (it was Christmas Eve for them) and it was so fun to chat for a little while. We had a wonderful Christmas dinner with a bunch of other Marines and their families that night. It was so great to celebrate with our new Okinawa friends. We ended the night falling asleep watching Elf. Pretty great Christmas overall!

PS. Sorry boys, no dragon in this post. You guys need to find me a dragon that I can write about

The Land of the Kitties

I've been in Japan for almost a week and I am so in love with this place! I am never going to want to leave.
First of all, this is the land of cats. There are cat things everywhere. Cat faces on dishes, cat faces on shop windows, cat backpacks, bumper stickers, trinkets, clothes, shoes, toys, purses, bags, statues. Cats everywhere. And it is awesome. The Japanese love cats. They even have several legends about cats. One legend that I see evidence of everywhere is the Maneki Neko, which is a good luck cat. Supposedly, some cat waved a paw at a Japanese man and he walked towards it. Seconds later, a lighting bolt struck where the man had been. The legend stuck and since then, cats have been a good luck charm. Businesses have it in their shops to draw in money. The hand of the cat is beckoning customers to come inside.

Oh hi there!

Another amazing, wonderful thing about this place: cat cafes!!!! My friend, Alicia, introduced me to one. Basically, you pay for however long you want to spend with the cats and then you go sit on the floor with all the cats. This particular place probably had about 20 cats. They were so sweet and playful. They sat on our laps and we pet them and just hung out with them. 

These two kissing kitties were overlooking a view of the city and ocean. 

I was super obsessed with this cat. He had teeny short legs and tail, probably about half the size they should normally be. I could be wrong, but I think his breed was the elegant exotic shorthair or the mini munchkin. I've never seen one before and he was simply heart meltingly adorable. 

The cafe was perfectly set up for their little friends. They had cat runs and shelves above the customers so that if a cat wanted to be left alone and go above everyone he could. There was even a section in the back of the shop where the cats could go if they wanted to be left alone. There were boxes and scratch posts and spots all over for the kitties to hang out. There was even a heated section of the floor for the cats to sit on. So fun!

Jojo was not amused by my afternoon with her Japanese cousins. 

Reunited with my person!!!

I've arrived in Japan!!!!! Jojo (the kitty), Kit (the pup pup), and myself traveled a 5 day road trip to Seattle then hopped on a plane for about 20 hours and arrived in Okinawa. I had a mini heart attack when I was trying to check in for the plane because there was an issue with Jojo's carrier. After I started to panic (I'm pretty sure my heart just stopped) for about 30 seconds, the airline decided to let me bring her. After that, the flight was as easy as it could be! Jojo was the perfect companion in the cabin with me.  Kit showed up all the panicked, whining and barking dogs and was the perfect calm and quiet angel (extremely rare for him).

Today is my first full day in Japan.  Rob and I drove around in our little red sports car and explored a little bit.

Back together again!!!!!!!!!!

I got a new cell phone (a gold iphone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) It's the most beautiful phone ever. Just saying.

The base we are living on is basically right next door to an area off base called the American Village and we spent a few hours exploring it. We got some "American sushi" for lunch and, omg, do they know how to make sushi. Absolutely the best sushi I've ever had.

My view of the the American Village from the sushi restaurant. It is basically a tourist trap for Japanese and American tourists. Its full of department stores and stores similar to those in America but they all clearly have a Japanese influence. It was super fun to shop and explore. 

Christmas decorations inside the stores. The dragon has antlers in case you missed where the Christmas part is. There were some odd decorations. I think the freakiest one was some guy dressed in a panda santa claus suit. He followed us around for awhile and I was to scared to take a pic. He looked like some evil Japanese spirit more than a panda. 

We found the scariest pet in the pet store - a scarab beetle. Don't you want one in your house?

Habashu!!!!! This alcohol has a poisonous pit viper inside called habu. The alcohol dissolves the poison to make it nonpoisonous. Fun fact: supposedly this stuff is medicinal and it can give you immense energy and helps sexual dysfunction in men (go figure).

I'm too jetlagged to do anything else today. Ooo, we have the cutest Christmas decoration EVER. Rob had it out on our lawn to surprise me when I got in last night. 

It's Kit!!!!