“Are you supposed to eat that?” A Week in Japan

“Are you supposed to eat that?” We’re peering at something poking out of something else covered in delicious tempura batter. My dining companion shrugs and it’s gone. Five minutes earlier, he broke a chopstick vigorously attacking aubergine. Consider this a warning. In Japan, you will turn into a voracious eating machine - only a downside depending on your point of view.

We’re in Kyoto, having first visited Japan two years ago with a packed itinerary. This time, we’ve scaled back to two cities – Kyoto and Tokyo – to sweep up that food and drink we may have missed. We head to Sake Bar Yoramu.

Some Things I Learnt in China

DO buy industrial strength mosquito repellent
DON’T squeeze a mosquito bite. No good will come of this

DO try all the many and varied snacks in your local shop, even if you can’t read the packaging
DON’T expect them to be anything other than some kind of tofu

 

DO brace yourself for the experiences of a new culture

DON’T ever assume you’ve smelled all the smells

Knowing who to kick in the balls

Consider this advice, should you fancy moving to China: say what you actually mean. It sounds simple enough, I think. We’re not liars, are we? We don’t mutter ‘Not!’ under our breath when we compliment someone, or reply ‘NASA’s biscuit-testing laboratory’ when people ask us where we work. We don’t go around telling big fibs about anything and everything, our noses growing longer by the second, do we? I was born with this nose by the way, smart arse.

However, I’ve realised I say things like, ‘Let’s go for a drink sometime’ or ‘We should go out for dinner soon,’ which, while not exactly lies, aren’t always straightforward. Sometimes I really mean it, sometimes it’s a vague notion that spending more time with that person isn’t the worst idea in the world, sometimes it’s kneejerk politeness. Say one of those things in China and, in our experience, people reply, ‘When? Now? Tomorrow?’

Please stand firm, hold the handrail

A friend, who remains a good friend despite his apparent insistence on delivering painful observations, once told me over a pint that I was someone who always seemed to have loads in the pipeline, but nothing ever came to fruition. A breezy way of telling me I was full of it. It came at a time when I was trying to get out of retail and into journalism, and I assume I was telling him about a couple of opportunities that had frustratingly fizzled into nothing. Shortly after our exchange, I got my foot in the door and never looked back. I came good, I guess.

Now, sitting on a news desk in Beijing while unfamiliar characters scroll on the screens around me and contemplating the potentially staggering thought that perhaps I've been using the squat toilets the wrong way round for three months, I'm wondering if his appraisal of me was right.

I thought that by now I would have learnt enough Chinese to get by. I thought I'd be painting and sketching more, possibly doing some exercise, writing regularly. Well fine, none of us ever thought I'd do any exercise, but in general, I might not be the kind of person I thought I was - or the person I told everyone I would be. You know the one, the person who does constructive things in her spare time. The person who learns a new language. The person who dumps everything to switch countries and has a total blast, man. Oh lord, I best just say it: I THINK I'VE FAILED AT MOVING TO CHINA.

You are not as handsome as you were before

K decides to use the instrumental interlude in whatever song he’s currently blasting into the microphone to shout “Ahaha tiny woman bladder!” at me as I exit our karaoke room for the 12^th time. I had already hissed at him that I am NotWell, lady code for ‘I could shit through the eye of a needle’ but the 2.8% beer must have finally had an effect on him. After around 14 bottles each. I look back to scowl, nearly bumping into the two cleaners who have taken to standing outside our booth and peering in at the laowai screeching Winehouse tracks.

At the start of the night, I’d wondered if I’d finally reached my personal pinnacle of awkwardness in this room. Our hosts for the weekend had treated us to dinner, and then, as is the Chinese way, karaoke. For around half an hour, songs wailed sadly to themselves on the screen and disco lights aggressively flashed as the three silent foreigners smiled and desperately necked weak alcohol. My skin prickled and I’d been sitting on my hands, considering completely sober singing for no reason other than embarrassment at our inability to let ourselves go when our friends just wanted to have a good time with us. The boy and I gave each other shifty glances. Mine said, "You’ve lived in China before. This is your responsibility. Pick up the mic and save me from destruction." His said, "Why are you twitching, you wide-eyed goon?"

It's not just the wardrobe, right?

In the weeks before we moved to Beijing, I found it massively frustrating attempting to condense our lives into two suitcases each, balancing essential with luxury, need versus want. Most of the time, need obviously won out, though we did agree that some of the apparently unnecessary – the PlayStation, a photo album, a couple of our favourite books – were worth the luggage space for comfort. A peculiar comfort, I’ll admit, in rowing over Ni No Kuni because he thinks I’m just a ‘button basher’ during fights, and all he wants to do is fly around on our newly acquired dragon* but a comfort nevertheless.

However the rest of the time, as my pile of ‘definitely taking to China’ grew larger, K would roll out the ‘Just buy a new one over there’ argument. And I’d always reply, in a really not-annoying whine, ‘I don’t WANT to buy a new one. I bought the one I’ve got because I LIKE it.’ Aside from the fact we’ve had to extend our overdraft three times already setting ourselves up here, my wardrobe is my wardrobe because I liked all the things in it enough to buy them.

It’s not just the wardrobe, right? Of course it’s not, and some well-bargained sex favours secured me 12 pairs of shoes anyway, the point is that it tapped into a big picture fear about moving abroad. Knocking the bricks out of the life we’ve made.