What can you do?

Some things are difficult to adjust to when you move to a new place---especially to another country. After years there are still things I cannot adjust to.

I am making every effort not to be offended by the offensive word gaijin. It's a waste of time. A lot of non-Japanese of non-Asian origins use it for themselves anyway. Either they don't know or don't care. Even a large number of Japanese consider it offensive. I saw on wikipedia in the discussion area on the gaijin page where some non-Japanese had even said that hen na* gaijin(!!!)was more or less a compliment. (They removed most of the references to the term gaijin as being offensive. Now it just gets a brief mention with some quotes by foreigners using gaijin to refer to themselves.)

I'll get over that to a large degree. I haven't gotten used to the way many will break out in a trot to get ahead of someone in line. I notice this in convenience stores and grocery stores. In convenience stores, someone will hang around staring at a package of instant noodles trying to make the difficult decision or whether or not to buy it, but as soon as they see someone else moving toward the cash register, they suddenly decide not to buy it and rush to be first in line. If they have a full basket and the other person has a pack of gum, there ain't gonna be no polite move to let that other person go first. OK, so I have to remember that the point is to get ahead of everyone else whether or not I actually need to.

The sniffling. This drives a lot of westerners nuts. Got try to get over that too. People aren't gonna start using handkerchiefs. Sneezing and coughing openly on others, especially in trains? Well it's rude and disgusting to Japanese too, most especially if they are the one who gets the slobber shower. But then again, nobody will ever say anything to the offending swine. Just pretend nothing happened.

But what about the snot-sniffers who wipe their nose on their hand and then handle your food and your money with said snot-covered hand? What is the proper etiquette in this case? It has happened to me 3-4 times in the last year. All but one was in Denenchofu/Okusawa. Tonight I got an urge for a McDonald's 80 yen hamburger. Hell, one or two pieces of processed, freeze dried, and microwaved beef byproducts should be OK. I had quit going to the Denenchofu McDonalds because I felt that it was too dirty to eat in, but I figured it would be ok to get something to go.

Well, the old girl at the register had the sniffles. She did not have a tissue. Or gloves. Gloves would have made no difference anyway, because as she was taking my order, she wiped her runny nose twice on the palm of her hand. She did not play with the mucus as I have seen many do after a sneeze, cough, or good healthy nose wipe (on trains and other places) nor did she wash it off. She handed me back my change with her virus-covered snotty hand and then went over and grabbed my burgers and put them in the bag. What should I have done? What's the wonderfully polite Japanese way? What would ol' Barcode head Fujiwara Masahiko have recommended as a neo-bushidoist? I know what I would have said in the US or England or other English-speaking countries. Perhaps "Please wash your hands before touching my food." I could have said a similar thing in Japanese. But I didn't. I would have become a troublesome, complaining henna gaijin. And the same thing would happen again and again. Nothing would really change.

It's not that this sort of thing doesn't happen elsewhere, it's that I am not used to people doing it right in front of my face. Since they do, I suspect that it isn't really something so unacceptable here. Like the constant sniffling. Which is better to have someone handle your food with snotty hands in front of you, or use snotty hands to handle it without your knowing it? I do know that you can get fired in the US for it---I knew a girl who was fired because she kept picking or touching her nose around the salad bar at the place she worked. Would she have been fired here? Never mind, just enjoy your sushi.

*In case you don't know, hen (na) means weird. And "weird outsider" ain't no compliment.