Weekly Saturday ritual

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While the boys take swimming lessons, I sit up in the spectator’s area with all the little kids who chase each other around barefoot and their parents who talk amongst themselves, stare into space or read.
I’m killing time by listening to Otofuke on my iPod and reading the Japanese translation of Catcher in Rye. It’s slow and painful to have to look up 4-5 words on every page, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. One day, far, far in the future, I’m going to finish reading this book.

Rich Pav

Richard has been living in Japan since 1990 with his wife and two teenage sons, Tony and Andy.

6 thoughts to “Weekly Saturday ritual”

  1. Its interesting to me how in Japan it seems like you need to wear a hair cap in public pools. Is there some kind of reason for this?

  2. I Like the new theme, and there is no bug on the Contact page.
    I am using Safari 2.0 ( not the beta version like windows )

  3. @mike & Zoheib: It’s just one of those things that you take for granted. I can’t give an explanation or a reason, other than you just do, without giving it much thought. If I had to think of a reason, I guess it’s because hair clogs the filter…but then why don’t we wear bathing caps also in public baths (onsen)?

    There are all kinds of things in your own culture you do because everyone else does them too, but make people from other cultures curious. Why do we say “God bless you” when someone sneezes? What do jack-o-lanterns have to do with halloween? Why do we decorate a pine tree at Christmas? Why do we shake hands? Why we shrug our sholders to mean “I don’t know?” If you asked 100 people those questions, you’d get many answers, and most people would pull their answers out of their ass. I think the same thing goes with bathing caps. 🙂

  4. lol rich. good call. similar to a podcast you did last year i think… something about japanese doors opening outwards or something if i remember correctly.

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