Forlorn Early-Morning Musings

I'm returning rather desolately to Penang after having gone to Japan to help Hubby settle into his new job as a Japanese salaryman, complete with a uniform jacket and company dorm rooom. This should be a good thing, right? Having a job offered in these troubled economic times. Returning to Japan, where the fish is fresh, things are organized and the people are quiet and polite. Knowing that all things will be taken care of properly by the highly paternalistic Japanese society. Hubby thankfully has no language barrier to contend with--his Japanese is good and can only get better now that he'll be the only foreigner working in this company.

So, what's the problem, you may well ask. It's that I don't live THERE, I live HERE, and until a few days ago, so did he. Oh, the guilt of my being retired and dwelling in a lovely resort-style condominium in sunny Penang, while my long-suffering-but-not-self-pitying husband lives in the suburbs of Tokyo, It just isn't right!

Although we're both well acculturated to Japan, having lived there for so long, certain things still manage to surprise. . . . Like having to get the company's approval for Hubby to purchase a table and chair with our own money. Why? Because in the company "apartment" (which would fit nicely into our Penang living room), the main room has tatami-mat flooring. So, we weren't allowed to buy this cute little table and chair we saw because the company needs to determine whether those furnishings would damage the tatami. We offered to buy one of those plastic mats that you put under office chairs to protect it. No way! Not without permission from higher-ups. So Hubby had to squeeze all of his computers, plus the TV, plus his dining stuff onto a little low table the size of a postage stamp. If necessary, he'll learn to live with it, but I don't think I could. In my scheme of things, people live in the MIDDLE THIRD of the space in a room, except for basketball players, who live in the UPPER THIRD. However, in Japan, you may WORK in the middle third, but you LIVE in the LOWER THIRD, which is to say "down on the tatami."

Anyway, I was reassured when I got see to Hubby's new workplace in a rural town northwest of Tokyo. It has a whole lot going for it -- much more than I'd expected. There are big supermarkets, home centers, and such. Some of our favorite family restaurants are there, too. I could survive, even thrive, there if I should wind up living back in Japan sometime in the future. I guess you can take the kids out of Japan (for a while), but you can't take Japan out of the kids!