JAPAN AND THE GREAT PRESENT GIVEAWAY CONUNDRUM

Now back to Japan and some more memories that will remain in my mind as long as my mind continues to function. The next one that comes to memory was called the great present giving tradition. It started off innocently but became an issue in our lives before very much time had passed. A little bit of background first. It starts with the inquisitive and curious mind of the Japanese. The people around us both at work and with Lilia at home, ALL, had a deep need to learn what made us tick, and above all, everyone, wanted to learn and practice their English language skills with a real life Gaijin (foreigner).

Especially in the office setting almost all of the people we dealt with could speak some English. Most of them with an American style accent. In Deysi’s social circle, many of her friends could speak some English and those that couldn’t were eager to learn. Everyone carried a small pocket English/Japanese dictionary. It was by far the most useful tool for surviving in Japan. The memory starts with making friends and acquaintances at work and little by little starting to form a small Friday night gathering of people that just wanted to hang with a foreigner, see what we ate, see what we talked about, have some fun and practice a little English. They congregated at our place, pretty much every Friday night. The group was a mixture of engineers, managers, clerical staff and bilingual secretaries.

The memory is of our first get together in our home. The Japanese arrived by themselves or in small groups. If we said 8:00 o’clock, everyone arrived at 8:00 o’clock or before. The first time we welcomed our guests, we were very surprised that each and everyone of them presented us with a small gift upon entering. How sweet Deysi thought. These gifts could be one, $25.00 or more designer pear apple, grown by a designer farmer. It could be an ornament for the home, a special melon of god knows the value, or candy from a special store. Nothing was out of bounds. Each gift was tasteful and had been chosen specifically for us and what they knew of our tastes. Again we thought, awww isn’t that sweet.

Well we always enjoyed food during these sessions, either prepared by Deysi or brought by our guest. They loved the times when Deysi made the food. Anyway to move on, the next week arrives and here come our 10-12 guests and lo and behold another 10-12 presents. This was a little disconcerting because we basically had the same guests as the previous week. Next week the same, another full set of gifts. Now it was getting a little embarrassing and the gifts were piling high. Deysi is telling me to tell them to stop bringing gifts, or threatening them with no more invites if they brought gifts. To no avail, nothing was going to stop this flood of gift giving. They smiled politely at my attempt to stem the flood and just shrugged it off.

I think we are maybe 5 or 6 weeks in and our apartment is looking like a tourist gift shop. Nothing seemed to stop the flow. Then one day Deysi had a brainstorm of an idea. Before the next week’s get together she got gifts for each and everyone that came in. As they entered she accepted a gift with one hand and handed them a gift with the other. The look of shock in their faces was priceless. It seemed to work though. The next week the gifts slowed to a trickle and after that they came and just had fun with us. Wonderful memories and wonderful people.