クリスマス と おしょうがつ - Christmas and New Year

It seems like an age since I last posted anything here. A lot has happened. I have spent my second Christmas abroad and 2007 has come to an end. Being as we are now in January, I have the delight of being able to say that next month I am going home. There are what feels like a million crucial and complicated things that I need to do before then, but no matter how stressed I get with all of that I just have to remember that in a little over two months none of this will be important.

So, Japanese Christmas. May summed it up perfectly in one sentence: they don't celebrate it religiously or culturally, they just think it looks pretty. It is very true that Christmas can transform even the drabbest train station or department store into a fantasy land of lights and decorations, but this rather superficial celebration of Christmas is rather lacking in the spirit of the season that we love in the West. With no family or close friends here in Nagasaki, Christmas passed May and I by without really changing our moods much. We did have a very pleasant time, it was just missing that something special that makes Christmas Christmas.

On Friday 21st December we were taken out to Bagdad Café (that's 'Bagdad' as opposed to 'Baghdad', according to their sign) by Kumiko-san, along with Oka-san and Goto-sensei to enjoy their Christmas menu. It wasn't what I would call a traditional Christmas dinner, as it featured spaghetti, pizza and seafood salad, but it was very delicious none the less.
May and I were working on Christmas day so we moved our own Christmas celebration to the day before. We basically spent the whole day baking, eating (the food we'd baked, the cake we bought, anything else we could get our hands on) and watching rented DVD's. So not much change there from a regular Christmas, apart from maybe the baking and you would probably watch all the new DVD's you received as presents rather than rented ones. On the 25th, I was working with the home nurse while May was still working on 4F. This meant that while she was bed-making and sorting through patient files, I was visiting ordinary Japanese people in their homes. It was a wonderful and unique way to spend Christmas day actually, even more so because it seems to be standard for the patient to give cake and tea to their guests. May and I spent our lunchtime handing out sweets and cookies to some of the hospital staff and we received a few presents in return. In the evening, we were invited over to Oka-san's house, where we were surprised with another Christmas meal that her daughter had cooked. All in all, a very nice Christmas but, if I'm honest, not even close to the one I missed over in England.

Custom-made keyrings from Oka-san and her daughter:
New Year is a much bigger occasion in Japan than Christmas. We were given four days off from work (combined with the weekend, six days) which is the longest break we have had since coming here. We could have done loads of amazing things, travelled, made the absolute most of our little holiday, but we instead decided to spend most of it shopping and relaxing at home. Don't judge us, we needed the break. We had been waiting for January before we started seriously shopping (which we succeeded in doing, bar a few minor lapses in concentration) because we had heard that Japan has some major New Year sales. It even has it's own special name, hatsuri, or first sale of the year. AND they have special lucky bags (fukubukuro) just for this occasion. You don't know what is inside when you buy them, but they're only about half the price of the contents' value. You're not completely in the dark though, since there are sample bags that you can open and there are different sizes for the bags containing clothes. As interesting as it would have been to buy one, I decided against it. Besides, I had already seen exactly what I wanted to buy:

A blue skirt (¥9555, normal price ¥13,5000) – This is the perfect skirt for me, so I think it was worth spending the equivalent of 2 weeks food money on it, don't you think?
A new pair of jeans (¥3990) - I needed to replace my old ones which are starting to fall apart a little. This style is called 'Boyfriend Baggy, but I am quietly ignoring the claim that they are baggy. I was lucky to find jeans that fit me at all in a country where most girls have a 21” waist and weigh under 100lbs;
A black top (¥2048, reduced from ¥4096) - It didn't photograph well unfortunately, but you can take my word for it that it is cute and looks great with a red top I bought during one of my “lapses in concentration” last month;
A pair of earrings (¥1260) – These were too unusual and too pretty to miss.
Now, the people who know me will know I am not a big shopping person and that I am normally plagued with guilt for days after buying myself anything. Japan has changed me though. Japan is shopping country and I am in need of retail therapy. I wasn't completely selfish however– I bought some omiyage (souvenirs) for people too, which, for obvious reasons, I can't tell you much more about.

May and I had anticipated a lot of people at the department store for the sale on January 1st, so we decided to get there for 10am when it opened. We were shocked: there were hundreds of people ordering themselves into nice, neat queues outside every door into the store. I had heard that everyone goes to the shrine on New Years' morning but apparently shopping is really the priority here. Then came the second shock of 2008: when the doors were opened, people started running! I mean literally running... all over the shot. And the store clerks were yelling for people please not to run, but it was already too late by then. All sense of propriety had been thrown out of the window. Incredible.

New Year mochi (rice cake):
Throughout this whole holiday period the weather has been going crazy. On December 23rd it was 17ºc and 68% humidity; On January 1st it was 7ºc and snowing and hailing. It seems to be stabilizing again now, but I don't know how long that will last. I'm used to it always being 12ºc and drizzling in England – I just can't take this kind of sudden change.

I have no idea how to finish such a long, rambling post so I will just do it with a random picture. This was taken on January 1st near Hamanomachi:
Owari desu!

Tabi

Here is one of the pairs of tabi that Yamaguchi-san gave me. I love them. The Japanese really know how to decorate their feet.

Bossy Me

I actually got to be somebody else's boss on Tuesday. Okay, sure, it was to a fourteen year-old high school student doing her work experience at the hospital, but still. It felt great. I got to order her around a bit when we were making beds but then, showing that I can also be a very nice boss, arranged with the chief nurse on 5W for me to take her on a quick tour of the hospital. I had forgotten what it is like not to feel as though you are at the bottom of the pile. Shame she was only here for one day.

*

Bonenkai party tonight. Very, very excited.

5 階東 – 5E Nurses Station

I had to get up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning. I would have been annoyed at this had I not done so for the sake of the Nagasaki Kunchi Matsuri (festival). Japan must be the only country in the world where festivals start at 7am. The hospital paid for tickets for Kimurasan, May and me, which I am told aren't too cheap either, so I really can't complain. The “show” was absolutely fantastic, but there is way too much for me to say about it now. For a full post on this, you will have to wait until after the weekend when I have had more time to write - sorry.

After the festivities of the morning and an excellent lunch out of Okonomiyaki, May and I had to return to work. That afternoon I moved from the 6th floor nurses station to go kai higashi (5th floor East wing). Like the last time I moved two weeks ago, I couldn't help but feel apprehensive about the unknown. Unlike last time however – when I was greeted with much the same stuff on 6E as was on 7E, since both appeared to be general wards – this time I was pleasantly surprised to discover that 5E is solely a maternity and gynaecology ward. I know I'm going to sound like such a girl when I say this, but it makes a huge difference having babies around at work! Everything is suddenly way more interesting. There is a group of student nurses on 5E at the moment, and sometimes when they are being shown how to do new things I am allowed to observe also. On Wednesday I observed how to bathe a newborn baby. I found it most funny that instead of, as in England, dressing her in a one-piece baby-grow, the nurse put her in a little yakuta (summer kimono/ dressing robe). Aww! And then... I got to hold her! Kawai ne... yoroshiku. Sorry, I really can't help it. She was so cute! Just a teeny, tiny little human being.

It makes a nice change from the upper floors, where some of the patients, to be quite frank, look as though they have just escaped from a labour camp. I'm talking about people who have lung cancer and and fractured humerus, or are missing a leg and have a bag attached to their abdomen that is steadily filling with blood. Pretty depressing stuff, although admittedly very interesting from a wannabe doctor's perspective. Oh, and also, Marikosan (the woman who lives in room 207) works on 5E so it is nice having a friend around at work too. The downside to all of this of course, is that I am only on the 5th floor for two weeks. After that I will move down to 4E, which I believe is an orthopaedic and physiotherapy ward. Interesting, yes. Full of babies, no.

おちゃ どうぞ – Tea, Please!

My work timetable has been arranged so that every fortnight the nursing station I am working on changes. For my first two weeks I was in the 7th floor East wing. Last week I moved to 6E. I was a little apprehensive about the move – new staff, new patients, new expectations – but I was actually pleasantly surprised at how smoothly it went (despite being put on the spot on my first day when I was asked to introduce myself (in Japanese) at the staff meeting they have every morning). I now prefer 6E to 7E. The staff in 7E knew it was my first fortnight on the job, so went kind of easy on me, but I have noticed a gradual increase in responsibility over the past three weeks. Just think where I will be in six months!

My new supervisor on 6E is Yamaguchi-san (Mrs Yamaguchi) and I love her. She's in her mid-fifties and makes up for her small stature (she's about 4'9”) with a really jolly personality. Also, her English is a little better than my Japanese, but not by much, so we're constantly teaching each other new words and phrases in our respective languages. Yes, I think she is the one person I have learned the most Japanese from. She knows I want to improve my Japanese so she lets me shout “Ocha douzo” (lit. “Tea, Please”) into the patients' rooms when we give them their 11am cup of green tea. She and some of the other nurses have started calling me Lily-chan ('Riri-chan'), which is a slightly subordinate but affectionate name. To put it into perspective, children get called '-chan'. Mind you, I am kind of the 'child' on the hospital staff – I am the only one yet to reach 20 years of age, which is an important marker in Japanese culture. So yeah, calling me '-chan' isn't much of a surprise really.