Here’s one I know I’m not alone in. If you’re a foreigner in Japan, you’ve failed at this at least once. Or possibly on a weekly basis.
Learning how to do the garbage routine in Japan is a definite Baptism by Fire scenario.
I think I saw the schedule and garbage separation requirements and nearly shit myself. Mother of Christ, the involvement that Japan demands of its citizens!
Let me digress and explain this garbage schedule, for the uninitiated reader. First and most importantly you separate burnables from non-burnables. Though, this really makes no sense to me, I mean won’t anything burn if the temperature is hot enough? Then of course there is the recyclables. But these are further separated as cans or PET bottles (caps and labels off!!). Then the cardboard, and paper. Then the cloth. Whatever. You get the idea.
But I studied it. I had a teacher call to confirm what days certain garbage goes out. I was going to be that one foreigner who doesn’t have his garbage left sitting at the curb.
So garbage day came along and I put my bags out with a smug smile and nod of my head to my landlord. “You watch, this bag won’t be there when they pick up the trash today. This bag is getting fuckin’ taken!”
Ohh the Hubris!
Sure enough, I get back to my apartment to discover my bags sitting just where I left them. I may have collapsed to my knees and shook my fists at the sky as I shouted
ffffFFFFFUUUUUCCCKKK!
I don’t think I wanted anything more than to get it right my first time. Dejected and head hung low, I did the foreigner walk of shame and took my garbage back to my apartment. Where it sat and made my apartment reek until the next collection day.
My fault, if you must know, was buying the wrong type of bag. I bought just a regular clear bag, while the correct bags have the Okinawa Prefectural label on it, and have this guy on it:
“Hi I’m cuddly lil’ garbage flame, and I burn shit!”
I always feel lucky here, because clear bags are totally fine here; they even say it's okay to use the semi-opaque shopping bags for garbage if we want to. Also, I don't have to wait for recyclables day because I have a grocery store close with those huge recycling bins outside, so whenever I go shopping I can just throw them out there.
ReplyDeleteI feel really bad for the people in the really big cities, though, who not only have to buy the special bags, but have to write their names on every one of them, so if they do fuck it up, the garbage police can find who is responsible for so much unforgivable disturbance of the neighborhood wa or something.
At first I totally pictured the garbage men closely inspecting each bag, looking for mistakes (or people like me, who bury the recyclables in the middle of the Burnables bag to try to pull a fast one on the garbage system), but they clearly don't do this, and it seems that only glaring mistakes will get your bag left (and your ass stamped with a garbage-Scarlet letter)
ReplyDeleteOhhh, and the garbage trucks in my neighborhood play "Fur Elise"...because this is Japan...
Yours play music? That's pretty cool actually (and I happen to really like "Fur Elise", but anyway. Now I'm just imagining that being the payoff for having to use special bags.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere out there, someone is saying
YOU'VE MADE YOUR CHOICE. SEND OUT THE MUSICAL TRUCKS.