Rubbish...and other customs

When I said I was moving to Japan my mother, (after she had stopped crying), told me that she had heard Japanese people were so clean, if they had some garbage when they were out they put it in their pocket until they got home to throw it away.
Now, this is very true but it's only a fraction of the story. Garbage here is a HUGE ordeal. We have 4 categories into which we have to sort our garbage: burnable (paper and food waste), bottles and cans, plastic and nonburnable (foil, lightbulbs etc.).

When we moved in we got a "handy" booklet detailing how to dispose of various items. (We got the gaijin version with English translation). For example all cardboard must be broken down, bundled and tied with twine, all food containers rinsed out, etc.

They pick up a different category every day and you can only bring the trash to the curb between 6am and 8am where you have to leave it under special nets until they pick it up. If you bring the wrong kind of trash they will not take it and instead they leave you a strongly worded note.

I completely understand why an overcrowded island nation would need to impose these policies but I do look forward to the days when all our trash can go into one or two bins. And I don't have to sort through bathroom trash to separate the empty toothpaste tubes from the toilet paper tubes. (It's worth noting that on the US Navy Base, you do not need to separate trash. Mike and I don't know if they pay someone to sort trash for the Americans or if they just don't bother.)

We are developing lots of new habits and adopting some of the Japanese customs while we're here. It makes me wonder which habits we'll keep when we return to the states.

Reese liked the novelty of eating with chopsticks in the beginning but now, we mostly use forks.

One thing I have come to love, especially as the person in charge of keeping house is the 'No Shoes Inside' Policy. They even abide by this at Reese's school. As part of the school supply list, all the kids have to bring shoes to change into while in the classroom. They leave their outside shoes by the door and change when they go to the playground or leave the building.

When we moved in, even the professional movers slipped their shoes off before trekking upstairs. Just imagine having to do that the next time you move or help someone move. More amazing is that these guys wouldn't even accept tips. The Japanese consider it an insult that we would tip them to do their job. Thankfully they did eat the pizza and sodas we bought them for lunch...a custom, that I believe, is considered acceptable world-wide.