A New Kind of Top Ten List: The Similarities Between My Life in Tokyo and My Life in Malawi

Who woulda thunk it? Japan and Africa? The big city of Tokyo is like my little village of Kazuni in Malawi? Yes, indeed, there are some striking similarities...

This may not make sense, much less be even the slightest bit humorous unless you happen to be a Malawi RPCV, but I find it ever so chuckle-inducing, and since I just might be the only one reading this, I'm gonna make myself laugh...


1. In both Malawi and Tokyo, my main form of transport is my bike.  In Malawi, I always wore long skirts while biking, because culturally, that's what women wore in the villages.  In Tokyo, I often wear skirts as well, because my time in Malawi actually taught me that it is waaaaay more comfortable in hot weather to wear skirts rather than pants or shorts.  You get a good breeze when you pedal, I'm just sayin'...

2. I don't have a car.  Therefore, much of my life these days is figuring out how to get from one place to another.  In Malawi, I never knew if there would be any transport at all - I literally didn't know how and if and when I could get out of the bush.  In Tokyo, that is not a problem at all - buses and trains are quite reliable.  But I'm still dependent on someone else for getting me where I need to go.

3.  And though my life in Tokyo has yet to include being crammed into the back of a pick-up truck with assorted livestock as well as 57 Malawians, all hanging on for dear life, I am routinely crammed into a train car, in which I only hope there is enough air to sustain my dear life.  In both Tokyo and Malawi, they have people whose actual job it is, to push people farther into what appears to be a completely full train car or pick-up truck or mini-bus, so that the impossible can occur - even more people can fit in a space which appears to have absolutely no more room.  Defies all scientific principles... but it happens in both Tokyo and Malawi.

4.  I used to be ever so amused by the daily chore at every well-kept Malawian hut of "sweeping the dirt."  Literally sweeping the dirt outside one's hut with a broom made of twigs and branches, leaving it neat and tidy and decorated with the imprint of the twig broom.  Two things are the same in Tokyo: 1) You can actually buy the twig/branches brooms everywhere around here and people use them to sweep the sidewalks.  2) You know those Japanese Zen sand gardens - they rake the sand everyday, which is, in essence, "sweeping the dirt."  Who woulda thunk it?

5.  A smile can get you a very long way.  Now that I am experiencing life as an illiterate immigrant, I am constantly reminded of my first few months in the village when my main form of communication was lots of smiles, some crazy miming, and a precious few words.  I got by.... In Tokyo, I have added the iPhone to my repertoire of communication tools when I don't know the language.  This means that I am constantly using my phone to take pictures of things that I need to buy and then showing a store clerk and asking where it is in the store.  Just the other day, I took pictures of several children's books in English, went to the library, showed the librarian, and then asked her if they had those books in Japanese (when we have the English version, it makes reading the Japanese one approximately 79 times faster and more fun).  Worked like a charm...

6.  Remember in Malawi when every restaurant and every home you entered offered you a warm bowl of water in which to wash your hands?  In Tokyo, virtually every restaurant offers you a piping hot warm cloth to wipe your hands.  But, I haven't been in enough Japanese homes to say if the tradition holds true in homes.

Japanese style toilet

7. The infamous hole in the ground.  In Malawi, it's dirt.  In Japan, it's porcelain.  But, you still have to pop a squat and build your quadricep muscles.  So, in essence, it's the same.

8.  The "r" and the "l."  This cracks me up every time.  In Malawi, I was oh-so-ever-amused whenever I heard, "Feer flee" (that's feel free, for anyone trying to find the humor).   In Tokyo, I can eat runch or lunch and the name of my poor child "Ryan" is pronounced just like "lion."  Ryan and lion are even written the exact same way in katakana, because there is literally no difference in the pronunciation (ライアン.  Fortunately for him, he really likes lions.

9.  MOSQUITOES!!!!! I had no idea that I would have to buy mosquito coils in Tokyo, that I would actually stay inside at times because of the blood-sucking monsters, and that I would seriously consider buying a mosquito net for our bed?  Seriously?  Can you tell how much I hate mosquitoes?  In fact, the boys are allowed to use the word "hate" for exactly 2 things.  Mosquitoes is one of them (the other is throwing up, if you're dying to know).

10.  I love where I am, but I miss my friends and family!