No Fat Chicks

In American I'm considered normal to on the skinny side, plus I've dropped five pounds since coming here. In Japan I'm a little fat. In American Kim is told she is too skinny and even anorexic. For the record she eats as much if not more than me. Also, she is Asian and in Asia she is a normal body weight. Anyway… I would have to lose another fifteen to twenty pounds and Kim would have to lose five to ten pounds to be considered beautifully thin by Japanese standards. Having put that out there I would HATE to be fat, and especially a fat woman, in Japan.

It's not like the Japanese don't like to eat though, far from it. Half of the shows on TV are about cooking, eating, and traveling the country to find places to cook and eat. This is no exaggeration. However, all the portions here are so small compared to America and the food is usually very healthy.

School lunch in Japan: milk, rice, soup, salad and a main dish usually with some of lean meat or egg. If the kids are really lucky they will get a desert in the form a piece of fruit or plain yogurt. Hooray it's healthy! School lunch in America: a burrito with 60 grams of fat, chips, soda, cookies, and a piece of fruit or yogurt that they throw against the wall. Hooray it splattered!

In America Kim and I would often go to a restaurant and order one meal and split it, usually there would be leftovers. In Japan we always get our own meal and there are never any leftovers. I think the concept of taking the remains of one's meal home in a bag would disgust the Japanese anyway because I sure as hell haven't seen anyone take home leftovers. In America I'd seriously feel ripped off if the waiter didn't bring me so much food that I could eat until my stomach hurt and be only halfway finished so I could take it home and punish my gut further.

The Japanese are really nice and polite but they will not hesitate at all to call anyone fat. The super polite ones say something to the effect of; "Oh you must really enjoy your food." However, most just come out and say, "You are a little fat. You need to lose weight" Ouch. A little harsh don't you think?

When someone is fat it is his or her defining characteristic. I needed to talk to a certain Ms. T about an English lesson so I asked the teacher next to me who she was. The teacher next to me points across the room and says in Engrish, "fato fato! She is very fato woman." Everybody in the room hears this, even Ms T. The majority nod their heads in silent agreement that Ms T is indeed the very fato woman in that general direction. I look around for the morbidly obese 300 plus pound woman, where could she be hiding? Oh wait there she is! A mildly overweight middle aged woman making copies. This is Japan though and Ms. T will forever be branded as 'the very fato woman' unless she loses twenty pounds

Yet lard assed sumo wrestlers are professional athletes considered in the peak of physical shape.

In America it's much much more accepted to have a little extra junk in the trunk and many men in American prefer bigger women. I love the curves that god gave me! Big is beautiful! I like big butts and I can't deny… and so forth. Japanese beauty is measured in how small and cute girls are. If a girl is kinda cute and has thighs that are skinnier than her forearms then she's automatically in the running for Miss Japan. Skinny cute girls are fawned over and women in their 30's are still expected to act like high school girls in certain situations. Girls that aren't even obese just a little chubby are ostracized from elementary school into adulthood and beyond.

A couple weeks ago I walked into the teacher's room at one of the rural schools and a chubby woman in her mid to late 20's was there giving some dreary sales pitch for textbooks to the assemblage of uninterested teachers. After .5 seconds I ignore her monotonous drone of facts and figures to do more important things like stare out the window. Now if sales girl was skinny then all the male AND female teachers would be very attentive no matter how boring the pitch was. The speech ends and sales girl claps her hands waking up the half asleep staff. Then she raises her voice so impossibly high I thought only dogs could hear it and busts into an awkward cheerleader routine. I'm shocked and so is everyone else.

After a half minute of cheers sales girl half trips and sweeps one chubby appendage towards the principal's desk sending its contents flying in all directions. Many teachers start laughing but managed to stifle their giggles early on, but I couldn't stop myself. Seriously it was so damn hilarious and I couldn't stop laughing so I had to leave the room.

I felt bad for sales girl and it seems like a lot of the teachers did to because when I came back at lunch she was selling several teachers new edition textbooks. In Japan even overweight girls in their mid to late 20's giving professional speeches have to act like cute cheerleader types. Just imagine if companies tried to make women in America do this? The horror… the horror.