I want to talk about omiyage briefly before I go home to make dinner and return to play basketball. In case I haven't mentioned it, I play basketball on Wednesday nights with some local teachers and other JET program participants.

Omiyage is a ritual giving of gifts to co-workers. When you go away from your job on vacation, or often if you just take a vacation, you are supposed to give omiyage to your co-workers when you return. It's a way of saying thank you for doing my work while I was absent. There is a lot of guilt associated with taking vacation in Japan, so they must make amends when they return. Since August was a time many teachers took vacation, I have received a lot of omiyage from them. I even gave out Jolly Ranchers from America when I first arrived. They don't have those in Japan, though many American products are available.

Omiyage is almost always food, at least at my school. I get tons of little cakes or biscuits or weird things that only pass as food in Japan. For instance, once I was given a cookie. However the flavor appeared to be some kind of fish. As you might imagine, fish cookies taste really bad. Lots of omiyage is centered around something famous in a particular town. And by famous, I mean that the town in the last ten years decided it would start marketing itself as a source of this item. At least, that is the case for many small towns. Paul's town is famous for figs now, so they sell boxed figs, fig cookies, and many other interesting products. We went to Izumo, a bigger city near Paul's town, that is actually famous for an old shrine. At many stores you can buy cookies with pictures of the shrine on it. Omiyage is normally individually wrapped (everything in Japan is, even cookies in boxes at the store), so you just give one to each person. One of my friends said it was the only thing keeping the Japanese economy from complete collapse. They have to spend money on the omiyage.

Anyway, I find it fascinating, though I have decided to only give omiyage when I am away on vacation trips, not just on a weekend trip somewhere. I think I'll be travelling more than the average Japanese will. The good thing about omiyage is that it often has an English description on it. For instance, one of them says " Tokyo Banana. People gather to TOKYO from here and there with memories of their home. And then, Tokyo gets the everyone's home town." I think it is referring to the rampant growth of Tokyo, swallowing up other people's nearby towns. However, it's not really clear. I also had one that said "Sesame Peanut Cookie" on it. So at least you have some idea what you are eating first. I am often not so lucky in restaurants. I employ a close my eyes and point strategy.