RANT 'N' RAVE
Gleaming gomi
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Illustration by Dot |
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"Did you wash it?"
"What?" I responded.
"Did you wash it?" Yoko asked again.
I thought hard for a second. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what she might be
referring to. We had finished our dinner. I'd washed all the dishes a few minutes ago and
then put them all away. What else needed washing? Spring cleaning was months away.
"The garbage."
Now that threw me. I know Japanese people are extremely tidy and clean; households are
spotless, cars are spit polished and they always smell nice, packed with aromas like pine
forests or meadow flowers. But washing the garbage? This was something far beyond
fanaticism.
"You've got to rinse it before you throw it out you know," she insisted.
By now I was thoroughly confused. It's garbage, after all. It's going to the incinerator
or the landfill right? It wasn't recyclable stuff. What had I tossed away? The brown
pieces off the lettuce for the salad? The saran wrap covered in sauce? The potato skins?
Beats me.
Back home, we drop it in the garbage and that's about it. Forget it till the bag's full
and drop it off at the building garbage bin tomorrow. And I always separate out the
bottles and newspaper and put them in their recycle bins. My aunts who garden keep the
organic matter in a pail for the mulch. And with those plastic can rings for six-packs,
I'll even cut them up so that birds don't end up with them around their necks and die. I'm
not only a great guy, I'm a responsible caring citizen of mother earth (tongue firmly in
cheek). Still, this washing the gomi I was having trouble coming to terms with. She
proceeded to explain.
"Kore," she grabbed the empty plastic meat tray out of the garbage.
"You have to rinse it off or it will be kusai and stink up the
apartment."
Fair enough, I guess, although I never noticed any smell before, and I've let it pile up
for a week at times. She explained further the correct and complete Japanese method of
thoroughly washing up after a meal. And I listened. And I learned. A little cultural
education, you might say.
So now, after the dishes, I wash all the disposable trays, plastic or paper, anything at
all that goes in the trash, burnable or otherwise, as well as rinse clean the beer cans
and wine bottles on top of it. You live, you learn. Or should I say, you live in Japan,
you learn, right? I'm thinking of grabbing a whole bunch of pine and flower fresheners to
liven up our apartment too.
Many thanks to reader Sean Linstead for this Rant and Rave. |
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