Niplets

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Location: Kyoto, Japan

I stayed at a brilliant hostel in Kyoto. It was managed (and possibly owned) by two people: a younger woman and an older man who were members of a local rock band named "Niplets."

The word for Japan in Japanese is Nippon, so a "Niplet" might be a little Japanese person? Or maybe it has something to do with nipples.

The hostel had a large shared area with couches, bean bags, and a big TV that was showing the BBC documentary "Planet Earth" on a loop. The woman (I think her name was Junko) would organize outings to traditional Japanese restaurants in the evenings, and she would play her guitar for a while after we got back.

Once a week, Junko would hold a traditional Japanese dinner at the hostel. She moved the furniture out of the shared area and replaced it with a long, low dining table. She put out mats for guests to sit on. The cuisine was specific to Kyoto.

I got back from sightseeing in time for the dinner. Junko told me that nobody was using the showers, so it would be a good time for me to shower. I told her that I had already showered that morning, and would shower again the following morning. She said that the showers might be busy in the morning, so I should probably shower before dinner. The interaction was awkward. I eventually realized that she was telling me to go shower.

I've since learned that Japanese people shower after they get back home from work, school, etc. so they don't sully their clean homes with dirt from outside. They are confused (and grossed out) by Westerners who nonsensically shower in the morning, right before they leave the house and get dirty. They may have a point.

One of the guests at the hostel was a Chinese girl. One night, I eavesdropped on a conversation between the Chinese girl and Junko. They were comparing Chinese and Japanese. They seemed excited to find out that many words sound very similar in both languages.

I wish I could travel back in time and listen to that conversation again, because I've learned some Chinese since then and it seems like it shares almost no vocabulary with Japanese.

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