Omiyage

Now in Japan people are ALWAYS giving gifts. They call it omiyage. You give it when you enter a new organization (so you know when I came I had to be giving out gift left, right and centre) and you also buy omiyage when you travel especially to foreign countries to give it away upon your return. The omiyage doesn't have to be fancy. It's usually just sweets but it shows that wherever you were that you were thinking of other people -your coworkers, friends etc. and it clearly encourages generosity and thoughtfulness - WONDERFUL !!!

This is how serious Omiyage is. A teacher went on her honeymoon (I repeat, HONEYMOON) in Italy and when she came back yuh done know there were boxes of Italian chocolate on the table in the staff room for the rest of the teachers. So if you planning to go anywhere and you nuh waan’ buy nuttin', don’t tell nobody because if you do, you know you better try bring back something. No one will come to you demanding their gift but it’s one of those unspoken rules. Now even if I wanted to do the “’Don’t Tell’ Cop Out”, I can’t, because I always have to make my Vice-Principal know exactly where I am just in case I get into any problems.

Now my mother, whom I love dearly, always told us that when we buy a gift we should buy something that we would like for ourselves. This ensures that you give only the best gift. So when I went to the Kyoto I had the omiyage on my mind. Now Kyoto isn’t exactly foreign ( it’s only one hour by train from where I am in Osaka) , but still the omiyage thing was on my mind, and worse, the people with whom I work, knew I was going to Kyoto (every body know mi business- lol) So I went to this shop where the sold sweets to get the omiyage. The great thing is that you can taste the sweets before the purchase them. So there I was tasting away when I came upon this absolutely scrumptious sweet. I decided that it would be THE omiyage. But I took it a step further- I decided to get one for myself too. On the journey home I feasted on this chocolate delight. Oh it was so good! Soon the packet I had bought for myself was finished. Suddenly the omiyage was looking very tempting. The taste of what I remembered were delectable chocolates was quickly vanishing and of course my mouth started to water for the omiyage. How absolutely dreadful! Now herein lies the moral dilemma. Should I take some of the omiyage to satisfy the sweet craving or should I leave' the people dem omiyage'?…. What do you think I did?. . . .

I bus’ the omiyage of course – LOL But soon the sweet chocolate was having a bitter taste – That’s what you call GUILT . I couldn’t eat it off. Luckily the guilt tripped in pretty quickly so there were enough packets of sweets to give to everyone. I was also quite pleased that when I gave them out, everyone seemed to enjoy them ( I know I did ) . It really is a nice feeling to know that other persons enjoy the gifts you give them ( no matter how small ) And learn from this blog- If something bought is intended for another ' don’ nyam is out' !