Every Saturday, at the church, we have an English coffee house. In it, we start with a previously chosen topic, and talk about it in English. At the end we do a Bible study in English. The importance is that it's all in English... so basically, it's provided for people who want to practice speaking the amount of English they know... and maybe learn a little more along the way. Anyway, somehow or other, today, we ended up talking at length about dish washing methods. You see, most Japanese people don't have dishwashers... and so, everything is hand washed. Apparently, there's a correct Japanese way to wash dishes. I had no idea. I thought it was up to the person who washes the dishes. But i was mistaken. Lemme explain.
First, you take out two fairly large bowls. You fill up one of the bowls with regular water and dish soap. This is station #1. Station #2 is the sink with the faucet and running water. The other bowl is station #3. You fill up this bowl with hot water. And finally, the dish rack is station #4. So, this is how it goes.
You take your dirty plate/cup/whatever, and dunk it into station #1 with the dish soap. Pull it out and bring it to station #2 (the sink) to rinse off the soapy residue. Then, you send the plate/cup/whatever to station #3 with the hot water and dunk it. This is for the sake of sanitization and drying purposes. Finally, you bring the thing to station #4 (the dry dish rack) to dry it.
This just seems like a waste of time and space to me. But apparently, anything less, is considered unsanitary by Japanese standards. Amazing. The standardization of behavior here in Japan never ceases to amaze me. This goes way beyond folding garbage into pretty little bows (see 8/20).