This weekend Companion’s brother and wife, Yukiji, came to visit for two days. She is pregnant with their first baby and is very excited. I was very excited because Yukiji is from Japan, and whenever someone from another country is trapped near me, I ask them questions about their country until their heads blow up. Hearing one person’s impression of another place is one of my favorite things to do. I think she was also pleasantly surprised to hear that I was very interested in Japan, and had taken Japanese art history classes in college.

So we talked about babies and pregnancy and the difference between Japan and the United States. I think she’s doing well, but I worry that she’s going to be isolated once she quits work and they move out to a ‘burb of the larger PNW city they live in now.

I gave her advice on some snappy nursing bras and advised her to get a Boppy. A Boppy brand pillow is horseshoe-shaped. Basically you put it around your waist like you’re part Michelin Man and use that to support your boobranching activities so your back doesn’t get sore. As far as I can tell, this country is in the throes of National Boppy Domination. I know there are other brands out there, but I never see them. And people will often say “Boppy” for “nursing pillow” as others say “Xerox” or “Kleenex” instead of “photocopies” or “tissues.”

Because I am the meddling type, I also bought her some books in Japanese, like one on birth in America for Japanese women, and a few issues of Premo, which I am told is very popular there. After flipping though Premo for a little while, Yukiji showed me a page filled with nursing pillows. There were at least fifteen styles. Mushroom shapes, wedge shapes, round ones, and ones that looked more like commas than horseshoes.

I like these moments. Yukiji was trying to pin down why I am so interested in Japan, and I feel like this page in the maternity magazine nailed it. American culture seems to have an affinity with Japanese culture because of all the ridiculous consumer choices that are available to us–and we want that and sometimes get grumpy if we don’t have choices. I was at the dentist a couple of months ago, and when they offered me so flavors of tooth polish I swear the hygienist had to take a deep breath to rattle off the 12 or so choices. When I was a kid there was mint and bubblegum. You chose bubblegum until you started getting hair on your hoo-hah and then you made the “grown-up” choice.

It was funny to me to see the 4,000 nursing pillows and the little KAWAII!!! illustrations all over Premo. Here we get serious line drawings–there are no sassy in utero babies with talk bubbles here. I think I could live in Japan if I had to.