I'm not going to talk much about the things you probably already have heard about Japan. (Yes, the trains are fast, the stations clean, and the food yummy.) I'm also not going to give a laundry list about what I saw on which days. Instead, I'm going to talk about things that were new to me.
While Jim speaks Japanese quite well, I was going to be on my own for a lot of the time while he was at work. I was thus quite nervous about being able to communicate.
Things turned out okay. At the hotels we stayed at, most of the staff spoke English, ranging from understandable to superb. I also could save up questions for Jim and/or get him to translate for me. However, I don't want to give the impression that it was completely pain-free. I had the following uncomfortable language encounters:
This exchange was particularly frustrating for me. I groused to myself all day, "If I were in the produce section of Safeway, and somebody came up and said, 'Oranges?', I certainly would point them at the oranges. What could possibly have gone wrong in that transaction???"
Well, two things. First, all questions in Japanese are marked with a word, "ka", that acts as a question mark. So without the "ka", it would have sounded like a statement, not a question. More importantly, "nashi" is a homonym: it means "Asian pears" and also "nothing". So when I thought I was saying, "Asian pears?", I was probably actually saying, "Nothing." No wonder he was confused.
After that, I made Jim teach me all the question words: who, what, where, when, why. The next day, I was proud to be able to say, "Nan des ka?" (What is it?) about a coin whose denomination I didn't understand. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
That isn't what I found at all. In my (mostly commercial) interactions and watching people in the train station, I didn't see much difference between Americans and Japanese in terms of warmth. In fact, the word I would use to describe Japanese society is "nice". People genuinely wanted to be helpful.
For example, I went to a an art museum, and didn't have small bills for the entrance fee. Instead of trying to break my 10,000 yen note (approximately US$100), they just waved me on in.
Furthermore, Americans wave a hand back and forth, palm-out, in front of our
chest. This woman waved her hand back and forth, palm-sideways (thumb
pointing toward her nose) in front of her face.
I am guessing that this is the vestige of the Great Kanto Earthquake (and
subsequent fire) of 1923. Deaths from the earthquake were over 100,000 and
something like 71% of the population in Tokyo and Yokohama lost their homes.
To put it very simply, Tokyo was trashed.
(I heard that a disproportionate number of women died in the fires because
their kimonos were awkward. The source (which I've forgotten,
sorry) said that the fire really hastened the acceptance of Western-style
clothing.)
In Japan multi-story buildings, a certain percentage of the windows must be
openable from the outside. Those window are marked with red triangles, as
you can (faintly) see in the center window above.
In Osaka and Kyoto, the fire extinguishers weren't quite as prominent (they
were in grey boxes with lights instead of red boxes with lights). However,
in Kyoto, we saw red fire buckets filled with water in front of many houses.
Upon hearing that, I reflect that they must work, as I hadn't seen any cats.
Or rats. Or squirrels. In fact, I never saw any ground animals except for
an occasional dog on a leash. The only wildlife I ever saw was birds.
Wrong. Karaoke, at least as it was performed by a group of young sumo
wrestlers (think college football players and you'll get a sense of the
demographic) was a real riot. It reminded me of American lip-synch contests,
except that in addition to jumping around the stage, they were singing. It
made American lip-synch contests seem kind of pathetic by comparison.
Note: I did also see some lonely karaoke later. In Tennoji Park, Osaka,
there are some gardens that you have to pay to get into. There's also an art
museum, and to get to the art museum, you have to go through the garden.
Since the garden is for-pay, there is a pedestrian road with fences on both
sides that felt sort of like a chute.
The foot traffic draws entrepreneurs. Not only were there people hawking
used goods - clothes, shoes, tableware, kitchenware - but a LOT of tiny
bar/cafes with karaoke machines. When there was no singer, they'd play a
tape LOUDLY as a way of advertising their service. The noise was somewhat
oppressive.
I have heard of crazy drivers in many places -- Bangkok, New York, Boston, etc
-- but Japan was never a place I'd thought of as having crazy drivers.
This was before I visited the Meiji shrine in Tokyo. I was unnerved to see
that the most popular charms for sale were for traffic safety.
(The next most popular was for scholarship or luck on exams, the next for
health, with only a few for other random things like marital happiness.)
In general, I was not nervous while driving (although I would have been
happier on general principles if the seatbelts had been more accessible in
the taxicabs). There was one night, however, that made us a bit uncomfortable.
The driver was going at least 50% over the speed limit at all times, doing
some unorthodox passing, and moved his body around a lot -- as if he was
trying to keep awake. In his defense, he didn't do anything that was
obviously dangerous. The car seemed under control at all times, he tootled
his horn before coming up on driveways with obstructed views of the roadway,
and his lane changes, while unorthodox, did not seem to be particularly risky.
I was surprised at how vertical Japanese stores are. The footprint for each
store was quite small, but there would be five or six floors for that store.
(In the U.S., all but the very biggest stores are on one level. I would have
expected to see store A on the first floor, store B on the second floor, etc.)
I was also a bit surprised at how limited the selection of stuff was, and how
little variation there was from store to store. Granted,
I live in Silicon Valley, home of some extremely large electronics stores with
huge selections. I knew our stores were impressive compared to the rest of
the U.S. or Europe. I just hadn't realized that they'd be impressive even
by Japanese standards.
The number of flat panel displays was impressive. I don't think I saw a
computer display during the whole trip that was NOT flat-panel. This makes
sense when you recognize how small living quarters there are!
Because I'm working on a book about email,
I wanted particularly to see what style email books had in Japan.
I opened up a book called Emeeru (Email) English at random.
I was stunned! On that page, it said:
My immediate reaction was outrage, followed a split-second later by laughter.
It is actually okay that they copied my work: I explicitly put A Beginner's
Guide into the public domain. I made it freely available specifically
because I was hoping that people would take it and expand upon it. I just
forgot that for a moment.
In the course of the week, I
I got three pocket packs of tissue paper in the train stations from such people.
(If you get offered a pack when in Japan, take it: the train station restrooms
don't have toilet paper.)
The oddest thing someone gave me was a plastic ball containing a sheet of
aluminum foil connected to a pipe cleaner and a page of what could
only charitably be
called instructions (in both English and Japanese). The "instructions"
started out:
"Congratulations! You are the lucky recipient of Simulcast Mobile Kit #1.
It is by no means a mistake that this kit has landed in your capable hands.
It could be destiny at play, but more than likely you were simply in the
right place at the right time."
Later on, it says "SIMULCAST is about a reciprocal relationship between
organisms and electronics. SIMULCAST is so simple of a concept that even
dogs and cats can become active participants..."
It was very, very strange. I think it was performance art of some sort, but
I don't understand the point. There was a
URL that turned out to be just as unenlightening. I guess this just goes
to show that Japan at its goofiest can be just as goofy as US at its goofiest.
Gestures
After studying American Sign Language, I'm interested in gestures. I noticed
the following gestures in Japan:
Fire
The first kanji ("Chinese" pictograms) characters that I learned
were for "fire extinguisher". In the U.S., fire extinguishers don't usually
call a lot of attention to themselves. In Tokyo, they practically screamed
for attention.
Animals
In Kyoto, we also saw water bottles surrounding telephone poles and lined
up in front of buildings. I thought maybe those were additional fire supplies,
but no. The superstition is that they keep cats away.
Street People
I know that the politically correct term is "homeless", but that doesn't seem
appropriate because at least some of them had homes. In most of the parks
that I visited, there were pretty extensive tent cities in the trees. My
husband also saw a lot of people materialize to camp out in the train station
late at night.
Karaoke
I had of course heard of karaoke but had never seen anyone doing it. I had
always thought that it would be a kind of pathetic exhibition - individuals
who weren't good enough to sing unaided trying desperately to get attention.
Traffic
I had heard that congestion was horrible in Japan and was not disappointed.
One morning rush hour in Tokyo, a three-mile (5km) taxi ride took thirty
minutes.
Electronics
I spent a fair amount of time in electronics stores. In theory, I was looking
for a specific item for a friend. In practice, I needed some sort of a goal
for my days and this search sufficed.
>Should I just boost the power on the Jaiger?
That's something that I wrote! It's taken almost literally
from my web site A Beginner's
Guide to Effective Email. Leafing through, I found many more examples
taken almost directly from my web site.
No, if you turn it up to eleven, you'll overheat the motors and it might
explode.
Barkers
There were a lot of people whose job it was to entice you into stores
(especially in the electronics districts)
and/or hand out promotional material. In the electronics stores, there
were frequently people inside the stores at the top of the escalators
handing out material.
Wouldn't It Be Nice?
There were some things I saw that I thought were better than in the US:
Overkill
Jim had told me that Japan excelled at the extravagant touches. I got to
witness this first hand.
Conclusions
All in all, I had a very good time -- a much better time than I had expected
Copyright 2000
Kaitlin Duck Sherwood