Last August I packed my bags and
boarded a flight from Ottawa-Toronto-Tokyo.
I didn't know what I was getting into.
I knew I was going to Asia. I knew there would be lots of people. And
fish. And recently deceased fish. And etiquette rules.
But other than that I was going in
blind.
Japan just kind of came to me, or at
least the opportunity did. Not to understate it, I did apply for the
program (no easy feat), but Japan itself was never somewhere that
lured me in and dragged me over. I was interested mostly in leaving,
in new vistas and in wandering lost down streets that surprised and
teased me. (Funnily enough, Bono would be happy to know that here,
said streets really do have no names, making getting lost in them a
whole lot easier).
But before I left for Japan, someone I
know asked me to send him something, be it a picture or something
more tangible, that shocked me. Japan's got a reputation.
And this:
And this:
But it's proven really hard to give him
something to put his teeth into. All the time in Japan I'm surprised
by things. First, I was surprised that I never see inventions like
these.
Except these:
Except these:
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/japanese-inventions-mops.jpg
I have seen these in stores I guess. But only the slipper ones. Japanese people, even if they did like the idea of turning your child and pets into little swiffers, are pretty aware that a baby learning to crawl is tough enough, try getting it to pace out every inch of your kitchen floor. Or trying to get a cat to do anything. Uh uh.
Anyways, what I wanted to say is that
it's really hard to communicate the things that make my head spin.
Crowds of people standing on a dance floor bobbing their heads and
not dancing because it's better
to be reserved.
Whale
meat used in school lunches for 700 13-15 year olds.
Bank
staff staying 6 hours after close every day
to count every penny in the vault.
Vending
machines on every corner (but sadly, usually only selling drinks)
Convenience
stores that sell everything you could every need.
People
who will randomly bring you presents, just because they know you.
Or conversely:
Cab
drivers driving away from your request for a ride and leaving you
alone in the middle of nowhere because (I'm assuming, I didn't get
the chance to ask) he's afraid of foreigners or afraid to communicate
with foreigners.
Kids
in cram school till 10PM, on school nights, and again on Saturday
mornings.
The
semi-mandatory “donations” for your “free” national TV
channels. Because “it's every Japanese resident's duty.”
Some
things are funny and easy to send back, like marijuana leaf
decorations, air fresheners, and pencil cases that they don't know
are pot, or Engrish signs, but the things that really throw me are
the other ones. The ones that are so much bigger, and so much less
obvious than a picture of a vending machine on a corner or twenty
teenagers in a fish-bowl of a glass-windowed room, clicking their
pencils and thinking about sleep, boys, girls, and how they'd rather
be playing video-games at 9:30PM on a Tuesday night.
Colin
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