Yes! I went to Japan. My company sent me there for a 3-day conference, but of course I took a few extra days-- why go all the way across the Pacific for just 3 days?
The journey there. As I boarded the plane, I wondered if I would sit next to a voyaging American or a homeward-bound Japanese. I guess I should have expected that coming from Silicon Valley, I would end up next to an Indian programmer :-). He was a nice guy. During the flight, I saw about half of "Mission to Mars" in Japanese. What a lousy movie-- but it was a nice warm-up for hearing Japanese all the time.
The plane arrived safely at Narita Airport after 11.3 hours (ugh). We were filtered through customs amazingly smoothly, but I still faced a 2.5-hour journey out to Atsugi, where an old friend from grad school lives with his wife. I was in a strange state of exhaustion-induced bleariness mixed with wide-eyed excitement at the concept that I was in Japan. I successfully bought a ticket for the Narita Express Train. I had to change trains at Shinjuku, which turned out to be challenging-- that is one enormous station. I was dying of thirst by this time, so I went to one of the ubiquitous snack stands and bought some water. I did the whole thing in Japanese, which prompted the woman at the stand to tell me that my Nihongo was jouzu (skillful). I would have been flattered, except that I know that particular compliment actually means, "Thanks for trying to use Japanese, since that's more than most Americans can do, but frankly, your Japanese isn't very good."
Anyway, I made one small mistake-- I got myself on the local train to Atsugi, not the express. That probably added 20 minutes or so onto the journey. When I finally arrived at Hon Atsugi station, I had to deal with using the public phone, but somehow I called my friend, who collected me in his car and delivered me to his small-by-American-standards but large-by-Japanese-standards apartment. I immediately collapsed on the tatami mat and had a great night's sleep (it was about 11 pm Japan time, which is around 7 am in America).
Kamakura. When I woke up, it was raining, typical for this time of year in Japan. We decided to spend the day at Kamakura, a historical area near Atsugi with a lot of temples and small towns. We saw a Buddhist temple called Hasedera that was first established in the 8th century. It was a great way to start off the trip because the temple buildings had that "Japanese look" with the slightly upturned roof. After lunch (at a soba noodle place) we voyaged to the Daibutsu ("great Buddha"), which is a 13.35-meter-tall bronze statue of the Buddha erected in 1252. It is the second largest Buddha statue in Japan (the largest is in Nara). Way cool. It was raining a bit, but there were flocks of schoolchildren there on class trips, as well as the usual assortment of tourists. There is a stairway going up inside the Buddha, but we decided not to take it.
Instead, we headed into the town of Kamakura and strolled the shopping area. It consisted of a multitude of little stores, close together, some aimed at tourists, but not all. What amazed me was the number of shops offering samples of various foods that they sold. Several stores had samples of nearly everything. We tasted everything from shrimp paste to pickled cucumbers to sweet red bean candy. We bought fresh senbe, which are flat breads, sort of like tortillas, but made of rice. They were cooked on a grill before our eyes and dusted with both sugar and salt, which turned out to be a really good combination. (Senbe come in lots of other "flavors" too, like shrimp and soy).
On the way back to Atsugi, we stopped at a store called Yodobashi, which is like Circuit City on steroids. They've got cell phones, CD players, TVs, digital cameras, computers, and any other electronic gadget you could possibly want. It was fun to cruise through and see the cornucopial abundance of things that beep and have flashing lights.
That night, we went out to a sushi place-- one of those ones where you get a chef assigned to your party and he whips up whatever you order in real time. We had a zillion kinds of sushi-- for instance, maguro (tuna), hotate (sea scallop), hamachi (yellowtail), unagi (eel), etc. I like most kinds of sushi, but I wasn't wild about the sea bream, whose Japanese name I've forgotten. Overall, it was a great dinner, and the chef commented at the end that I was one of the more adventurous American eaters that he'd served.
[Side note on eating: when you go to a foreign country, it really pays to be an adventurous eater. There are so many amazing kinds of food in the world, and as cosmopolitan as America is in general, you won't find truly local specialties in the US of A. (And they won't taste the same anyway :-)). So when you have a chance to try something that you've never heard of, just try it! In Japan, you will quickly get used to eating things of questionable identity. You couldn't understand the description anyway, so just eat it. Some of them you won't like, but some of them will be fabulous! And they will all be unique.]
I should mention that much of the time I was speaking English with my friend and his wife, but I did take the opportunity to try out some Japanese. My friend speaks better English than Japanese, and although his wife is Japanese, her English is flawless. Since I hadn't seen him in a few years, it was important to be able to communicate during the short time we had together. I learned a lot of new words, though-- I'm sure they got tired of me saying, "What's this in Japanese?"
The countryside. The next day it wasn't raining, so we headed into the hills on a car trip looking for fall foliage. First we stopped at a Japanese winery (Suntory). I was stunned that such things even exist, but there they were on the hillside-- rows of grapevines, just like I had seen in California and France. However, Japan is not famous for its wine, and now I know firsthand why not. It was pretty flat stuff. It turns out that Japanese soil is too rich-- the dry soil of California, France, and Australia is superior for producing good wine grapes, for some reason. Anyway, the highlight of the winery tour was seeing Mt. Fuji in the distance from the hillside with the grapevines. It was half shrouded in mist, and every bit as stunning as the pictures you've probably seen of it.
We pressed on to Nagano, but even here, the foliage wasn't as bright as it will be in a few weeks. Looks like we were just a bit early, but there was some red and yellow amidst the green. We stopped at a little lake called Matsubara, and took a short jaunt around it. There were some curious boats in the lake shaped like large swans which added to the picturesque nature of the scene.
One interesting thing we saw several times were groups of older women, out for a walk or a tour or some shopping. My friend explained that these are called simply obaasan-- grandmothers-- and it is common for them to have social groups that go on jaunts together. Then he made an intriguing comment: he said that they are some of the freest people in Japanese society. This is a culture steeped in social obligation and playing the right role. Older women, whose children are gone and who have enough money that they don't have to work, are about the only people who can step outside that system and go for jaunts on pleasant autumn days.
Later, we stopped for some ice cream. I just have one comment about ice cream in Japan: Asian lactose-intolerance, my foot! The Japanese love ice cream, and they have pretty good ice cream, too.
Journey to Yokohama. All good things must end, unfortunately, and we had to drive back to Atsugi so I could get the train to Yokohama that evening. (The conference was starting the next morning). I bid farewell to my friend, promising to return, and made my way successfully through another train change to arrive at Sakuragi-chou ("cherry tree district").
[One comment on the Japanese train system (the densha, electric train): the government used to run the whole thing, but it was a mess, so about a decade ago they broke it into 5 "competing" lines. I'm not sure how much they really compete in the American sense of going out of business if profits run too low, but at least service has improved, according to people I talked to there. The only problem is that you have to buy separate tickets for each line, which is a waste of time. There was a new cooperation program underway when I was there, wherein people could buy a single ticket good for a ride on several lines. It was advertised as being taihen benri-- "terribly convenient!" I wonder if it will work. But these comments aside, the Japanese densha and chikatetsu (subway) are truly great transportation systems. Just like in New York City, you are better off without a car in Japan's urban areas.]
[Comment added later: I got email from a guy who knows more about this than I do, and wanted to include his comments:
This is a bit complicated, but the government never owned all the railways. It operated the Japan National Railway (Nihon Kokuyuu Tetsudoo, or Kokutetsu for short), a vast nationwide network including the Shinkansen. In addition there were (and are) a large number of privately-owned railways, mostly concentrated in the major cities, plus a number of railways (mostly metro systems) operated by municipal governments. The JNR became a financial mess, and was "privatized" by breaking it up into six regional passenger railways ("JR": one each for eastern, central, and western Honshu, and one each for Hokkaido, Shikoku, and Kyushu) and one freight company. They don't very much compete with each other (although the three Honshu companies compete to some extent over the Shinkansen lines, which is a matter too complicated to describe here), but they're competing much more vigorously with the private railways within each region. And yes, they seem to have managed to throw off their bureaucratic attitudes.Thanks!]
[One more comment on trains: Most stations have a "gaijin" version of the line map in English, so you can figure out where you're going. But a couple stations I passed through didn't. It's handy to know the kanji characters of the station you are going to, so you can find it on the price map. (Ticket buying is done at machines.) One helpful thing is that each station name is written out in hiragana on the signs that you see as you pull into the station on the train. That was enormously helpful to me in figuring out where we were because I can read the hiragana as we go by.]
I caught a cab from the station to the Yokohama Grand Intercontinental Hotel, a huge Western-style hotel that is shaped like an apple slice standing on end (for the mathematically inclined, it looks like one octant of a sphere). I did the whole cab thing in Japanese, but that's not too hard. The phrases are standard.
This hotel was totally used to foreigners, as you might imagine. The staff are obviously trained to receive bedraggled, exhausted Americans who don't know a word of Japanese. As soon as I hopped out of the cab (by the way, you don't tip in Japan), I was overwhelmed by the hotel greeting staff who took my bag, ushered me to the reception desk, and made sure I had everything I needed, all the time speaking flawless English. It was almost embarrassing-- I guess they get a lot of Americans who aren't interested in experiencing a new culture, and simply want to be treated like they would at some American hotel.
Anyway, I got installed in my room, which had a fabulous view of Yokohama harbor. There is a big ferris wheel at an amusement park on the waterfront, and my window faced it perfectly. It was getting late, though, so I opted for a good night's sleep before the conference. I did watch a little Japanese TV, though-- it really does help to hear the language again and again, like total immersion. I took every chance I could to hear spoken Japanese.
Conference, Day 1. I got up early and took a walk along the waterfront. It was stunning-- so many huge Navy vessels and transport ships. Yokohama is a port city, and often received goods bound for the more protected Tokyo. My dad told me that a few decades ago, Yokohama was a place where you could be abducted into something like the Singapore Navy if you were too drunk at a bar late at night. But currently, there is a thriving downtown area with businesses and museums and shops. I did see one interesting thing on my stroll-- a woman giving a man a blow job in a park. I guess some things are truly international.
At the conference, I met up with my company's CEO, who had also come from America, plus our two Japanese employees, who work out of Kyoto and Kobe. We had a booth on the exhibition floor which they were in charge of. The first day of talks at the conference had simultaneous English translation, so I spent most of the day attending talks. By "simultaneous English translation," I mean that they had hired a real-time translation service to sit there and listen to the talks, then say in English (a few seconds later) what the speaker had just said in Japanese. I was impressed with the translators-- they did a very good job in that the translation was smooth and they didn't have trouble with the technical terms. It must be a very demanding job because they always had two people there, and they would trade off every 30 minutes. I would think that Japanese-English translation would be really hard in general because the grammar is so different, and the subtle shades of meaning/feeling expressed in Japanese don't come off so well in English. It was a little confusing to hear Japanese in my left ear and English in my right ear, but interesting also.
That evening, there was a "VIP reception," that Jim-san, one of our Japanese guys, got us into. It was very nice, with fabulous food and freely flowing alcohol. It is easier to speak Japanese when slightly tipsy, I have discovered. But then again, the Japanese love to practice their English, so I spoke some English too.
Conference, Day 2. This time, I decided to go for a jog around the harbor area, which was lots of fun because I got to see more than I had just on my walk. The funny thing was, I saw about the most Americans I had my whole time in Yokohama on that morning jog. Seems like we were all out that morning. The Japanese don't jog quite so much.
Since all the talks were in Japanese, I headed for the exhibition floor. There was plenty to see, with 22,000 conference participants and more booths than the eye could see easily. I took some notes on product features, and tried to chat a bit with salespeople, but mostly we had to use English because my vocabulary is too limited and salespeople are impatient. I also managed to take an hour to cruise around the shops near the convention center. It's pretty easy to buy things; you learn quickly that money is good anywhere.
The dinner to die for. That evening, I had dinner with our CEO and Jim-san. We went to a fancy Japanese restaurant, which I was really excited about. By now, I had realized that Japanese prices are just insanely expensive anyway (you get inured to it and just start spending money like water after a few days), but when you roll that factor together with the fact that we were dining in a fancy hotel... it adds up to staggering prices on the menu :-). Entrees started at about 6,000 yen ($55) and ranged up to over $200. We went for the shabu-shabu, which is a traditional Japanese dish sort of like fondue. There is a boiling pot of water at the table, in which you cook meat and vegetables, then dip them in various sauces. The kicker was that this shabu-shabu came with Kobe beef-- very famous and expensive stuff. It also came with sashimi and soba and a seaweed appetizer, for a total price near $110 a plate. (Yipe).
But it was fabulous. I almost never eat beef, but the Kobe beef was worth it. It is obviously high in fat-- it's very richly marbled-- which of course makes it taste better. In fact, shabu-shabu comes with a "fat bucket"-- you are supposed to sweep the fat off the surface of the boiling water after a round of beef-cooking. But one of the great things about Japanese restaurants is that portions are small. You get a little of this and a little of that, and the whole thing ends up not being heavy and overwhelming. I'm a somewhat light eater, and I often feel too full after eating at an American restaurant. In Japan, everything was just right for me. Even this fancy meal with 5 courses (seaweed, sashimi, shabu-shabu, soba, and melon) didn't leave me stuffed to the gills. This was definitely the food highlight of the trip.
Conference, Day 3. On the third day of the conference, I again walked the exhibition floor. I had one interesting encounter with a Japanese guy who worked for a translation company. He was obviously targeting gaijin to pitch his company's services to, so I listened politely to his spiel. Then I told him in Japanese that I had been studying Japanese for about 6 months, and although I wasn't very good at Japanese, I was pleased to make his acquaintance. He looked stunned, then had a strange reaction-- he apologized to me for speaking English. It wasn't the reaction I expected, and I hastened to tell him that that was fine-- I'm not really jouzu enough to conduct business in Japanese. It's just a little disconcerting to have someone bow to you and offer a humble apology.
[Side note on bowing: You will get used to bowing quickly. It is ubiquitous, like shaking hands or waving or nodding and smiling in America. As a foreigner, you don't have to do it as skillfully as the Japanese. In fact, it can look a little fake if you bow too much as a gaijin, but you should at least make an effort to do it when appropriate. The Japanese bow when saying hello, goodbye, thank you, I'm sorry, and many other times too. Often it's just a short gesture, a token. But sometimes it is a deep and long bow, when showing genuine respect. For instance, the former president of a major Japanese company was at this conference walking the exhibition floor, and it was interesting to watch how he was treated. People regularly gave him full bows with their heads ducked all the way. For more casual interactions, people would make a shorter gesture. One of the most interesting things to watch are the "bowing contests," where each participant tries to be more polite than the other. They both bow, and whoever comes up first feels awkward, so he bows a second time. In the meantime, the first guy comes up, but then realizes the second guy has now bowed twice, so he has to bow again. This goes on for quite a while, bobbing up and down out of phase. Anyway, it's a very real cultural phenomenon that contrasts significantly with the more casual style in the West].
The Kanagawa Prefecture Museum of Cultural History. Since it was the last day of the conference and I had seen most of what I wanted to already, I ducked out a couple hours early and went to the Kanagawa Prefecture Museum of Cultural History, which is near downtown Yokohama. They had a special exhibit going on entitled "Sayonara to the 20th Century." It was a photo exhibit of photos taken from 1901 to 1999 showing major historical and cultural events in Japan. It was fascinating! In fact, there were many Japanese there looking at it too; I think I was the only gaijin.
I didn't know some of the major events of 20th-century Japanese history. I hadn't realized how many serious natural and human disasters there had been, from fires and earthquakes to railroad accidents. In fact, I was surprised at the proportion of the exhibit devoted to various problems with large corporations, such as scandals, accidents, murders, and lawsuits. As an American, of course, I cringed a bit as the dates neared WWII, expecting to see the usual devasting pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To my surprise, there was just one picture of the atomic aftermath (Hiroshima); the other WWII pictures showed Japanese soldiers, the campaign in China, or domestic programs supporting the war.
I don't know enough about Japanese culture to know if this exhibit was particularly bold-- ie, did it show the realities of history in an uncomfortable way? It certainly didn't glorify Japan in a propagandized way. In fact, it was probably more critical of Japan than many American exhibits I've seen about American cultural history in the 20th century. But then again, our two countries have had rather different experiences over the past century. Fascinating.
I stayed at the museum until it closed in the early evening, then went in search of food. I discovered a neat little section of town on the other side of the train station from the hotel district. The narrow streets were lined with a multitude of tiny restaurants that did not cater to Americans. Most menus were entirely in Japanese. I could hear people inside talking with the restaurant owners, sitting at tiny tables-- each place probably only had room for about 10 people in it. Overall, a really neat area. In the end, however, I was daunted by the fact that I couldn't read the menus (they were entirely in kanji), and even though I can ask what things mean, I may not be able to understand the answer. So I just enjoyed walking through the area and seeing the people for about an hour, then got some sushi and beer at a restaurant near the station.
[Side note on menus: Actually, you don't really need the menu at most low- to medium-priced restaurants. They have these nifty plastic, life-sized models of the food that they display in the front window. OK, maybe not "nifty"-- some are a bit grotesque. Also, they don't always have exactly what's shown in the window. Truth in advertising is not really a concept at Japanese restaurants.]
I also stopped at an Italian trattoria on the way home and treated myself to some chocolate cake. Curiously, the Japanese love Italian food-- Italian restaurants were the most common "ethnic" cuisine I saw in Japan. I also saw Indian, Chinese, Thai, American, and French, but Italian is the most popular.
That evening, I caught a rerun of "Sesame Street" in Japanese. Now that was a trip! It also explains why Japanese kids pick up English so easily; "Sesame Street" had a few segments in English sprinkled among the Japanese portions.
Voyage to Tokyo. The next morning, I checked out of the hotel and headed to Tokyo on the train. I had another day and a half before the return flight, so I had made arrangements to stay at a ryokan in Tokyo, which is a Japanese-style inn. Of course, the urban ryokan are not quite so traditional as the ones out in the countryside (where they might not even speak any English), but still, it was a nice change from the Western-style Grand Intercontinental.
Family connections. It happens that I have a Japanese uncle. (Related to me by marriage; he is married to my father's sister). He was born in the US, but his older brother was born in Japan and now lives in Tokyo. I was fortunate enough to be able to meet him in Tokyo-- we had never met before. He turned out to be a great guy! He's 78, but doesn't look a day over about 55. He loves disco dance (believe it or not) and spent 50 years working for the Asahi Shinbun (newspaper) writing an entertainment column. So he's met all the famous entertainers who come through Japan to give concerts and shows. As you can imagine, he has lots of great stories (he also speaks perfect English). Anyway, he knows Tokyo very well and was happy to show me around for the day.
First we went to Akihabara. Remember when I mentioned Yodobashi, Circuit City on steroids? Well, Akihabara is Yodobashi on steriods. I actually did something job-related-- I wrote down a few prices of things like LCD TVs and computer monitors. But overall, I just gawked at the toys. You can even get things like computerized washing machines there.
Then for a complete change of scene, we headed to Asakusa. This is a very historical section of Tokyo noted for its temples and other ancient buildings, gates, etc. We saw Sensoji Temple, which is a large Buddhist temple with a very impressive gate. Since we got off to a late start, it was already getting dark after this (and starting to rain), so we cruised over to the Ginza and had dinner at the Japan Foreign Correspondents' Association (aka "the press club"). After all that running around, I was tired and spent a quiet hour in my room at the ryokan (complete with tatami mats and a futon and almost no other furniture) before bed.
The final hours. The next day was my last, and it was raining pretty hard (I guess that provides some symmetry with the fact that it was raining when I arrived too). But I didn't care-- I headed over to Shinjuku, where I had gotten confused trying to change trains on the very first night. I poked around the area, which is fairly modern but has some curious shops and restaurants. I stopped at a bookstore and decided to buy a book in Japanese. Sure, I can't read it, but who cares? I'll be able to read it someday, I hope. Although I was tempted to get a "real" book, I settled for a light mystery because I'll be able to read it sooner. It's the sort of thing that I saw people reading a few pages of during densha rides.
[Note added later: I found out after I got back that these mysteries are actually rather difficult for Westerners to read because they contain a lot of slang. Oh, well. I'll give it a try anyway].
Unfortunately, the time came to pack myself off to the airport. I took another ride on the Narita Express Train, and successfully got on the plane back to San Fran. It was a sad voyage; I didn't want to go home yet. At least compared to getting to Japan, the flight was a blissfully short 8.5 hours. Still, I looked with some envy at the Japanese passengers on the plane, who were off on their own voyages to a foreign country, the adventure just beginning.
I had a fabulous time. I can't wait to go back. I learned a lot of Japanese, but of course, I still have a long way to go before I can engage in truly spontaneous conversation at some level of intelligence. Still, I was pleased that I could get through "standard" encounters like cab rides, buying train tickets, and ordering in restaurants without having to use English.
Hygiene. The Japanese are seriously into hygiene. One of the best services you get in restaurants is a hot, moist towel to wipe your hands and face with before you start eating. It also serves as your napkin during the meal, so don't completely destroy it before you start. (Actually, as much as I liked having the damp towel, I did find myself wishing for a napkin to put in my lap on a couple occasions).
Also, there are people everywhere handing out little packages of tissues. They are the standard "giveaway" at train stations or on street corners. Sometimes they have ads in them, or political information, or requests to donate money to social causes. Everyone carries tissues with them. They come in handy not only for wiping your nose, but for use in bathrooms that aren't stocked with toilet paper (more on that below). People usually carry a cloth handkerchief too, which is used for drying off your hands after washing them, or for wiping off sweat.
In other areas of hygiene, I noticed that some people on the train don't hold the hand loops, but rather place their wrists through them. Others used tissues when grabbing public surfaces (although this wasn't too common). Ironically, Japanese public areas are in fact far cleaner than American ones. The trains were always clean, the city streets didn't have much garbage lying around, etc.
Toilets. Most everywhere (at least in cities), you can find familiar Western toilets, but there are two types of Japanese toilet worth noting. The first is the one that consists of a bowl in the floor that you squat over (not an open pit or anything; just a normal bowl, but in the floor, not for sitting). For these, there is usually toilet paper available, but if not, be sure to have your free tissues handy.
But of greater interest is the toilet that is actually more advanced than what we've got here. This is a usual Western toilet, but instead of just having a tile lid on the top (you know, the part that you open to get to the tank), it has a little sink mounted there! When you flush, the pressure that refills the bowl and tank also causes the faucet to run, so you can immediately wash your hands. This is a fabulous invention!! Place a towel or some paper towels next to the toilet, and you've got a compact, all-in-one system. (It's very kawaii; see below).
[I've also heard that there is a variety of Japanese toilet that, um, has a cleaning mechanism attached to it, like a little sprayer. I didn't get to try this type].
Liquid refreshment. There are no water fountains in Japan, or at least very few (the one time I saw someone using a public water source, it was a homeless man in a park washing his jacket-- try seeing that in America). But there are an incredible number of drink machines. You are literally always within one minutes' walk of a "Pocari Sweat" or "Calpis" drink machine (unfortunate names, huh...). These machines offer water, fruit juice, soda, coffee, tea, etc. for about a dollar per can/bottle. Often the cans are a mere 6-8 ounces, just a few swallows. I don't know how these companies managed to get their machines installed everywhere or how Japan never hit on the idea of free public water, but the result is that the drink companies must make a killing.
Another item lacking in general public availability is trash cans. In America, you are almost always within sight of a public trash can. In Japan, not so. The drink machines all have nice recycle bins next to them, but it's much harder to dispose of waste. (And yet, there isn't much littering in Japan. So much for the American philosophy that ubiquitous trash cans will reduce littering).
"Zone defense". Japanese storeowner hospitality is very scripted. They have phrases that they must say and ways that they must act, all using very honorific language, of course, and a curiously singsong voice. When you enter a store, you are greeted with Irasshaimase!!, called out in a very particular style that can't be described in words. (You are not expected to answer). But there are some areas where the stores aren't so separate, such as open markets with a lot of stalls or department stores with various departments. I noticed in these cases that you would get called out to if you approached within a certain distance of the merchandise. It reminded me of zone defense-- if you enter the zone, you trigger the hospitality response.
Paying. In many stores, money does not literally change hands. There is often a flat dish at the counter, in which you place your money or credit card to pay for an item. The clerk takes it, makes change, and hands it back to you in the dish. Keep an eye out for the dish when you approach the counter. If you try to hand them money directly, they will probably take it, but it's a gaijin mistake to make.
Kawaii. The Japanese have a fondness for "cute" (kawaii). Sometimes this takes a literal form, such as in plastering Hello Kitty images on everything. But it also refers to the ultra-efficient household and personal organization implements that Japanese use every day. Houses have little bits of extra space tucked into them, tools are designed to be compact and multifunctional, and just generally, everything is made as neat and nifty as possible. The toilet with the sink on top mentioned above is a good example.
White gloves and other uniforms. To a greater degree than in the West, the Japanese like to wear uniforms and look official. Sometimes members of the same company will all have a jacket or emblem that they wear. All schoolchildren wear uniforms. Public officials like policemen (all the ones I saw were men) and train station attendants wear white gloves, which I associate with very formal uniforms. Big department stores have pretty young women in suits and white gloves running the elevator.
[The irony here is the it was the West that brought the concept of uniformity to Japan. When the Western military contingents arrived in Japan wearing uniforms, this was a totally foreign concept. Samurai could never wear the same outfit or armor! They had family symbols and colors and styles, and dressed distinctly as a mark of honor and identification. All soldiers dressing the same? Unthinkable! But times change as history wends its way forward...]
Going left. Like in Britain, you drive on the left in Japan. Luckily I wasn't doing any driving, but the leftness still had two effects on me. First, I had to be really careful crossing streets because I had a tendency to look the wrong way. It's amazingly ingrained to look for cars in the right lane when you're a pedestrian, even if you have spent a few days riding around in cars and are now sort of used to being on the left side of the road. Second, just like we tend to walk on the right in America, the Japanese walk on the left. When you are approaching another walker, you should go to your left. It took a couple days (and a few of those near crashes where you both go to the same side, then overcorrect) before I trained myself to walk on the left. Then it took a day when I got back to America to switch back to the right.
Nicknames. Nicknames-- meaning shortened names like "Tom" for "Thomas" and "Kate" for "Catherine"-- are not common in Japan. In fact, they are almost unheard of. Your name is your name. The result of this was that twice I encountered confusion about my identity because I tend to go by "Kim," which is short for "Kimberly." If I had told someone in advance that my name was "Kimberly," they could not find my name on their list when I arrived and told them my name was "Kim." To the Japanese, "Kim" and "Kimberly" are completely different names.
Using broken Nihongo. My Japanese isn't great. I'm slow, I don't have very good pronunciation, and I have a limited vocabulary. So in general, communication is a challenge, but I can do it if I'm given the time to formulate sentences and if my speaking partner is willing to speak slowly and use simple words.
The problem is, a lot of Japanese people aren't willing to do this. It's not snobbery like it is in France! It's more complicated than that. Again and again, I found that I had to work hard to convince Japanese people that I wanted to try speaking Japanese with them. Most of them (in the cities) speak decent English, so it would certainly be easier for us to use English. But I didn't want easy; I wanted practice.
Here's my theory. In America, we have a long tradition of having a bunch of people who don't speak English very well. We have been populated by waves of immigrants, and often it is their children who first learn to speak English with any fluency. Thus, we are, in a cultural sense, "used to" foreigners who haven't quite mastered the language. We don't mind speaking slowly, or simply, so that they can understand.
Not true in Japan. Sure, there are foreigners who are still learning the language-- Chinese, Thai, Americans-- but it's not really an integral part of Japanese history to accomodate these people. That's ingredient #1.
Ingredient #2 is the Japanese cultural tradition of hospitality and politeness. There are important social rules about how you treat guests and strangers, and they typically involve (1) humbling yourself, (2) honoring your guest, and (3) doing everything to make the situation as comfortable as possible. There are scripted polite phrases that you use, and in general everyone is supposed to be comfortable.
These two ingredients don't mix well with gaijin struggling to use the right verb form. That is an uncomfortable situation. The Japanese host would say that it's uncomfortable for the foreigner, and thus it's polite to switch to English for better communication, so that we're all happy and comfortable. But in reality, it's uncomfortable for the Japanese. They don't know what to do with someone who may not know all the scripted phrases to say. They can't handle someone mangling their language, and are not happy if they have to guess what I meant when I accidentally use the wrong particle. It's not snobbery-- it's the restrictions of a culture that requires too much public social scripting.
I'm far from the first American to notice that the Japanese are not especially relaxed about situations that deviate from "what is expected." But I'm also not the first to notice that there are some changes afoot in this traditional culture. The friend I visited for the first two days of my trip is Philippino, married to a Japanese woman. Interracial marriages are still fairly uncommon, but as more foreigners come to live and work in Japan, this is changing. My uncle's brother, whom I met in Tokyo, was never a member of the traditional culture, even decades ago (remember, he's 78). He was a sassy English-speaking news reporter who hung out with foreign entertainers. The young people of Japan whom you see on the trains with their tiny J-phones were glad to get rid of their school uniforms when they headed to college.
There are changes going on in Japanese politics too. The Liberal Democratic Party, which has strong support from the rural farmers and small towns, is losing its hold. Top government officials are resigning. Although the economy has yet to recover from the general malaise of the late 90's, there are unmistakable signs that Japan is embracing globalization. The process will be slower and even more painful than it is turning out to be in the US. But keep your eye on Japan-- there will be interesting new developments there over the next decade.
Copyright © Kim Allen 2000
