La Vie Quotideinne

One thing I really like about Japan is that it's socially acceptable to say, when apologizing, "I am an embarrassment to myself." I have had several noteworthy daily life successes this week, and I think they are in part due to the mastery of this key phrase-- because I often am.

The other day, I went to go visit a friend a few train stations away. I'd last seen her when I was in ninth grade, so it was fantastic to catch up. We rode a very high ferris wheel called a 'clock.' From the top, you can see all the way to Mount Fuji on a clear day. We ate at Subways for lunch. A critical difference from the United States: they put wasabi on the sandwiches. Yum.

On the way back, I had some ticketing confusion involving accidentally using a fare adjustment machine when I didn't need to. As a result, my ticket was just really messed up and the ticket machine wouldn't let me exit the station. I went into the little help booth to try to explain/pantomime the situation, an added challenge because I didn't really understand what had happened. After I had tried to act out trying to leave and the machine barring me from leaving (I could have used a volunteer, pretending to be me and the offending machine simultaneously was tricky)while repeating "I'm sorry. I don't understand. I am an embarrassment to myself," the station attendants decided I was lost. I was able to communicate that I did indeed live in Kikuna, and then they said a lot of stuff. I explained that I didn't understand and was totally an embarrassment to myself. They were enthusiastic and said a lot more stuff. Finally, they gave me an unnecessary refund and let me through a back gate. I think I was becoming an embarrassment to them too. I felt bad but I kind of count the interaction as a success because I was able to a) exit the station and b) convey that I felt bad.

Speaking of success stories, I've mastered my shower and my bathtub now! I'll confess, I don't know how all the buttons work, and have to fill my bathtub manually instead of setting it to fill to a certain number of cubic millimeters, but it's a far cry from falling and not being able to get up. My bathtub itself is phenomenal. I think it could fit three American-sized people in there. If it was deeper, there would be enough space to tread water. I've always been more of a shower person than a bath person, but Japan may convert me. I sort of just want to hang out in my bathtub with a book after work. In Japan, water is heated as it is used, so bathwater doesn't get cold and showers don't run out of hot water. In addition, no energy is wasted heating unused hot water.

One thing that I'm still adapting to is how rule-abiding people are. I took the train into Shibuye (downtown Tokyo) the other night and participated in "the Scramble" at Hachiko Crossing. It was chaos, made slightly more terrifying by the fact that it was raining and everyone was holding umbrellas that seemed aimed at my eyeballs, but decidedly organized chaos. Everyone waited until the signal to cross and people truly scrambled. There was none of this "I'll make the car wait for me" leisurely American stuff.

Closer to home, I live about a third of a mile from the train tracks. Ninety seconds before a train comes through, traffic barriers go down and a flashing light blinks. They sometimes go up immediately after the train passes, but if there's a second train following it, they stay down. This means that pedestrians, cars, and bicyclists wait two minutes between trains. Occasionally, I've treated the traffic blocks like hurdles when running , but all the people waiting the full two minutes for an "ok" signal looked at me with concealed horror. I get it. I'm an embarrassment to myself. I try to follow the rules better now-- time saving isn't worth the social stress.

Today for lunch, I went to a nearby Japanese diner with Rachel. At the door, there was a machine with pictoral representations of the food and prices. We decided what we wanted and pressed the corresponding buttons. Then we got tickets with our meal and drinks orders. (It reminded me a little of the sandwich machine at WaWa.) We took these tickets to the counter, and gave them a waitress/cook. A few minutes later, she brought out our meals, which were still cooking on hot plates. The procedure is like this: for the next ten minutes, you shield yourself from the oil/grease by folding your paper placemat in half and putting it in front of your dish and reach over the placemat with your haishi (chopsticks) to turn your meat over as it cooks. The food was delicious and I was not an embarrassment to myself!