The Kindness of Strangers

This evening, I went to a party in Tokyo with some people from Brett's work and others I'd met at the party last week. In general, people don't have the space in their apartments to host large gatherings, so people rent out rooms for these events. The room was dimly lit by purple and blue lights close to the floor and there were couches along all the walls with banquet tables of food in the middle.

I asked one young woman about her job, and she said she was a "socialist." I was a little confused and asked if she worked for the socialist party. She was confused in turn and pulled up her phone dictionary (yet another feature of the amazing Japanese cell phone) and reported back that she worked on "personal affairs." Mysteries I may never solve.

One thing that struck me throughout all the conversations was how hard the average young Japanese professional (yjpie) works. Many of the people I talked to reported waking up at six am and getting home from work at ten. A couple said they rarely got home before one or two. I'd dismiss this as hyperbole, but everytime I ride the train, I see people falling asleep while standing up. I've wondered why Japan isn't higher on quality of life indexes (The Economist puts it at 17, behind the United States, Italy, and Singapore among others). The hours worked must be part of the answer. A lot of the people my age I talked to were interested in improving their English so as to get jobs with foreign companies, which offer comparatively flexible hours.

I was really touched by the inclusiveness and kindness of the people at the party. There was a moment when I didn't have anyone to talk to, and a girl named Hiromi came over and grabbed me by the wrist and led me across the room to a table with her friends. She then rearranged the table so I was sitting between the two English speakers while pouring everyone a round of drinks. I'd met Hiromi for the first time that night, and we'd had a conversation in which we revealed that the extent of our ability to understand each other was to say we didn't understand and laugh about it. Despite this, she broke Japanese taboos against boldness and physical contact to help an outsider feel less alone.

I used to intern at the refugee relocation center in Vermont, and the volunteer coordinator, Judy Scott, always said she had felt drawn towards helping new Vermonters because her own children traveled so much and were so dependent on the kindness of strangers. For me, the draw was that these were people who'd repeatedly lost everything through no fault of their own.

After spending more time abroad, I can appreciate the reciprocal framework too. I'm a grateful beneficary of the kindness of strangers. Sometimes this is bittersweet, like when the people in a dusty Sukuma village south of Lake Victoria wouldn't let us leave until they'd filled the trunk of our car with sweet potatoes, even though it was clear they had nothing else to eat. Other times, it's just plain sweet, like all the people who have made me feel a more like a friend than a stranger.