Will Miss #509 - neighborly behavior

Some qualities of an experience are so subtle and hard to describe that language, no matter how precise, will mislead the reader. I've found this to be the case many times while writing this blog, especially when it comes to titles. Brevity is a virtue, and I think many writers would do well to say less than they do, but it also increases the chance that one will be misunderstood. This topic is one of those in which I am walking a thin tightrope between conveying something that undermines the manner in which Americans are neighborly and overestimates the way in which Japanese are. 

In both Japan and the U.S., I have lived/am living in an apartment complex. That means that people who live in the building will occasionally pass by me. In Japan, with rare exceptions, most people would give a friendly greeting when we walked by or respond in kind when we offered a greeting first. This was in no way an indication of friendship, but a perfunctory act of civility. The fact that people always responded to "ohayo gozaimasu" (good morning) with a similar reply carried a certain feeling of balance and comfort.

In the U.S., my experience has been greatly less uniform in this regard. A handful of people are friendly and reply in kind, but some seem actually irritated or taken aback when I say, "good afternoon" to them. The sense I get is that, though we occupy the same apartment complex, they feel burdened by having to interact with me in a minimal fashion. They would rather we walked past one another with downcast eyes as if we were random strangers passing on a street. The inconsistency of response makes you feel some stress when you greet people, and lowers the chance that you'll do it at all which in turn creates a colder atmosphere in general.

I don't think it's asking too much that people who see each other around the same little patch of land on a regular basis exchange a few words in greeting, and certainly it seemed in Japan for the most part that they subscribed to this belief as well. I miss the way in which social propriety carried a sense of being neighborly. 

Won't Miss #13 - cell phone zombies (reflection)

Cherry blossom viewing is soooo boring that one needs to spice things up a bit with the excitement of texting.

When I originally posted this, in the early days of this blog, people told me that this problem existed everywhere in the world, not just Japan. People who mindlessly walked or stood around staring at their cell phones while tuning out the rest of the world weren't only a scourge in Tokyo, but everywhere that technology had made it's way into the greasy mitts of the population. When I returned, this was one of the points that I was particularly curious to observe. People are, after all, just as attached to being electronically tethered to one another here as they are in the land of the rising sun.

After coming home, what I discovered was that people gawk at their cell phones a fair bit here, but pedestrians who stand around in their own little world blocking others as they fully immerse themselves in poking at their cell phone screens are not much of a problem. In Tokyo, the maddening thing was people who were enmeshed with the tiny screen on their phones were omnipresent obstacles to movement because of the narrow spaces and crowds. Here, the problem is much more troubling and scary because the idiots who can't tear themselves away from their phones are often behind the wheels of cars. While it is illegal to use your cell phone with your hands in the U.S. while operating a vehicle, people do it all of the time. I've seen so many people weaving in traffic while using their phones that I'm shocked they're aren't more accidents than there already are and disappointed that the police aren't enforcing the law more vigorously.

I absolutely do not miss the cell phone zombies in Japan, but I'd gladly put up with hordes of them than  deal with the incredibly dangerous behavior I see among cell phone users in their cars in the U.S.

Will Miss #508 - volunteers when you look lost

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that I got lost during my first trip to Japan and, what I didn't realize at the time was that there was every chance some kind Japanese person would help me. There were many occasions when my husband would pause to look at a map to figure out where we should turn in a new area that we were exploring. We were not lost at those times. He just wanted to get his bearings, but very often a Japanese person who saw him studying the map would stop and, in English, ask if we needed some help finding our way. 

Japanese people are generally pretty insecure about their English language abilities. In fact, I'm certain one of the reasons why people often back away from giving service to foreigners (or scurry away when they see such customers approaching) is fear that the foreign person won't speak Japanese and they'll have to try and negotiate things in English.. The way in which people who are generally afraid to speak English step up to the plate to help someone they believe is lost always impressed me and I miss that. 

Will Miss #9 - escalator etiquette (reflection)

In a crowded city in which many tall buildings are the norm, behavior on escalators is a huge issue. If people block you when you want to walk upstairs, or worse, do the old dead stop at the top or bottom, it can be beyond frustrating. When I was in Tokyo, the way in which people lined up on the left and left the right side of an escalator clear was something I really appreciated.

What I have found since coming to America is that I don't tend to encounter much in the way of escalators at all. There is the rare two-story mall with an underused escalator, but most of the time, I'm dealing with short sequences of steps or just operating on the first floor. Perhaps the reason this is so is that I'm in California, but thinking back on my time in Pennsylvania, I can't say that I recall using escalators much there outside of the very rare trip to an airport. In fact, the experience was so rare in my birthplace that, when my mother had to use one, she was afraid and couldn't manage to time her steps onto the machine to ride one. It just visually confused her.

It turns out that, the good manners I appreciated so much on escalators in Tokyo don't really need to be exercised in the places I've been in America. I can't miss what I'm finding I don't need. 

Won't Miss #505 - being seen as incapable

AKB48, a manufactured girl group (with over 90 members) that discards members when they get "too old". They are clearly the product of a highly sophisticated culture. If you don't appreciate them, it is only because you are to simple-minded to comprehend.

In my previous post, I mentioned that the Japanese readily forgive foreigners for their bad manners or cross-cultural ignorance. If you take a business card and cram it in your pocket instead of looking thoughtfully at it and then placing it on the table such that you can view it, they won't be offended because they figure there's no way you could know their customs in this regard. While this may come across as tolerance, that is not what is really going on. It is more often than not the case that they feel that their culture is too complex, sophisticated, and difficult for someone from a less byzantine culture to comprehend. You are not seen as merely uneducated in their ways, but incapable of knowing them. This is why simple mastery of things like basic greetings in Japanese or using chopsticks are so highly praised. By acquiring even rudimentary Japanese cultural skills, you've overcome hurdles they thought you could never begin to vault over. It's like you are seen as a child who stacks blocks together to make a rudimentary house who receives praise for his efforts. 

When it comes to cultural understanding, many Japanese people operate from an unconscious (or conscious) sense that foreigners lack the sophistication to understand their ways. They believe you are the cultural equivalent of a developmentally disabled person. I will not miss this expectation that I lacked the capability to understand and follow Japanese customs. 

Will Miss #504 - being forgiven for bad manners

I haven't been to Europe, but I really would like to go some day when my collective blogging earns me more than about a dime a post. Those who have been there have told me that, when you commit a faux pas, especially in certain countries (I'm looking at you, France), that you are treated like the uncultured scum that you are believed to be. America, is, of course, no better, but what is good and bad manners is individually determined and a minor breach can result in major incidents. In Japan, at least for the Caucasians, bad manners often yield forgiveness. The Japanese don't expect outsiders to understand their customs and are quick to conclude that you aren't acting poorly out of a malicious attempt to thumb your nose at their culture, but rather that you simply do not know their ways. This forms part of the complex mosaic of attitudes which non-Japanese detect as the "shiny, happy people" mentality they experience in Japan.

All manner of rudeness on the part of foreigners, sometimes even that which is willfull, is frequently (but not always) forgiven in Japan and I miss that.

Will Miss #495 - volume control (personal)

I'm not saying everyone can control their personal volume. 

I'm a person who likes order. In fact, one of my pleasures in life is the sort of anal retentive organization that makes the Felix Ungers of the world "squee" with delight and the Oscar Madisons scoff with disdain. I enjoy knowing where things are enough to invest energy in setting up a special place for them and placing them in it in a highly logical and tidy fashion. You might see where the focus on orderliness in Japan was attractive to my ilk.

While I did appreciate the order in Japan, I didn't realize the deep extent to which I'd become comforted by the predictability it provided until I came back home and was exposed to more "chaotic" behavior. For instance, it's not unusual in America for people to be shouting things at each other on streets or in stores as if they were in their personal space trying to get the attention of family members. The yelling is not in anger in most cases, but just being loud without respect to the people around them or the public circumstances. In Japan, people did shout at times, but mainly as a part of work. You didn't tend to just have random people yelling at each other at random times. There is a sense of propriety in general (but not always) and people aren't so randomly loud.

At the moment, at least, as part of my reverse culture shock, I find it disconcerting and not a little stressful when people are yelling at each other in the streets. I miss the way in which Japanese people, who could be noisy, but not necessarily because of loudness or shouting, would keep their personal volume nobs turned down relative to people in America.

Won't Miss #494 - being hung up on (a lot)

Wrong numbers are a fact of life in any country. The main difference between getting a call from someone who is confused or dials incorrectly in Japan as compared to the U.S. is that, if you answer in English, and I always did because that was the language I expected my callers to speak, you will more often than not be immediately hung up on. This isn't just because you are speaking English as salespeople (and NTT, damn their souls to a purgatory in which someone tries to sell them something they want and then never follows through, is the worst) will start blabbing on in Japanese even if you have the audacity to say "hello". It is because people think it is okay to be rude to foreigners or because they are so shocked that they panic and slam the phone down (perhaps they fear gaijin cooties being transmitted through the phone lines). Seriously though, I got very tired of people who mistakenly called me and didn't have the courtesy to say, "I'm sorry" (gomennasai/ ごめんなさい) or "I made a mistake" (shitsurei shimashita/失礼しました｡) before disconnecting. The worst ones would not only call and hang up on me, but then they'd do it again with the same mistaken number and hang up once more without a word.

I won't miss wrong callers simply hanging up on me without so much as an "I'm sorry."

Will Miss - #493 drinking soup from a bowl

Since coming to America, my husband has refused to eat soup with a spoon. This is the result of having been "spoiled" by the Japanese custom of conveniently tipping the bowl up to ones mouth and taking a slurp. Though I have no problem at all with his doing this at home, I feel a little strange about the possibility of doing it in public. I'm going to blame the Europeans for creating nonsensical rules about soup rather than following the more pragmatic way of the Japanese (and likely other parts of Asia). As someone who is actually better with chopsticks than a spoon (I often manage to spill things on my shirt), it would save me a few stains to just up-end the bowl.

The Japanese way of drinking soup from the bowl rather than precariously ladling it up to our mouths with a spoon makes a good deal of sense, and I'll miss living in a culture in which this is considered correct manners.

Will Miss #485 - lack of public aggression

Since coming to California, my husband and I have experienced either directly or indirectly two public fits of pique in the U.S. In one case, two grown men got into a shouting match over behavior on a miniature golf course. In the other, an angry pedestrian who didn't like the timing of how our car crossed the crosswalk he was approaching smashed his fist down on the back of our car. In each case, I found myself saying, "this wouldn't have happened in Tokyo."

Don't get me wrong. I did see two acts of public aggression in Tokyo while I was living there. In one case, in a particularly horrendous summer and while exiting a packed train, I saw two men who stumbled on each other as they exited. No doubt due to heat and crowding and the resulting frustration, they lashed out at each other. In the other case, I saw one man screaming at another over damage to his car in a small accident. Of course, I saw these two acts of public aggression over a span of 23 years, not in a mere 2 months.

I miss the fact that Japanese people tend not to act out aggressively in public over minor slights or misunderstandings because of a unique mixture of personality traits shaped by their cultural upbringing.

Won't Miss #461 - speaking English to each other

I didn't mind it when Japanese people who were trying to help me for whatever reason spoke English to me. It may have been slightly presumptuous of them to assume that I spoke English, but their intentions were always kind. I did mind it when one of a pair of random strangers who were both Japanese and speaking Japanese to each other suddenly started to speak English at the sight of me. I'm not sure what the motivation was as I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with "helping" me by making sure I understood any overheard conversation. It seemed to me just another variation on "gaijin da!" and it was meant to make sure they knew I recognized my own foreignness. Frankly, it really felt like a way of mocking me and I found it quite rude.

I could be wrong about the motives of such people. Perhaps they were insufferable show-offs who were waiting for a chance to demonstrate their dubious English skills to someone who they believed would appreciate them, but I will not miss Japanese people who speak English to one another upon seeing me. 

Will Miss #458 - quieter eating

This was a Chinese meal in Japan. My husband forgot to take a picture until he'd consumed most of it. Usually, we get a shot before we start eating.

There are some things about life in America which I never realized were the case until I was removed from the environment long enough to forget that they were natural. My husband and I ate at a Chinese restaurant in America for the first time since returning and I was taken aback by how noisy his eating seemed to be in terms of clanking his fork and spoon on the porcelain plates. I asked him to try not to do that, then I listened and figured out that everyone in the restaurant was doing the same thing. In fact, it was difficult not to scoop kung pao chicken from the serving dish to the dinner plate without scraping the dish with the spoon (and they didn't offer chopsticks). Eating in America due to the types of utensils and dishes is a much more cacophonous affair.

I never realized how much quieter it is eating in Japan with chopsticks and/or lacquerware bowls and plates and I miss it. 

Will Miss #455 - cut-up food

Among the many failings that American's possess in the eyes of their European and Euro-centric neighbors is the manner in which they cut their food up. We fail in one of two ways. The primary way is that we swap hands to use the knife and fork so that we are eating with the dominant hand. This is apparently inferior to the European manner in which one keeps the knife attached in one hand and the fork in the other throughout the meal. The secondary, and apparently far more reprehensible way, is that some people (horror or horrors) cut up all of their food before tucking in so that they can simply eat without pausing to slice each bite one at a time. When an American cuts everything up before eating, they are behaving like incompetent infants who lack proper eating skills. In Japan, well, they also cut up all of their food before they eat it and that is just fine because they're doing it in the service of eating with two sticks. The Japanese, unsurprisingly, don't look down on Americans based on how they use a knife and fork.

The fact that all of the food in Japan is served cut into pieces that can be easily manipulated with chopsticks not only makes the experience of eating easier, but it also takes the tiresome and petty judgment of how one cuts ones food as an indication of cultural superiority off the table, and I will miss it.

Won't Miss #440 - soup slurping

This is Soup Curry from Dominika in Shinjuku. It is awesome, and unslurpable... at least until you eat all the big pieces. 

Ethnocentrism makes itself most obvious at the dinner table. It's one of the few places that people can feel 100% justified in their disapproval. It seems that humans decided a long time ago that the consumption of food must be full of rules and every culture has different rules. From the time of childhood, we're told not to put our elbows on the table, not to play with our food, not to talk with our mouth full, and what to do with our utensils. With all of that open and often finger-wagging from the day we could sit at a table and eat, is it any wonder we feel it's okay to disapprove of the way others are eating? One of the big things we're encouraged not to do in the West is eat noisily and then you come to Japan and people are supposed to slurp their soup.

This is an utterly ethnocentric and small thing and I know that I should be bigger than that, but the bottom line is that I really don't enjoy the sound of other people loudly consuming their food and I won't miss soup slurping. 

Will Miss #414 - Japanese construction workers

They mean that literally, not figuratively. This was a site with a lot of wood lying around.

I've lived in Tokyo for 23 years, and I've seen a lot of buildings go up and down as this is a city that doesn't value age so much as newness (fortunately for us, that means earthquake-resistant structures). Construction workers are ever-present in my life with rarely a day going by in which I don't see, feel, hear, or smell something being built or torn down. Last week, I was walking past a huge line of workers sitting on the sidewalk eating their lunch and it occurred to me that, despite copious experience with such men, I have never seen nor heard one of them make a rude comment to a passing lady.

The construction workers in Japan are, by and large, civilized and well-manner and therefore do not hoot or carry on around women and I will miss that.

Will Miss #403 - the slo-mo hang-up

Politeness in Japan can sometimes be carried to ridiculous levels, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the slow motion hang up of phones. In my former office, when a salesman called a client, he put the receiver back in the cradle as if he were settling a sleeping baby into its bed and trying not to make the least little move that would jar it awake. I asked why salesmen took about 5 minutes to perform the simple act of putting down the phone. It's not like the person on the other end can see their gentle cessation of a call. I was told that they didn't want anyone to think they were "slamming" down the phone. By the time that receiver actually touched the cradle, the person on the other end was on his way home at the end of the day.

I'll miss the slo-mo hang-up that people used to do as an absurd tip of the hat to customer service and excessive politeness.

Won't Miss #397 - pregnancy badges

One of my students once told me about an experience she had while riding the train. She was sitting with several other people when a family of three, mother, father and child, boarded the train. The woman from this trio started loudly sniping about how no one was forfeiting their seat for her despite the fact that she was displaying a badge that indicated that she was pregnant. Like many people on the train, my student was in her own world and didn't notice the badge. Indeed, it was hardly on prominent display, and the woman was not visibly pregnant. While I realize that some pregnant women may experience difficulties when their child is still embryonic (or indeed a few cells), I think that a lot of women use these badges to bully people on crowded trains into giving up a seat. In fact, I'm not entirely convinced that all of the women showing them are actually pregnant. To be honest, if you aren't visibly pregnant (i.e., not carrying much in the way of extra weight) and too fragile to stand on a train, perhaps you're too delicate to be on public transportation at all. 

I won't miss the women who act aggressively entitled to a seat because they are displaying these badges when they are not at a stage of their pregnancy which requires special accommodation. 

Won't Miss #396 - up the down and down the up

I've written before that context really matters in digesting experiences in Japan and I find it incredibly irksome when people break rules in Japan compared to back home. Part of the reason for this is the insistence by both Japanese and foreigners that the Japanese are so lawful and obedient. Another reason is that I get called on any tiny infraction of the rules, spoken or otherwise. I once got attacked by an old man who tried to shove me off my bike and the excuse some apologist made was "maybe you were riding on the wrong side of the sidewalk". There isn't even a rule about which side to ride on (though left is generally preferred), but this absurd reason was offered. And, you know, physical violence is definitely the proper response if someone is on the "wrong side", right? So, when Japanese people blithely ignore a rule and it means I'm put out, it gets on my wick.

Nowhere is it more common for Japanese folks to ignore the written rules than on the steps leading to and from train platforms. There are always arrows on the steps telling you which side is for ascending and descending traffic (as well as signs like the one above), but people constantly ignore them and then stand there blocking me if I refuse to move and accommodate their going in through the out door. I guess I should knock them down the steps because that is what is to be done when people are on the side you don't like if I follow the logic of apologists, but that's really not my way.

 I won't miss the way people consistently ignore which way is up and which is down on the train and subway steps. 

Will Miss #388 - husband thanking

This is actually a thank you sign at a rikshaw ride, but it's the only picture I have with the words "thank you" on it in English.

There's a custom/habit in Japan which sometimes receives a little flak from more feminist-oriented types, and no small resistance from at least a handful of the foreign wives of Japanese men. This custom is one in which wives thank their husbands for going to the office and earning money to support the family. The problem with this custom through Western eyes is that it comes across as the woman thanking her "master" of a husband for his contribution, while hers may go unrecognized. I don't know how it tends to work in each individual family, but I do think that it is a good custom in general. My husband is American, and I often express gratitude to him for working while I work part-time and do the housework, and he also thanks me for all I do to make life better for both of us.

I think that recognizing that a particular contribution is of value increases the chance that both parties will understand each other's contributions and that there is nothing subservient or anti-feminist about thanking the breadwinner for subjecting himself (or herself) to the daily grind while the other party looks after the home front, and I'll miss that.

Won't Miss #383 - okonomiyaki

In theory, I should love okonomiyaki. Well, I should love it as much as you can love a food that looks like someone hurled the contents of their dinner onto a grill. For a society so obsessed with the appearance of food, it's surprising that this "Japanese savory pancake" is so popular. Okonomiyaki is a food that is prepared "as you like it", so you can customize the composition. Unfortunately my first experience with this particular dish was one of those typical negative experiences that foreigners have in Japan. I was in Japan visiting my then-boyfriend (now husband) and one of his students wanted to go for a meal with us. She arranged a time and date and met us at an okonomiyaki place. She chose the cuisine without consulting us about our tastes, but we were both relatively new to Japan and figured we'd go with the flow. All proceeded as planned except she showed up with 4 friends who didn't speak English and they proceeded to giggle and carry on in Japanese 95% of the time. She essentially wanted to show off having gaijin "friends" to her Japanese friends and ambushed us with a crowd of people who thought we were entertainment to accompany their meal, not actual human beings with whom they had to behave graciously. 

I didn't care for the (too fishy) okonomiyaki that I had during that titter-fest and though I'm sure that I could custom order a version I'd enjoy, I will forever associate it with an early experience with extremely rude behavior that showed some of the worst Japanese people can sometimes offer foreign visitors.