Will Miss #539 - the sound of Japanese sirens

This is, obviously, not my video, but this type of siren is very close to the ones I heard. The pitch is different, but it is otherwise the same.

I seem to have had the misfortune of living not too far from a street that is close to a fire station both in Tokyo and in California. That means that I hear more than my fair share of sirens going off. One of the things that I have come to really hate in the U.S. is the sound of the sirens. They seem stretched out, harsh, and like an electronic scream.

On the other hand, the sirens in Japan, while far from a pleasant experience, sound closer to that of a toy. They sound (at least to me) like they are based on British sirens and tend to have less of a "screaming" effect and more of an alarm one. The ones I heard regularly (there are variations) were almost musical.

The obnoxiousness of the sirens I hear in the U.S. have made me actually long for hearing Japanese sirens again. 

Won't Miss #525 - aural anarchy in shops

One thing which I hated in stores in Tokyo was the high level of noise. It wasn't just the normal playing of music in shops that you get in the U.S., but a near constant stream of announcements or advertising. When I walked through the local supermarket, Inageya, they'd constantly be playing their jingles over the loudspeaker and they stationed cassette players (yes, cassette players) around the store that blared out sales pitches. On top of that, you'd have people yammering over the loud speaker all of the time. I'm not talking about the occasional "please man checkout 3" sort of thing, but just constant chatter about whatever.

This sort of sound chaos was not rare or uncommon. What was rare or uncommon was to walk into a store and just find mellow music calmly and tastefully playing in the background. I won't miss the onslaught of noise that often accompanied shopping in Japan.

Will Miss #503 - no obnoxious car lock sounds

I will admit that I didn't live in an area in Tokyo where everyone had a car. That being said, I did live next door to several people with cars as well as a stone's throw (literally) from a business which had about 8 vehicles coming and going from its lot all day. I also walked around Tokyo for hours and hours (likely thousands) and experienced many people parking their cars and presumably locking them. One thing I never experienced was the sound of a car horn or alarm loudly hooting once like an errant mechanical fart when someone automatically locked their vehicle. In the U.S., obnoxious confirmation noises as people lock their cars by remote are everywhere.

I don't know if I just didn't happen to walk by anyone with said sounds enabled, didn't notice them, if the noises on Japanese cars when remotely locking up aren't as obnoxious*, or if the Japanese just didn't lock their vehicles because they thought it was safe, but I certainly appreciate now that I didn't have to put up with this particular type of random noise pollution while living in Tokyo.

I miss the lack of obnoxious car locking sounds.

*Note that I suspect (but am not sure that) this was the case. My husband and I bought a Toyota Prius as our car upon returning to the U.S. and it does not use a loud chirp or (even worse) a horn blow. It has a much mellower relatively subdued double beeping noise. I wonder if Japanese car makers offer a more refined solution because their consumer market wouldn't put up with such jarring noises, but I have no way of knowing without more experience with Japanese cars.

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.

Will Miss #486 - no leaf blowers

Oddly, leaves in Japan look much like those in any other country, though the drawing on the ground does have that simple look that Japanese drawing often has.

Perhaps I cannot say "no" leaf blowers as I lived mainly in Tokyo and traveled to various suburbs as well as tourist areas. There may indeed be small armies of people who get up every single day and loudly blow dust and errant dead flora around the streets in other parts of Japan. However, I can say that, in 23 years of living, traveling, and experiencing, I never once heard a leaf blower. I can also say that in the months since I've come home, I've heard them early and often. As someone who enjoys taking walks, there is nothing more irritating than strolling down the street and being overwhelming not only by noise, but by the dust and flotsam that is stirred up. Note that I am currently staying in a "nice" suburban area, not the countryside, in the U.S. Even if they stop their motors when you pass by, the dust does not settle until long after you've moved along. The vile operator of the blower is wearing a mask to protect his respiratory system. You're just going to have to hustle by and hold your breath.

I miss the fact that I never encountered leaf blowers in Tokyo, both because of the noise and the dust (especially the latter).

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 #387 - tuning out incidental conversations

If you've ever sat in a coffee shop next to someone really noisy and had trouble tuning out the details of their personal life, you can understand where I'm coming from with this. I'll be the first to admit that my Japanese skill pretty much blows and that I have to pay attention to what is being said to understand. It's not the sort of thing which effortlessly enters my consciousness, but rather has to pass through a filter. This obviously has drawbacks, but also certain benefits. Except for the omnipresent "ne" that seems to punctuate the end of every sentence when people are conversing, I can tune out the chatter quite effectively.

It's easier to see the contents of other people's conversations as white noise when you're dealing with a second language and I will miss that.

Won't Miss #318 - teeth/wind sucking

You can't hear it, but that's pretty much what the face looks like during this maneuver.

Every culture has its body language tics and odd sounds associated with certain actions. I'm not a big fan of any of them, but one of the habits which is like nails on a blackboard for me is when people (usually men) suck air around their teeth in a particular manner. This is a habit which I never experienced back home, but frequently hear here. This sound is usually made when one is thinking over a particularly brain-teasing issue or as an expression of hesitation before offering up an answer that won't be favorably received. I may dislike this particular habit so much because it is one I associate with reluctance to be straightforward or simply because it's not a pleasant noise. It's probably a bit of both.

I won't miss this tendency to noisily suck air through ones teeth during moments of consternation, consideration or confrontation.

Won't Miss #246 - need for extreme AM quiet

Sometimes I wake up really early and can't go back to sleep. No big deal, right? It happens to everyone. Well, when you live in an apartment which is the total size of most Western living rooms and separated by doors which are the equivalent of cardboard when it comes to sound insulation, you can't do anything for fear of waking the other inhabitants of your home and forcing them to face the same sleep deprivation you are dreading. Hungry? Can't make breakfast. Want some much needed caffeine? Can't make coffee or tea. Want to get dressed and go for an early walk? Can't get clothes out of the dresser (or open and close the front door). Television? No way! I can't even turn on the light because it can seep through the cracks in the doors and possibly wake my husband up. Sometimes I just sit at my computer listening to the clock tick until my husband wakes up thinking about how I'll be glad when he does so that I can actually do something other than focus on how crappy I feel in my sleep-deprive state.

I won't miss having to be still and quiet when I wake up earlier than my husband because my apartment is the size of a shoebox and has walls with the insulation properties of a matzo.

Won't Miss #243 - screeching amado

 The amado are behind Batman's motorcycle.

I'm written before about the virtues of amado, metal shutters that slide across your windows and lock in the center, and how I like how they provide multiple benefits. I wrote that post in the winter and forgot about the bad side to them and that is that they often very loudly screech when opened and closed. Apparently, part of the maintenance fee I pay for my apartment can't be squandered on a little oil for the shutters. The reason I didn't think of it in the winter is that my windows are closed and I had forgotten how grating they are when my 5 neighbors (who appear to open and close them every single day) move theirs. Personally, I only open or close mine when there is a reason (about 4x a year). One of my neighbors goes to bed at around 7:00 pm and gets up at about 5:00 am and during the brief periods when it is temperate enough in Tokyo to leave the windows open, the loud sound of what appears to be metal on metal wakes me in the early morning hours and disturbs my students during their evening lessons.

I won't miss the painful fingernails-on-a-blackboard noise of amado being opened and closed.

Won't Miss #227 - bosozoku

Our apartment is about a 30-second walk from a major road and a traffic light is just a few more seconds from the intersection of our little street and that road. At night, sometimes after midnight, and when our windows are open because of the heat, we will hear the ebb and flow of traffic as it zooms down the street and becomes suddenly silent when the light is red. Occasionally, rather than silence accompanying the halt of traffic, we will hear the noisy revving of engines following by the roar of mufflers when the light turns green and traffic suddenly moves again. These are the bosozoku, young idiots who do what they can to annoy others around them, but (generally) remain within the confines of the law.

They do a lot more to annoy other people, particularly drivers who they weave around in traffic, but mainly they are a major source of unwelcome noise pollution to me and I won't miss them.

Won't Miss #130 - shouting from emergency vehicles

Emergency vehicles in Japan, such as ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars, are equipped with the same loud sirens and flashing lights that those back home have. For some reason, these very obvious notifications to those on the road are insufficient to get cars to pull out of the way. Every emergency vehicle that passes through also seems to feel it is necessary for someone in it to shout on a loudspeaker constantly and tell people to get out of the way. I don't understand the necessity of constantly yelling instructions when the siren alone should be doing the job. I don't believe Japanese people are too stupid to understand the simple notion of, "if you hear a siren, then get out of the way," so I regard this as unnecessary on the part of emergency personnel.

I won't miss this pointless contribution to the already oppressive noise pollution.

Won't Miss #85 - loud sound trucks

In Japan, certain types of commercials are illegal including overt political ads. That means that politicians have to find other ways to get their messages out. One of those ways is to drive around having their messages blare from loudspeakers. Similarly, right-wing extremists drive around loudly playing their messages. These trucks drive slowly so that more of their message is heard and the noise pollution is extremely irritating.

I won't miss the all too frequent appearance of these types of sound trucks.

Won't Miss #83 - squealing bicycle brakes

There's a particular type of bicycle in Japan which is marketed toward housewives. It's a cheap, but serviceable model which is sold new for between $80-120 (8,000-12,000 yen). This type of bike is called a "mama chari". That's "mama" for "mother" and "chari" is supposed to be the sound the bells on those bikes make. These bikes seem to have a common problem in that their brakes squeal horribly loudly, and it's the worst at crosswalks because you tend to get people slowly laying on the brakes on a long approach up to the light. It's the worst after it rains. It's extremely grating and annoying, but because these bikes are so cheap (and bikes are so often stolen in Japan that people don't want to buy pricey ones), these bikes are everywhere.

I won't miss the fingers on a blackboard feeling I get when I hear these brakes squealing.

Won't Miss #61 - aggressive bike bell ringers

About 90% of people on bicycles are generally not too obnoxious, but there is a minority which feels that the sidewalk belongs to them and aggressively ring their bells from a mile away in a vain attempt to clear the path ahead. They do this so they can barrel down the street without stopping. Some older men actually ring their bells constantly with a few seconds between each ring as they head down the street. They are the worst because they do this whether someone is in their way or not.

I won't miss these people who lay on the bicycle bell because they feel the roads and sidewalks belong to them and everyone should be making way for them at all times.