Will Miss #48 - sleep anywhere (reflection)

Shortly after we moved to the Bay Area in the late spring/early summer of 2012, my husband remarked that he thought it was nice that some people felt free to just sack out on a picnic bench somewhere. It wasn't something that we saw often, but, on occasion, people would sleep in public after a hard day or during lunch. This is the uncommon sort of sleeping in public that I see here in the U.S.

The more common type of "sleep anywhere" in America is homeless people. Sometimes they are stretched out in parks (which also happened in Japan) and sometimes just slumbering in front of the local library or even on a street near a shopping area. More often than not, the vibe from public snoozers is not a happy one.

In Japan, most of the people sleeping in strange places, and the range of areas was far greater than it is here, are clearly employed and homed. The vibe you get is a curious one, perhaps even a little amusing. I miss seeing people sleeping anywhere they're too tired to go on and feeling like it's actually kind of cute rather than sad. 

Won't Miss #43 - girly mags everywhere (reflection)

I lived in an enormous city in Japan so take this observation with an appropriate quantity of salt, but I have not seen much in the way of porn in my environment since returning to the U.S. Keep in mind that I have walked around San Francisco - even some of the seedier areas - but I haven't perused any red light districts. It does not appear to be common here for men to openly read their girly magazines in public, at least not in my experience.

In Tokyo, I didn't have to go anywhere special to see men looking at naked women. They did it on the train while commuting. Such magazines were sold on the street, in book stores, and in newstands. While I really don't care what men look at to titillate themselves, I think that such behavior (like using the bathroom or having sex) should be private and I should not have been a non-volitional witness to their prurient interests.

I still don't miss seeing men looking at porn and such materials being sold everywhere as I did in Japan.

Won't Miss #524 - lots of deadly halitosis

The Japanese labor under the idea that foreigners stink more than they do. Deodorant is sometimes advertised as helping people who have the body odor issues of a non-Japanese and many supremely stinky people live their daily lives offending others because they've bought into the idea that all Japanese people don't have the same glands as foreigners and therefore never need some antiperspirant.

It may or may not be true that Japanese people don't have B.O. as often as gaijin ("outsiders"), but one thing which does appear to be the case is that Japanese people have their own issues and I'm talking about halitosis. I was subjected to more than my share of people, especially men, who could kill small creatures with their toxic breath. I don't know if this was caused by a lack of oral hygiene (though I did note most women were meticulous about tooth-brushing), diet, or health issues, but I do not miss the frequency with which I encountered people who had obnoxious and highly potent bad breath, especially when teaching them in a cubicle.

Will Miss #30 - saying anything in public (reflection)

I assumed when I came home that doing things like swearing in public would be off the table for me. Certainly, talking out loud about anything that was going on around me would be off limits. Well, I was wrong. There were a few things that I didn't account for when making my assumptions about life back home.

The primary one was just how few people actually walk around outdoors in the U.S. It isn't like Tokyo where you're almost always in a crowd. The chances that anyone is in earshot most of the time is far lower than I anticipated. Another thing that I didn't account for was the levels of self-absorption. There have been times when I've noticed people raptly listening in on conversations, especially at Starbucks when I've been telling a story which is relatively entertaining, but  most of the time people are in their own little world and can't be bothered to attend to what I'm saying. Finally, most people are walking around saying anything including profanity. While it wouldn't be true that I can swear a blue streak, the odd profanity here and there isn't out of the ordinary for anyone.

It turns out that I don't exactly have to miss saying anything in public. While I can't say absolutely anything, I certainly don't have to censor myself nearly as much as I may have expected. 

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 #488 - people (usually) sit at concerts

The tiny figure in white and black in front of the Budokan was my boyfriend at the time, now, husband. It's the only time I'll put his "face" on the blog. ;-)

I didn't go to many concerts in Japan, so my observations may be inaccurate (or outdated), but one of the things I did experience when I went to them was that people stayed in their seats. One of the things I hated when I went to concerts in the U.S. was that the second the show started, people stood up and that forced everyone else to do so as well. I don't know about you, but I am not a fan of spending two hours on my feet when I paid a fair bit of money for a seat. I realize that concerts are exciting experiences, and people may like to "dance", but the truth is that there is little room for people to move around anyway if they don't want to be bumping into the person next to them. In Japan, where the seats were even tinier and closer together, perhaps they knew that standing and jumping around for the duration was just going to put everyone out.

I will miss the fact that people tend to remain seated when they go to rock concerts. 

Won't Miss #487 - wide stances

There are signs on Japanese trains telling people not to sit with their legs open wide because it is so common for men to sit as if it were imperative that they keep there knees as far apart from each other as a couple of angry, violence-prone weasels. My boss once expressed his frustration with these men by remarking that he'd love to ask them if their testicles were swollen. I am in no way exaggerating when I say that they are sitting to occupy the maximum amount of space possible on crowded trains. Japanese men seem to display this territorial body language much more often than men I've seen in America. Well, it's either the fact that they do it more often or I noticed it a lot more because in the context of the smaller, more densely packed areas of Tokyo, it seems far more inappropriate and selfish behavior.

I won't miss seeing these men who seem to believe they need to stake out a maximum amount of territory with their legs (or who suffer from some odd disorder in the cajones). 

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 #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 #455 - cold water

Sometimes having to use a short title really forces me to mislead the reader. I know there is "cold water" everywhere in the world. In fact, there's more cold than hot because it comes naturally in that state. What I'm talking about is the possibility of warm water in places like public restrooms or even in offices. When I first came to Japan, some of my foreign coworkers told me that the places they lived in had no hot running water for dish washing in the kitchen. It wasn't until I returned to the U.S. and encountered hot water in "strange" places like publicly accessible places (markets, libraries, restaurants, and plain old public toilets) that I remembered that only being able to wash your hands with cold water was much more prevalent in Japan than in the U.S. It's ironic that you can often get hot water for your ass (via washlets), but not for your hands, in Japan.

I won't miss freezing my digits off when washing my hands in Japan. 

Won't Miss #395 - the chop and/or wave

Walk through any busy, crowded street or station full of commuters attempting to dodge each other and you will sooner or later run across the "chopper". This is a man who thinks that by putting out his hand and chopping through the air that the crowds will part before him and let him through. In fact, he expects that you will facilitate his easy movement through the throng at your own expense because of his hand gesture. In addition to the chopppers, there are the "wavers". These are people (again, almost always men) who think they can break rules and even endanger others by simply waving to signal their intention to do something reckless. It's as if they believe the wave places responsibility for the outcome onto others. This is very common with cars that cut-off or illegally pass or go around other cars at red lights and sometimes results in tragic accidents.

I won't miss these men who are so arrogant and selfish that they think the world should accommodate them merely because of a hand gesture.

Won't Miss #394 - being followed in shops

At lunch recently with a new acquaintance, she remarked that she felt all Caucasians should spend some time in Japan to begin to get a clue of what it feels like to be a minority in their home countries. One of the experiences which certainly breeds empathy for black folks back home is not being picked up by cabs. Another is being followed around in stores. This generally happens in larger spaces, though not necessarily expensive shops (it happened to me in a Daiso 100 yen shop, among other places). I'm not sure what motivates it, but it has happened to me despite my feeling that I neither resemble a kleptomaniac granny nor a thieving hood. Usually, a plain-dressed man tries to surreptitiously case me as I browse the store looking at their goods. He could think he's going to catch a thieving foreigner stuffing goods in her pockets. He could be just rude and acting on curiosity.  He may simply be interested in exactly the same goods as me and coincidentally following the same meandering path throughout the store as I am and think that I'm reverse-following him and that's why he's glancing at me so often. He may find the upper-middle-aged foreign lady so hauntingly beautiful that he can't resist her charm. He might even be a salesman applying his trade in some bizarre stealth fashion and awaiting just the right moment to pounce. (Note how all of my theories become more and more bizarre as I carry on... this is called thinking like an apologist.)

Whatever the reason for this bad behavior, I won't miss being followed around in Japanese shops.

Won't Miss #353 - being a leaning post

My former boss used to complain on a regular basis about something which happened to him every time when the train was crowded to sardine levels. That would mean this happened to him everyday during rush hour. Fortunately for me, it happens less often than that, but it still happens. When the train was extremely crowded, the people around him would simply stand without holding a strap and lean into him. They made little or no effort to support their own body weight when the train turned and just allowed their full weight to rest on him. This is one of the lazy and irritating things that happens on trains in Tokyo. The other thing that happens is that people who sit next to you will simply keel over and sleep on you.

I won't miss being a resting post for people who are inconsiderate, lazy, and rude.

Won't Miss #282 - "the stare and swerve"

Somewhere in the cobwebbed areas of my deeper memory, I recall seeing a comedic scene in a movie or T.V. show where a person is riding a bike and is so distracted by an attractive women, that he doesn't look where he is going and crashes into something. Seems rather silly, eh? Well, there is a situation in Japan that happens to me which makes it seem much more plausible. When I'm riding my bike, other bike riders coming in the opposite direction (when not busy talking or texting and staring at their cell phones) suddenly become stunned into a stupor at the sight of a foreigner. They gawk, and their bike starts to glide toward me. This is when I either have to defensively drive or ring my bell and adopt an angry look to get them to put their eyes back on the damn street. Two people in the last 3 months have actually crashed while gawking at me (I kid you not - one was an old man and the other a little girl).

I won't miss being nearly run into by idiots who seem stunned into paralysis at the sight of a "gaijin." (foreigner)

Will Miss #270 - trains crossing closeby

I rarely rode public transport back home because I grew up in a rural area. My main experience with it was riding the Cal Train to San Mateo once a week and riding the Boston subway on a few occasions. The Cal Train were lonely and infrequent, so the experience of trains whizzing by within what feels like inches of one another at high speed carries a particular sense of excitement.

There's something about all of that kinetic energy and seeing the faces of hundreds of people in a different vehicle pass by at close proximity which feels rather unreal, and I'll miss that.

Won't Miss #270 - eyes open, ears closed

"Speak, Hear, and See No Evil" statues at a local stone-working shop. The Japanese believe they invented this concept, incidentally.

My brother-in-law likes to tell a classic anecdote from his early days in Japan which beautifully illustrates the mental wall that goes up between a Japanese person and a foreigner the minute the former lays eyes on the latter. He speaks Japanese well, particularly conversational Japanese and the types of phrases used in everyday life, so he doesn't try to speak English to people. One day, he got in a cab and in perfectly normal and correct Japanese (not weird, textbook Japanese), he told the driver where he would like to go. The driver turned around and says, "I no speaku Engrish."

Some Japanese people believe they can't communicate with you before you even open your mouth and don't even listen to what you say even when you speak to them in their own language, and I won't miss that.

Will Miss #263 - the shopping bag deal

Japanese people have a curious relationship with shopping bags. I'm talking about the fancy paper kind with fabric or string handles, not the cheap plastic ones in which you carry groceries. In fact, one of the things you'll notice when you first arrive in Japan is that the majority of people appear to have shopping bags with them at all times. While it may seem that this is due to their heavy consumerism, the truth is that people carefully keep attractive shopping bags and those that came from prestigious shops on hand for various uses. They carry personal effects in them like a change of clothes or shoes. This is not so strange, except that they seem to think it looks better to walk around the a shopping bag than a backpack or cloth carrying bag. They also switch cheap gifts from their original bags and put them in bags they got at an earlier date with other purchases from tonier shops. This is to make the recipient believe the goods came from a nicer place, though the practice is so common that I don't know that anyone is really fooled. They probably just smile, say thank you, and save the bag for the next cheap gift they give someone.

I'll miss the way in which Japanese people make the most of something as trivial as paper shopping bags.

Won't Miss #261 - train access blockers

Perhaps this is normal behavior all over the world, but I never experienced this until I came to Tokyo. Very often when I'm waiting in line for the train to arrive, and there is one person at the head of the line in front of me, that person will not get on the train even when there is a break in the traffic flow of people disembarking. Any reasonable person would get on the train when the door was clear, but often that person at the head of the line seems to willfully stand there, knowing he (it's usually a man) will be the first one on and get a seat easily and that he is ensuring that others will not. When he finally does move, it's almost always at a snail's pace.  Essentially, he holds the rest of the people behind him back so they can't get on. This happens in other situations as well. If you are rushing to meet a train, and trying to get through a narrow space, some Japanese men will see you're in a hurry and intentionally try to stop you by blocking the stairs or whatever access-way you have.

I believe this is a power trip on the part of some Japanese men (and that they carry it out mainly when women are involved) and I won't miss this rude and unnecessary behavior.

Will Miss #259 - "live theater"

A family goes about their business in full view of strangers passing by.

This may be something that only happens in my neighborhood. It may be something that happens in all big cities all over the world. I don't know. All I can tell you is that I never experienced such a thing back home in either the rural Pennsylvania town I grew up in or the suburban California town I lived in for awhile. At least three families who live along a major, well-trafficked (both by pedestrians and cars) street near my apartment in Tokyo live their daily lives out in the open. They sit in front of glass doors with the curtains open going about their daily lives. They use the computer, watch T.V., drink beer, clean, etc. People are literally streaming by their windows and they blithely go about their business as if they were enjoying total privacy. Today, I actually saw a fellow sitting in front of the glass door, shirtless, but in sweat pants, drying off his body seemingly post shower.

There's something surreal about the way these people live their lives on display, and I'll miss this type of "live theater".

Won't Miss #259 - absurdly fussy shopping

I shop at a very cheap green grocer (Yutakararya). In fact, in terms of produce quality and prices, I'd say that they're the bottom of the barrel, but still good for basic daily fresh food needs. No one with two brain cells would expect to find perfectly shaped, premium fruit and vegetables there. It's not the sort of place where you find $80 (7,900 yen) melons gift-wrapped and swaddled in padding. It's the sort of place where you find lightly bruised produce dumped into open bins or wrapped in plastic bags. Despite the fact that this is a cut-rate place, it seems that every Japanese shopper who goes there (most around 120 years old or an upper-middle-aged housewife) thinks that they're going to find that one "perfect" bag of onions by pawing over each and every one in a bin full of 100. What is worse, they huck their rejects back into the bin and bruise them further. They won't get on with it and they won't move so I can grab my damned bag of onions and finish my shopping.

I won't miss these people who constantly block my access while they fuss and fiddle over a hundred or so permutations of the same vegetable or piece of fruit to find that one (non-existent) "perfect" one.