Time to Read:
I’ve been in Japan for 2 weeks now. I am so backed up on observations, pictures, stories to tell and things to say that I barely know where to start. I still have more to write about China, but, now that I have posted my overview of my time there, my brain has room to start catching up on the last two weeks here in the land of the rising sun.
Luckily, I had an experience last night that will sum up just about everything I think I might possibly have to say about Japan. Don’t worry, I’ll say more. Oh gosh, I’ll say a whole lot more. But, this is a story worth telling.
Let’s set the stage a bit. Being an American in Japan feels a bit like being that quintessential bull in the China shop – but a bull that really reeeaaallly doesn’t want to break anything and is trying to fit its huge bull ass through the aisles of beautiful, delicate ware without knocking any of it down.
It’s a work in progress. I’m doing my best.
Japan is quiet.
I am not quiet.
I can be quiet. I like to be quiet. I value quiet. When I’m by myself, I’m quiet (sometimes). I can do quiet. I can pretend to be quiet when I’m not feeling quiet. I can will myself to be quiet. But, I am not, in any fundamental sense, Japan quiet. Even when I’m quiet, I’m American quiet. And there is a difference.
Japan is clean.
I am SOMETIMES clean. I LIKE to be clean. I value clean. I can be clean. I try to be clean.
But I am not, by nature, Japan clean.
Clean. Quiet.
“Can you handle that, Julie? That’s all you gotta do. Just be clean and attempt to be quiet.”
Well, here goes nothin’.
One of my favorite moments of my time in Japan so far was last week, while Ryan was here and we went up the Mount Moiwa Ropeway here in Sapporo to catch a view of where the urban landscape meets the mountains of Hokkaido. It’s a stunning overlook of the city and we did it at night. It was beautiful.
At this point, we’ve been on a fair number of cable cars, funiculars, chair lifts or other such dangling feats of engineering where groups of people are delivered from one altitude to another up a hillside, hanging from one long piece of metal rope or another. These are never rowdy trips, whatever country you are doing them in. They are generally civilized moments where a bunch of strangers exchange courteous smiles, nods and maybe a few “Hello, how do you do”s. There is usually, at least a din. Maybe even, in a more lively group, it might graduate to a small hubbub or soft murmur that comes from the interweavings of multiple mini conversations and goings-on.
After shoving as many humans in our metal and glass pendent basket as the cablecar attendants could stuff in there, the car began moving with such a precision of mechanical engineering that not a creek or a snap, not even a squeak could be heard out of the various massive pieces of smoothly spinning metal that were keeping us at a safe distance from the trees and ground below us as we gently floated by.
How did I know that there was not a peep out of the hardware? Because despite the nearly 30 people crammed into that floating metal box, there was not a solitary, single sound. Not a one.
There was no murmur.
There was no din.
There was no banter.
There was no throat clearing.
There was no sneezing.
There was no chatting.
There CERTAINLY was no hubbub. No clamor. Don’t even mention an uproar, racket or hullaballoo.
It was a solid 5 minutes of total and complete silence dangling in the air over a twinkle of urban stars in a brilliant, cold night sky inside a vertiable life sized christmas tree ornament stuffed full of human sardines as we paraded silently through the atmosphere above the trees.
Not. One. Sound.
Ryan must have been feeling the same thing as I – because we both kept our mouths shut. We were not about to be the loud Americans ruining this miracle of perfect quiet for everyone.
But, here in Japan, I think, this was not a miracle. It was a commonality. A natural outpouring of a way of being, a form of respect, a form of public harmony. Not that you weren’t allowed to make a sound. On the ride up, we had little kids in the car. They made sounds. The cutest ones I could imagine with their palms and faces glued to the glass. I even got to have a little mini Japanese conversation with one of them as kids do what kids do, considering every adult leg a branch on the mother tree that they can push past, grab onto or cuddle up against at will. There was noise on the ride up. Not a lot. A normal amount. But, in Japan, that is just one possibility. In Japan, total and complete silence is a very real possibility. I don’t know that I would have believed it if you’d have told me. But I lived it. Now I know that it can happen.
In Japan, such moments of shared public silence are not anomalies. To me, I was on pins and needles every second, wondering how long it would last. Well if those pins and/or needles upon which I was metaphorically standing were to drop, you would have been able to hear the cacophony of sound they made. There was not a peep the entire ride down the mountain.
Not even the wind wanted to disturb the perfect quiet of our descent.
Wow.
Color me impressed.
For all of you Americans out there, as I proceed in this post referring to myself as the “insert clumsy adjective here” American – please know, I love being American. That is not to say that it is a simple love. There is much to contend with in any cultural identity, if someone chooses to have one. I do. I love our culture – which doesn’t mean I think it is beyond critique, nor is it beyond a little loving ribbing. Or a lot of it. And, as with any culture, we are a land made up of individuals, each with their own characteristics and behaviors. But, if there is one thing I have observed on this trip and am quite certain of, we are each a combination of our individual personalities mixed in some interesting melange with our cultural personalities. Maybe the two parts of ourselves blend well, maybe they are in conflict, the ways they combine together are as unique as any two snowflakes. How the combinations and math adds up is different for each of us, but the math is there.
Being on this trip, not being IN the States, I have had more of an opportunity to parse my individual traits from my cultural ones through a bit of a clearer lens.
And the traits of unearned confidence, brash loudness and amped up enthusiasm of which I boast a great deal are all qualities I enjoy embodying and am quite conscious about the need to attempt to manage when the situation calls for it – as it so often does.
Well, if I was ever looking for a mirror upon which to reflect the edge between two cultures on two sides of the world, last night, I could not have found a clearer one.
I like to go to the movies. And, on this trip, I have quite enjoyed, wherever possible, finding a movie theater and having the local movie going experience in different countries when it is easy enough to do.
Being an easy walk to the local cinema that shows Hollywood movies in their original english with Japanese subtitles, I was very excited to see how Japan does movie-going.
Firstly, there are capsule stations. Cause Japan knows that everything is more fun when you pop a coin in a slot to see what you get.
Then, there are the concessions. I was curious.
And there are many things worth noting.
In Japan, they have small popcorn that is actually small.
I have been to movie theaters in America that have completely eliminated the size all together. Why would you get something small when you can get something BIG?! What are you? A sissy? If you are gonna eat popcorn, eat some friggin’ popcorn! Right?
I ordered a small popcorn. It was small.
But, it was also heaping. It was heaping in a way that suggested that I might have the ability to gently carry said popcorn in a mature, civilized manner from the concessions stand, responsibly and gracefully, to my seat.
There was no popcorn on the floor indicating that others had failed before me. The ground, as most places in Japan, was wonderfully spotless. It followed a common theme here in Japan, which is this. Adults are expected to be capable to control their own limbs enough that whatever they are carrying or eating or drinking stays in the appropriated container within which it originally came. Fair enough. I can see where they are coming from. I am an adult with agency and willful control over my various limbs. It’s an interesting thesis for human behavior.
But, I mean, it goes far here. You will be hardpressed to find napkins here at any fast food restaurant. Forgot the stack of paper napkins I might be accustomed to grab at any number of establishments at home in anticipation of my animal-like methods of ingestion. America is ready for me. Not everyone in America is a slob. Not at all. But we exist. And we exist in enough numbers that there are napkins to be found everywhere. There are napkin dispensers all over the place cause, people make messes. Don’t they? In America, the refined people are the ones that know to grab a napkin at all, as opposed to settling for the back of an arm, a t-shirt, or nothing at all. I am so proud of my somewhat newly civilized behavior (in the last decade or so) thanks to the training I received from my patient husband. How I got into adulthood being as much of a mess as I formerly was is a surprise to us all. Now, I’m so proud of myself. I always reach for a napkin and get that napkin on my lap before the meal begins. Oh how I’ve grown over the many years. Well, even Ryan, one of our more civilized and well-behaved specimens, from the upper echelon of American good behavior, was asked to raise the bar here.
At the Ramen place that Ryan and I went to where we found a gluten free noodle option, every table comes with a lovely green, slightly damp cloth.
This is not a napkin for your face.
This is so you can do the right thing and wipe down your table from the mild debris that is a result of you occupying the table for a time.
Of course, all of that liquid that your noodles are floating in won’t end up on your face or your clothes and certainly not your hands, despite the flingability of such liquid as noodles do what noodles tend to do. But MAYBE, a few drops might end up on that table. So, of course, you’ll want to clean up after yourself.
Yes. Of course. I was gonna do that anyways. (clears throat and pulls glance guiltily away from eye contact)
Well, me being the slobbering, brutish American that I am, lumbering through the movie theater aisles attempting to balance all of my things, my drink, my small, but mildly overflowing popcorn container and all of my various body parts and digits – all on my own – within seconds of sitting down in my movie theater seat, spilled the entirety of my small popcorn on the spotless movie theater floor below me.
“Spotless movie theater floor” is not a phrase we know in America. Sticky? Yes. Not-that-dirty? Sure. Clean-ish? Maybe. That’s a definite maybe. Clean enough. Yup. For sure. Well, I had just transformed the floor below me into a wormhole to travel me instantly home to a more familiar sight, one where the detritis of cinema entertainment covers the ground in the reckless abandon of an American clumsily enjoying my freedom.
But I was very aware that I was in Japan. Not at home in America.
In America, my first thought would have been, “Oops. Aw crap, now I gotta get up and get a new popcorn.”
I would have felt bad for making a mess…a little bit. But I would have felt worse to have to shell out more money for more popcorn and for having to lazily get up from my seat to go get it – all in response to my own irresponsible actions.
But, in Japan, my first thought was, “Oh no, I’ve just disturbed the beautiful cleanliness of this movie theater floor with my big (in this case, little) dumb American hands.”
My Japanese cultural instincts were already kicking in.
The movie would be starting in 5 minutes. I did want popcorn. I also didn’t want to sit through the entire movie, an emblem of poor diplomacy in my pile of self-created filth.
I told the young man at the ticket collection, the one that stands at the border between “in the theater” and “out of the theater” tearing tickets, I told him using my handy-dandy google translate. “ごめんなさい。I’m sorry – I spilled my popcorn.”
What happened next is the clearest intersection between two cultures, purely exemplifying the differences in the ways in which a people can occupy the world, that I could imagine.
Just even the fact that I wanted to make that apology says something. But the way they responded was the most foreign thing I have encountered yet. Forget the unrecognizable alphabets, forget the vast array of culinary offerings different from those at home, the way that the young man at the ticket-tearing station responded was a thing of pure exotic beauty that I have never in my life witnessed.
I expected, at best, the young man would direct me to the concession counter to get a new popcorn, knowing that he didn’t have to check my ticket again. In America, I’m not sure that the person checking the tickets would even care enough to do that, but, it’s a definite possibility. We might exchange a joke about my clumsiness. Or maybe I would get a blank faced stare. There are lots of options of possible responses. With the stark exception of the one that happened here. What happened here is NOT an option on the spectrum of possible responses back home. Not by a mile.
This young man was on his radio right away. (Yes, he was equipped with a radio for quick responses to such amd other possible scenarios.) Another eager-to-serve young man approached and asked for my ticket. He looked at my seat number, and immediately, with focus and genteel determination, grabbed his broom and dustpan and was off into the theater to remedy the problem I had created barely a full minute after I had created it. There were no looks of disdain coming my way. Just the opposite. I received bows and arigatos as they hurried to clean up my big, dumb mess.
It didn’t end there. I gestured to the concession stand to indicate that I wanted to go and buy another popcorn. The young man whose only job was to collect tickets stopped me and explained to me in Japanese that I was able to piece together enough to understand the miracle that was happening. He wanted to see my concessions receipt. Why? Because he was on the radio with the concession stand. I need not move from where I stood. I didn’t need to walk all the way over there to get a new popcorn. And I definitely didn’t need to pay for it. He had radioed the stand to refill my popcorn while I waited until another eager young man couriered it into my unsteady and shocked hands.
All in all, there were at least 4 employees that had rallied together to make my faux pas disappear completely – except where it was now seared into my brain forever.
I did not have to pay for my mistake in any way shape or form. I returned to my seat with another overflowing small bucket of VERY droppable popcorn with the utmost attention to my ungainly limbs. “Don’t you dare drop this popcorn again.” I told my arms and hands sternly from inside my recently-exploded brain.
By the time I got to my seat, the young man with the broom had already finished my aisle and was just finishing the last few pieces of popcorn from the aisle in front of me.
He left with a bow and an “Arigato oneigaishimasu.”
I returned both and did my best to bow lower.
I sat there with my new popcorn in a mildly stupefied state of shock.
There was not a trace of my misdoing.
Wow, Japan. Wow.
Please accept a deep bow of apology and gratitude and, most of all, respect.
So, there was no use crying over my spilled popcorn. I didn’t have much time to do it, cause, by the time the movie started, 5 minutes later, it was gone.
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