Firefly in Japan on the Your-Japan Blog Network

I am running late for an appointment. My heart is beating fast, my map is flurrying about in the wind, and my sweaty, white knuckled hand grips and twists the scooter throttle. I am flying between small, tight streets and frantically looking around to find my building. My unshielded face gets colder as the icy wind beats against it in waves matching my throttle twists.

My hate for the Japanese addressing system is once again renewed. I clench my teeth in frustration – why does it need to be so difficult?

Side Note : I am not a ¡Èjaded gaijin¡É. I do not go about complaining about Japan, about how ¡Èit¡Çs so much better back in my country¡É. I happily accept the good and the bad parts together. I am a very even, reasonable person. However. I really, really hate the Japanese addressing system. It is probably the only address system in the world that is so complicated that you need a computer(car navi) just to navigate around with any degree of certainty. Very frustrating. AARGH.

I now make the mistake of asking for directions. My first advisor is an old lady who seems perhaps knowledgeable about the area.

Me : <IN A RUSH>Excuse me, do you know where 3-12-2 Senzoku-ike is?

Uh, 3choume? Uh… Lets see… um. Hmmmmmm…. Maybe it¡Çs… Noo… No I don¡Çt think so. Ummmm…. could it be over there? Ummmm

Me : <IN A RUSH>It¡Çs ok. I¡Çll find it myself.

Oh, you could do that, I suppose. Um….. But it might be worth going over there, I think…. maybe you might find something, I guess. If you have a look over there.

Me : <IN A RUSH>Ok, ill do that, goodbye, thanks.

Are you sure you¡Çre ok? Hm…. let me call my friend, he knows this area much better than I do, I think

Me : <IN A RUSH>Please don¡Çt. Please don¡Çt.

Now, what¡Çs his last name. I haven¡Çt seen him in a while now, you know.

Me : <IN A RUSH>ARGGGH

Hang on, it¡Çs ringing now. I hope he¡Çs there. He¡Çs very busy these days.

Me : <IN A RUSH>Listen, I don¡Çt mean to be rude, but for gods sake have a look at me. I¡Çm in a rush!!!

Oh ok, <phone appears to answer> Oh!! Hello there ! How are you? I¡Çm good thanks. Very cold recently isn¡Çt it? Oh yes, very cold. It snowed the other day!! Very cold. Oh dear me, yes, very cold. Much colder than last year, isn¡Çt it? Oh deary me, how cold indeed.

Me : <IN A RUSH> *in shock*

Oh that¡Çs right. Do you know where 3-12-2 is?

Me : <IN A RUSH> *somewhat relieved*

Oh yes. Oooh yes absolutely. She¡Çs very well. She just entered Primary School! Can you believe it? How about that. Primary School. She is growing up quickly.

Me : <IN A RUSH>*back in shock*

Dis-orientated and frustrated, I finally managed to escape somewhat politely.

I was so lost, I asked 6 more people for directions. 3 people pointed me in 3 different directions, and 3 people had no idea. Out of these ¡Èno idea 3¡É, only 1 person had the good grace to tell me ¡ÈSorry, I have no idea¡É. The other two wasted about 5 minutes of my time each trying to help me, but only ended up making me later, and driving me nuts. I asked another person who simply wanted to chat, which I probably would have been happy to do, IF I WASN¡ÇT IN SUCH A GODDAMN FUCKING RUSH, GODAMMIT LOOK AT ME.

Whew. The conclusion to the story is that I did finally find the place, however I was 2 hours late. As it turns out, there is place called Senzoku-ike, and there is also a section of a ward called Senzoku-ike, and I went to the wrong one. Oh well, I¡Çll know for next time. Or, I will buy a car with a decked out navigation system that gives me clear instructions.

This weekend, I will take the English test .

I am not comfortable with that…

But, I am looking foward to after the test.

next day, I will go shopping ! year !

I will take some clothes and a watch or something…

Right now, I am sitting in a Starbucks in Roppongi, the same building as the now imploded(?) LiveDoor. There was recently a big scandal as the likable and affectionately named Horiemon was found to have manipulated stock and performed some rather underhanded things in order to make some cash.

This is not the point of my blog post, however. Right now, there is a young Japanese lady sitting to my right. She is drinking a Starbucks coffee, and writing something in her diary, which is covered in stickers and purikura (google it!). She just did something mindlessly that just reminded me of the cultural gap between Japan and other countries.

She stood up, leaving her purse/bag/private belongings on the table. She stepped away from her seat, and went on a walk, presumably to the toilet. She took her time, and returned after about 7 or 8 minutes. The possibility that me, a dodgy looking gaijin (in a suit, however) would take her stuff, and calmly walk off, never seemed to enter her head. Despite the fact that everyone around me would be too polite to stop me from stealing this lady’s belongings, and it would be even easier than taking candy from a baby (since a baby holds on, right? er, not that I know), she was not even slightly concerned about losing her stuff.

This is a theme I see repeated all over the place. I remember one particularly memorable occasion, when another lady with a very nice shiny NEW red porsche stopped outside a convenience store on a street behind a main road. This was not a terribly busy street, but still many people were walking along it. Now - I guess in order to save a bit of time, this lady left the engine running, and got out of the car, and went into the shop. I could have very easily opened the car down, sat down and smoothly driven off with my brand new red shiny porsche. However after lurking for about 10 seconds in the shadows, I decided against it and kept walking. Still, the implications here blew me away.

Recently at the office, a delivery person arrived to find that no-one was around. This person then left an expensive piece of intricate equipment sitting outside the front door. This piece of equipment happened to cost $2,500, and was a brand new model. When someone came back to find this device, they were shocked, and put the piece of equipment inside immediately. This was pretty incredible, and an extension of these examples. I couldn’t help but muse that if this happened in America, the equipment would already have been found, opened, re-packaged and sold before anyone even got back.

Such a fascinating country full of all sorts of paradoxes and contradictions, but thats why I love it. Many people express surprise and shock at the many ‘different’ parts of Japanese culture, and sometimes even implore Japanese to change - however a clever person mentioned to me once that if Japan changed to the way some Westerners perceived as ideal, we would no longer find it fascinating and enjoyable.

Today’s total study time is 11hours (break time is 2hours).

I am dying now.

anyway , I have to write better diary…

Well it seems like Samrai-san is busy at work, and everyone else in Tokyo is freezing since we got hit with a snow storm. BRRR. They’re saying 20cm of snow, but I think it will be more actually. The snow is showing no signs of stopping.

At times like these, the often impracticle architecture and building materials become viscious death traps. For some reason, someone thought it would be a good idea to put marble or slippery surfaces right in front of many buildings in Tokyo. This means, that even on a sunny day when you try to enter the building you will lost traction and slip at least once. Now, when you add rain to this equation, you see many people constantly tripping and falling(i’ve done it as well). Now, try adding SNOW.

It really is incredible sometimes - Tokyo is such an advanced, highly technological city, but some things are just so incredibly stupid. So stupid.

What scares me is that I am becoming less able to see these things that simply would not make sense to a fresh western eye. It takes a major slip and slide down a marble lobby to get me to notice. I am slowly becoming acclimatised to Tokyo/Japan, to the point where I don’t see things as funny or crazy like I used to. These says, I can walk right past a box of "Pooh biscuits", or "Colon Pudding", and NOT EVEN CRACK A SMILE.

Tokyo is changing me… and I fear what I will become!

PS, if you dont believe me about colon pudding, check http://www.ezaki-glico.net/collon/.