Daniel's first post

On our second day Sarah and I left for a noon lunch date with five other recently hired employees of our English teaching company. We made awkward conversation as we walked aimlessly from our rendezvous spot to a restaurant we had not yet decided upon. Though Sarah and I had been in Osaka for less than 24 hours, I had already come to the conclusion that based on our unique skill sets as demonstrated on day one, Sarah would be the navigator and guide while in Japan, and I would head our efforts to acquire Japanese behaviors and cultural skills. I was proudly explaining this to my fellow coworkers as we meandered when we finally settled on an udon-style restaurant.

I did not know what udon was, nor do I speak more than five words of Japanese. When I walked in I saw dozens of slices, cubes, and patties of things I didn’t recognize all sitting in front of several Japanese chefs who were already bowing and speaking in rapid Japanese and pointing at things. Two of my coworkers, an English husband and an American wife, had already told me how they were nearly fluent in Japanese and I suggested they go first in the restaurant line. The English husband reminded me that I was the self-appointed cultural ambassador of my peers and, therefore, “should lead us all through this learning experience, mate”.

I stood for a moment staring at trays of alien foods and then stared back at my peers and then at the line of Japanese customers who were waiting behind us and were staring at me. Eenie, Meenie, Miny, Moe and I pointed at a dish. A Japanese chef scooped up a helping of pinkish-brown, pungent flakes and sprinkled them over a bowl of noodles. The husband commented: “dried flakes of Benito fish.” I smiled, pretending I had been deliberate and happy with my decision.

As I tried to figure out what to do next and who to pay, an elderly woman approached me and started pointing toward the end of the store while speaking Japanese. I left my food and walked down there, poking my head around and seeing nothing but a metal box. I came back and shrugged at her. Everyone was waiting behind me. Now she picked up a cup and continued speaking to me and pointing. I shrugged and smiled and held the cup and said “arigato”. I didn’t know what I was thanking her for, but I was hoping this would end the uncomfortable exchange which I clearly couldn’t decipher. She shrugged and smiled and then sat down with her husband.

Now I looked around at the smiling Japanese chefs who were trying their hardest to be polite about the holdup.

“Where do I pay?” I asked. They looked at each other, not understanding, and then one of them spoke and pointed at a dish.

“I’m ready to pay”, I said, this time very slowly as if this would overcome their total unfamiliarity with the English language. They all smiled at me and nodded before conferring with each other and pointing at various things while, very slowly this time, trying to communicate in Japanese to me.

Finally the simple solution occurred to me. I pulled out my wallet. “Ahhh,” was the sound the Japenese chefs made before we all laughed, including several of the coworkers directly behind me. After paying (which is a very formal process including trays to place the money, a presentation of receiving the money in which the clerk holds up the bill for all to see and says something unknown, the announcement of the total change being given while holding it out with both hands, and then gracious bowing), I tried to find somewhere to sit.

What happened next was that the old Japanese woman got up from her table and once again pointed towards the end of the restaurant where no open tables existed. I sort of walked in circles to appease her pointing demands before walking away, but as I did so she plucked up the cup off my tray and pointed at the metal box at the end of restaurant again. This time I noticed the slot in the middle of the machine: it was for water. I walked over and filled up my cup as the old woman watched with a concerned smile. I held my cup up towards her and said “arigato” and finally she looked at peace.

While I have enjoyed a number of things I have eaten so far in Japan, my fish flaked noodles do not make the list. I tried to eat around the flakes, but the whole broth and noodles tasted of it. Whether my new coworkers enjoyed their food or not I have no idea, but we did seem to enjoy each other’s company. The seven of us worked ourselves into a mood of boisterous relief of being with other Westerners. We noisily talked over each other and cut across conversations, hurriedly getting to know each other, while several rounds of quietly stoic Japanese customers sat down, finished their meals, and left. After ninety minutes the chefs no longer had a smile plastered to their face and it seemed to me we had likely overstayed our welcome. I suggested we find a store nearby as Sarah and I had some shopping to do for our apartment.

At the 100 Yen store (the Japanese duplicate of the American 99 cent store) I tried to do some diligent shopping and keep my head down because I felt awkward about how our stay at the udon restaurant had turned out. Unfortunately, the seven of us had a hard time staying demure as we encountered several things in this store: 1. A nutritional supplement section of the store which included “Placenta Pills” and a box of diet pills featuring a caricature of an overweight lady ashamedly and unsuccessfully trying to button her pants, 2. A collection of trendy magnets, which in between a Mickey Mouse and a Stewie Griffith magnet, held a magnet casually featuring the Nazi Eagle and Swastika. 3. A packet of gum that when opened exploded with confetti all over the ground. And God help me, but the man stacking items in that store spoke with such a shrilly high-pitched Japanese accent that every time he would cry out for a clean-up on whatever aisle gum had probably confetti’d upon I was almost reduced to tears of laughter.

In my mind, then and now, I wondered if we weren’t on the verge of creating a scene of diplomatic concern. Of course, no one said a thing because the Japanese are polite to the point of flamboyance. However, it later occurred to me the sense of cultural oafishness and impropriety that I had felt was largely in my head and likely the first symptoms of the coming culture shock.

There is one more story which happened only ten minutes later, which also reduced Sarah and me and my coworkers to tearful laughter. We entered the subway system and were preparing to say goodbye when we realized none of us were very good at figuring out how to work the subway system’s ticket machines. Even the most fluent of us, the American wife, was not nearly as skilled at reading Japanese and even with that she had only studied Japanese in America and had never seen the country, let alone the subways, until the previous day.

We all took turns with the machine. Some of us poked buttons and dropped coins, sometimes with unknown denominations, while the rest of the coworkers stood back and offered advice or just laughed at our predicament. Meanwhile, in a glass kiosk that conjoined with the ticket machines stood a lone Japanese subway attendant. After a minute or so of our floundering I noticed that several more subway attendants had joined him and they were all now watching us with sympathetic concern and conferring over some plan of action. One of them disappeared from the kiosk behind the machinery and I watched as the other two attendants simply nodded with satisfaction as if all was solved. Suddenly I heard a scream of both shock and amusement from Sarah and my coworkers. I looked to see a panel in the middle of the ticket machine, about waist high and not much larger than a mail slot, sliding open while the missing subway attendant poked his head right through it with a helpful “konichiwa!” He was able to help us sort out our ticket purchase from his crouched position despite the language barrier and the fact that we were unable to get over our shock at the appearance of talking to a detached head jutting out of the body of machine.

In my shock I forgot to take a picture. But if you are wondering what it looked like then here is the closest approximation: