A word on words

Japanese is similar to Spanish in the sense that you can drop pronouns from your sentences. In fact, the use of pronouns can be rude or discourteous – referring to someone as “You” is almost never done. However, in Spanish at least you can always tell who is doing the action because the verbs conjugate differently. “Voy afuera” and “Va afuera” both lack subjects, but it is easy to tell who is going outside.

On the other hand, when I called the ryokan to tell the owner that we would be home late but wanted to use the communal bathing facilities (in a ryokan there is traditionally a shared bathing area and we needed to reserve it in advance), I noted that “we are coming home at 10:30 p.m. and will take a bath” sounded a lot like “we are coming home at 10:30 p.m. so you will take a bath.”

It’s a good thing that most crimes are solved by confessions here, because interviewing witnesses is pointless when a report of a crime contains no pronoun. “He killed that guy” sounds exactly like “I killed that guy.” Now that I think about it, I wonder how many “confessions” there really are around here….

The real problem, of course, is that my Japanese is still terrible. I might feel like a native speaker when I successfully buy a bottle of Aquarius Vitamin Guard and order a bowl of noodles, but as soon as I start to attempt to read signs I might as well be a blind baboon. Driving on Yakushima Island confirmed I was functionally illiterate. I was able to determine that the kanji on the road sign I passed was something to the effect of “father-something-stop-something-…” before it had disappeared into my rear view mirror.

What sometimes confuses Japanese speakers is that my mannerisms, my “style”, sound more fluent than my actual vocabulary or grammar. Japanese has a number of different styles and one person can speak in many different voices depending upon the context. It’s as if a person had a southern accent when speaking to a stranger, an English accent at work, and a Brooklyn accent when going out to a bar with friends.

Part of the reason to take A to Japan was just to prove that the high-pitched, squeaky Minney- Mouse voices she heard in anime weren’t an American construct. As soon as we arrived in a department store she looked at me in shock after hearing “Irrashaimase!!! Ikaga Deshou Ka???” over and over from a million young ladies in the same high-pitched voice. These are the same girls who speak perfectly normally to their cram school teachers on Saturday morning, and growl “Majji De?? Chou Yabbai!!” to their friends in front of Shibuya 109.

There’s even a special style of speaking for comedy that, like vaudeville, has its own rhythm and attitude. I can always identify a comedy routine, even though I rarely understand it. So when I flipped through the channels last night and discovered a Japanese Saturday Night Live, I was pleasantly surprised that despite all the American tropes, it remained uniquely Japanese. The camera angles, the pans during the musical act, the frequent breaks in character by the host (in this case, Chiaki Kuriyama (“Kill Bill”’s Gogo) to laugh, the waving at the end of the show, even a Don-Pardo style voiceover during promos, all looked identical to the American version. But the comedy style was utterly Japanese.

The Way

“Chuo-Ku, Shirogane 1 chome 8-10, onegaishimasu” [take me to this inscrutable address, please]

“Doko?” [where?]

I show the cab driver the address, in English and in Japanese.

“Doko?” [where?] “I still don’t understand this address.” The driver switches to English, as if somehow the completely impossible to use Japanese address system would become easier if we spoke in English. I call up the address on my iPhone and even show it on google maps (thank goodness for the portable wifi hotspot which has already saved me on numerous occasions.) Still nothing.

The ryokan was in the middle of Fukuoka, a bustling city of over a million people, and was only ten minutes from the Hakata station, but it might has well have been in Burundi at that point.

“Denwa bango ga arun desu ka?” [Do you have the phone number?] I call the ryokan, the traditional Japanese inn where we will spend the rest of our vacation in Fukuoka. That however, leads to an entirely new confusing conversation between the taxi driver and the ryokan owner. “It’s by the Family Mart.” “No, not that Family Mart, the other Family Mart.” “Do you see a Lawson’s?” I cannot even believe that they used a Lawson’s convenience store as a landmark – it’s like saying “You should be able to see my house – it’s the one with the door in front.”

It’s easy to be stunned by Japanese hospitality and the intense devotion to customer service everywhere you go. Parking lot attendants race into the street to clear traffic as you pull out, the airport security staff load your bags into trays for you, attendants at the convenience store literally run to the front of the store if the line at the register is more than one person deep.

But there is something else at work here – more than just slavish devotion to you and your needs. In Japan, everything has a Way. A Way to serve food, a Way to pack your purchases at a store, a Way to use the bath.

And if you want to disturb the delicate balance that permeates your surroundings, try to go against that Way. I do not advise it. There is a Way to serve and eat sushi and sashimi, and if you try to upset it there will be consequences. At Sam’s friend’s sushi place, Annie’s request for a side of wasabi was met with consternation. The waitress did take the time to explain why wasabi was unnecessary, as it was already in the sushi, but Annie pointed out that she simply wanted more. This response was not appreciated and led to another explanation of why her request was inappropriate. Finally, of course, I pulled the confused Westerner card and prevailed.

It makes no difference whether another person notices or appreciates the Way or not. A train conductor will bow when entering and leaving the train car. An airline attendant will bow when opening the departure gate. The girl on Yakushima island who ran a tiny snack stand at the base of a mountain spent 10 minutes carefully cutting a slice of cake for Annie, washing the knife before each cut, then carefully wrapping it and arranging it on a plate. She was completely out of sight and had no idea I was watching her from the reflection on the glass. Even in a remote café, there is the Way.

The Way is sometimes looks like the it’s just the way it’s always been done, but do not be deceived into thinking that it is simply about making life easier or customer service. Korea abandoned its archaic address system and it has long ago become clear that Japan would be well-served to do the same. Our cab driver was not a moron – he asked local residents if they knew how to find the address and they couldn’t do it either.

But without the Way, and the old Ways, would Japan really still be Japan? No matter how much modern technology, English lexicography, and foreign fashion finds its way into Japan, they retain their unique identity. Sometimes they don’t even recognize that what they’ve taken from others was foreign in the first place. Like the hot dog. In Japan, a hot dog is Japanese. An American Dog? That’s a corn dog.

“Illiterate foreigner drives car into oncoming traffic.”

“Illiterate foreigner drives car into oncoming traffic.”

That’s what I assumed the headline would read on tomorrow’s Yomiuri Shinbun newspaper. Maybe it would have just been a byline below the fold. Either way the cause was clear: I was just not satisfied merely inconveniencing people with my everyday blunders. To really put lives at risk I had to get behind the wheel of a car.

You don’t have to go far in Japan to find yourself stranded with no help in English. A gorgeous boat ride through Yanagawa was plenty of Japanese-speaking-only tourism, in theory. The gondolier who led us through the old canal town was a wonderful singer and quite funny, or so I had to assume as everyone on the boat laughed at what I assume were his jokes. Perhaps he simply filled the 70 minute ride with quips about my appearance and manners. Either way it was an awesome trip and I have so far managed to avoid falling into a river (this time).

But to really strand ourselves we decided to take a trip to Yakushima, an island 4 hours by ferry south of the southern tip of Kyushu. For that trip we had the chance to take the rocket-foil, a sort of jet-powered ferry on stilts. It cut the travel time in half, or at least it does if you can get a ticket. If it is sold out, then you need to spend 10 minutes at the ticket counter trying to understand the “standby” system using the Japanese you mainly learned from “Detective Conan” cartoons, the same Japanese that usually begins to fail when you try to explain that you would like a bowl of noodles, but you don’t want the side of pickles.

At least it gave us the chance to tour Kagoshima a little, which Annie describes as “the Alabama of Japan.” (Apologies to those of you who have to live in Alabama). The place has a distinctly southern feel and even led a rebelling against the government just after the American civil war. Just to the south are the mountains where the real “last samurai” held out in his battle against the Meiji restoration.

My grade in Japanese 201/202 might not have been stellar (aside: I never actually looked up my grades so I don’t know) but at least I learned enough to know when my standby number was called, or even that they were calling the numbers in the first place.

Upon arrival was the real test – negotiating a car rental. I got all the basics until we got to the “menseki.” What the hell was a “menseki”? The rental car attendant obviously couldn’t pantomime the words, so it had to be complicated…thank goodness for the iphone. I guess “loss-damage waiver” wasn’t included in my beginner Japanese course.

When I told my friends that I was planning to rent a car, they all told me that the attendants would stand in the parking lot waiting for me to turn out of the parking lot and laugh when I turned on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal. No amount of warning helped. I did and they did. Having repeated the same error over and over, I now have the cleanest windshields on the island of Yakushima.

Driving on the other side of the road is not as funny, though – in fact, it activated a sense-memory of driver’s ed. I literally felt like I was driving for the first time. Abject terror is the feeling of suddenly seeing a pair of headlights coming right for you in the right lane around a curve, only to realize that you are on the left side. That’s probably what Annie felt when, trying to turn off the windshield wipers I had accidentally activated for the 8th time, I casually turned right directly into oncoming traffic.

So far, we are still alive. But tomorrow is another day.

Rules

One reason I will never figure this place out is that I will never understand the rules.

The sumo tournament rules said “No food, no drink, no cellphone use, and no pictures.” Other than being surrounded by people eating, drinking, using their cellphones and taking pictures, the entire event was quite orderly.

Picture a WWE event, put on by PBS. Most men wore suit jackets. My friend’s brother, a kind young Japanese man, bought us the tickets. When I asked for that favor, I assumed that it meant logging onto a website and pressing “order.” The tickets could only be ordered in Japan so I needed the help, but I had no idea he would end up spending an hour on the phone calling over and over until he was able to order tickets. Nor did I realize that he wouldn’t give up until he obtained seats 6 rows from ringside and 4 seats from the place where the wrestlers enter and leave.

But that’s Japan – to this day I am still astounded by the generosity of the Japanese people. At the end of the match a man with a camera bag who obviously felt bad for me for respecting the rules handed me some photos of previous matches he had taken. These were publication-worthy shots. He told me it was obvious I loved the match and he wanted me to have some good pictures as souvenirs.

Does the west have a sport where it is considered dishonorable to make any expression of emotion at victory? I’m not sure that there is even another one like it in Japan. Sumo has been practiced for over 1000 years and the judges and officials still dress in Kamakura period clothing, samurai fashions that are 800 years old.

It’s amazing. Like baseball, it is quite dull to watch on television but riveting to watch live. It’s impossible to convey the force deployed by these men as they crash into each other. Imagine being hit by a bus with a Saturn5 rocket attached at the back that’s got a steel battering ram on the front and is driven by Chuck Norris.

Yet they are the masters of their form, able to instantly turn it off and relax, to redirect an opponent’s energy to the ground right in front of them. I watched Balto, the #2 rikishi in Japan, end a match in 3 seconds by gracefully redirecting his opponent straight into the ground. It’s like watching two enormous, fat ninjas fight on a hotel balcony.

There are no weight classes – why should there be? Over and over I watched the smaller guy win. It’s tough to be a big guy in this country. Heck, I feel like a giant. I actually get self-conscious about my size here. And although I’ve never noticed it, A said people stare at me all day long. Kyushu, unlike Tokyo and Kyoto, isn’t used to the presence of Westerners yet. We’ve seen less than 10 since we’ve been here. A, on the other hand, fits right in.

Arrived

I suppose I can sleep when I get back in Court.

The "kid-on Christmas morning" effect gave me 3 1/2 hours of sleep, so here I am at 7:30 a.m. in the hotel writing and planning my day instead of sleeping.

If I can make a travel suggestion, it would be to avoid American Airlines.

I’ve been studying Japanese for some time now, but apparently never learned that the word “Code-Share” is Japanese for “you are buying a JAL ticket but you will fly American Airlines.” This is the travel equivalent of “Welcome to The Ritz Carlton. You’ll be dining at our lovely McDonald’s.” A joked that for breakfast we would just get a ½ frozen sandwich with a slice of meat and a slice of cheese for breakfast. That joke was funny until we got breakfast. And it was a a ½ frozen sandwich with a slice of meat and a slice of cheese for breakfast. The condiment du jour was a packet of dijionaise and (I swear I am not making this up) a breath mint.

Perhaps it was a good way to set my mind into Japanese mode – in America, it is easy to take others’ negligence and discourtesy as a personal and intentional attack. For example, when someone cuts me off, I assume it is because they decided to almost cause an accident with me on purpose. I get the sense, however, that Japanese people view such behavior as what it is – negligence and impersonal discourtesy that is just a part of everyday life, not to be taken as a direct assault.

Still, this is the second time that AT&T has screwed up activating my phone in Japan, so it has to be something personal they have against me….

The airport is probably not the best place to reflect on human nature. However, it is an easy place to remember why one is going back to Japan. Japan, a land where people are almost universally polite to strangers, where people do not steal from each other, and where lost property is promptly turned into the police for recovery, even if it is cash found in the wasteland of a Tsunami ($70 million US turned in so far, at last count).

Plus, when this is the food you can get at the Food Court, it's a nice reminder.

However, it confuses me to no end to get repeatedly asked “why are you going back to Japan.” Especially considering my job is to deal with cheats, liars, and their clients.

Now, upon arrival, it is as if I am washing away a year and a half of vacation-less stress, anxiety, and tension. Considering most of that is probably self-inflicted, I've got a bit of work to do.

A 2 a.m. visit to an Izakaya on Meiji Dori was a good start.