I went to a Halloween party last Friday night dressed as a baseball player. I had authentic gear from the team I work for, so the other guests were impressed and thought it was cute that I was such a rabid fan.
However, I couldn’t help but think that one disadvantage to moving abroad is that you don’t have ready access to an attic or a place to store everything that you grew up with.
I mean, if I was living on the West Coast, I’m sure that I would have some wigs, a false beard, an Austin Powers mask, and that rubber cast that I wore on my arm one day and got everyone to sign and worry over in high school.
Yes, I’m sure that some of those things would be tucked away somewhere convenient.
Anyhow, I went to the party as a ballplayer and hosted two friends for the night at home. I woke up the next day, saw them off, and suited up for a bike ride, but I couldn’t find my keys anywhere. Since I hadn’t locked up my bike, I was still able to go for a ride, so I left the apartment unlocked and took off, thinking that I would find them later.
Funny how missing keys would be a huge, drop-everything-and-fix-it-now problem in the States but not at all here. I wasn’t worried at all. I have stuff that I would not like stolen, but I never worry about it. I don’t lock my door half the time, which is why I can’t be 100% certain that I even had my keys with me Friday night.
The more eyes are around, the more people will act like they are “supposed” to in countryside Japan. That means leaving things as you found them, properly disposing of trash, and not stealing people’s stuff, among other things.
There are a lot of discarded household electronics, vehicles, and other trash in the mountains, but there aren’t any eyes there. In other words, I’d feel more anxious about leaving my bike, say, in the mountains with a flat tire or broken wheel, than I would leaving it in front of my apartment building in the city.
I started to worry when I couldn’t locate the keys after tearing up the apartment. I looked everywhere, including the trash, the toilet bowl, the laundry machine - no keys. I went back to the restaurants from Friday night with the same results.
I was all ready to try out lock-changing Japanese style, but then my keys fell out of a stack of baseball programs that I had lifted up and moved around at least three times in the search. It was very strange. I hadn’t touched the stack of programs or brushed them with my arm, gravity had just taken about 72 hours to do its work.
The situation reminded me of a story from not so long ago. What do you know? Another tale from Fukushima . . .
I was riding home from work a few Fridays ago when my keys fell out of the cell phone pocket on my backpack and onto the road. I was on a big hill, so I had to trudge back up to get them. Before I could reach them, however, a car ran them over and bent ‘em all up.
It figured that they wouldn’t work in the lock on my apartment door, but I had to try. My last class on Fridays is located across town, but it’s only one class in that location, so I usually leave whatever I don’t need at home. After trying to jam my keys into the lock to no avail, it slowly came to me that I was totally screwed.
My cell phone, wallet, and money were all inside the apartment.
Amazingly, I didn’t feel the need to hurl the useless keys to the ground as would be my expected reaction to such misfortune. I thought about calling the boss, but they don’t like me very much because they know I’m quitting, and I don’t want to owe them anything more than I have to, so I put that option next to sleeping in the park all weekend.
I thought about calling a friend, but all of my phone numbers are in my phone and I don’t have any of them memorized, so that wasn’t an option. Amazing, huh? I used to be super phone-number guy, but then I joined the human race and got a cell phone.
It was Friday night and almost 9 p.m., and they roll up the sidewalks very early here, so I had to get moving if I didn’t want to sleep at the foot of a Japanese shrine all weekend. I went to Yama-chan, and I hadn’t been there since July because of how expensive it is. The Mama-san told me that there was a key-fixing place a few towns away and that they were open until 11.
I wasn’t sure if it was going to work, but it was worth a shot. First of all, I had no money and no way to get any (bank card was in my wallet). I had no identification, so if they had any doubts as to how I got my hands on those keys, I wouldn’t get them copied. And, I couldn’t call anyone to vouch for me if the above situation happened.
I was literally nobody from nowhere. And that’s a scary thing when you add to it a foreign language and culture.
Thankfully, the lady at the key place took my mangled key and ground it up, and did it for no charge! I asked how much it cost, and she said “It’s a service” in Japanese. That was a relief, because I was prepared to leave everything I had, including my clothes, as collateral if I was required to pay.
This was a great experience because I got something done quickly and exactly the way I wanted it done. The way it happened even exceeded my expectations. And it was simple, when I needed it most. For all the harping I do about how difficult it is to get things done here, I’m glad that this one time it was easy.
I swelled up with pride after triumphing in the key fiasco, because they don’t teach you how to say “A car ran over my keys” in Japanese class, yet I managed to communicate that calmly and efficiently to everyone who needed to know.
I immediately started downplaying the significance of it, because what would you infer from someone waving a gnarled key in front of you and speaking in broken English? I probably could’ve done it all without saying a word.
Finally, I decided that it was indeed a great accomplishment and that I handled it well. Communication happened, there were no breakdowns, and there was a relative minimum of hand-waving.
I made the key lady and the Yama-chans American-style French Toast to thank them for their help, and presented it to them the Japanese way - apologizing profusely for inconveniencing them and saying that my paltry little gift was in no way equal to their wonderful deeds of kindness. Something like that.
I’m lookin fer some false beards…ya got any false beards??
I thought you’d like that part.
I’ve been thinking about the “eyes” part of this piece, and decided that it’s a little narrow to say that that is strictly a Japanese thing.
Of course, some part of what anyone on the planet does is governed by who they believe is watching.
What consistently sticks out to me is how safe and orderly things feel in Japan, whether I’m out in the boondocks or in the nastiest back allies of the city.
That feeling points out, in converse, how unsafe I feel when I’m in the United States. Unsafe is probably too strong a word, but I certainly have to pay attention to safety and security issues with a piece of my consciousness more so than I have to in Japan.
People leave their cars running while they go inside Circle-K and browse comic books. They leave their expensive leather bags on the sidewalk in front of the train station while they go in to double-check their reservations. Store owners stock shelves with merchandise outside of their shops and most of them don’t use cameras or employ security of any sort.
I would think that anyone about to swipe something would check the scene, look over their shoulder, make an effort to play it cool, or have their hearts pounding inside their heads.
I just don’t see an average Japanese person thinking about stealing something and then deciding that a situation was safe enough for them to actually do it. I honestly do not believe that they would get through all of the above checks.
Japanese people just seem to be more afraid of doing unacceptable things if they think that anyone could possibly see it.
In my experience, I’ve been amazed at the audacity of American thieves, but things like getting car parts stolen in broad daylight from in front of a public school in plain view of a busy street simply do not happen here.
Greetings from another Bob Sanchez (Las Cruces, New Mexico)! Your link popped up in my daily Google alert.