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So I'm going on Day 5 in Tokyo and these are the thoughts running through my head:
*Everyone here follows the RULES. It's quite amazing, actually...almost robotic. People may express themselves by dressing differently, but they all follow the rules. Stand to the left on the escalator. Don't talk on the subway. Even if there are NO cars in sight anywhere, if the pedestrian signal is red, people will not cross the street. No one jaywalks. At first it's shingiheh (amazing/wondrous) to see, but then you start feeling like...FOR REAL??? And it's so funny how quickly you start conforming to these rules. My brother, who in real life is a non-rule abiding free-thinking individual, insisted that I abide by all the Japanese rules. When I spoke on the subway he was like: SHHH. When I tried to stand a teeny bit to the right on the escalator he was like: what are you doing? It's like as soon as you arrive here, you can feel the social conditioning and immediately feel you must abide by it.
*The silence is maddening. My friend (who has been living here for 7 years and is Japanese) told me it's because it's rude to other people to be noisy on the subway, streets, etc. But at most restaurants here, people are allowed to smoke and they often do - before, during and after eating. IMHO, what's rude is to blow smoke in someone's face while they are trying to enjoy a meal. It's also been said that Japan's behavioral rules are there to keep people from being a bother to other people. But what "bothers" people is subjective. And what bothers me is silence. And smoke in my face while I'm eating.
*People bow or apologize (or bow and apologize) for everything - a couple days ago while I was looking at a potential apartment to live in, the agent and I were on the elevator going down and the elevator opened on another floor. A cute little old lady was waiting to get on but when she saw us she immediately started bowing and apologizing for making the elevator stop when we were on our way down. She literally bowed her head and apologized like 10 times, the entire way down the elevator. Then she got off, stood to the side, indicated with her hand that we should exit the hall first and kept bowing and apologizing. I felt so bad that she felt so bad. The politeness here is excessive.
*Tokyo is ridiculously expensive. Ridiculous. I need to re-calibrate my entire budget because it's clear that I will not be able to stay within my previously allocated budget while living here. My drink at Starbucks - a double espresso over ice, which here you must order as a tall iced Americano with no water, is 350 yen = $3.70. In the US it is $1.85. So I'm cutting Starbucks out of my diet here. Yesterday I bought some Korean banchan - literally consisting of 1/2 cup each of sauteed zucchini, marinated seaweed and spicy dried cuttlefish and it cost 1600 yen = $17. It's about enough banchan for ONE meal with rice. So my plan to pay off most of my remaining law school loans and save a substantial amount of money each month while working here is quite unrealistic, unless I'm willing to subsist on instant ramen and grocery store prepared meals, which all taste the same (sweet soy sauce).
El Hombre read my last blog and told me I was a hater (on Japan, Japanese culture) and excessively nationalistic (I assume because I had to throw in the comment that Koreans just do things better). Which is true to some degree. But honestly, I'm not hating on Japanese culture. I'm just observing and opining. Sociologically, Japan is fascinating. In some ways it's quite amazing. In some ways it's quite maddening. I have such mixed feelings about this place that will be home for the next year. I can foresee that I will really enjoy it on some levels. But I can also foresee that it will drive me mad on other levels. Because when I walk down the street and it's completely silent, there's this strong urge inside me to shout something, just to break the silence. And it's not purely just to break the silence, it's to resist this strange, almost tangible feeling of suppression/repression. Because the rules here, the social conditioning...it's really repressive.
So now that I've gotten out the "hater" in me, let me note the positive aspects I've observed so far:
*People are unfailingly polite. Which is quite a contrast from the States where politeness is all but dead.
*The children are heartbreakingly cute and very well behaved. I've seen tons of little kids and not a single tantrum.
*Everything here is packaged so prettily. The bento boxes look like jewelry boxes, you don't want to disturb the perfection with which each morsel of food is placed. The chocolate stores here are so luxe that they look like jewelry stores, the truffle displays are as exquisite as a display of diamond jewelry at Tiffany's.
*The orderliness, which can be maddening at times, is also very effective and efficient.
*The sushi is amazingly fresh. My brother had a Japanese prawn nigiri yesterday that was still moving when he put it into his mouth. The tail kept flapping up and down as if the prawn was protesting the injustice of being eaten.
There are so many little things about Tokyo that are hard to describe in words. My observations about Tokyo, good and bad, are my way of trying to understand and come to terms with this new city - my new temporary home.
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