Normal is all relative

I remember when I first arrived in Tokyo and found everything really foreign and different and amusing. Like the unique ways they use English in ways that don't make sense. The people who dress up in costume and walk around for fun. The funny billboards. The robotic orderliness. Men charging first into/out of an elevator or any door (there is no concept of ladies first here). Guys who wear tight pants (even tight SUIT pants...urr, actually I still find this disturbing). Everything was foreign and I felt like everything I did was wrong (i.e. talking on the subway, standing on the right, table manners, etc.) But now I'm so used to these things that I don't feel compelled to take pictures or think to myself: my goodness, this place is so weird. Now it's all just very...normal.

The other day someone bumped into me and I had a very Japanese reaction: even though they bumped into me, I bowed my head slightly toward them and said sumimasen. I generally say sumimasen and arigato gozaimasu about 100 times each per day. Now when I see foreigners on the airport limousine bus talking on the phone, I feel like saying: excuuuuuuuse me, don't you know you are supposed to ride in silence so as not to "annoy the neighbors?!" (before the bus departs, an announcement is always made to "please refrain from talking on your mobile phone, as it annoys the neighbors"). When I go to the grocery store, I no longer have the urge to buy anything beyond what I will eat that day (it's such an American habit to grocery shop for the whole week in one visit!). Even when I don't understand or disagree with something someone is saying, I say hai (one of the most important pieces of advice anyone gave me here was the advice that in Japan, the word hai does not mean "yes" or "I agree with you" but simply "oh, you made a sound, and I am acknowledging that you made a sound") because I know it will perturb or distress the other person if I make it known to them that I don't understand or disagree, and one aspect of Japanese culture is to keep things peaceful/neutral on the surface at all times and never perturb or distress others.

Slowly but surely, my sense of "normalcy" has realigned to fit with what is normal in Tokyo, although as soon as I go back to the US, what is normal immediately reverts to US sensibilities.

***

I noted to El Hombre several times in Oahu that Hawaii is basically where Japanese people go to be free. Oahu is a hybrid of the US and Japan - there are more Japanese people there than anyone (at least that's how it seemed to me), pretty much everything is available in Japanese and English (or sometimes, only Japanese) and everything seems catered to appeal to the Japanese consumer. But Oahu is still the US, so there's this sense of...freedom that isn't available in Japan. The silent but pervasive societal rules of Japan don't apply in Hawaii - you can talk as loudly as you want, laugh without covering your mouth, jaywalk, not be considerate of others all the time, etc. Basically, you can be a little more of an animal and a little less of a robot.