Signs that I might be getting Japanese (or Tokyoite)
· 4 min read
- I’m learning to ignore the shopkeeper when I enter a shop, and to not return their enthusiastic greetings or even look at them — particularly at convenience stores.
- I (almost) don’t care any more about being naked among lots of other men of all ages and shapes in a not-so-spacious public bath.
- I occasionally kill time in a videogame arcade, alone, trying out the craziest music games, with my own earplugs attached to the machine (for instance, while I wait for my laundry to be washed at the local coin laundry, which is also a very Japanese thing to do). The creativity that the Japanese pour into all those wonderful games doesn’t cease to amaze me!
- I am hardly the loudest person back at home, or in other European countries — and still, I’m growing intolerant of other people chatting loudly, the keypad of their phones clicking, or inadequate voice tones.
- I expect rice to be served as a side dish with my main meal, by default. Even if the main dish is already copious. Even if the main dish is rice.
- I ride my mamachari without embarrassment.
- My opinions and complaints are filtered several times before I express them in public (and still, I’m afraid I might be offensive and be seen as a whining bigot sometimes).
- I assume that people around me are at least 15% older than they look (and I lament that people around me probably think I’m 45 or so).
- I’m starting to assimilate that it’s awkward if I bow in return to someone who is selling me something, or providing a service to me. I’m also learning to suppress the arigatō gozaimasu. Instead, I now try more casual gestures and idioms as a customer. It took a while!
- Now that I’m struggling with the difficulties of kanji only, I tend to forget that kana aren’t Latin scripts, so I sometimes point to things written in katakana when I’m with friends who are visiting Japan, as if those chunks of Japanese at least were universally intelligible.
- I don’t hear bus drivers any more as they’re reciting their inane warnings and pointless announcements (“dear passengers, next… turning right… please hold yourselves… all right, we just turned… thank you very much… ah, let’s continue…”). It’s become background radiation.
- I now see an office or desk attending customers as seriously understaffed if there are less than five people at sight. Similarly, working sites on the street can’t possibly exist without at least one old man standing still and holding a sign every few metres along the perimeter.
- I stopped apologising when I buy a stupid 100-yen article at my local kombini but pay with a 10,000-yen banknote.
- I don’t understand rust on a metallic doorframe, I can’t get litter on public transportation. Walls stained cannot compute I. My system doesn’t grok moisture on stuff or mud on floors or water spots on cutlery — not to mention dog poop on the pavement!
- Fuji-san is important to me. I think of it, I turn around and look for it when I’m somewhere new, I worry about it and feel sad if the weather doesn’t let me see it.
- I don’t carry a soft drink, a flask or a water bottle when I leave home; I know I’ll stumble upon lots of recently-stuffed, impeccably-temperature-controlled vending machines serving anything from burning-hot coffee to cold juice, all at a very fair price. I don’t need to carry the exact change, and I can even pay with a banknote (or with the same RFID card I use for public transport).
- It dawned on me that what I used to eat outside Japan does not qualify as “sushi”.
(Awfully stereotypical music video… and post, I know! Bear with me: I do love Japan — I’m just trying to be funny.)
Originally published on Medium