Arriving in Japan is like landing on the moon. Seriously. Its got this eerie, clean, perfect Stepford Wives kinda vibe. There is no garbage on the streets, or in the subways. A huge contrast compared to the rest of Southeast Asia. There’s lots of neon lights, and Kanji writing everywhere. Its sensory overload. And I still haven’t found the apostrophe on the Japanese keyboard!
I assumed that Osaka would have more stuff in English, but outside the tourist area, everything is in Japanese. I just look at the menu and point and hope for the best. It’s a good thing I eat ANYTHING! Lol.
And explanations for everything are in Japanese. So I have been bumbling around and making mistakes left, right and center. I nicknamed myself “Geijin-Zilla”. Geijin means foreigner. Zilla stems from Godzilla, a big beast that descended upon Japan, causing panic and despair. I think Godzilla was just misunderstood, and he couldn’t read Japanese.
Some of my funny mistakes include not taking my shoes off before entering the fitting room. I got screamed at for that one. I just heard a screeching panicked voice outside the fitting room, so I opened the door, and the woman was frantically pointing at my shoes and screaming at me. That was unnecessarily embarrassing. I also washed my face with shampoo, because I thought it was face wash. My eyes nearly burned out of my head for that mistake! I sat down at a booth in a restaurant, and a little old woman starts giving me a big long explanation in Japanese and pointing at the counter. I thought she meant she needed to clean the table first. Or she would prefer if I eat at the counter since I was alone. Then an old man appeared out of nowhere. Apparently I took his seat while he was in the bathroom!
Every transaction, whether its buying some food, ordering a drink, buying a train ticket, asking directions is always the same: I ask a question in English, I get a response in Japanese. Neither me or the person I ask understands a single word each other said. I’ve become a big goofy pantomime. Dancing around to ask for the toilet, making wild gestures with my arms for directions, pointing at pictures and hoping I get something vaguely close to what I want to eat.
People are fashionable beyond belief. Everyone is amazingly cute, stylish and good looking. Fashion seems to be divided into groups: Business chic, bohemian flirty chic, and rock and roll. The business look involves no color beyond black, navy, and grey. But will stylish touches of flair. Pointy glitter shoes. An outlandish cell phone charm… a rock star haircut. The bohemian flirty chic look is huge. This involves a delicate flower pattern available in hundreds of different colors and patterns, but always tiny flowers. And lace. Short skirts and tiny shorts with leggings underneath and high high heels. Cutsy little pant suits and rompers. Yes, onesy rompers, like children wear now come in adult sizes. Straw hats with bows, like “Little House on the Prairie” complete the look. The rockers look like a “Poison” cover band. And then there’s the “Cartoonie Loonies”. Adults who dress in as many different cartoon printed clothes layers as possible, with little stuffed animals hanging out of every crevice. These folks are rare, but I’ve seen a few. Its like something off “Mad TV”.
Sitting still in a coffeeshop, and looking outside the window is funny because the people who walk past the window seem to be on fast forward speed. Like when you watch time lapse fast forward National Geographic films, and you see ants moving around in their daily lives.
My I-pod is my companion here. Because I don’t speak Japanese, and nobody speaks English, I haven’t found anyone to hang out with. And the few people I’ve met are super busy and they work a lot to be able to pay for the high cost of living. So I walk around by myself, listening to music. And enjoying the spectacle of a modern Japanese city by myself. I’m beginning to go mute.
I went to a BBQ after a week of solitude here. I was invited to join some geijin English teachers and their students. I got to eat some really good food off the grill (although I suspect one thing I ate and could not chew was chicken butt hole). The real spectacle was 2 guys who had too much to drink, and they proceeded to wrestle each other. When one guy had his friend subdued, he proceeded to dram on his face with permanent marker! The guy was so humiliated, I thought he was going to throw himself off a bridge. He struck back on the guy who drew on him, and wrestled him into submission and drew on his face. This was an odd exchange… so of course I took pictures! Japanese people get all crazy and goofy when they drink. I heard that the few crimes of Japan are committed by drunks: stealing bicycles and umbrellas!
The umbrella is everywhere as soon as it rains. Or even if a single drop falls out of the sky. Everyone has one. Even if its not raining. The umbrella even gets its own parking spot outside of peoples apartments and restaurants. Its coin operated and locks onto your umbrella, keeping it safe from naughty drunks!
I got swatted at in a Pachinko joint. By an old lady. These places are loud and flashy, with tons of bells, and sounds and flashing lights. I had no clue how to play, so I just loaded in $5 and got 500 balls. You turn a knob and try to get the ball to go into a small hole. I have no clue if there really is skill involved, but I kept getting the balls into the hole that makes the video screen turn into a slot machine and then pushing on the button to get the symbols to stop rolling around. I got really into it, even though I had NO CLUE how to play, and everything was in Japanese (even the characters I was trying to match!) So I just screamed and shouted when I got the balls in. The old lady next to me is sitting in a deafening environment, and yet I see something out of the corner of my eye swatting at me…. She was telling me to be quiet, and holding her ears! In a Pachinko place! Those places are so loud, you come out of there with ringing ears! Crazy…..
I hung out with 2 really fun Portugese guys in Osaka. Diogo and Tiago. They’re a dynamic duo. Really nice guys, and tons of fun. They were as lost in Japan as I was, and when we both admitted that Japan wasn’t all that great (from Osaka/ Kyoto side it isn’t- Tokyo is way cooler) we were friends for life! Me and Tiago went on a day trip to Kobe, where I learned the secret to cheating the fares on the subways. We went on a mega-walk to Kobe island (across a huge bride) and afterwards, we sang on the train and danced on the platform. Took tons of goofy photos. Being a Geijin (foreigner) in Japan is liberating in so many ways. The whole society is pretty closed off to foreigners, and its hard to make sense of things, so you can pretty much let loose and be goofy because even when you try to fit in and play by the rules, you don’t, so why try? I had so much more fun when I let loose and stopped trying (unsuccessfully) to fit in. I think this lesson can be applied to life in so many ways…
