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What to say about Nihon? |
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NEW PICTURES ADDED 28 OCT - CLICK TO VIEW
START AT THE BEGINNING OF PICTURES
ELECTRONICS: In Japan everything talks to you .. the
elevator, the air conditioner, the bathtub heater...
when you turn them on or off, this pleasant female voice starts talking.
I can understand the usual "thank you so very much" that punctuates
every Japanese sentence, but not much more.
Also at many intersections, when the light changes, a female
voice starts chattering away in Japanese. I can only guess what
she might be saying:
"Honorable Street Crosser, it is now safe to proceed
across the street. Thank you for using this intersection."
Of course she could be saying:
"Wake up, oh lethargic one.. you have
30 seconds to get your hiney across my intersection before I change the
light on you."
Who knows?
Speaking of crossing streets .. when I walk downtown, it takes about
20 minutes. It would take 15 minutes except I have to wait at all the
intersections for the lights to change. That may sound normal, except
.. many of these intersections are only 10-12 feet wide! And there is
often no traffic around at all. However there are usually several other
Japanese
on foot or on bikes, waiting patiently for the light to change so they
can take ... 3 steps max .. and be across the street! Ok, maybe for them
4 steps, for me, three tops!
It feels wierd to be standing on the corner of a tiny little street,
no traffic coming out of it & waiting for a light to change while 10
feet away, others are waiting to cross to my side. I am not sure what
would happen if one actually jay-walked. I have done it when I found
myself alone at an intersection .. but would not try it with other Japanese
around for fear of causing them all to go into shock. :-))
HALLOWEEN: it is huge here .. halloween decor is everywhere. We still do not know if the kids will go trick or treating yet, but have laid in a supply of candy just in case....
Um ... they do seem to have a small problem with mixing holidays...
yes .. that's right....it IS a "Halloween Tree"
As Cristina says .. very efficient .. this way they are already ready
for Christmas as soon as Halloween is past!
Close
up of decorations.....
Original entry just after arrival:
Japan is
truly amazing. My only complaint so far is I wish they would ditch
that "kanji"
(chinese
characters, right)
and hiragana/katakana (japanese characters) writing! It makes you
feel like you are suddenly illiterate. I
know about 50 japanese words & could find my way around pretty
well if ... I could just read the writing! These people really really need
an alphabet!! (Even many of them admit they cannot easily read the
kanji characters, and many have little dictionaries programmed into
their cell phones!)
The
word to the left is in hirakana, it says shinkansen which is "bullet
train". Simpler than the kanji characters above ..once you
get used to it! The Japanese have to learn THREE alphabets with thousands
of symbols!
Luckily there are a lot of instructions in English around, especially on the subways & trains. I am not sure what people do here who do not know either Japanese or English! Those are the only 2 choices & Japanese is not commonly written in "romanji" which is our lettering system.
Cristina
met us at Narita airport, about 70 km outside of Tokyo, not with "welcome!" or "great
to see you" or even a hug & kiss ... no,
after a 15 hour trip from Scottsdale, including a 3 hour delay in LA (which,
after 2 hours, our Japanese (JAL) flight rep informed us all happily was
because
"plane was struck by lightning between Las Vegas and LA". They
were checking the electronics systems to make sure everything worked.
I hoped they were also taking a look at other things .. like the bolts that hold the wings on the plane!)
Anyway .. after that
adventure & a
one hour+ line to get through customs, when we finally made it
out to the main terminal (and for us it was 4 am) the
first words out of Cristina's mouth were: "Hurry! we have to catch
the train!!" She took off at a run with us following with 6
pieces of luggage, through a labyrinth of corridors then to a ticket
window
where she paid
a huge amount for 3 tickets on the Narita Express to Tokyo station.
$27 apiece!! I was hoping they would also issue stock certificates
with that!
Anyway,
it
turned out
that if we had missed this train, we would have had to wait over
an hour for another one as it was already 8 pm local time (the next
day,
I think
.. we seemed to have lost Wednesday somewhere along the line) and
they didn't run as frequently at night.
But we made it ..
and soon were aboard the most modern and cleanest train I had ever
seen. You could sit down & eat on the floor. I was to
discover this is the normal state of Japanese trains and even most subways
... these people must die when they go to New York!
Soon
we arrived in Tokyo & shortly
thereafter at our hotel, the New Sanno .. a hotel reserved for military
personnel & their
families. Very nice
& cheap for downtown Tokyo. The next day, the adventures would begin
...but first .. we had to learn about bowing!
Bowing
in Japan is an art form. Bowing or Ojigi as it is referred to in
Japanese, is the
traditional form of greeting. It is of such importance in
Japan, that there are classes in many companies and schools on
how to bow properly. In the correct technique for bowing, one should
bow at the waist while keeping the back straight. During the bow,
men
should
place their hands at their side, while women place their hands
finger tips over one another to form a “V” shape.
Also of importance is the degree of inclination. The farther forward one inclines, the more reverence one shows to the other. For instance, an entry level employee may bow forward 45 degrees from the waist while the Manager perhaps just 10 degrees.
Children,
being at the bottom of the totem pole...
...bow the lowest...
And now, the adventures
begin...