I think that there are definite benifits and drawbacks to the traditional Japanese lifestyle. What I mean is the so called traditional idea that things in Japanese life are punctual and safe and predictable and things. When things work well, life is fine and everything feels safe like you're in your happy little bubble. When things go wrong, however, you don't know what to do. It's like someone just pulled the rug out from under you, and you're completely lost. Japanese people hate it when things go out of the unexpected, and thanks to two instances on the trains on the way home, I think I understand why.
I've gotten really really used to the train system so that it's completely routine for me and I barely have to think about things anymore. The first strange thing happened right at my station right on the way home from school. Normally when a train pulls up to a station it's extremely orderly: everyone waiting to get on the train lines up nicely before where the door will stop, but once the train stops, everyone steps to either side of the door to let people off. Everyone does it, and it just makes sense. However, when I went home one day, I waited on the right side of the door as always. But when the train stopped and the doors opened... the waiting salaryman didn't move. He was standing straight in front of me. Of course, the logical thing would have been for me to walk out on the left side of the door, squeezing by with the guy next to me. But the salaryman shouldn't have been there. It was only one second, but for one full second, I literally had no idea what to do. I just stared at the salaryman, hoping he'd see the error of his non-moving state. It was really weird.
The second event happened just yesterday. I take the Musashino line, then transfer to the local Tozai line at Nishi-Funabashi Station to get home. There are basically 3 platforms for the Tozai line to depart from: 8 is always the rapid, 7 is always the local, 6 is always the local but sometimes heads in the opposite direction. So when I do my transfer, I usually walk down the stairs to platform 7, but sometimes I have to walk down to 6. You figure out what platform to take by looking at the electronic message board at the top of the stairs. Today, when I went to glance at the message board, I realized that it was down. I stared at the board for a while, not knowing what to do. Many other Japanese people were staring at the board, confused, as well. No one was quite sure which action to take. A couple of people went to check out the written train schedule for the platform. Myself and several others eventually snuck halfway down the stairs to platform 7, noticed the train was just leaving, notice there was a train waiting on platform 6, and turned back up the stairs to head to the other platform. The majority of the passages, however, simply stood under the sign, waiting. As it turned out, as I headed towards platform 6, an announcement told everyone where to go. That left dozens of people with a good 20 seconds to scramble down the stairs and into the waiting train. However, no one had moved until the announcement told them to. With the electric board mysteriously down, no one seemed keen on doing something to figure out the situation for themselves. I thought that was a good analogy for Japanese style of handling unknown situations: rather than just charging off in strange and foreign directions, you wait until you figure out what to do. Thinking about it, I think that the American response, when faced with the broken board, would have been to complain about the stupid trains but head straight for platform 7 anyway. After all, platform 7 has a greater chance of having a train waiting to go in your direction than platform 6, and if I HAD hurried down the stairs and not stopped to ponder the mysteries of the broken electic board, I would have made the platform 7 train and therefore made it home a little bit earlier. That's the American way: as long as you keep moving, you'll end up okay at the end. The typical Japanese way would have said to not just blindly go running down stairs; after all I could have ended up waiting longer than if I had waited for the station annoucement, or I could have even ended up getting onto a rapid by mistake or something like that. I just thought that was interesting.
I also had an interesting experience in Japanese class, today. I happened to mention New Orleans and Mardi Gras in Japanese class today. I tried to explain how it was originally a festival that celebrated and feasted before the beginning of Lent, but in New Orleans nowadays, it's mainly a big holiday with parades and beads and partying. I was trying to make a connection that in America, we don't really have Japanese-type festivals and that Mardi Gras was probably the closest, but anyway. There was another American girl in the class, and she immediately started going off about how Mardi Gras is drunken and dangerous and how New Orleans itself is dangerous. Now I couldn't really disagree with that, I suppose, but the way that she said it made it sound a lot worse than it was. I tried to explained that I lived in New Orleans from when I was 8 to 12, and that despite the fact that I wasn't drinking and flashing, I still had plenty of fun. The girl then started going off about how she only went to New Orleans once and didn't like it at all, and how there were all sorts of people like Satanists (she meant Voodoo worshippers) there. I decided to bite my tongue since I didn't think I could say anything without getting bitter and yelling, but it really did tick me off. Granted, I don't know a lot about Voodoo or any of the other religions that came from Carribean areas to New Orleans, but I do know enough that they ARE religions, that they ARE highly believed within groups of people in New Orleans and Lousiana, and I know that they are NOT all about Voodoo dolls and killing people. It ticked me off that someone from America, on a study abroad, was saying such close-minded things about a sub-culture of her own country. I think when things like that happen every once in a while, it serves to remind me that just because I'm studying in Japan and learning all about relating to another culture doesn't mean that I am forever free of stereotypes and the POV through which all of my experiences are automatically filtered through. I try to catch myself when I start thinking statements like, "Oh, how weird," but I think the more aware I am of the situation, the more dispairing I am that I'll ever be able to stop myself from judging peoples, cultures, and situations before I act on them. I don't think I ever will be completely free from these bounds, but it somehow hurts a bit to know that I'll always be judging things. It also makes me aware that just because other people are exposed to differences doesn't necessarily mean that their thinking will change. I think that's been my hardest lesson in Japan, that I've noticed with not only Japanese people but with fellow exchange students. It's hard when even after studying in Japan, you hear an American student say something like, "Japanese people can't possibly be healthy, otherwise they'd be taller" or a Japanese student tell me, "I'm going to dye my hair blond, get blue contacts, and become American." The first statement bothers me because it's the type of statement that most people will accept as being fact based, when in fact it's really a matter of cultural perceptions. (After all, I could just as well say that the typical American is too big, and that some of our health problems are based on that.) As for the second statement... Well for heaven's sake, she was saying that to ME. HELLO. I think it's just hard for me because despite everything, I'll still admit that I'm probably one of the most naive and optimistic people I know. I want to believe that people CAN change and that they CAN learn, if not to stop judging people, than to at least acknowledge when they do. It upsets me to think that there may be some people who simply can't achieve that.
On a light note to end the segment, while watching TV, I nearly shocked myself silly when I realized that a commercial for a Mitsubishi brand video guidance system (those little TVs in you car with maps of everything so that you don't get lost...), being very serious and professional and all, was playing Gackt's "Papa lapped a pap lopped" as it's theme song. I simply couldn't believe it. Gackt's got a major CM song now. And it's Paparapa. I mean, him having the theme song to "Gundam: The Ride" was weird enough, but now he's getting a Mitsubishi paycheck? How weird.
depressed
contemplative