Important Lessons
From My First Week in Japan
It’s not the best timing to invite people on Facebook to follow your new blog and then immediately leave the country without a laptop or any time to write anything.
Standing on the seat is the incorrect way to use a toilet. It also seems like a good way to get pee on your shoes. Sit down, please.
You can use google translate to figure out what the sign says but it is more interesting to guess how McDonalds wants you to behave: don’t throw water bottles, be careful not to bump your head when you nod off at the table, do not do your homework here (or something like that).
You can use a lot of words to warn people, but one well chosen one seems to be enough to get the message across.
Don’t be rude on the subway: Make sure that your baby falls asleep, your grandma does not call her friends, the students do not have fun, and the musician uses his AirPods to rock out.
If the fish goes into the tempura batter and hot oil with his head and tail still attached, those are meant to be eaten. What is less clear is which end you should start with if you just want to taste it to be polite - heads or tails?
In Japan they drive on the left and they also walk on the left. Sometimes. And sometimes they walk on the right. And sometimes down the middle. Inevitably as a tourist you will be in someone’s way.
Spending your first decade of life in Japan does not make you an expert at navigating the subway system a half century later. In our family you can avoid delays by following the white girl even if her directions are counter to her mother in law’s.
You don’t have to open the app to use the Suica card on your phone for subway fare. Despite my son’s insistence that this is the case, and then actually observing it be the case for him, I still go ahead and search for Apple wallet, open it, open Suica and then scan. Just in case…
Small details matter. Sometimes the same symbol can mean different things. Bowtie = Pink Woo Waffles. Fountain = Wipe Poo Water. Another question of heads or tails.
With another week to go, there are bound to be many more important lessons if I just keep my eyes open and look for the signs.
