I have arrived in Japan! My first impressions can be summarized by two words: perfect order. Every block is spotlessly clean, every side street is perfectly paved, and every dark corner at night feels completely safe. When coming across a wallet on the street I was instructed to leave it because “nobody would pick it up” until the owner would come back to find it. At the airport I was approached by two police officers asking to check my passport. Traumatized from travels to countries like Mexico and Brazil, where most encounters with police are undesirable, I became alert and nervous. I quickly realized, however, that in Japan the police are definitively on my side and these two friendly officers, in fact, were mostly just interested in practicing English. I am astonished by how well everything appears to work.
For those of you who might worry about me, please be assured that of course my guard is up regardless of my impression that Japan is quite safe.
I dare say that Japan’s seemingly complete certainty detracts from some of its potential excitement. Whereas in a place like New York, where each area has its own unique feel, spectacles and dangers, to me, each new area in Tokyo feels like nothing more than a new set of clean streets, safety, and large buildings sporting another array of electric colored lights. Truthfully, however, having just arrived, no cell phone, minimal Japanese ability, and no chance to yet contact/create my network of friends, it’s no wonder that it all looks the same to me: I am 95% spectator and 5% participant. I’m sure that as my Japanese develops and I become more immersed I will see each area’s unique character. I am quite excited.
A book I’m reading claims that part of the Japanese predilection for certainty can be traced to Zen instruction taught since the 13th century. The book says, “the ultimate goal in traditional Japanese education… was to become one with the object of training. The goal of the swordsman was to merge his consciousness with his sword; the painter with his brush; the potter with his clay; the garden designer with the materials of the garden. Once this was achieved, as the theory goes, the doing of a thing perfectly was as easy as thinking it.” Such teachings apparently played a significant role in the development of a highly refined, regimented way of doing everything, which apparently is what led to the Japan I’m experiencing today.
In other news, I am currently living in a training house with 12 other trainees from the United States, Canada and Australia. The house is in Omiya, Saitama, which is basically a northern suburb of Tokyo. The training house is comfortable and quite large. We are sleeping three to a room in beds on the floor, which are surprisingly comfortable. Although we are technically not in Tokyo, it is all connected. During a two-hour train ride to arrive here, buildings and lights never ceased to populate the scenery: The greater Tokyo metropolitan area is simply enormous.
The company I’m working for has thus far exceeded my expectations. Our 1.5-week training is quite thorough and very well organized and the trainers are excellent. The company even put some food in the kitchen to help us get started. The company’s teaching methods appear to be well refined (in proper Japanese fashion) and, after studying five languages, I can say that the methods appear to be very high quality, which makes me very happy.
A very interesting five minutes of training was when we were coached on how to score ourselves for self-assessments. The company uses the following scale:
5 – Excels
4 – Exhibits strengths
3 – Average
2 – Needs Improvement
1 – Needs Special and Immediate Attention.
In the United States, we like to give ourselves 4’s and 5’s because we are good and we want our supervisor to know it! Here, however, we are advised to modestly score ourselves with 2’s and 3’s. The reason being that there’s always room for improvement. A few 4’s are advisable though because we were indeed recruited for our strengths. A 5, however, would imply no room for improvement. Then why does 5 exist? Without it, we couldn’t give ourselves 4’s.
I’ve eaten plenty of exotic foods as well. Gooey, stringy fermented soybeans, called Natto, seaweed salad, and fish cakes are a few. Because of the language barrier and a barrage of foods that are unheard of in the states, shopping is basically a crapshoot. Each day though, whatever I end up with, I can count on the fact that the Japanese have the longest life expectancy on earth.
Business is very formal here. We wear suits each day and are conscientious to not slouch, cross our legs, or put our hands in our pockets, which are all signs of rudeness or arrogance. The company president of east Japan came to speak to us last week and it was quite a big deal. We put all of our belongings upstairs except for a notepad and pen and when he entered we all stood, said “nice to meet you” in Japanese, and bowed. He bowed back and we all sat (with EXCELLENT posture I might add!) Our trainer advised us that out of respect we should take careful notes and indicated that he would be doing the same even though he had already heard the speech several times.
And to end with a nice anecdote: Today, a lack of sleep, long hours acting as a mock student, an overly heated room, and the expectation of strict formality became a deadly combination. During a fellow trainee’s presentation practice, he paired us for an exercise. Hardly able to concentrate on the simple exercise, I mistakenly asked a question for which my partner had no answer in his textbook. When he answered in his mock Japanese accent, “I don’t know,” it was over. I laughed and laughed and laughed. It was a complete breakdown. My equally as exhausted partner, who was earlier joking about holding back yawns all day, began laughing as well. The laughter was completely inappropriate yet totally uncontrollable. Because the trainer was watching and we were disturbing the lesson, I of course tried to contain it, but that only made it worse. Soon, from laughing so hard, and trying so hard NOT to laugh, tears were pouring down my face. Soon all three of us were laughing. This continued on and off for the remaining painful 20 minutes of the lesson. Perhaps the situation was not so good, but at least we were having fun!
That is all for now.
Cheers!
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