my top 10 things that have impressed me most in tokyo
i was planning on presenting a list in reverse order, from 10 to 1... but then i decided it's really hard to decide which item is 5th and which item is 6th, etc. so here they are in no particular order...
1. japanese are extremely polite and very orderly. arigatogozaimasu or thank you must be the most commonly said word in the world, not only because there are 130 million japanese people in the world but because they say the word at least 50 times a day.
2. my taka-taka friends are also extremely respectful of the law. i am amazed at how pedestrians stop at traffic lights and wait until they see the green man-light to cross the road. it doesn't matter if there are no cars in sight, they won't cross!
3. safety. for being the biggest city in the world, it's crazy how safe this place is. in all of my travels, i've never felt safer before. people go into stores and leave their dogs tied to poles, with nothing but their leash. they use their laptops and cell phones and ipods and other crazy gadgets in the subway, in the park, just sitting on the sidewalk. somebody told me that you could leave your wallet on a table at a mall, come back 2 hours later, and your wallet would still be sitting there.
oh, but if they do steal it, blame the chinese (or the koreans). it's all their fault...
4. and i mean all. japanese people can be very racist. i still haven't had experienced any racism but i've heard that they don't like black, they don't like brown... and of course, they don't like chinese and korean. but, although i haven't heard anyone express unfounded disgust directly towards any member of these human races, i have indeed heard things like koreans are all ugly (in a conversation that had to do with how to distinguish a japanese from a korean person) or chinese people are very dirty. i guess stories like that of the famous chinese dust effect don't help at all. the japs blame it all on our friends from the continent.
5. how clean the whole city is, especially because tokyo is the largest city in the world! and even despite the fact that it is hard to find garbage cans. i always want to throw away used napkins, chewing gum, a foam cup... and i always have to put it in my bag because i can't find any trash cans.
and here, i must tell a little story that has to do with both the clean and orderly habits of japanese. there are tons of maps all around the city, you know, those standing displays that show the typical "you are here" red dot in a big map of the area. about 3 days ago i noticed some graffiti on one of these maps near my house. the graffiti said you are here in very big, purple letters with a big happy face. it was kind of shocking since it was very big and i hadn't seen any graffiti anywhere around the city.
and then i learned why.
today, only a couple of days after the incident, the graffiti was gone. somebody had cleaned it and i was most impressed they noticed it and cleaned it this quickly.
6. how friendly people are. i think that we have this stereotype in the west that people in japan are very conservative and shy. even this american guy who's been living in japan for the last 20 years told me that japanese people don't usually talk to foreigners. well, i don't know if i've just been lucky or if things are changing, but a lot of people have talked to me just randomly.
i went to this yakitori place for dinner in shinjuku. i ordered 5 chicken skewers, the chef's selection, just to avoid having to choose between heart, tripe, and kidney, etc. i was reading my tokyo guide while eating and all of a sudden this guy taps on my shoulder. i turned around, and it was this 50 year old guy who didn't speak any english. he asked me things like:
kon-to-ri
which i later understood to be country, so he wanted to know where i came from.
mekisko
said i, proud of at least knowing how to say the name of my country in japanese. he offered me some of his top shelf hot sake, and i accepted gladly. and for the next 30 minutes we communicated, sometimes in broken japanese and english... but mostly with pictures and hand gestures. it was great.
he wanted to drink more sake with me but i thought his wife was a bit impatient and i also didn't want him to order another bottle just to drink it with me, so i refused. as soon as they left, another couple sitting next to me turned around and started to talk to me. this time, the guy (atsushi) spoke english because he had lived in texas during his years in elementary school before coming back to tokyo with his family. the guy did all the talking, but i also communicated with his girlfriend, and she told me about miyazaki, nikko, hakone, and all these places i must visit before leaving japan. we exchanged cards and promised to go out for a drink in a couple of weeks.
finally, one other day i was looking at a map on the street, trying to figure out if i could get home taking a different road than the one i usually take. a girl stopped by and asked if she could help me. i tried to explain what i was trying to do and she told me where that road went, but i didn't know if that's where i wanted to go. in the end, she was not very helpful but as i thanked her very heartily for stopping by, she waved at me, bowed, and told me "thanks for speaking with me, i'm studying english and i like to talk in english." i thanked her back and then, when she was gone, i thought i was a fool and i should've asked if she wanted to go for a drink. she was cute too. damn it.
7. how care-free people are... to dress, to act, to do whatever they want. i would think that people here don't ever make fun of their friends, at least not the way we do in mexico or the u.s. yes, perhaps kids call each other "fat" or something like that when they are in school... but i don't think a friend would ever tell another friend how ugly her dress is or how poorly matched her whole outfit is. and i'm saying this precisely because people hang out dressed in the most varied outfits, with both the craziest and the most conservative hair-dos, with the most classy suit or the most unfitting combination of colors: white socks with black shoes and purple pants and red shirts.
the queer eye for the straight guy crew or the people at e! extreme makeover would have a wonderful time here in tokyo!
8. how expensive fruit is! $50 watermelons? $70 grapes? $40 crate of clementines? no... really!!
and 9. and 10. i will write later because i did have another couple of things, but i'm forgetting now...
1. japanese are extremely polite and very orderly. arigatogozaimasu or thank you must be the most commonly said word in the world, not only because there are 130 million japanese people in the world but because they say the word at least 50 times a day.
2. my taka-taka friends are also extremely respectful of the law. i am amazed at how pedestrians stop at traffic lights and wait until they see the green man-light to cross the road. it doesn't matter if there are no cars in sight, they won't cross!
3. safety. for being the biggest city in the world, it's crazy how safe this place is. in all of my travels, i've never felt safer before. people go into stores and leave their dogs tied to poles, with nothing but their leash. they use their laptops and cell phones and ipods and other crazy gadgets in the subway, in the park, just sitting on the sidewalk. somebody told me that you could leave your wallet on a table at a mall, come back 2 hours later, and your wallet would still be sitting there.
oh, but if they do steal it, blame the chinese (or the koreans). it's all their fault...
4. and i mean all. japanese people can be very racist. i still haven't had experienced any racism but i've heard that they don't like black, they don't like brown... and of course, they don't like chinese and korean. but, although i haven't heard anyone express unfounded disgust directly towards any member of these human races, i have indeed heard things like koreans are all ugly (in a conversation that had to do with how to distinguish a japanese from a korean person) or chinese people are very dirty. i guess stories like that of the famous chinese dust effect don't help at all. the japs blame it all on our friends from the continent.
5. how clean the whole city is, especially because tokyo is the largest city in the world! and even despite the fact that it is hard to find garbage cans. i always want to throw away used napkins, chewing gum, a foam cup... and i always have to put it in my bag because i can't find any trash cans.
and here, i must tell a little story that has to do with both the clean and orderly habits of japanese. there are tons of maps all around the city, you know, those standing displays that show the typical "you are here" red dot in a big map of the area. about 3 days ago i noticed some graffiti on one of these maps near my house. the graffiti said you are here in very big, purple letters with a big happy face. it was kind of shocking since it was very big and i hadn't seen any graffiti anywhere around the city.
and then i learned why.
today, only a couple of days after the incident, the graffiti was gone. somebody had cleaned it and i was most impressed they noticed it and cleaned it this quickly.
6. how friendly people are. i think that we have this stereotype in the west that people in japan are very conservative and shy. even this american guy who's been living in japan for the last 20 years told me that japanese people don't usually talk to foreigners. well, i don't know if i've just been lucky or if things are changing, but a lot of people have talked to me just randomly.
i went to this yakitori place for dinner in shinjuku. i ordered 5 chicken skewers, the chef's selection, just to avoid having to choose between heart, tripe, and kidney, etc. i was reading my tokyo guide while eating and all of a sudden this guy taps on my shoulder. i turned around, and it was this 50 year old guy who didn't speak any english. he asked me things like:
kon-to-ri
which i later understood to be country, so he wanted to know where i came from.
mekisko
said i, proud of at least knowing how to say the name of my country in japanese. he offered me some of his top shelf hot sake, and i accepted gladly. and for the next 30 minutes we communicated, sometimes in broken japanese and english... but mostly with pictures and hand gestures. it was great.
he wanted to drink more sake with me but i thought his wife was a bit impatient and i also didn't want him to order another bottle just to drink it with me, so i refused. as soon as they left, another couple sitting next to me turned around and started to talk to me. this time, the guy (atsushi) spoke english because he had lived in texas during his years in elementary school before coming back to tokyo with his family. the guy did all the talking, but i also communicated with his girlfriend, and she told me about miyazaki, nikko, hakone, and all these places i must visit before leaving japan. we exchanged cards and promised to go out for a drink in a couple of weeks.
finally, one other day i was looking at a map on the street, trying to figure out if i could get home taking a different road than the one i usually take. a girl stopped by and asked if she could help me. i tried to explain what i was trying to do and she told me where that road went, but i didn't know if that's where i wanted to go. in the end, she was not very helpful but as i thanked her very heartily for stopping by, she waved at me, bowed, and told me "thanks for speaking with me, i'm studying english and i like to talk in english." i thanked her back and then, when she was gone, i thought i was a fool and i should've asked if she wanted to go for a drink. she was cute too. damn it.
7. how care-free people are... to dress, to act, to do whatever they want. i would think that people here don't ever make fun of their friends, at least not the way we do in mexico or the u.s. yes, perhaps kids call each other "fat" or something like that when they are in school... but i don't think a friend would ever tell another friend how ugly her dress is or how poorly matched her whole outfit is. and i'm saying this precisely because people hang out dressed in the most varied outfits, with both the craziest and the most conservative hair-dos, with the most classy suit or the most unfitting combination of colors: white socks with black shoes and purple pants and red shirts.
the queer eye for the straight guy crew or the people at e! extreme makeover would have a wonderful time here in tokyo!
8. how expensive fruit is! $50 watermelons? $70 grapes? $40 crate of clementines? no... really!!
and 9. and 10. i will write later because i did have another couple of things, but i'm forgetting now...
posted by adrián at 01:51
1 Comments:
you're a fool! you shouldn't have asked her for a drink -- you should have just taken her home!!
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