I had hardly any help from my company disembarking my flight, so I was on my own! I arrived at the Kansai, Osaka airport feeling confident, smiling and bowing trying my Pimsler's Japanese out, "Konnichiwa-Hello" and "Arigato-Thanks" on the airport staff. There was a foreigner man I saw, once we got to the baggage carousel walking around looking completely terrified and confused, shifting his gaze unintentionally towards me, as if somehow I could ease his sense of panic (as were we both clearly not Japanese and one of the few foreigners there). I smiled at him sympathetically and knew he'd probably try to talk to me. I was right, he scurried along to make sure he was standing close to me in the customs lineup. I casually walked up to the customs agent, put my thumb on the scanner and looked into the camera, as it took my criminal line up picture..no biggie was the air of confidence I was feeling. I could feel his admiration radiating from behind me. After that he caught up to me, asking if I had been to Japan before, I shrugged coolly and said no. He told me about how he was here going to visit a friend but he was confused as to where to meet him and fumbled with his cell phone to try to dial his number. I felt kind of bad for him, but I had to set off on my own..this trip was about my individual exploration after all-so I wasn't going to cling to the first other foreigner I met, warily greeting Japan with shaking knees. No, I was going to do it with style and class! So I said goodbye and strolled along, threw my ginormous bag over my shoulders and fearlessly walked towards the help desk to ask where the train was.
A few moments later standing at the Osaka Kansai airport terminal, my confidence was shot down! I quickly transformed into an awkward foreigner pressing random buttons to try to figure out how to get a ticket. OK, don't panic I thought as I walked to the attendant:
Me: "Do you understand English" (in Japanese)
Attendant:" DuhiuFHUESDbia sahiu" (in Japanese)
Me: "I don't understand you" (in Japanese)
Shit OK, that didn't work. So I tried my luck again at the gambling train ticket machine. As I was pushing away at random buttons like a monkey on a typewriter, I heard English being spoken. I turned to my side and there was a middle-aged couple, that looked like they had a better idea than I did with the machine. I walked over and asked if they could help me. "Not now!"the man practically barked at me. I was taken aback by his harshness. I guess that's what Japan can do to you, even within a few minutes of touching ground, make the most confident person crumble in its confusion and strangeness. Confidence begins to seem highly correlated with one's own cultural barring and could crash and burn once entering into a completely different culture. I was certainly feeling more and more hopeless. Luckily, my airplane seat buddy who happened to be Japanese, strolled up and asked if she could help me. I was so relieved to see her, as I'm sure I had the 'deer-in-the-headlights' look plastered on my face. She was a very sweet lady with broken English, but more-or-less talked me through where to go and tried to help me with my google map of where my hostel was from the main Osaka station. She hurried off bowing and saying 'bye bye' to me. Now it was my turn to be the scared confused man I saw earlier, as all I really wanted was to hold her hand and have her guide me through the maze of confusion that I had got myself into.
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