Time is of the essence

I finished up in the toilet and waited for Brenda. I was fixing my up-do when a man pokes his head into the female toilets. "We're waiting for you!" he bellowed at us. Brenda just opened up the stall door and we both exchanged looks of dread. I ran out the door and Brenda tailed behind. "Shit, shit, shit!" I mumbled to myself. The trainer was holding open the door his face scowling at us. We could see inside the door the CEO was sitting at the front and all heads turned to the door to see the late-comers. I think we were maybe one minute late, but one minute could be one hour in Japan. It was lectured to us several times, in the course of the last day, that in Japan lateness is not tolerated even by a minute. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to walk in confidently. I had to face, yet again, my newfound, perpetual habit of making bad impressions in Japan. Everyone's eyes were on us, even Robin and Merran's with looks of sympathy. The CEO was a cute, balding, petite Japanese man who looked the least bit threatening. I gave him a little smile, as he watched Brenda and I do the walk of shame, but then his eyes shot daggers at me. I shriveled into my chair near the front, mortified. What was wrong with me?? How did I make it through so many other impressionable encounters, in my twenty plus years of life, so flawlessly and now couldn't even half-ass a few here!

I decided, I would have to put on my Hermoine Granger pants and suck up like I've never sucked up before! Bad impressions could be turned around, the last few days were proof of that! I was throwing up my hand at every question enthusiastically, dropping larger than normal words, nodding my head in agreement at every word passed from his lips and even started the slow clap at the end of his presentation!

My Hermoine Granger suck up act, to win back points
for my tardiness.

Time is treated with such respect in Japan, which is a change from what the norm is in many Western countries. Buses are late, people show up a few minutes late for work, drinks, parties, etc and it's almost a given.  The term "Fashionably late," makes lateness seem more cool, to leave your friends, family or colleagues, waiting for your grand arrival. A 5-20 minute buffer zone is given to most people on any given task, so of course people take advantage and time becomes a more flexible, yet rushed phenomenon. In Japan time is exact and precise, there is no buffer zone, no flexibility and less rush. Time is much more orderly and easy to understand, clock strikes one o'clock and one second and your late, doors locked or trains passed. I have come to love the orderliness and prefer it to the counterpart of the West and what concepts of time I've come to know. Traveling and living in many countries I've seen the differences of cultural time and I think Japan has it down-pat. People are less rushed and stressed,  I rarely see people running for trains or getting upset for buses or trains that are running late, because it just doesn't really happen. My friend even told me that Japan has the best transportation system in the world, which I wouldn't doubt, and that even in Tokyo with an average of 6.33 million passengers each day (in 2009), if a train was delayed for any reason, each of the 6.33 million people would get a note of apology from JR (Japan Railways) to give to there employers, stating it was there fault, because lateness is such an uncommon occurrence they can make promises such as these.

This was one fault, that was completely my own, and I made a promise to myself to watch the time, through the eyes of the efficient timely people of Japan.