Shouting madness

I wiped the sweat from my face, after dodging multiple promotional enticements (at least this is what I was assuming they were..not one word of Engwish was spoken to me). We all cleaned up and decided to meet downstairs in half an hour. The piles of homework and reading we were given each day, was being pushed off to the side-our two day comrades were departing and what better way to send them off with a few drinks! I shuttered to myself recalling the last time I went hard on the liquor in Japan and vowed I wouldn't do that to myself for at least another week.

We all met downstairs and Karla said she heard a good deal from one of the shouting promoters. I decided I would need to put on my big girl pants and walk out there again, with a death grip on Karla's trousers. We trudged along in the hot humidity to the same spot we were at not long ago. We had our target and charged through the crowd of promoters, into the restaurant we had faith Karla had chosen wisely. There was a man, about the size of an old child, that greeted us with a big grin, which grew even wider when he heard Karla speak Japanese. We relied on Karla once again to order all our dishes and drinks.

A stranger custom for a foreigner in Japan that you will encounter, is that you must yell out to indicate to your server that you want to order. In a polite and generally quiet society, like Japan, this feels quite strange. Sitting there politely, covering my mouth to laugh and consuming as little space as my body can manage, then shouting at the top of my lungs "SUMIMASEN!!!" seems bizzare at first. You do have to yell, as usually the small restaurant space is buzzing with other people, noisy kitchen noises and of course other people's yells to order. I was dumbfounded at first when Karla shouted at the man. He was so nice, and cute and petite, what did he do to deserve to get yelled at, I pleaded to know from Karla. "It's customary to shout, or else no one will know you want to get served," Karla said.

This is one of the many things I have learnt as a foreigner in Japan, that it is quite easy to pigeon hole some of the customs and cultures you see, to be able to organize and become accustomed to what Westerner's may find odd, but it can never and will never work like this. There is always the exception. The timid, quite stereotype in a day-to-day restaurant outing, will change your mind about this with the multiple big, deep voices shouting "Sumimasen!"

A seemingly unpolite custom of shouting at wait staff.