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.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
The Pilot
So here I am. Entering into the world of blogging, a little more worthwhile than the countless hours on Facebook, but not on the top of my list of high productive goals either. Well I'm hoping to let off a little steam and in the process have some entertaining and anecdotal value to the outside viewer.
I moved to Japan September 2010 and even though almost five months doesn't seem like a hell of a lot of time, it is! One Sunday night after having an hour long conversation with my brother (who had lived in Japan a few years ago), I decided "what the hay" apply to teach English in Japan and see what happens. Little did I know that the company I had signed up for sling shoots it's employees into Japan, so you have little time to think "Wait a minute is this a good idea?" Setting off on this exciting, unknown adventure seemed a great idea at the time -but not everything is as glamorous or thrilling as what my imagination initially creates a picture of. Things are always greener on the other side-is the hindsight quick to come to my mind after my arrival in Japan.
After my interview a few days after submission of my application, I was sent my arrival package and all the visa fixings to go along side. I read through articles, YouTube videos and heard stories about Japan and to be honest, I was scared. Japan is such a different world and no matter how many people tell you this, it doesn't fully click until you are in it. How am I ever going to survive in a place where individual expression is highly frowned upon, woman are treated far below there male counterparts and 44% of the population that claims to be Buddhist (according to the US Department of State website) has no idea what a vegetarian eats!? I knew I was in over my head, but that was the challenge that I had set off on to achieve. This would be a 180-degree turn from my North American mindset, a cultural earthquake that shakes the stable ground of my cultural upbringing.
Up to his point I had traveled to many countries, including, India, Europe, Egypt, Malaysia, Mexico, the Caribbean to name a few, but had only lived in my adult life in Canada, Scotland, New Zealand, Australia and now Japan. I should mention too that I lived in Yemen as a child, which is a very different culture in itself, with many more extremities than Japan, men carrying guns like a casual handbag, woman covered head to toe in black cloth in plus 40 degree weather, or tensions of a war to breakout over what we (Westerners) perceive as something minuscule. This is what I had in mind, that if I had lived a pretty happy existence as a child in Yemen, how hard could Japan really be...but I was wrong!
Japan has a very odd quality that it can be seen by not fully understood unless part of the very large Japanese clique. Of course my viewpoints are biased and skewed based on my experiences here and although my blog may heavily be weighed on the hardships and the oddity of the Japanese ways of life, I do feel a strong affinity towards Japan and all its quirkiness.
I moved to Japan September 2010 and even though almost five months doesn't seem like a hell of a lot of time, it is! One Sunday night after having an hour long conversation with my brother (who had lived in Japan a few years ago), I decided "what the hay" apply to teach English in Japan and see what happens. Little did I know that the company I had signed up for sling shoots it's employees into Japan, so you have little time to think "Wait a minute is this a good idea?" Setting off on this exciting, unknown adventure seemed a great idea at the time -but not everything is as glamorous or thrilling as what my imagination initially creates a picture of. Things are always greener on the other side-is the hindsight quick to come to my mind after my arrival in Japan.
After my interview a few days after submission of my application, I was sent my arrival package and all the visa fixings to go along side. I read through articles, YouTube videos and heard stories about Japan and to be honest, I was scared. Japan is such a different world and no matter how many people tell you this, it doesn't fully click until you are in it. How am I ever going to survive in a place where individual expression is highly frowned upon, woman are treated far below there male counterparts and 44% of the population that claims to be Buddhist (according to the US Department of State website) has no idea what a vegetarian eats!? I knew I was in over my head, but that was the challenge that I had set off on to achieve. This would be a 180-degree turn from my North American mindset, a cultural earthquake that shakes the stable ground of my cultural upbringing.
Up to his point I had traveled to many countries, including, India, Europe, Egypt, Malaysia, Mexico, the Caribbean to name a few, but had only lived in my adult life in Canada, Scotland, New Zealand, Australia and now Japan. I should mention too that I lived in Yemen as a child, which is a very different culture in itself, with many more extremities than Japan, men carrying guns like a casual handbag, woman covered head to toe in black cloth in plus 40 degree weather, or tensions of a war to breakout over what we (Westerners) perceive as something minuscule. This is what I had in mind, that if I had lived a pretty happy existence as a child in Yemen, how hard could Japan really be...but I was wrong!
Japan has a very odd quality that it can be seen by not fully understood unless part of the very large Japanese clique. Of course my viewpoints are biased and skewed based on my experiences here and although my blog may heavily be weighed on the hardships and the oddity of the Japanese ways of life, I do feel a strong affinity towards Japan and all its quirkiness.
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