Little Ben enjoys the talking bathtub. I want to write about something different today. No cancer stories (although I’ve only scratched the surface), no deep insights (although my heart longs for more), nothing heavy this afternoon (I need a break). Just something different.
Jumping back several years ago, we were on home assignment in the States one summer. While I don’t remember why Stephanie needed to go to the doctor, I do recall the drug store experience when we went to fill her prescription. “What’s your address?” the pharmacist asked me dully. I wasn’t prepared for the question—what does that have to do with buying medicine anyhow? Consequently, I wasn’t sure how to answer.
“Well,” I answered tentatively, “I can give you my parents’ address here in town or I can give you our real address in Japan.”
The pharmacist looked up, suddenly interested and paying attention to us. “You live in Japan?” he deduced. “Wow! That must be really different.”
This time it was Stephanie who answered. “No,” she declared adamantly, “it’s different here.”
And so it was. After all, although American by nationality and passport, she was growing up in Japan and it was the country she knew best. America was different; Japan was normal.
Since I mostly grew up in the United States, I look in at Japan with eyes that first focused there. While I know what is normal in America (although the longer we’re here, the less I truly know my home country), I also understand what is absolutely ordinary—but different—about life in Japan. Such things as . . . .
The tofu vendor. Returning home this week, I came upon him as he pulled his two-wheeled cart behind him on a street near our apartment. Headband around his head, dressed in the traditional hapi coat of vendors and festival dancers, his feet protected by tabi, two-toed style shoes, he was playing a two-note, rather mournful tune on a bamboo flute as he announced his presence in the neighborhood. Except for the thoroughly modern city through which he slowly proceeded, hawking tofu in a friendly, door-to-door fashion, one could have imagined an earlier, simpler Japan, a Japan before refrigeration and state-of-the-art, gleaming grocery stores with plenteous imported products from around the world. The tofu vendor strolls through our streets regularly, a normal part of life in Japan, but certainly different to fully American eyes.
The mass transit system. In Japan, one could get along easily without a car—and with many fewer hassles—thanks to the amazing system of trains and buses and the use of bicycles more for transportation than for recreation. Although things are changing slowly and grudgingly in the United States, it will be a long time before most people can make that claim. Of course, things screeched to a halt yesterday when an approaching typhoon shut down the train lines. But that came as a much needed, appreciated, and unexpected holiday for many people, and who doesn’t love that occasionally?
The language. Here’s an example of just how different Japanese and English are. If you have trouble spelling in English, consider this: Japanese has three distinct “alphabets,” one of which is made up of thousands of word pictures. No sounding out spellings to come up with something relatively close that a reader will figure out somehow. It’s memory entirely. You either know it or you don’t (and mostly I don’t). The more one knows Japanese, the more one sees that the contrasts between the 26-letter English alphabet and Japanese are nothing less than astounding.
And, speaking of language, how about a talking bathtub? Two nights ago, I filled ours for a good soak on the first really chilly evening of fall. I’d forgotten the great talent our tub displays when the water has filled to the programmed (by us) level and heated to our desired temperature. Preceded by great musical fanfare, as if announcing the entry of a king, a lovely female voice emits from the bathtub control box that comes complete with speakers to announce, in Japanese of course, that all bath preparations are complete. If you didn’t know what was happening, you’d be more than startled; you’d surely gasp as you grabbed for a towel to avoid the eyes of a Peeping Tom (or, rather, Tommi) at the window. While fully enjoying the soak, I couldn’t help but smile at the imaginary scene. Different, definitely. But comfortable, too. After all, this is our home.
