I arrived in Tokyo today during the early hours of the morning, one minute past midnight to be exact. It was raining. As I left the airport, I saw the streets of Tokyo glimmering through the rain drops that were slowly trickling down the taxi window. I spent the night being held in a quiet, softly lit hotel, and left squinting in hot midmorning sun. I was a little disoriented, and it took me a while to get settled but eventually I got there with the help of my friend. I have not known him for very long at all, but he offered to take the morning off work and help me get on the train to Osaka. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be welcomed in this way… it may have only been a few hours for him, but it has set my whole trip walking on the right foot. If it can be easily afforded, a little kindness goes a long way.
During our conversation, I came to know that there had been a hurricane passing over Japan as the plane was landing this morning. Something I was blissfully unaware of. I did notice that the atmosphere towards the end of the flight was a bit more tense than usual, but I wrote it off as the Japanese culture just being quieter and more cautious than the French culture. And in fact, it is. Immediately on my first day I realised that there is an absence of something in Japan, that is present in French culture. I get the feeling that in Japanese culture, there is an art to leaving certain things unsaid. A silence that speaks loudly, grounded in the importance of giving part of yourself to something or someone bigger than you. Warmth, tenderness, generosity… in each country it has the same name but a different face. And each person expresses the culture in their own way.
For example, even though the Japanese are known to be conservative and shy, I sometimes meet people who remind me that these are simply guiding stereotypes. In the afternoon as I walked towards my accommodation, I met such a person. I was dragging my two suite cases, looking thoroughly confused and not hiding it, and he was watering his garden. As I was walking, I came to a little road that I apparently needed to walk down according to my map online. The only problem was, that this road was incredibly narrow. It was a lane between two lines of houses, but half of it was taken up with a drain in which there was still water flowing. I stopped and considered it for a little while.
I saw the man watering his plants out of the corner of my eye, but I thought that he would be typical and not approach me to help. But I was wrong. He put the hose down and started to walk towards me, it caught my attention. He could not speak any English, save for a few words, one being “okay.” He nodded in the direction of the path, telling me that it was okay for me to walk down. I nodded and then pointed at my suitcases. He nodded back and then tried to explain something in Japanese and making gestures of something I didn’t understand. I laughed nervously. He smiled and walked back into his front yard for a brief moment before returning and picking up one of my bags.
I couldn’t believe it but he started walking with me, holding my bag in his hand. I didn’t know whether to feel shocked or embarrassed or grateful. He walked all the way along the drain, with me following behind him, and then up a flight of stairs. I felt guilty that he was walking up with my things, but I had a big suitcase in my hands to worry about hauling up myself. When we got to the top we hit a flat, dirt path. He pointed forward and made the same gestures as before, now it clicked in my mind what he was trying to say. I nodded to him and he even offered to keep going on with me but I refused and said thank you in Japanese. I then took a bow at a height that I believed to show gratitude and not shame, which I’m sure I did wrong. But I tried, he was older than me after all, and he had taken the time and effort to help a complete stranger get to her apartment.
I continued on down the path and sure enough I could see my apartment on the other side of the road. Before I crossed, a young boy cycled by on the footpath staring at me and smiling with his eyes. All these little things… what a wonderful welcome I have had in this country on my first day. My heart felt full, as I proceeded to figure out how to get inside my accommodation. The surprises have already started coming, and it hasn’t even been 24 hours. This is the first day of learning how to see the same things that all of us long for, in a different form… a different expression.
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