This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Juliette Wade discusses Bathing in Japan.
Before I actually went to Japan, I'd always been given the impression that Japanese families bathed together. And given my cultural background (and ignorance) I'd figured that was like what I did when I was really little, having baths with my mom or my baby brother. This is not how it works.
Let me start by saying there's a really terrific reason for taking baths in Japan, as opposed to showers. No Japanese home I have visited has had central heating; it's room by room. This means that when I was living with my first host family, I had days when I woke up in the morning with my nose hurting from being so cold; once I checked with a thermometer and discovered it was 3 degrees C in my bedroom. Unfortunately, this was also the period when I didn't feel comfortable with the Japanese way of bathing, and I froze myself silly by trying to take showers. After I moved in with a family that took time to explain things and be friendly, I was sane and used the bath. Still, I would wake to my alarm in the morning, lie still and calculate for several seconds the leap it would take to reach my kerosene heater before making the move and rolling immediately back under my futon cover (I'll do futons another day!).
Every house or apartment I've visited in Japan, no matter how small, has had a bathroom. The traditional Japanese bathroom is completely tiled (or at least water-friendly) and has water sources on the walls outside the bath itself. This means that the area with the sink is not actually in the bathroom. Nor is the toilet, but that too is a topic for another day. When going to bathe, the bather enters the bathroom, sits on a small plastic stool and washes head to toe in the general waterproof area, rinses off, and then at the very end steps into the bathwater, which is mostly for relaxing and warming up. If you've watched the movie My Neighbor Totoro you will have seen an old-fashioned version of this. It makes a lot more sense (at least to me as an American) for people to share the same bathwater when they're each getting clean first.
Some tubs have ways of keeping the water warm, and some don't. All the tubs are deep, though, because they're made for soaking, often up to the neck. High-tech modern tubs may have built-in heating elements, but the funniest thing that ever happened to us when my husband and I lived in Japan was that we got to use an old-style bath belonging to some friends who lived on a tiny island off the north coast of Honshu. In this bath, I was shocked to discover that the longer I sat, the hotter it seemed to get. I had no idea what to make of this, so I took a very quick bath; then my husband discovered the same thing. We had been told before going in to put lots and lots of water in, but because Japanese has a different word for "hot water" (oyu) from "cold water," (omizu) I missed which one had been used, and mistakenly assumed that it was like the US, where when the water gets too cold you add more hot water. Not likely in this case! When my husband and I emerged bright red and asked what was going on, we were told that there was a real fire burning underneath the bathtub! Now I know what a lobster feels like... To make this particular bath pleasant you had to keep pouring in loads of cold water. Little did we know. The family we were staying with laughed their heads off at us, which was great, because it made us feel welcome and like we'd been adopted into the family.
There are also public baths. Towns will have public baths which are relatively simple; resorts (onsen) will have more complicated ones with tubs of different temperatures, fancy waterfalls, etc. Public baths are mostly divided into men's and women's, but are not always. (In some natural hot springs you can even bathe with monkeys - now there's inclusiveness.) Many people will take a washcloth into the tub with them, to cover up critical areas, but in general I haven't noticed a great deal of embarrassment among the people who bathe together in this context. The Japanese people I have observed are more embarrassed about having someone see them in the process of getting undressed than see them naked. Thus, outside the common bath area you'll generally find curtained stalls for the undressing part.
People in a shared bath can in fact be very friendly. Once when we visited an inn near the temples of Mount Koya, I was adopted once by a group of elderly ladies who decided that as a foreigner I must not know how Japanese baths were supposed to work, and took it upon themselves to teach me. Because they were sweet and solicitous, I let them teach me even though I'd been through it a few times by then.
Not only do I find the details of Japanese bathing culturally interesting, I also think they show the degree of cultural difference that is possible surrounding a single activity. You see architectural differences in the bathroom; different shaped tubs; different ways of heating water; a separation of the function of the bathroom (washing) and the bath (soaking); different rules of behavior including gender separation, context for modesty, etc. This doesn't even include the rules about who gets to go first/next/last in the family bathtub. When I first arrived in Japan, I was subjected to strict instruction by my first host family about saying the proper words when I emerged from the bath. The phrase was, "Osaki deshita." At first I had no idea what it meant, but later I realized it was a way of humbly recognizing the fact that the other members of the family had allowed me to bathe before them. Literally it means, "I was foremost."
Of course, since I can't resist generalizing from tiny details of cultural practice, I recommend putting some thought into the details of daily activities in any alien or fantasy culture you're working with. Including a "bath scene" (I have a shower scene in chapter 2 of For Love, For Power) or a scene that shows another common daily activity gives you a terrific opportunity to deepen the culture you're sharing with the reader, to illuminate taboos and other general trends of the society through the use of closely observed detail.
Juliette Wade lived in Japan for a total of three+ years, spending a year with two host families in Kyoto, a year in a dormitory for foreign students in Tokyo, and a year and a half in an apartment in the Tokyo suburbs.
Showing posts with label resident. Show all posts
Showing posts with label resident. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Culture Share: USA - The US through UK Eyes: What's in a Name? And Other Language Differences
This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Laura Pepper Wu discusses her culture shock upon arriving in the USA.
The US through UK Eyes: What’s In a Name? And Other Language Differences.
by Laura Pepper Wu
I think the reason that I experienced so much culture shock on my arrival to the US was that I was totally, 100%, unprepared for it. I had lived in Asia for almost 4 years prior, so moving to the US seemed like it was going to be a breeze. I was expecting no language problems, a similar culture, and I felt that since I had seen so many US movies and TV shows that nothing could surprise me. How wrong I was!
The big, obvious differences were the easiest to grasp and get used to. Within a couple of weeks I no longer gasped at the size of the food portions or the oversized cars that rule the road in California. It took me a little longer to grasp the opening hours of the shops, to feel comfortable driving on the right hand side of the road, to remember that I could turn right on a red light, but perhaps only a month or two. It was the small, subtle differences that really got me. The ones that I couldn't even put my finger on until a visiting friend pointed them out, or until they would suddenly dawn on me months into my stay here. This is what I would like to talk about today.
When British people meet for the first time in any situation, be it at the park, at the pub or even at a party, we rarely, if ever, exchange names until it is absolutely necessary. You can talk to someone at the pub for hours until you ask for their name, usually when he or she is about to leave or you have to excuse yourself. Neighbors might say hello to each other every morning for years without ever knowing what to call each other. If you bump into someone on the street and talk for the first time it might be considered rather intrusive to ever ask for their name without having a good reason to know (for example exchanging phone numbers or to find out if you know people in common). And yet here in the US I am asked for my name on a daily basis. It's usually the first thing people ask when we meet; they extend their hand and say "Hi, I'm John" even before we have had a conversation.
The first time I was asked my name in Starbucks I was shocked that they were going to call out my name and everyone in the store would know who I was and what I had ordered. It just seemed so personal!
I also realized early on that it is important for Americans to be called by their full name and that shortening the name might be considered rude or disrespectful. For Brits it's the norm; David is always Dave, Benjamin is always Ben, Thomas is usually Tom. And the abbreviations don't stop there. We will often replace a name with honey, love, babe, chuck, duck, sweetie, mate - anything to avoid using the name which might be construed as aggressive or too direct. In my dealings with American friends I have found it to be quite the opposite. Emails and texts will often begin with Dear Laura, Hi Laura and so on, which I have slowly learned is not aggressive but is instead considered to be respectful. This took me a while to get used to - I have a string of nicknames that I am known by and nobody calls me Laura in England except for my mother (and only when she is angry!)
Moving on from names, but remaining on the topic of the use of language, another subtle culture difference that I notice is the usage of the words sorry and thank you. Observe a transaction with a Brit over the counter and the Brit might say thank you several times; once when handing over the item to the cashier, once when receiving change, once when receiving the item back, and perhaps once again just for good measure. Here in the US I noticed that one thank you is sufficient, if it is said at all. Sorry is again used sparingly compared to the Brits; we are more likely to apologize to others for every small inconvenience that we cause which I have been told appears as passive or weak to an American.
When we talk about the difference between American English and British English, the emphasis is often on vocabulary. We say porridge, you say oatmeal; we say cotton bud, you say q-tip and so on. But the differences extend much further than that, to grammar as well. Brits ask questions differently using a lot more of the present perfect tense: “Have you had a nice day?” versus “Did you have a nice day?”. “Have you been dieting?” versus “Are you on a diet?”. I’ve certainly sub-consciously used the present perfect less since moving to the US; many of my friends and family in California speak English as a second language and would certainly have difficulty understanding what I was saying if I spoke English how I did 5 years ago.
To anyone making the transatlantic move, or to those in business who might deal with clients or colleagues from “across the pond”, I think it’s important for us to realise that just because we speak a similar language, we are two different cultures with two very different ways of thinking and interacting. This is something that has surprised me and continues to surprise me everyday and is worth keeping in mind.
How about you: have you ever had culture shock in a land that you thought you should be familiar with?
Born and raised in England, Laura Pepper Wu set off to Japan for a post-college adventure 5 years ago and hasn't quite made it back yet! She and her husband now live in sunny California where she writes to her heart's content and runs the site http://LadiesWhoCritique.com: a community for writers of all levels to find the perfect critique partner.
The US through UK Eyes: What’s In a Name? And Other Language Differences.
by Laura Pepper Wu
I think the reason that I experienced so much culture shock on my arrival to the US was that I was totally, 100%, unprepared for it. I had lived in Asia for almost 4 years prior, so moving to the US seemed like it was going to be a breeze. I was expecting no language problems, a similar culture, and I felt that since I had seen so many US movies and TV shows that nothing could surprise me. How wrong I was!
The big, obvious differences were the easiest to grasp and get used to. Within a couple of weeks I no longer gasped at the size of the food portions or the oversized cars that rule the road in California. It took me a little longer to grasp the opening hours of the shops, to feel comfortable driving on the right hand side of the road, to remember that I could turn right on a red light, but perhaps only a month or two. It was the small, subtle differences that really got me. The ones that I couldn't even put my finger on until a visiting friend pointed them out, or until they would suddenly dawn on me months into my stay here. This is what I would like to talk about today.
When British people meet for the first time in any situation, be it at the park, at the pub or even at a party, we rarely, if ever, exchange names until it is absolutely necessary. You can talk to someone at the pub for hours until you ask for their name, usually when he or she is about to leave or you have to excuse yourself. Neighbors might say hello to each other every morning for years without ever knowing what to call each other. If you bump into someone on the street and talk for the first time it might be considered rather intrusive to ever ask for their name without having a good reason to know (for example exchanging phone numbers or to find out if you know people in common). And yet here in the US I am asked for my name on a daily basis. It's usually the first thing people ask when we meet; they extend their hand and say "Hi, I'm John" even before we have had a conversation.
The first time I was asked my name in Starbucks I was shocked that they were going to call out my name and everyone in the store would know who I was and what I had ordered. It just seemed so personal!
I also realized early on that it is important for Americans to be called by their full name and that shortening the name might be considered rude or disrespectful. For Brits it's the norm; David is always Dave, Benjamin is always Ben, Thomas is usually Tom. And the abbreviations don't stop there. We will often replace a name with honey, love, babe, chuck, duck, sweetie, mate - anything to avoid using the name which might be construed as aggressive or too direct. In my dealings with American friends I have found it to be quite the opposite. Emails and texts will often begin with Dear Laura, Hi Laura and so on, which I have slowly learned is not aggressive but is instead considered to be respectful. This took me a while to get used to - I have a string of nicknames that I am known by and nobody calls me Laura in England except for my mother (and only when she is angry!)
Moving on from names, but remaining on the topic of the use of language, another subtle culture difference that I notice is the usage of the words sorry and thank you. Observe a transaction with a Brit over the counter and the Brit might say thank you several times; once when handing over the item to the cashier, once when receiving change, once when receiving the item back, and perhaps once again just for good measure. Here in the US I noticed that one thank you is sufficient, if it is said at all. Sorry is again used sparingly compared to the Brits; we are more likely to apologize to others for every small inconvenience that we cause which I have been told appears as passive or weak to an American.
When we talk about the difference between American English and British English, the emphasis is often on vocabulary. We say porridge, you say oatmeal; we say cotton bud, you say q-tip and so on. But the differences extend much further than that, to grammar as well. Brits ask questions differently using a lot more of the present perfect tense: “Have you had a nice day?” versus “Did you have a nice day?”. “Have you been dieting?” versus “Are you on a diet?”. I’ve certainly sub-consciously used the present perfect less since moving to the US; many of my friends and family in California speak English as a second language and would certainly have difficulty understanding what I was saying if I spoke English how I did 5 years ago.
To anyone making the transatlantic move, or to those in business who might deal with clients or colleagues from “across the pond”, I think it’s important for us to realise that just because we speak a similar language, we are two different cultures with two very different ways of thinking and interacting. This is something that has surprised me and continues to surprise me everyday and is worth keeping in mind.
How about you: have you ever had culture shock in a land that you thought you should be familiar with?
Born and raised in England, Laura Pepper Wu set off to Japan for a post-college adventure 5 years ago and hasn't quite made it back yet! She and her husband now live in sunny California where she writes to her heart's content and runs the site http://LadiesWhoCritique.com: a community for writers of all levels to find the perfect critique partner.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Culture Share: USA - The Reno you didn't see
This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures. Colin Fisk discusses Reno, Nevada in the wake of the 2011 WorldCon science fiction and fantasy convention.
After reading a lot of Twitter and blogs posts from WorldCon about Reno, I thought people might want to see a different side of the town than the absurdly tacky, smoke-filled casinos that were, for many people, their only images of Reno. Even those who left the convention for the morning “Walk with the Stars” didn’t see an area of town that would leave a favorable impression. I should clarify this was not the fault of the organizers, but given the walk was designed to get people out of the hotel/convention hall for a quick stroll and have them back in time for the first panels of the day, the options were limited and the route chosen was the only one which had any small amount of nature in it.
The sad truth is that the area between the Peppermill and the Atlantis/Convention Center is on the edge of the low income/gang territories. So for those convention goers, Reno definitely gave an impression that was less than favorable. And, should people have decided to venture downtown, they most likely did so down South Virginia which is a quirky combination of art stores, neat resale/antique shops, low rent hotels and a lot of smut: from sleazy lingerie shops to exotic dancer “gentleman’s” clubs complete with large LED signs which rival the Peppermill and Atlantis. And then there’s downtown. In the space of six blocks you can go through the beautiful Riverwalk with its art galleries and downtown water adventure park which is home to many events including an annual kayak race, stroll past one of the oldest churches in the west as well as another which still has a working pipe organ and come face to face with a lot of half-gutted casinos which were being refurbished into luxury condominiums when the economy went south as well as pawn shops and the flashing lights of gambling halls in “attract mode.”
Looking at Reno from these viewpoints it doesn’t seem to have a lot to offer.
I won’t go into the amazing laundry list of places to go and geological wonders the area has (for example, most people don’t know that the Truckee river, which flows through downtown, runs south to north, one of a few rivers in the world to do so), which were discussed at the aptly named Welcome to Reno panel which opened WorldCon on Wednesday. I’m not even going to discuss the artistic culture which ranges from the aforementioned Riverwalk, a plethora of pre-Burning Man events (the majority of the large temples are constructed in Reno), to the month-long celebration of art in July with the not so creative name of Artown (http://www.renoisartown.com/) as well as many Burning Man groups such as the Controlled Burn fire dancers who make their permanent residence here.
From my perspective, one of the attractions of Reno that many people who visit will most likely never experience is the melding of suburbia with nature.
I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for the better part of twenty-five years. During that time, the majority of my time was spent in suburban areas. On any given day, the fauna you were exposed to was limited to small birds with perhaps the occasional raccoon or opossum at night.
The area we live in in Reno was swampy farmland some fifteen years ago. Today, the majority of the swamp has been drained and large suburban tracts exist. However, in order to maintain adequate drainage, throughout these suburban areas there are ponds and the natural channels which fed the wetlands less than two decades before.
As a result, there exists small ecosystems within the cookie cutter housing tracts, all lined with walking paths which allow nature to maintain an odd balance within the intrusion of human housing growth.
In the open space behind our house (less than 100 yards to a major road so not as wide as to encourage a complete reclaiming by nature), there are a pair of mated Northern Harriers that have lived there for the five years we have. It’s a daily occurrence for the female of the pair to cruise through our backyard at dusk and often the male hunts through our yard several times during the daylight. The same area this year has been home to a pair of mated Red-tailed hawks. Though we live several miles from the hills, it’s not uncommon during the summer to hear coyotes trying to bait the local dogs out into the field behind our house.
My wife and I walk most days or evenings along this path; a loop totaling two and a half miles which takes us past a pond some two hundred yards from our front door and down alongside the drainage canals. As an amateur photographer, I’ve now cataloged seventeen or more different types of ducks in the pond, not to mention the Great Blue Herons and Egrets (both Snowy and Great,) and, much to our delight, a mated pair of Night Herons which had three offspring a year ago, two of which have stayed in the area as well.
Several times a year, the pond also hosts white pelicans. As I understand it, many years ago Pyramid Lake (home to some amazing Paiute petroglyphs on the nearby reservation) was an inland sea. As such, there are still pelicans which are native to the area, and while there has been a group of three that have been weekending on our pond for several months, usually our view of the pelicans come in the form of a vanguard of consisting of a few one afternoon, a flotilla upwards of sixty the following day and the next morning they take flight again toward their ultimate destination.
The additional birds which inhabit the pond and drainage range from the American Avocet, to Sandpipers, Virginia Rail, Sora as well as Flickers, Tern and vibrantly colored Swallows. During the winter, the pond has plays host to the occasional Snow Goose as well as many Kestrels.
So, for every glowing slot machine that beckons you to leave your money behind, nature counters with the occasional black bear wandering down from the Lake Tahoe area. For each classic car that comes to town for Hot August Nights, many species of hawks fly above the town. During the ski season, four wheel drive SUV’s with California plates slip and slide through intersections as magpies look down contemptuously from lamp posts. And while the bald eagle balloon which makes its appearance every year at the Great Balloon Race is neat, it doesn’t compare to the actual Bald and Golden Eagles which float higher than their propane-heated counterparts.
Colin Fisk lives in Reno, Nevada.
After reading a lot of Twitter and blogs posts from WorldCon about Reno, I thought people might want to see a different side of the town than the absurdly tacky, smoke-filled casinos that were, for many people, their only images of Reno. Even those who left the convention for the morning “Walk with the Stars” didn’t see an area of town that would leave a favorable impression. I should clarify this was not the fault of the organizers, but given the walk was designed to get people out of the hotel/convention hall for a quick stroll and have them back in time for the first panels of the day, the options were limited and the route chosen was the only one which had any small amount of nature in it.
The sad truth is that the area between the Peppermill and the Atlantis/Convention Center is on the edge of the low income/gang territories. So for those convention goers, Reno definitely gave an impression that was less than favorable. And, should people have decided to venture downtown, they most likely did so down South Virginia which is a quirky combination of art stores, neat resale/antique shops, low rent hotels and a lot of smut: from sleazy lingerie shops to exotic dancer “gentleman’s” clubs complete with large LED signs which rival the Peppermill and Atlantis. And then there’s downtown. In the space of six blocks you can go through the beautiful Riverwalk with its art galleries and downtown water adventure park which is home to many events including an annual kayak race, stroll past one of the oldest churches in the west as well as another which still has a working pipe organ and come face to face with a lot of half-gutted casinos which were being refurbished into luxury condominiums when the economy went south as well as pawn shops and the flashing lights of gambling halls in “attract mode.”
Looking at Reno from these viewpoints it doesn’t seem to have a lot to offer.
I won’t go into the amazing laundry list of places to go and geological wonders the area has (for example, most people don’t know that the Truckee river, which flows through downtown, runs south to north, one of a few rivers in the world to do so), which were discussed at the aptly named Welcome to Reno panel which opened WorldCon on Wednesday. I’m not even going to discuss the artistic culture which ranges from the aforementioned Riverwalk, a plethora of pre-Burning Man events (the majority of the large temples are constructed in Reno), to the month-long celebration of art in July with the not so creative name of Artown (http://www.renoisartown.com/) as well as many Burning Man groups such as the Controlled Burn fire dancers who make their permanent residence here.
From my perspective, one of the attractions of Reno that many people who visit will most likely never experience is the melding of suburbia with nature.
I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for the better part of twenty-five years. During that time, the majority of my time was spent in suburban areas. On any given day, the fauna you were exposed to was limited to small birds with perhaps the occasional raccoon or opossum at night.
The area we live in in Reno was swampy farmland some fifteen years ago. Today, the majority of the swamp has been drained and large suburban tracts exist. However, in order to maintain adequate drainage, throughout these suburban areas there are ponds and the natural channels which fed the wetlands less than two decades before.
As a result, there exists small ecosystems within the cookie cutter housing tracts, all lined with walking paths which allow nature to maintain an odd balance within the intrusion of human housing growth.
In the open space behind our house (less than 100 yards to a major road so not as wide as to encourage a complete reclaiming by nature), there are a pair of mated Northern Harriers that have lived there for the five years we have. It’s a daily occurrence for the female of the pair to cruise through our backyard at dusk and often the male hunts through our yard several times during the daylight. The same area this year has been home to a pair of mated Red-tailed hawks. Though we live several miles from the hills, it’s not uncommon during the summer to hear coyotes trying to bait the local dogs out into the field behind our house.
My wife and I walk most days or evenings along this path; a loop totaling two and a half miles which takes us past a pond some two hundred yards from our front door and down alongside the drainage canals. As an amateur photographer, I’ve now cataloged seventeen or more different types of ducks in the pond, not to mention the Great Blue Herons and Egrets (both Snowy and Great,) and, much to our delight, a mated pair of Night Herons which had three offspring a year ago, two of which have stayed in the area as well.
Several times a year, the pond also hosts white pelicans. As I understand it, many years ago Pyramid Lake (home to some amazing Paiute petroglyphs on the nearby reservation) was an inland sea. As such, there are still pelicans which are native to the area, and while there has been a group of three that have been weekending on our pond for several months, usually our view of the pelicans come in the form of a vanguard of consisting of a few one afternoon, a flotilla upwards of sixty the following day and the next morning they take flight again toward their ultimate destination.
The additional birds which inhabit the pond and drainage range from the American Avocet, to Sandpipers, Virginia Rail, Sora as well as Flickers, Tern and vibrantly colored Swallows. During the winter, the pond has plays host to the occasional Snow Goose as well as many Kestrels.
So, for every glowing slot machine that beckons you to leave your money behind, nature counters with the occasional black bear wandering down from the Lake Tahoe area. For each classic car that comes to town for Hot August Nights, many species of hawks fly above the town. During the ski season, four wheel drive SUV’s with California plates slip and slide through intersections as magpies look down contemptuously from lamp posts. And while the bald eagle balloon which makes its appearance every year at the Great Balloon Race is neat, it doesn’t compare to the actual Bald and Golden Eagles which float higher than their propane-heated counterparts.
Colin Fisk lives in Reno, Nevada.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Culture Share: Australia - Through the Looking Glass
This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Juliette Wade discusses her discovery of Melbourne, Australia.
Before I ever went to Australia, my images of it were mostly about animals. After all, we see them on nature programs - the koala, the kangaroo, the dingo, the emu, the platypus and occasionally the echidna. When I met my husband, who hails from Melbourne, I'm embarrassed to say that was the first time I'd ever taken the time to think about the human population of Australia to any extensive degree. Obviously I've learned a lot more since then! (Phew!)
When I started visiting Australia with a view to making it my second home, I got a very different view of it. I came out of the experience of Europe, where there are lots of countries side by side, often with distinct and mutually unintelligible languages - that, and Japan, where almost everything is unintelligible at first. From that perspective, Australia seemed much like home. It's not even just that the people speak English. The place is clearly a former English colony, and all kinds of little things resemble America, even as a whole lot of other things resemble England. The result is something uniquely Australian, but to this day whenever I'm there I have the sense that I've traveled through the looking-glass.
I remember how Lewis Carroll described the world within the looking-glass: every part of it that you could see by looking in the mirror was the same as this world, but every part of it that was outside the reach of the mirror's view was entirely different.
It fits rather well, of course, with the fact that in Australia, people drive on the left-hand side of the road. On my first visit, I had come direct from Japan where they also drive on the left, so it didn't trouble me much to look right first when crossing the street. However, since I never actually drove a car in Japan, the trouble I had was in walking to the incorrect side of the car. To this day, even after all the time I've spent in Australia, I still occasionally walk to the right side of the car expecting to find the passenger's seat! When you're driving, in fact, it's less difficult to figure out which side of the road to be on, and much harder to choose the correct side of the steering wheel (windshield wipers or turn signal, which in Australia is called the "indicator"). Also, because of one's different position in the car, it's easy to drive too close to the left-hand shoulder.
There are other things too that seem literally backwards. The toilet and other drains swirl the opposite direction (I had a commenter point out that the association between this and the Coriolis effect was considered urban legend - but I have noticed the backwards swirl, and I wonder what else might cause it!). Then of course there is the fact that autumn (they don't call it fall) comes in April and spring in September.
I very clearly remember walking down the sidewalk (the "pavement") with my husband on a beautiful 80-degree-Fahrenheit day (roughly 27 degrees C to an Australian) which happened to be Christmas Eve. You could buy Christmas cards with Santa on a surfboard at the news agent's, which is like a stationery shop plus newspaper and magazine source, and all the while the public speakers were playing "Walking in a Winter Wonderland." It was extremely surreal for someone from the northern hemisphere.
One of the other interesting things I've discovered in Australia, which may or may not be common to other places in the southern hemisphere, is that the quality of sunlight is different. My gut instinct is to say that the sunlight seems brighter, though I'm pretty sure it's not literally brighter, only coming from a different angle. Certainly to anyone accustomed to gauging direction based on the sun's position, it can be a confusing place (my father and my brother noted this particularly).
As a person from California I am quite accustomed to the presence of eucalyptus trees. The San Francisco Bay Area is full of eucalyptus groves. What stood out to me about the gum trees of Australia were the sheer number and variety of them. Australia is home to vast forests which appear, at least at first glance, to be composed of about 75% eucalyptus. The other thing, of course, is that when you're in a grove of gum trees in Australia it's worth looking up to see if you can find a koala. It took me a good three years or so to break my husband of this "looking-up" habit whenever we encountered eucalyptus groves. I can see why he misses the possibility of koalas, though. While I haven't seen many, in spite of much looking, I still love the possibility of finding one myself. And of course I love the sound of kookaburras.
There are so many details that I could go on forever, but I do want to mention two things I particularly notice about Melbourne. In California we have a lot of strip malls - on a piece of land to one side of the road you'll have a large parking lot and on the inward side of it will be a long building, sometimes with end pieces like a bracket. This building will be divided into a number of smaller shops and restaurants. Melbourne doesn't have these strip malls. There is no "parking lot at the side of the road" phenomenon. Going to run errands is called "going up the shops" and the shops are right along both sides of the main road. Often enough the shop buildings share a wall, even if their heights and appearances are different. The closest thing to a strip mall is a long building along one side of the road (with the pavement directly in front of it), which gets divided into smaller establishments. You might find a news agent's, a chemist's (pharmacy), an op shop (like Goodwill), a bakery, a milk bar (like a snack bar, with ice cream bars and meat pies and candy bars, etc.), all side by side. Their doors will be kept open, but will have thick strips of clear plastic hanging down across them to prevent the entry of flies (you push them aside as you enter). The stores won't have small cloth awnings. Often what you'll find is something that appears half awning, half roof - an awning that sticks far out from the front of the building, supported by poles, which entirely shades the sidewalk. The names of the shops are labeled above this, or at the front edge.
Melbourne also has some beautiful historic homes with special ironwork which deserves mention. I see it as one of the defining characteristics of Melburnian architecture, much like the ironwork that you see in New Orleans, but in an entirely different style.
Australia is an awesome place, and I find Melbourne to be one of my favorite places in the world, even beyond the natural affection that comes with its being the home of my favorite person. I hope you'll have a chance to go through the looking glass too, one day. When you get there, remember that "G'day" is pronounced with some stress on both halves, like you're saying "good day" without the first "d."
G'day everybody!
Before I ever went to Australia, my images of it were mostly about animals. After all, we see them on nature programs - the koala, the kangaroo, the dingo, the emu, the platypus and occasionally the echidna. When I met my husband, who hails from Melbourne, I'm embarrassed to say that was the first time I'd ever taken the time to think about the human population of Australia to any extensive degree. Obviously I've learned a lot more since then! (Phew!)When I started visiting Australia with a view to making it my second home, I got a very different view of it. I came out of the experience of Europe, where there are lots of countries side by side, often with distinct and mutually unintelligible languages - that, and Japan, where almost everything is unintelligible at first. From that perspective, Australia seemed much like home. It's not even just that the people speak English. The place is clearly a former English colony, and all kinds of little things resemble America, even as a whole lot of other things resemble England. The result is something uniquely Australian, but to this day whenever I'm there I have the sense that I've traveled through the looking-glass.
I remember how Lewis Carroll described the world within the looking-glass: every part of it that you could see by looking in the mirror was the same as this world, but every part of it that was outside the reach of the mirror's view was entirely different.
It fits rather well, of course, with the fact that in Australia, people drive on the left-hand side of the road. On my first visit, I had come direct from Japan where they also drive on the left, so it didn't trouble me much to look right first when crossing the street. However, since I never actually drove a car in Japan, the trouble I had was in walking to the incorrect side of the car. To this day, even after all the time I've spent in Australia, I still occasionally walk to the right side of the car expecting to find the passenger's seat! When you're driving, in fact, it's less difficult to figure out which side of the road to be on, and much harder to choose the correct side of the steering wheel (windshield wipers or turn signal, which in Australia is called the "indicator"). Also, because of one's different position in the car, it's easy to drive too close to the left-hand shoulder.
There are other things too that seem literally backwards. The toilet and other drains swirl the opposite direction (I had a commenter point out that the association between this and the Coriolis effect was considered urban legend - but I have noticed the backwards swirl, and I wonder what else might cause it!). Then of course there is the fact that autumn (they don't call it fall) comes in April and spring in September.
I very clearly remember walking down the sidewalk (the "pavement") with my husband on a beautiful 80-degree-Fahrenheit day (roughly 27 degrees C to an Australian) which happened to be Christmas Eve. You could buy Christmas cards with Santa on a surfboard at the news agent's, which is like a stationery shop plus newspaper and magazine source, and all the while the public speakers were playing "Walking in a Winter Wonderland." It was extremely surreal for someone from the northern hemisphere.
One of the other interesting things I've discovered in Australia, which may or may not be common to other places in the southern hemisphere, is that the quality of sunlight is different. My gut instinct is to say that the sunlight seems brighter, though I'm pretty sure it's not literally brighter, only coming from a different angle. Certainly to anyone accustomed to gauging direction based on the sun's position, it can be a confusing place (my father and my brother noted this particularly).
As a person from California I am quite accustomed to the presence of eucalyptus trees. The San Francisco Bay Area is full of eucalyptus groves. What stood out to me about the gum trees of Australia were the sheer number and variety of them. Australia is home to vast forests which appear, at least at first glance, to be composed of about 75% eucalyptus. The other thing, of course, is that when you're in a grove of gum trees in Australia it's worth looking up to see if you can find a koala. It took me a good three years or so to break my husband of this "looking-up" habit whenever we encountered eucalyptus groves. I can see why he misses the possibility of koalas, though. While I haven't seen many, in spite of much looking, I still love the possibility of finding one myself. And of course I love the sound of kookaburras.There are so many details that I could go on forever, but I do want to mention two things I particularly notice about Melbourne. In California we have a lot of strip malls - on a piece of land to one side of the road you'll have a large parking lot and on the inward side of it will be a long building, sometimes with end pieces like a bracket. This building will be divided into a number of smaller shops and restaurants. Melbourne doesn't have these strip malls. There is no "parking lot at the side of the road" phenomenon. Going to run errands is called "going up the shops" and the shops are right along both sides of the main road. Often enough the shop buildings share a wall, even if their heights and appearances are different. The closest thing to a strip mall is a long building along one side of the road (with the pavement directly in front of it), which gets divided into smaller establishments. You might find a news agent's, a chemist's (pharmacy), an op shop (like Goodwill), a bakery, a milk bar (like a snack bar, with ice cream bars and meat pies and candy bars, etc.), all side by side. Their doors will be kept open, but will have thick strips of clear plastic hanging down across them to prevent the entry of flies (you push them aside as you enter). The stores won't have small cloth awnings. Often what you'll find is something that appears half awning, half roof - an awning that sticks far out from the front of the building, supported by poles, which entirely shades the sidewalk. The names of the shops are labeled above this, or at the front edge.
Melbourne also has some beautiful historic homes with special ironwork which deserves mention. I see it as one of the defining characteristics of Melburnian architecture, much like the ironwork that you see in New Orleans, but in an entirely different style.
Australia is an awesome place, and I find Melbourne to be one of my favorite places in the world, even beyond the natural affection that comes with its being the home of my favorite person. I hope you'll have a chance to go through the looking glass too, one day. When you get there, remember that "G'day" is pronounced with some stress on both halves, like you're saying "good day" without the first "d."
G'day everybody!
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Culture Share: Middle East - A Glimpse into an Uncommon Childhood
This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Margaret McGaffey Fisk describes an experience she had while living in the Middle East as a child of the Foreign Service.
A Glimpse into an Uncommon Childhood by Margaret McGaffey Fisk
I am a Foreign Service brat. What this means is that my parents at the time of my growing up - most of the time my father, then both parents, and finally my mother after my father retired - were Foreign Service Officers, members of the United States diplomatic corps. I grew up in many countries (well okay not that many) but I grew up in the Middle East. And my parents, to be perfectly honest, fit the model of hippies very well. This worked as an advantage for the State Department because they got people who were fascinated by other cultures and enjoyed learning languages. These are all aspects that make a diplomat good, make a diplomat part of the place where they are, at least in my opinion of course.
One of the things that we used to do to connect to the country where we lived is go on what my parents called Magical Mystery Tours. Now, I didn't learn about the Beatles version of Magical Mystery Tours until much later. I thought it was my parents' creation and that they were so creative.
Anyway, how a magical mystery tour worked was everybody got in the car--there were five of us, my parents, my two sisters, and me - and we took turns at every intersection choosing a direction. The only part that was not random was we got to choose the starting point. In our case, this was almost without exception, "the mountains" (usually any exceptions were when Mom overruled, and the inner city tours were really just as fabulous in reality). This meant taking our Range Rover, or whatever off-road vehicle we had at the time, into the desert to climb mountains, visit abandoned structures, meet nomadic tribes or small villages, and whatever else
we could find enjoyment in on our random paths.
On one of those trips - at this point I don't remember age or which country, but we were small (I believe it was Afghanistan) - we found a minaret standing in the middle of the desert completely by itself, nothing anywhere near. Now if that happened in the States, you might think twice about it. In Afghanistan or Iran, we found a lot of these. We explored all sorts of archeological sites that were left unattended.
In this case we went up to the top of the minaret using the staircase that spiraled up its length. We looked at the minaret, we looked from it, and knowing us, we might have even tried some calls from the top. I don't remember for sure, but we enjoyed exploring this archeological site.
And then we went down to the bottom, set out our picnic, and sat down to eat.
Now the key point of the picnic in my memory is that we were drinking Coke in the old green glass bottles, something that becomes relevant later.
Anyway, so here we were drinking our Cokes, eating sandwiches, and having a wonderful time in the middle of a desert in the middle of nowhere when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, coming up over a hill...was an army.
What did we do?
Well, I don't remember specifically what I did. Probably gawked, more fascinating in what was happening than interested in self-preservation.
My parents were not so taken in by the sight. They grabbed all of us bodily, along with the picnic things and threw everything into the car. I remember all three of us were huddling in the back back, the space behind the back seat. Yes, this was before seatbelt laws and it was a lot faster to toss us in with all the picnic stuff.
Then they got into the car and drove off as fast as they could.
This is where my memories become distinct, tactile even.
I remember sitting on the hard floor of the back back with my thumb over the top of my open Coke, peeking my head up to see these soldiers charging after us. They were firing their rifles right at us, and I remember the sounds of the guns going off, and laughing with my sisters as we hit bumps that sent us bouncing toward the ceiling.
Great excitement.
And every once in a while I would pop my thumb off the Coke and swallow a sip with my mouth over the whole thing, then slam my thumb back so I didn't make a mess.
It was wonderful and exciting and marvelous.
Meanwhile my mother was twisted back in her seat screaming, "Keep your heads down," every time we sneaked a look.
It took at least ten years before I turned my own perceptions around when writing a fictionalized account for a class and saw the situation through my mother's eyes. She was not caught up in the adventure. She was sitting there seeing real guns fired at her children and trying to keep us safe.
However, that has not, clearly, changed the excitement and delight of the whole situation, a wonderful day trip into the desert that became an adventure. I guess there's no question as to why, years later when I saw it, I really enjoyed Raiders of the Lost Arc?
I have no idea what kind of person I would have turned out to be if I'd been raised in the States, but the life I did lead was full of wonderful fodder for tales like this, while giving me a grounding in the consequences of when cultures clash. Not only that, but I spent my days with ex-pat or diplomatic folks, the reason behind my current amateur philosopher status.
Thanks, Juliette, for the opportunity to relive this moment, and I hope you all have enjoyed reading something I usually recount in person with gesticulating arms and tonal emphasis.
Margaret McGaffey Fisk writes science fiction and fantasy; she lived with her family in more than one Middle Eastern country as a child, but currently resides in Reno, Nevada.
A Glimpse into an Uncommon Childhood by Margaret McGaffey Fisk
I am a Foreign Service brat. What this means is that my parents at the time of my growing up - most of the time my father, then both parents, and finally my mother after my father retired - were Foreign Service Officers, members of the United States diplomatic corps. I grew up in many countries (well okay not that many) but I grew up in the Middle East. And my parents, to be perfectly honest, fit the model of hippies very well. This worked as an advantage for the State Department because they got people who were fascinated by other cultures and enjoyed learning languages. These are all aspects that make a diplomat good, make a diplomat part of the place where they are, at least in my opinion of course.
One of the things that we used to do to connect to the country where we lived is go on what my parents called Magical Mystery Tours. Now, I didn't learn about the Beatles version of Magical Mystery Tours until much later. I thought it was my parents' creation and that they were so creative.
Anyway, how a magical mystery tour worked was everybody got in the car--there were five of us, my parents, my two sisters, and me - and we took turns at every intersection choosing a direction. The only part that was not random was we got to choose the starting point. In our case, this was almost without exception, "the mountains" (usually any exceptions were when Mom overruled, and the inner city tours were really just as fabulous in reality). This meant taking our Range Rover, or whatever off-road vehicle we had at the time, into the desert to climb mountains, visit abandoned structures, meet nomadic tribes or small villages, and whatever else
we could find enjoyment in on our random paths.
On one of those trips - at this point I don't remember age or which country, but we were small (I believe it was Afghanistan) - we found a minaret standing in the middle of the desert completely by itself, nothing anywhere near. Now if that happened in the States, you might think twice about it. In Afghanistan or Iran, we found a lot of these. We explored all sorts of archeological sites that were left unattended.
In this case we went up to the top of the minaret using the staircase that spiraled up its length. We looked at the minaret, we looked from it, and knowing us, we might have even tried some calls from the top. I don't remember for sure, but we enjoyed exploring this archeological site.
And then we went down to the bottom, set out our picnic, and sat down to eat.
Now the key point of the picnic in my memory is that we were drinking Coke in the old green glass bottles, something that becomes relevant later.
Anyway, so here we were drinking our Cokes, eating sandwiches, and having a wonderful time in the middle of a desert in the middle of nowhere when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, coming up over a hill...was an army.
What did we do?
Well, I don't remember specifically what I did. Probably gawked, more fascinating in what was happening than interested in self-preservation.
My parents were not so taken in by the sight. They grabbed all of us bodily, along with the picnic things and threw everything into the car. I remember all three of us were huddling in the back back, the space behind the back seat. Yes, this was before seatbelt laws and it was a lot faster to toss us in with all the picnic stuff.
Then they got into the car and drove off as fast as they could.
This is where my memories become distinct, tactile even.
I remember sitting on the hard floor of the back back with my thumb over the top of my open Coke, peeking my head up to see these soldiers charging after us. They were firing their rifles right at us, and I remember the sounds of the guns going off, and laughing with my sisters as we hit bumps that sent us bouncing toward the ceiling.
Great excitement.
And every once in a while I would pop my thumb off the Coke and swallow a sip with my mouth over the whole thing, then slam my thumb back so I didn't make a mess.
It was wonderful and exciting and marvelous.
Meanwhile my mother was twisted back in her seat screaming, "Keep your heads down," every time we sneaked a look.
It took at least ten years before I turned my own perceptions around when writing a fictionalized account for a class and saw the situation through my mother's eyes. She was not caught up in the adventure. She was sitting there seeing real guns fired at her children and trying to keep us safe.
However, that has not, clearly, changed the excitement and delight of the whole situation, a wonderful day trip into the desert that became an adventure. I guess there's no question as to why, years later when I saw it, I really enjoyed Raiders of the Lost Arc?
I have no idea what kind of person I would have turned out to be if I'd been raised in the States, but the life I did lead was full of wonderful fodder for tales like this, while giving me a grounding in the consequences of when cultures clash. Not only that, but I spent my days with ex-pat or diplomatic folks, the reason behind my current amateur philosopher status.
Thanks, Juliette, for the opportunity to relive this moment, and I hope you all have enjoyed reading something I usually recount in person with gesticulating arms and tonal emphasis.
Margaret McGaffey Fisk writes science fiction and fantasy; she lived with her family in more than one Middle Eastern country as a child, but currently resides in Reno, Nevada.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Culture Share: Japan - The Tokyo Subways
This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Juliette Wade discusses subways in Tokyo.
The Tokyo Subways
by Juliette Wade
You've heard about the Tokyo subways - I know you have. The system looks like this (click to go to a web page where it appears larger):
That is, if you happen to have the nice map labeled in English. If you don't have one of those, it's a bit harder to read and I won't subject you to it.
I've worked with this system a couple of times: once when I was living as a student in Setagaya-ku (when I lived off the map on the Keio line to the west), and once when I was living with my husband in Nishi-magome (at the end of the Asakusa line in the southwest). It's essentially the way to get around Tokyo, because you can't get a driver's license unless you have a place to park your car, and believe me, that's tough. The stations are all quite close together. Once my husband and I walked from Roppongi to Gotanda, and it took us just under 2 hours on foot to walk that distance; it's usually 20 minutes or fewer between stations on foot.
Sometimes the station entrances are really obvious.
Other times they are hard to identify in the midst of all the buildings on a street. Getting down into the station involves stairs. Lots of them - it's a real workout, especially if your commute involves an hour and a half crossing town, changing lines, etc. as my commute to school did. You're lucky if you find an escalator. There are no elevators, and at least in 2001, very few accommodations of any kind to the disabled (I can't imagine trying to get around the Tokyo subways with a child in a stroller, much less with an adult in a wheelchair).
The big stations are absolutely enormous, like Shinjuku station: upwards of 3 million people pass through Shinjuku station every single day. You can't just say to your friend, "I'll meet you at Shinjuku" because you'd be looking for him or her in an entire city's worth of people. You have to specify which train line (since multiple lines run through there) and which exit or ticket gate to wait by. If you happen to be non-Japanese, and you're waiting for a Japanese person, the easiest way to do it is to say, "Please find me." Picking out a friend in the midst of the crowd is easier if that friend sticks out (and foreigners do).
The crowds are not like American crowds. First of all, I found I was taller relative to the crowd than I was used to being in the US. This was useful for finding my way, because it meant I could look above most heads if I stood on tiptoe. Second of all, these crowds are very homogeneous. Yes, sometimes you may see someone dressed in formal kimono or school uniform, etc. but the height and appearance of the people is much more uniform than I've ever seen in the US. Third, the crowds are strikingly quiet. People generally do not talk when in a crowd, and will use low voices even with the friends they travel with. When they speak on cell phones, they speak so quietly I can hardly imagine how the people on the other side can hear them. The result is these hordes of people moving in near-silence (which can be disconcerting for an American at first). Fourth, the rules of personal space are just different from those of the US. A Japanese person interacting with you in a private context with lots of room will tend to stand at bowing distance, i.e. further away than an American, who will typically stand at handshake distance. In the subways, however, the borderline of personal space moves to the skin. People move along their own trajectories as if no one else were there, and will often enough walk right through your shoulder with no acknowledgment that they have done so.
This brings me to the question of fitting all these people into train cars. A Metro car in Washington DC or a BART car in the San Francisco Bay Area will have pairs of seats facing toward the front or back of the car. This is inefficient when it comes to jamming people in. A typical Japanese train car will have long banks of seats along the walls, and a wide open space at the center. Plastic rings will hang by straps from metal bars above the passengers' heads, and they can hang on to these. (Paper advertisements hang from the ceiling at intervals, but these are no good for hanging onto.)
This means, of course, that there's a lot more room for standing people. I have been on the subway at crowded times when there are so many people in this area that you don't have to hold onto anything at all, because it's impossible to fall with so many bodies holding you up. Once I nearly passed out because the crowd was mindlessly crushing me against one of the vertical metal bars, like the one you see at the left of the picture above, and I couldn't breathe properly. Heating and cooling are done from underneath the seats, which can have the odd effect of roasting or chilling your calves, depending on the weather. On the most crowded line, the Yamanote which goes in a circle around the center of Tokyo, they have side benches which fold up into the walls of the car during rush hour. During the busiest times, no one sits at all.
Yes, there are pushers. Only in the busiest stations, however, and during rush hour. In Shinjuku station on the Marunouchi line, the trains run every 45 seconds during rush hour because that's as fast as they can run safely - and people line up in three separate locations on the platform for each train door, so that train #1 will stop with its doors in front of the first line, and train #2 will stop in front of the second, and train #3 in front of the third. Trains don't sit there with their doors open for long, either, so when your station is approaching you have to move toward the door, and then shove out as fast as you can. If the door opens and there's a wall of people, don't let that stop you! Dive in, because the people behind you certainly will. I've seen people step onto a packed train backwards, hook their toes behind the door track and their hands above the top of the door, and shove themselves in that way. When there are white-gloved station attendants pushing you in, it's that much easier. Everyone expects to be pushed and jammed in, so there's no resistance in the crowd that might push you back out. People just make room as best they can, because there's no alternative. Women often fear encountering "chikan" in these crowds - men who use the cramped conditions as an excuse to feel a woman up. I never encountered one myself, but it may have been because of my relatively formidable appearance. I did, however, carry a pin with me at all times, for female friends of mine had recommended this as a good way to deal with a chikan should I ever encounter one. I heard a story once about a woman who grabbed a chikan by the hand and dragged him off the train where she accused him and handed him directly to a station agent. Since chikan depend on their anonymity, I didn't find it particularly surprising that she'd be able to do this - and I certainly admired her nerve!
Subway tickets are usually small and rectangular, labeled with the amount of money you paid for them. That amount differs depending on how far you'll be going, and when you go to the bank of ticket machines, there will be a map above it showing the price for each destination station in the surrounding area. People who commute on the train can get a "teikiken," which is a special ticket (more square than rectangular, with rounded corners) that will take them on unlimited trips between two specified stations for a limited period of time (usually a month). These are very convenient, but very expensive. The ticket machines swallow and spit out tickets with a rapidity that always impressed me.
For someone like me, who grew up in smaller towns, the Tokyo subways can be quite exhausting. However, they are the best way to get around if you live in Tokyo. The result for me was that I imagined Tokyo a bit like a mushroom farm - not with a map of the whole city in my head, but with the subway map in my mind, and the stations coming up from it, with a small circle of the immediate surroundings attached to each station. Each line has a slightly different character, as for example when I always found the people who used the Keio line to be friendlier than the ones who used the Odakyu line to travel west.
The Tokyo subway system is a phenomenon, and certainly deserves the fame it has acquired around the world.
The Tokyo Subways
by Juliette Wade
You've heard about the Tokyo subways - I know you have. The system looks like this (click to go to a web page where it appears larger):
That is, if you happen to have the nice map labeled in English. If you don't have one of those, it's a bit harder to read and I won't subject you to it.I've worked with this system a couple of times: once when I was living as a student in Setagaya-ku (when I lived off the map on the Keio line to the west), and once when I was living with my husband in Nishi-magome (at the end of the Asakusa line in the southwest). It's essentially the way to get around Tokyo, because you can't get a driver's license unless you have a place to park your car, and believe me, that's tough. The stations are all quite close together. Once my husband and I walked from Roppongi to Gotanda, and it took us just under 2 hours on foot to walk that distance; it's usually 20 minutes or fewer between stations on foot.
Sometimes the station entrances are really obvious.
Other times they are hard to identify in the midst of all the buildings on a street. Getting down into the station involves stairs. Lots of them - it's a real workout, especially if your commute involves an hour and a half crossing town, changing lines, etc. as my commute to school did. You're lucky if you find an escalator. There are no elevators, and at least in 2001, very few accommodations of any kind to the disabled (I can't imagine trying to get around the Tokyo subways with a child in a stroller, much less with an adult in a wheelchair).The big stations are absolutely enormous, like Shinjuku station: upwards of 3 million people pass through Shinjuku station every single day. You can't just say to your friend, "I'll meet you at Shinjuku" because you'd be looking for him or her in an entire city's worth of people. You have to specify which train line (since multiple lines run through there) and which exit or ticket gate to wait by. If you happen to be non-Japanese, and you're waiting for a Japanese person, the easiest way to do it is to say, "Please find me." Picking out a friend in the midst of the crowd is easier if that friend sticks out (and foreigners do).
The crowds are not like American crowds. First of all, I found I was taller relative to the crowd than I was used to being in the US. This was useful for finding my way, because it meant I could look above most heads if I stood on tiptoe. Second of all, these crowds are very homogeneous. Yes, sometimes you may see someone dressed in formal kimono or school uniform, etc. but the height and appearance of the people is much more uniform than I've ever seen in the US. Third, the crowds are strikingly quiet. People generally do not talk when in a crowd, and will use low voices even with the friends they travel with. When they speak on cell phones, they speak so quietly I can hardly imagine how the people on the other side can hear them. The result is these hordes of people moving in near-silence (which can be disconcerting for an American at first). Fourth, the rules of personal space are just different from those of the US. A Japanese person interacting with you in a private context with lots of room will tend to stand at bowing distance, i.e. further away than an American, who will typically stand at handshake distance. In the subways, however, the borderline of personal space moves to the skin. People move along their own trajectories as if no one else were there, and will often enough walk right through your shoulder with no acknowledgment that they have done so.
This brings me to the question of fitting all these people into train cars. A Metro car in Washington DC or a BART car in the San Francisco Bay Area will have pairs of seats facing toward the front or back of the car. This is inefficient when it comes to jamming people in. A typical Japanese train car will have long banks of seats along the walls, and a wide open space at the center. Plastic rings will hang by straps from metal bars above the passengers' heads, and they can hang on to these. (Paper advertisements hang from the ceiling at intervals, but these are no good for hanging onto.)
This means, of course, that there's a lot more room for standing people. I have been on the subway at crowded times when there are so many people in this area that you don't have to hold onto anything at all, because it's impossible to fall with so many bodies holding you up. Once I nearly passed out because the crowd was mindlessly crushing me against one of the vertical metal bars, like the one you see at the left of the picture above, and I couldn't breathe properly. Heating and cooling are done from underneath the seats, which can have the odd effect of roasting or chilling your calves, depending on the weather. On the most crowded line, the Yamanote which goes in a circle around the center of Tokyo, they have side benches which fold up into the walls of the car during rush hour. During the busiest times, no one sits at all.Yes, there are pushers. Only in the busiest stations, however, and during rush hour. In Shinjuku station on the Marunouchi line, the trains run every 45 seconds during rush hour because that's as fast as they can run safely - and people line up in three separate locations on the platform for each train door, so that train #1 will stop with its doors in front of the first line, and train #2 will stop in front of the second, and train #3 in front of the third. Trains don't sit there with their doors open for long, either, so when your station is approaching you have to move toward the door, and then shove out as fast as you can. If the door opens and there's a wall of people, don't let that stop you! Dive in, because the people behind you certainly will. I've seen people step onto a packed train backwards, hook their toes behind the door track and their hands above the top of the door, and shove themselves in that way. When there are white-gloved station attendants pushing you in, it's that much easier. Everyone expects to be pushed and jammed in, so there's no resistance in the crowd that might push you back out. People just make room as best they can, because there's no alternative. Women often fear encountering "chikan" in these crowds - men who use the cramped conditions as an excuse to feel a woman up. I never encountered one myself, but it may have been because of my relatively formidable appearance. I did, however, carry a pin with me at all times, for female friends of mine had recommended this as a good way to deal with a chikan should I ever encounter one. I heard a story once about a woman who grabbed a chikan by the hand and dragged him off the train where she accused him and handed him directly to a station agent. Since chikan depend on their anonymity, I didn't find it particularly surprising that she'd be able to do this - and I certainly admired her nerve!
Subway tickets are usually small and rectangular, labeled with the amount of money you paid for them. That amount differs depending on how far you'll be going, and when you go to the bank of ticket machines, there will be a map above it showing the price for each destination station in the surrounding area. People who commute on the train can get a "teikiken," which is a special ticket (more square than rectangular, with rounded corners) that will take them on unlimited trips between two specified stations for a limited period of time (usually a month). These are very convenient, but very expensive. The ticket machines swallow and spit out tickets with a rapidity that always impressed me.
For someone like me, who grew up in smaller towns, the Tokyo subways can be quite exhausting. However, they are the best way to get around if you live in Tokyo. The result for me was that I imagined Tokyo a bit like a mushroom farm - not with a map of the whole city in my head, but with the subway map in my mind, and the stations coming up from it, with a small circle of the immediate surroundings attached to each station. Each line has a slightly different character, as for example when I always found the people who used the Keio line to be friendlier than the ones who used the Odakyu line to travel west.
The Tokyo subway system is a phenomenon, and certainly deserves the fame it has acquired around the world.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Culture Share: Ireland - An Ear for Language by Joshua Ramey-Renk
This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Joshua Ramey-Renk discusses language habits in Ireland.
An Ear for Language - They speak English here. Don’t they?
by Joshua Ramey-Renk
I recently spent a year and a half living in Dublin, Ireland, living among people who, like me, grew up speaking and writing the same language I do. Or so I thought.
While there, I had a chance to interact, mingle, and absorb many of the unique twists on language that the Irish use and which sound so foreign at first but after time become second nature. In fact, some of them became FIRST nature, and I found many of those same twists and changes crept unconsciously into my writing and had to be edited out later. Of course, the tricky part is recognizing that they’ve crept in in the first place. And it wasn’t just my writing, my spoken vocabulary changed as well.
These language shifts had three major types: Spelling, “Britishism vs. Americun” and Irishisms. Here are a few examples of each.
Spelling
It’s no great thing for an American writer who is also a wide reader to recognize that “colour” is the same as “color”, or that tires come with a “y” to become “tyres”, which touch the “kerb” instead of the “curb”. But when you realiSe that you should have realiZed something and spell check doesn’t help, you’ve started to go native.
And let’s not get started with the liberal use of the possessive apostrophe. It’s mine, it’s your’s, and it is it’s own rule in much written material. I include this under spelling because I was never able to figure out if the construction was official or not.
The chilli peppers in Dublin were so spicy they needed an extra “l”, but there are plenty available after students enrol in school. Unless they’ve already enrolled.
And what chance does a foreigner have when the Glendalough Hotel is near the Glendaloch Hostel, or the you get off at the Balally tram stop to visit Ballawley park?
Britishisms v. Amurican
I use the term “Britishism” advisedly. Implying that they are still under the linguistic thumb of the British Monarchy is a fighting argument for most of my Irish friends, but I have a pass because I drink a lot of Guinness and always stand my round at the pub. These are things that go beyond mere spelling and address more of the way language is used differently among our cousins across the pond. I think they are as common in the 26 counties of the Republic as they are in the six of the (“occupied”, some would say) North.
I found the largest differences in surprising places. I’m not a sport-type, but I do believe that San Francisco is a good baseball team, whereas the Gaelic Athletic Association would claim that Cork are a good side for the hurling. Similarly, while I visit a doctor at the hospital in the US, when I was in Hospital over Christmas for a kidney stone, Doctor’s opinion was paramount and both he, and the location, were devoid of either definite or indefinite articles. But both did get capitalized.
The things I found creeping into my writing, and speaking, the most were everyday expressions that replaced their more barbaric American counterparts. I stopped calling people on their cell phones and began ringing them on their mobiles. I no longer waited in line, but I did queue for a long time. And lastly, when my wife and I argued over something we stopped saying “Don’t you think..?” and began up-scaling the argument with “Would you not agree..?”
Irishisms
These were expressions and words that I started using which, on investigation, were pure Irish gold. That is to say, unique to the island, sometimes based on particular Irish-Gaelic language usage, and occasionally involved leprechauns.
When I was told by a colleague that they were after having a meeting with the CEO, I suggested that they should knock on his door because I had seen him in his office. I got an odd look, and was asked “Why would I do that? I just met with him.” Oh. I’m told that this version of “I just had a meeting…” comes straight from the Irish Gaelic usage.
At some point in my stay, I stopped talking about “my wife” and began telling people what “Herself and I” had done over the weekend. I stopped visiting the restroom and started hitting the jacks, which is a country expression that I blame on my good friend Lorcan D. for sticking me with the first week we worked together. And my favorite four-letter word became the more socially acceptable “Feck”.
Traveller’s advisory: Don’t ask an Irishman what they think about leprechauns. Apparently belief in such creatures is for the Plastic Paddies who buy souvenir trinkets to send to their American cousins. Or those claim to have seen them but who have drunk too much Guinness and are totally locked.
At the pub, I wouldn’t refer to “that guy”, but could point out that “yer man” had showed up again and was harassing the bar staff. And that cute woman at the bar? Well, yer wan is married and it’s best to stay away. Good enough for me, since Herself wouldn’t approve of it anyway and she’d be giving out to me the rest of the night, which is much worse than being scolded or nagged.
Lastly, I was never sure if I was supposed to “Come here to me now” and pay attention or “Go away!” because I had said something surprising. I blame both of these additions to my vocabulary on the linguistic stylings of Michael H., but he’s from Galway so that’s a whole different story.
I’ll be straight up and say that I’m not a linguist. Any or all of these observed language differences may be based on something completely different that I understand, and my adopted usage itself could be completely flawed. All I can say is that I’m an observer, a writer, and like all writers, to some degree I’m a chameleon. I listen, I write, and when I edit I have to look at strange new vocabulary that has snuck into my sentences and wonder “Just how the feck did that get in there?”
Joshua Ramey-Renk lived for a year and a half in Dublin, Ireland, before relocating back to California’s Bay Area - but you're still likely enough to find him with a pint at an Irish pub!
An Ear for Language - They speak English here. Don’t they?
by Joshua Ramey-Renk
I recently spent a year and a half living in Dublin, Ireland, living among people who, like me, grew up speaking and writing the same language I do. Or so I thought.
While there, I had a chance to interact, mingle, and absorb many of the unique twists on language that the Irish use and which sound so foreign at first but after time become second nature. In fact, some of them became FIRST nature, and I found many of those same twists and changes crept unconsciously into my writing and had to be edited out later. Of course, the tricky part is recognizing that they’ve crept in in the first place. And it wasn’t just my writing, my spoken vocabulary changed as well.
These language shifts had three major types: Spelling, “Britishism vs. Americun” and Irishisms. Here are a few examples of each.
Spelling
It’s no great thing for an American writer who is also a wide reader to recognize that “colour” is the same as “color”, or that tires come with a “y” to become “tyres”, which touch the “kerb” instead of the “curb”. But when you realiSe that you should have realiZed something and spell check doesn’t help, you’ve started to go native.
And let’s not get started with the liberal use of the possessive apostrophe. It’s mine, it’s your’s, and it is it’s own rule in much written material. I include this under spelling because I was never able to figure out if the construction was official or not.
The chilli peppers in Dublin were so spicy they needed an extra “l”, but there are plenty available after students enrol in school. Unless they’ve already enrolled.
And what chance does a foreigner have when the Glendalough Hotel is near the Glendaloch Hostel, or the you get off at the Balally tram stop to visit Ballawley park?
Britishisms v. Amurican
I use the term “Britishism” advisedly. Implying that they are still under the linguistic thumb of the British Monarchy is a fighting argument for most of my Irish friends, but I have a pass because I drink a lot of Guinness and always stand my round at the pub. These are things that go beyond mere spelling and address more of the way language is used differently among our cousins across the pond. I think they are as common in the 26 counties of the Republic as they are in the six of the (“occupied”, some would say) North.
I found the largest differences in surprising places. I’m not a sport-type, but I do believe that San Francisco is a good baseball team, whereas the Gaelic Athletic Association would claim that Cork are a good side for the hurling. Similarly, while I visit a doctor at the hospital in the US, when I was in Hospital over Christmas for a kidney stone, Doctor’s opinion was paramount and both he, and the location, were devoid of either definite or indefinite articles. But both did get capitalized.
The things I found creeping into my writing, and speaking, the most were everyday expressions that replaced their more barbaric American counterparts. I stopped calling people on their cell phones and began ringing them on their mobiles. I no longer waited in line, but I did queue for a long time. And lastly, when my wife and I argued over something we stopped saying “Don’t you think..?” and began up-scaling the argument with “Would you not agree..?”
Irishisms
These were expressions and words that I started using which, on investigation, were pure Irish gold. That is to say, unique to the island, sometimes based on particular Irish-Gaelic language usage, and occasionally involved leprechauns.
When I was told by a colleague that they were after having a meeting with the CEO, I suggested that they should knock on his door because I had seen him in his office. I got an odd look, and was asked “Why would I do that? I just met with him.” Oh. I’m told that this version of “I just had a meeting…” comes straight from the Irish Gaelic usage.
At some point in my stay, I stopped talking about “my wife” and began telling people what “Herself and I” had done over the weekend. I stopped visiting the restroom and started hitting the jacks, which is a country expression that I blame on my good friend Lorcan D. for sticking me with the first week we worked together. And my favorite four-letter word became the more socially acceptable “Feck”.
Traveller’s advisory: Don’t ask an Irishman what they think about leprechauns. Apparently belief in such creatures is for the Plastic Paddies who buy souvenir trinkets to send to their American cousins. Or those claim to have seen them but who have drunk too much Guinness and are totally locked.
At the pub, I wouldn’t refer to “that guy”, but could point out that “yer man” had showed up again and was harassing the bar staff. And that cute woman at the bar? Well, yer wan is married and it’s best to stay away. Good enough for me, since Herself wouldn’t approve of it anyway and she’d be giving out to me the rest of the night, which is much worse than being scolded or nagged.
Lastly, I was never sure if I was supposed to “Come here to me now” and pay attention or “Go away!” because I had said something surprising. I blame both of these additions to my vocabulary on the linguistic stylings of Michael H., but he’s from Galway so that’s a whole different story.
I’ll be straight up and say that I’m not a linguist. Any or all of these observed language differences may be based on something completely different that I understand, and my adopted usage itself could be completely flawed. All I can say is that I’m an observer, a writer, and like all writers, to some degree I’m a chameleon. I listen, I write, and when I edit I have to look at strange new vocabulary that has snuck into my sentences and wonder “Just how the feck did that get in there?”
Joshua Ramey-Renk lived for a year and a half in Dublin, Ireland, before relocating back to California’s Bay Area - but you're still likely enough to find him with a pint at an Irish pub!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Culture Share: Food and Drink Customs in Greece by Dario Ciriello
This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Dario Ciriello discusses food and drink customs in Greece.
Food and Drink Customs in Greece by Dario Ciriello
In the course of a dinner party, or during a social occasion where hors d'ouevres are served, it's not unusual for me to catch people eyeing me with mild disapproval. It's true: even after twenty years in the US, I still forget that reinserting, or 'double-dipping', the same chip or carrot stick you have just taken a bite of into a bowl of salsa or dip is simply not done. While I doubt this would raise a hair in Europe (see Fondue), I've more than once seen people drilling their kids on this point.
I, on the other hand, find it distressing to see even the most well-mannered Americans pushing food--peas, say--onto their fork with their fingers, a cultural oddity which must have something to do with the Old West, or perhaps the Great Depression. Why on Earth can't they use a knife in their off-hand? It drives me crazy.
In Europe, we believe that soup should be served piping hot, something that is universally ignored in the US. Salad comes after an entrée, not before—the idea is that the fresh, crisp greens or vegetables clean your palate after a rich main dish. Dessert is something for special occasions, and a plate of fruit, and/or cheese, is a tasty and healthy way to finish a meal And why is water always iced in the US, even in winter?
In Greece, where my wife and I spent a wonderful year on the small island of Skópelos, customs concerning food and drink are even more different, and sometimes challenging.
If you have the fortune to be a guest at a Greek table, you'll find that bowls and serving dishes are set out family-style, but without serving implements. Diners simply use their forks or spoons to pick at the dish, a mouthful at a time. To someone who's at all concerned about hygiene and matters bacterial, this is easily as disturbing as the business of double-dipping.
The first time I encountered this, I surreptitiously noted where my hosts—all apparently healthy, but one can never tell—inserted their utensils into the various dishes, and tried to serve myself from in-between these 'hot spots'. At first, it was easy, like keeping a mental count of the last few numbers that come up on a roulette wheel. But between the growing number of dishes, the shifting patterns of spoon- and fork-insertion as gaps appeared on the plates, the difficulty of keeping up a conversation in a language which I only vaguely grasped the outlines of, and my frequently-replenished wineglass, I was soon forced to abandon my efforts and simply hoped for the best. I was in Greece, and would have to learn Greek ways.
Nor are Greeks shy about using their hands to serve food, as we discovered when we were invited to an Easter celebration. When, after several hours on the spit, the lamb was done, our host and his future son-in-law manhandled it to the table and set it down in front of Máhi, our hostess. Máhi made a couple of big incisions, plunged both hands into the steaming carcass, and began to tear big off big hunks, laughing as she piled them onto our proffered plates. We'd never seen meat served this way at a dinner party, but at least it must be tender.
Then there's the business of heads. At Easter, the lamb carcass on the table still bore the charred remains of its face, complete with pointy teeth and cooked, milky eyeballs, facing us not two places away, a sight that is still vivid in my memory. And if you order mezés (snacks) at an ouzería, you'll at some point find yourself confronted with fish which still have the head attached, and which you're expected to eat.
When it comes to drink though, Greeks (and Southern Europeans generally) exhibit a good deal more sense than Northern Europeans or Americans. Drink is never, never served without ballast to accompany it and cushion the drinker's stomach against the too-rapid absorption of alcohol. If you visit an ouzería or tsipourádiko (oúzo and tsípouro joints, though the terms are somewhat interchangeable), every round of drinks comes with a selection of different, strongly-flavored mezés, or snacks: vegetable and kalamári dishes, spicy sausage stews, or small broiled fish. So over the course of a few rounds of drinks, you end up eating a good-sized meal.
Another interesting custom is that traditional Greek tsipourádikos and ouzerías serve their shots in sealed 50ml. miniatures, which makes billing easy for the server—at the end of the evening they just count the bottles on the table. It also gives the customers a growing array of decorative little empties to play with. Retsína, on the other hand, is sold by weight rather than volume, and served chilled in a cheap aluminum jug. After a little while, ordering wine by the half-kilo seems normal.
Greeks also dine late, in keeping with tradition in Latin and European countries. The normal dinner hour is 10 p.m., and 11 p.m. is not unusual. Of course, when businesses close for four hours in the middle of the day, typically between 2 and 6p.m., this is understandable. Most people work until 8 or 8:30 p.m., but the emphasis is always—and correctly, I believe—on family and social life rather than work. So what if you regularly get to bed at one or two a.m.? At least you were having a good time, and the office doesn’t open until 9 or 10 a.m. anyway.
We could learn a lot from this culture.
Dario Ciriello spent a year living in Greece on the island of Skópelos, and has written a memoir about his experiences entitled Aegean Dream.
Food and Drink Customs in Greece by Dario Ciriello
In the course of a dinner party, or during a social occasion where hors d'ouevres are served, it's not unusual for me to catch people eyeing me with mild disapproval. It's true: even after twenty years in the US, I still forget that reinserting, or 'double-dipping', the same chip or carrot stick you have just taken a bite of into a bowl of salsa or dip is simply not done. While I doubt this would raise a hair in Europe (see Fondue), I've more than once seen people drilling their kids on this point.
I, on the other hand, find it distressing to see even the most well-mannered Americans pushing food--peas, say--onto their fork with their fingers, a cultural oddity which must have something to do with the Old West, or perhaps the Great Depression. Why on Earth can't they use a knife in their off-hand? It drives me crazy.
In Europe, we believe that soup should be served piping hot, something that is universally ignored in the US. Salad comes after an entrée, not before—the idea is that the fresh, crisp greens or vegetables clean your palate after a rich main dish. Dessert is something for special occasions, and a plate of fruit, and/or cheese, is a tasty and healthy way to finish a meal And why is water always iced in the US, even in winter?
In Greece, where my wife and I spent a wonderful year on the small island of Skópelos, customs concerning food and drink are even more different, and sometimes challenging.
If you have the fortune to be a guest at a Greek table, you'll find that bowls and serving dishes are set out family-style, but without serving implements. Diners simply use their forks or spoons to pick at the dish, a mouthful at a time. To someone who's at all concerned about hygiene and matters bacterial, this is easily as disturbing as the business of double-dipping.
The first time I encountered this, I surreptitiously noted where my hosts—all apparently healthy, but one can never tell—inserted their utensils into the various dishes, and tried to serve myself from in-between these 'hot spots'. At first, it was easy, like keeping a mental count of the last few numbers that come up on a roulette wheel. But between the growing number of dishes, the shifting patterns of spoon- and fork-insertion as gaps appeared on the plates, the difficulty of keeping up a conversation in a language which I only vaguely grasped the outlines of, and my frequently-replenished wineglass, I was soon forced to abandon my efforts and simply hoped for the best. I was in Greece, and would have to learn Greek ways.
Nor are Greeks shy about using their hands to serve food, as we discovered when we were invited to an Easter celebration. When, after several hours on the spit, the lamb was done, our host and his future son-in-law manhandled it to the table and set it down in front of Máhi, our hostess. Máhi made a couple of big incisions, plunged both hands into the steaming carcass, and began to tear big off big hunks, laughing as she piled them onto our proffered plates. We'd never seen meat served this way at a dinner party, but at least it must be tender.
Then there's the business of heads. At Easter, the lamb carcass on the table still bore the charred remains of its face, complete with pointy teeth and cooked, milky eyeballs, facing us not two places away, a sight that is still vivid in my memory. And if you order mezés (snacks) at an ouzería, you'll at some point find yourself confronted with fish which still have the head attached, and which you're expected to eat.
When it comes to drink though, Greeks (and Southern Europeans generally) exhibit a good deal more sense than Northern Europeans or Americans. Drink is never, never served without ballast to accompany it and cushion the drinker's stomach against the too-rapid absorption of alcohol. If you visit an ouzería or tsipourádiko (oúzo and tsípouro joints, though the terms are somewhat interchangeable), every round of drinks comes with a selection of different, strongly-flavored mezés, or snacks: vegetable and kalamári dishes, spicy sausage stews, or small broiled fish. So over the course of a few rounds of drinks, you end up eating a good-sized meal.
Another interesting custom is that traditional Greek tsipourádikos and ouzerías serve their shots in sealed 50ml. miniatures, which makes billing easy for the server—at the end of the evening they just count the bottles on the table. It also gives the customers a growing array of decorative little empties to play with. Retsína, on the other hand, is sold by weight rather than volume, and served chilled in a cheap aluminum jug. After a little while, ordering wine by the half-kilo seems normal.
Greeks also dine late, in keeping with tradition in Latin and European countries. The normal dinner hour is 10 p.m., and 11 p.m. is not unusual. Of course, when businesses close for four hours in the middle of the day, typically between 2 and 6p.m., this is understandable. Most people work until 8 or 8:30 p.m., but the emphasis is always—and correctly, I believe—on family and social life rather than work. So what if you regularly get to bed at one or two a.m.? At least you were having a good time, and the office doesn’t open until 9 or 10 a.m. anyway.
We could learn a lot from this culture.
Dario Ciriello spent a year living in Greece on the island of Skópelos, and has written a memoir about his experiences entitled Aegean Dream.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Culture Share: Unexpected Differences - Japanese Taxis
This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Juliette Wade discusses Japanese Taxis and how they might inspire fictional worlds.
Unexpected Differences - Japanese Taxis
Sometimes a simple object can provide an example of unexpected differences across societies. The other day I got thinking about the day I arrived in Tokyo as a Monbusho exchange student, and the craziest taxi ride of my life - and I realized I'd found one of those objects.
The taxi.
Say you're writing a story, and your character has to get from here to there, so you need a way to move him or her. One way is to stick this person in a public paid conveyance of some sort. Give it a non-Earth appearance, an alien driver, pay in the local currency, and you might think you're done.
But the fun has just begun. There's a possibility for difference at every step, even in something so seemingly ordinary.
Let's start with the way you find a taxi. In Japan it's not all that different from large cities in America, where many taxis are on the road. The only thing you have to remember as you approach the curb is that the cars are driving on the left-hand side of the road, not the right, and that will influence which direction the taxi will be able to take you. So you stand at the side of the road, and raise your hand. (Of course, there's also the calling-ahead option, which was what we had when we arrived in Tokyo; the government had sponsored our scholarship for us, so they called us the taxis.) For story purposes, I could imagine possible alien variations on the curbside stance - do you hold up two fingers or five? Does it matter, or should you really be waving your tail instead?
Anyway. For now, assume you're on a street with a sidewalk, standing at the curb. Do you yell "Taxi" at this point? The Japanese word for "taxi" is "takushii" which sounds almost the same, but yelling in the middle of the street is generally frowned upon, and let's face it, the taxi driver probably won't hear you.
Next comes the first major sticking point of taxis in Japan - or, it was, when I lived there. If you're a foreigner, the taxi may choose to ignore you completely. In your story world, think about what kinds of qualities might be used to justify excluding your character from service. Pure foreignness? Possibly. Or maybe a particular feature that the hosts find alarming. Or maybe when this transportation is sponsored by individuals with diplomatic clout, there's no overt objection, which could set your character up for an unfortunate surprise later (when he tries to procure his own ride).
Let's say the taxi stops for you. Great. In the US, you reach out and open the back door on the passenger side. If you do this in Japan, you might end up with skinned knuckles or possibly a major bruise. Japanese taxis are equipped with a special mechanism that allows the driver to open and close the door, and this is part of their job. They don't want you moving the door. This for me is interesting because it's a difference in the construction of the vehicle, but also a difference in the way that you are supposed to interact with the vehicle - which functions of the interaction are your job, and which belong to others.
Once you're in, you discover that in most Japanese taxis, the headrests and seats are covered with white doily material. It's a weird but charming touch. Also, the drivers generally wear white gloves. These aren't just signs of charm, though - they're also evidence of Japanese concepts of hygiene.
Next, you ask for your destination. If you're working in a fantasy or science fiction setting, do think through how your people organize their cities. Japanese streets are generally not named unless they are quite large, and blocks are numbered, and houses numbered based on their position on the block - so houses across the street from one another aren't consecutively numbered, but in fact dictated by the separate numbering sequences of the blocks they are on. In the city of Kyoto, streets generally run North-South or East-West, so it's easy to navigate, but the addresses almost sound like walking directions. In Tokyo, things are wacky and a single missed turn can get you lost in seconds, but their addresses are pretty reliably tuned to the block numbering system.
Once you're moving, consider whether you want to worry about road rules or street signs. Road manners are a question as well. In Japan we'd sometimes see people stop their cars in the middle of the road and leave them running while they ran into 7-11 to buy an ice cream or a drink (because there is no parking to be had anywhere). Our general response to this was "whaaaaa?" But it happened often, and often when we were in cars our hosts or taxi drivers had to navigate around stopped vehicles.
I couldn't actually tell you whether it's standard for Japanese people to talk to their taxi drivers. Taxi drivers generally seemed to like talking to me, but that could have been because I was something of an oddity there: a light-haired foreign girl who spoke Japanese fluently. That would be another place where manners might differ in a fantasy or science fictional environment.
When you get where you're going, you have to pay. Money is a great source of potential strife. Taxis in Japan are expensive - usually 1000 yen or so base, just for getting in, and it meters up from there. On my crazy ride from Narita Airport to Setagaya-ku, the meter kept going up so far that the guy I was riding with and I were incredulous, praying that we wouldn't be asked to pay when we finally arrived. Just a tip? Never try to take a taxi from the Narita Airport to anywhere in central Tokyo. It will cost about $300. We were lucky, because it turned out that the price didn't have to come out of our arrival stipends. A standard taxi ride costs more like 1850 yen, and don't ever try to pay with a 10,000 yen bill. The one time I found I didn't have enough smaller change, the guy wouldn't even take what small change I had - he yelled at me to get out, slammed the door and drove off. A free taxi ride, I guess, but I felt awful. And of course, in Japan, you don't tip, but in America, a taxi driver who hasn't been tipped may actually leave his vehicle and pursue you on foot.
Now, I'm not trying to say that when you get your character from one place to another, you have to include every one of these details. No way. Maybe the trip itself is unremarkable in the context of your story; in that case you should put as few words on it as possible. But paying close attention to the physical and social details of transportation can give you ideas for unusual elements to change, or especially pertinent details to include. And even one or two of those can be enough to make your reader think, "Wow, this place really isn't like Earth. It's a whole new world."
Juliette Wade lived in Japan for a total of three+ years, spending a year with a host family in Kyoto, a year in a dormitory for foreign students in Tokyo, and a year and a half in an apartment in the Tokyo suburbs.
Unexpected Differences - Japanese Taxis
Sometimes a simple object can provide an example of unexpected differences across societies. The other day I got thinking about the day I arrived in Tokyo as a Monbusho exchange student, and the craziest taxi ride of my life - and I realized I'd found one of those objects.
The taxi.
Say you're writing a story, and your character has to get from here to there, so you need a way to move him or her. One way is to stick this person in a public paid conveyance of some sort. Give it a non-Earth appearance, an alien driver, pay in the local currency, and you might think you're done.
But the fun has just begun. There's a possibility for difference at every step, even in something so seemingly ordinary.
Let's start with the way you find a taxi. In Japan it's not all that different from large cities in America, where many taxis are on the road. The only thing you have to remember as you approach the curb is that the cars are driving on the left-hand side of the road, not the right, and that will influence which direction the taxi will be able to take you. So you stand at the side of the road, and raise your hand. (Of course, there's also the calling-ahead option, which was what we had when we arrived in Tokyo; the government had sponsored our scholarship for us, so they called us the taxis.) For story purposes, I could imagine possible alien variations on the curbside stance - do you hold up two fingers or five? Does it matter, or should you really be waving your tail instead?
Anyway. For now, assume you're on a street with a sidewalk, standing at the curb. Do you yell "Taxi" at this point? The Japanese word for "taxi" is "takushii" which sounds almost the same, but yelling in the middle of the street is generally frowned upon, and let's face it, the taxi driver probably won't hear you.
Next comes the first major sticking point of taxis in Japan - or, it was, when I lived there. If you're a foreigner, the taxi may choose to ignore you completely. In your story world, think about what kinds of qualities might be used to justify excluding your character from service. Pure foreignness? Possibly. Or maybe a particular feature that the hosts find alarming. Or maybe when this transportation is sponsored by individuals with diplomatic clout, there's no overt objection, which could set your character up for an unfortunate surprise later (when he tries to procure his own ride).
Let's say the taxi stops for you. Great. In the US, you reach out and open the back door on the passenger side. If you do this in Japan, you might end up with skinned knuckles or possibly a major bruise. Japanese taxis are equipped with a special mechanism that allows the driver to open and close the door, and this is part of their job. They don't want you moving the door. This for me is interesting because it's a difference in the construction of the vehicle, but also a difference in the way that you are supposed to interact with the vehicle - which functions of the interaction are your job, and which belong to others.
Once you're in, you discover that in most Japanese taxis, the headrests and seats are covered with white doily material. It's a weird but charming touch. Also, the drivers generally wear white gloves. These aren't just signs of charm, though - they're also evidence of Japanese concepts of hygiene.
Next, you ask for your destination. If you're working in a fantasy or science fiction setting, do think through how your people organize their cities. Japanese streets are generally not named unless they are quite large, and blocks are numbered, and houses numbered based on their position on the block - so houses across the street from one another aren't consecutively numbered, but in fact dictated by the separate numbering sequences of the blocks they are on. In the city of Kyoto, streets generally run North-South or East-West, so it's easy to navigate, but the addresses almost sound like walking directions. In Tokyo, things are wacky and a single missed turn can get you lost in seconds, but their addresses are pretty reliably tuned to the block numbering system.
Once you're moving, consider whether you want to worry about road rules or street signs. Road manners are a question as well. In Japan we'd sometimes see people stop their cars in the middle of the road and leave them running while they ran into 7-11 to buy an ice cream or a drink (because there is no parking to be had anywhere). Our general response to this was "whaaaaa?" But it happened often, and often when we were in cars our hosts or taxi drivers had to navigate around stopped vehicles.
I couldn't actually tell you whether it's standard for Japanese people to talk to their taxi drivers. Taxi drivers generally seemed to like talking to me, but that could have been because I was something of an oddity there: a light-haired foreign girl who spoke Japanese fluently. That would be another place where manners might differ in a fantasy or science fictional environment.
When you get where you're going, you have to pay. Money is a great source of potential strife. Taxis in Japan are expensive - usually 1000 yen or so base, just for getting in, and it meters up from there. On my crazy ride from Narita Airport to Setagaya-ku, the meter kept going up so far that the guy I was riding with and I were incredulous, praying that we wouldn't be asked to pay when we finally arrived. Just a tip? Never try to take a taxi from the Narita Airport to anywhere in central Tokyo. It will cost about $300. We were lucky, because it turned out that the price didn't have to come out of our arrival stipends. A standard taxi ride costs more like 1850 yen, and don't ever try to pay with a 10,000 yen bill. The one time I found I didn't have enough smaller change, the guy wouldn't even take what small change I had - he yelled at me to get out, slammed the door and drove off. A free taxi ride, I guess, but I felt awful. And of course, in Japan, you don't tip, but in America, a taxi driver who hasn't been tipped may actually leave his vehicle and pursue you on foot.
Now, I'm not trying to say that when you get your character from one place to another, you have to include every one of these details. No way. Maybe the trip itself is unremarkable in the context of your story; in that case you should put as few words on it as possible. But paying close attention to the physical and social details of transportation can give you ideas for unusual elements to change, or especially pertinent details to include. And even one or two of those can be enough to make your reader think, "Wow, this place really isn't like Earth. It's a whole new world."
Juliette Wade lived in Japan for a total of three+ years, spending a year with a host family in Kyoto, a year in a dormitory for foreign students in Tokyo, and a year and a half in an apartment in the Tokyo suburbs.
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