Glasses Shopping

Every time I have a shower, I leave my glasses on the sink just outside the shower room so that when I come out I can put them back on right away. This has never been a problem until last night, when unbeknownst to me my glasses fell off the sink and landed on the floor. I stepped out of the shower room and felt something break as blind-me's foot came down on poor glasses' arm. I took this as a sign and decided to go out and get some new specs.

I always forget what it's like to go into a heavy-on-customer-interaction store in Japan. Immediately as we entered (my Japanese friend Keiko had driven me), we were greeted with the usual chorus of "irasshaimase"s and a young man in a well-pressed suit rushed to meet us at the door. "Welcome," he said and gave a bow. "My name is Mori Junichi. What may I help you, honorable guest, with on this day?". Keiko explained that I was looking new for new glasses. He glanced at me.
"Is your honorable guest-friend perhaps wearing contacts?" he turned his attention back to her.
"Yes, I am." I said to him. He looked at me in surprise and amusement.
"Ah forgive my assumption. Please come this way. If it's not too much trouble, could you possibly remove your contact lenses so that I may conduct a check on your eyes?" He led me to a small sink. "I will prepare for you a complimentary lens case, of course!"
"It's okay. I brought mine," I told him. Once again he looked at me in surprise. He left to wait next to Keiko and I heard him say, "Her Japanese is very good, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," agreed Keiko.
"'I brought mine', she said" he repeated my words excitedly.

When I came back out he took two precise steps towards me and, ensuring his feet were precisely together, raised his arm and half-bowed to indicate where I was to go. In Japan, something I think makes so much sense, when you want glasses you don't just bring in a prescription. They have a small area where they test your eyesight on site. It's free and ensures your prescription isn't dated.

Mori-san led me to the small eye-check area. He performed the routine series of tests all the while complimenting any Japanese I had to use in the process (this is very typical among Japanese people... whether you can easily read tomes of Japanese literature or just say Konnichiwa, they are always quick to applaud your efforts). Interesting fun fact! In Japan they don't have the usual roman-letter "E" eyechart that we all know. Instead they use Hiragana and nearly-full circles where you have to indicate where the opening to the circle is (up, down, left, right).

After the short series of tests, the man said "Please forgive my intrusion, but if it is alright with honorable guest it is perhaps best to try these lenses" as he carefully set a large pair of glasses on my head and carefully tucked the arms behind my ears. "Great apologies for the inconvenience but please wear these for 5 to 10 minutes and read something during that time. If during that time you develop any headache please inform me and I will certainly adjust them for you." So I did.

I found a pair of glasses that I liked and we went to the counter to pay for them. A new man with an equally perfectly fitted suit bowed, introduced himself, and motioned for us to sit in comfortable chairs. I told him the frames I wanted and very delicately he took them from me with two hands, his head bowed, and placed them on a small folded cloth. He set down two decorative Japanese-paper placemats on the counter in front of us.

"Before we begin, here is our complimentary menu," he said, and once again with two hands offered us a small laminated drinks menu: Green tea, Seaweed tea, hot or iced coffee. I decided against Keiko's advice to order seaweed tea and we gave them our orders. Within moments a woman appeared and gave us our drinks, mine in a beautiful traditional tea mug, Keiko's coffee in an ornate teacup on a plate. The woman stirred in milk and sugar for Keiko as I filled out my address on a form. The man presented me with options for the lenses and asked if I would like to pay now or pay later. I decided to pay while I was there and the grand total was under 90$ Canadian-- including the frames AND lenses! "Please forgive us for the delay," said the man and bowed, "But your frames will be ready tomorrow."

I finished the last of my seaweed tea (which tastes more like soup) and Keiko and I left to go to our car outside. The man who had helped us at the counter walked us out and stood at the entrance, arms at the side and feet pressed tightly together. As we got into the car he bowed, and as we drove off he turned to bow in our departing direction. As we rounded the next corner I turned around once more and saw he was still bowing and I knew that he would only stop once we were completely out of sight.

Oh, Japanese hospitality.

The Shirtless Firemen Festival

On Sunday, Kanazawa held the annual “Firemen ceremony”. When I first heard about it I just assumed that it was a hoity-toity officious thing for indicting new firemen, involving lots of bowing and choreographed taking of certificates.

“No,” a friend corrected me, eyes sparkling in delight, “It’s a festival full of shirtless firemen!”. I needed more details but she herself had never been and had only heard this tagline from a friend who had gone before.

It didn’t matter, the brief description was pretty selling. So early on Sunday morning I eagerly layered up and braved the freezing rain, waiting for the show to start on the cold castle grounds, facing the hoards of dangerous umbrella-wielding Kanazawans. Hundreds of firemen, in their very fancy uniforms, stood in rows as the MC belted out the usual (boring) opening comments. And then the show began.

Now, the word “shirtless firemen” definitely evokes a certain image. For me, that image was along these lines:
But in Kanazawa, what “shirtless firemen” actually means is this:

The ceremony was too fun to be disappointed however. In the first “act”, groups of firemen held up slippery wooden ladders as one brave fireman from each group climbed to the top and performed incredible synchronized tricks.

In the second “act”, new firemen stripped down to their traditional Japanese skivvies and held onto firehoses in pairs. The sirens from nearby firetrucks flared up as freezing water burst from the hoses. The firemen held strong for a solid 3 minutes, getting doused, before finally the water died down and they scurried to get their clothes back on.
It was brief, but pretty fantastic, despite the lack of calendar firemen. :)

The Visitor 2

**Disclaimer: my Japanese is faaar from perfect. So ~~~ indicated places I was very unclear about what was said.

One afternoon after school, a Thursday, I was finishing a sketch when the doorbell rang. As I made my way to the door I wondered briefly if it was the woman who’d rung my bell back when I first got here.
I reached the door. The window on it is frosted glass and I could make out the shape of a man. He reacted a bit and through the door I could hear him say “Oh geez, a gaijin*.”in Japanese. Amused both by the fact that he had realized this by my foggy silhouette and that he was mildly disgruntled about it, I opened the door.
There stood a middle aged man in a business suit. He held a slim wallet in his hand.
“Yes?” I asked, in Japanese.
“I’m a policeman,” he said, “But I didn’t realize– sorry to disturb you.” he made a move for the steps but I was too curious to let him leave.
“It’s okay, I can understand Japanese,” I called after him. He seemed to toy with the idea for a second before reluctantly coming back. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m Morimoto, with the police,” he said, and flipped opened his wallet to reveal a badge. He held it up hesitantly, perhaps wondering if I would understand what it was. I did.
“I see,” I said.
“There was an accident ~~~~ on Tuesday night.~~~~~~~” he said, and motioned towards the major intersection by my house.
“That’s terrible! Is everyone okay?”
He was vague in his reply and I didn’t understand. Then he said, “If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions.” In a very movie-esque gesture, he reached into his coat to pull out a notebook, licking his thumb and flipping the pages until he came to the right one. He clicked his pen.
“Where were you on the evening of December 1st, 2009, at approximately 10pm?” he asked. I could barely keep myself from laughing. Did cops really talk like this?
I considered the question. “I was home,” I answered simply, disappointed in my own answer. How boring!
“What were you doing?”
I thought about it. “I think I was watching a movie.” Pretty dull indeed.
“Did you see or hear anything unusual?”
I hadn’t, which was actually strange considering my apartment’s lack of insulation, sound and otherwise. I can usually clearly hear conversations taking place across the street, so I was surprised I hadn’t heard an accident.
“What did you do before that?” he continued, taking notes.
“I was at school.”
“You’re an English teacher?”
“That’s right.”
He scribbled something on his notebook. “What school?”
“Noda is my normal school,”–he smiled in recognition–“but I am at Uchikawa every Tuesday.”
“Age?”
“My age?”
“No. What level of students?”
“Oh. Junior High school.”
He wrote this down as well. “Do you enjoy it?”
“Yes, it’s interesting and fun.” I wondered how this was relevant and he must have too because he quickly got back to business.
“So after school, what do you do?”
“I come home. But Tuesday and Thursday I have Japanese class. So on that night I was at Japanese class before I was home.”
“Where is your Japanese class?”
“Downtown.” he frowned, as if hoping I would answer “Right at the intersection where the accident happened” and thus make myself a prime suspect.
He looked past me at the parking lot. “Do you own a car?”
“No, I cannot drive.”
He seemed to realize that this interaction was not going to lead him to any suspects and he looked dejectedly at the notes he’d made.
“What is your birthdate?” he asked. I told him and he wrote it and my name down. He flipped back to his main page and looked over the notes once more. “So on Tuesday at 10pm you were inside, watching a movie. Before that you were teaching in Uchikawa, and went to Japanese class. You don’t own a car or drive and you didn’t see or hear anything?”. Japanese people are extremely skilled in hiding their emotions but I could tell he was disappointed about his encounter with the neighbourhood gaijin.
“That’s right,” I affirmed.
He tucked the notebook back into his coat and pulled out a card. “Here’s my card,” he said. I took it in the careful way JET has overtaught me, accepting it with both hands and pretending to examine the fine details on it. “If you remember anything, call this number.”
“Of course.”
He nodded and bowed politely. I thanked him and closed the door.

The next day at around the same time, the door rang again. This I opened it to reveal two middle-aged men in suits, holding clipboards. They flashed their badges at me. “Please excuse the interruption,” they said, “But we’d like to ask you a few questions. Where were you on Tuesday night at 10pm?”