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After rolling around on the train we called it a night and went to sleep. Jared came bumping in late in the wee hours in the morning flying for about 28 hours straight from Italy. He was also sick and we were sharing a tiny room. Oh well. We had to be up bright and early to catch the bus for the Tokyo Auto Salon in the morning.
Let me talk a little bit about the oddities of Japanese culture. First off, if you have to catch some sort of transportation, be it bus, train subway or plane, you had better be early because Japanese are very punctual. They also don't wait for those who dawdle so you had better be ready to roll. Second over the course of history Japanese have developed a complicated culture with many unspoken protocols. To Americans, Japanese are very inscrutable, polite and quiet. Japanese find Americans loud and nearly obnoxious. Japanese people don't consider touching polite and have a wider personal space than Americans. If forced into close proximity like in crowded trains, Japanese don't talk and look downward, keeping to an inner self.
So talking loudly on the train or subway, talking on cell phones in train or even too obviously in public is considered to be very impolite. Hugging is a no no and even shaking hands can take a Japanese person aback. Since I am a 4 generations removed from Japan, Japanese-Hawaiian, my Japanese skills or lack thereof are a huge detriment. Now I can understand simple conversational Japanese but when I try to speak it's disastrous. Although I look like a normal Japanese adult, I speak like a two year old mental hospital escapee which ends up frightening many Japanese people. So it ends up that I do much better speaking normal American English.
It's a little known fact but nearly all Japanese children study English in school for six years so nearly all younger people at least have some understanding of English in the larger cities.
This leads me to another point where I feel quite embarrassed and sometimes ashamed about. Sometimes when with other Americans in Japan, I find that they do things like make fun of the Japanese people very loudly, like their teeth. Straight teeth are not considered to be as sexy in Japanese culture as American culture, so people don't bother to get them fixed as frequently and more tend to have crooked teeth. Many young American tourists tend to do is to make fun of, girls looking FOBish, well duh, you are not in America, YOU are the FOB here! They also loudly say things like “oh god that food is gross looking” etc. What Americans don't seem to get is that typically most Japanese around them probably understand what they are saying but are too polite to say anything about it! When in Japan don't act like an asshole and be an ugly American.
As Americans we have to be ambassadors for our country when we travel abroad and I have had to remind people to be more respectful on nearly every trip I have been on so far. Grrr. Why do I always have to be the politicaly correct asshole?
