Full Day #2

(I forgot to mention that this blogger website suddenly jumped to Japanese as soon as I opened it in Tokyo.)

So. The thing with not speaking Japanese in Japan is that...you don't speak Japanese in Japan. Everything, everything, becomes harder. The JET folk talk to us about joining community classes, and I think, "Is there a 2-1-1 number we can call like in Greensboro? Is there help for the immigrant community? Will I have a sponsoring agency? How will I find out?" (JET does take care of us, FYI, and amazingly so, but it's still nerve-wracking to be so illiterate.)

I went to a quick-stop restaurant with two friends. It's a really small place tucked in with a lot of other really small places on a crowded street. We walked in and barely had enough room to stand at the machine that takes your order, the room was so full. It is only one big room with a long counter running through it, with a waiter on the inside bringing the food and the customers sitting around the bar in a horseshoe shape. There is maybe a foot of space between the barstools and the walls.

We stand there, we three gaijin (foreigners), at the selection on the menu. There are pictures, which is good, but we can't read the descriptions. (Well, one of us speaks pretty good Japanese, but I was lost). I picked one that looked good, put my money in the bill accepter, pressed the button for the food I wanted, and out popped a ticket and my change. I took the ticket to the counter, sat down on a stool by myself because there wasn't enough room for the three of us to sit together, and put the ticket on the counter for the waiter to see.

Not long afterward, out comes a few bowls for me: one bowl of rice and beef, another of soup, and another of a cabbage salad with corn. The waiter says something at great length, I smile and nod and murmur, "Arigatou," which I later learn should have been "Doozo." (Oooops.) Sitting there at the counter, watching the men (all men!!! Where are the women in this restaurant?!) slurping their soup and noodles and politely avoiding eye contact with everyone else, I suddenly got it: this is how I'm going to feel for a while. I didn't feel out of place in a "I need to get out of here" way, which I get sometimes, but I felt like I stuck out and there wasn't anything I could do about it. There was no conversation in the restaurant besides Tony & me whispering back and forth, "This is a lot of food. I don't know what to say. I feel weird. Am I blushing? I can't eat any more." When we finally left, I felt stressed, like I had just taken a test and didn't know how I did. But I felt proud, too, and happy, because that was my first time eating in a ticket-counter restaurant, and now that I've done it, I can do it again! The first time is over, and the second time I will feel just a little more comfortable as I navigate my chopsticks into my rice. And by the time a few weeks is over, I will feel even better.

Later, I went to the Seven Eleven--yes, the Seven Eleven--to buy pantyhose, because here, no outfit is complete without some. I pick up a package and stare as it for a while, wondering what size it is (it says "L" but what does that mean in this country?). Then I pick up another package that I think is more my size. I stand there for a few minutes staring at the two packages, trying to decide. They both list hip sizes (at least, the katakana said, "Hi-pu", which must mean something...) but it's in centimeters. What's my hip size in centimeters? No idea. I finally decide on one pair and go to the counter to pay. The cashier tells me something and I smile and nod. She rings up my purchase and tells me how much it is. I fumble around for a 1,000 yen bill because I know it'll be enough, but when she points at the screen to tell me that it's only 380 I think maybe I have enough change to pay for it with coins. So I fumble around some more in my purse, but can't find the handful of coins I know is in there. I mutter, "Gomennasai" (I'm sorry) and hand her the original 1,000 bill. She smiles and says something that hopefully means, "It's okay; I know you have no idea what you're doing. But you'll get it." I smiled, took my change, and went back to the hotel.