Base Orientation and Intercultural Relations

Our first weekend here in Japan went pretty quickly. We tootled around base a little bit, took advantage of Soft Bank mobile phone company’s current special and got free iPhones with a two-year agreement, and attended mass at the base chapel.

Monday morning we woke up as we had every day since getting here; before our alarm went off. Between the sun rising at 4:00 am and the national anthems (American and Japanese) blasting over loud speakers it’s difficult to sleep in.

By 8:30 we were in the classroom ready to begin the first day of our weeklong Area Orientation Briefing and Intercultural Relations Classes (AOB and ICR—love those military acronyms). The first day was pretty boring: reps from the different departments/organizations on base were paraded through to give us the basics. One of the more memorable presenters was a Mr. Puckett from the environmental office who told colorful anecdotes to illustrate some dos and don’ts of base living. The “don’t” category included a story about a woman living in one of the apartment towers on base who put her cat’s solid waste down her garbage disposal, much to the disgust of her neighbors. Mr. Puckett also informed us—a little too nonchalantly for my taste—that asbestos was used in buildings on base as recently as 2001, thus we should contact him before doing any drilling in the walls and such. Uh…can somebody get me the number for that mesothelioma lawyer?

The rest of the week consisted of Intercultural Relations classes and were alternately taught by Yuji-san (a cheerful man probably in his forties who had been working on base in some capacity for 20 years), and Naoko-san (an attractive young woman who also worked her way up from McDonald’s cashier in the base food court to ICR instructor). As one might imagine, a good portion of ICR is focused on arming Americans with information that allows us to live among the Japanese and not make asses of ourselves…too often. With only 3% of Japan’s population consisting of non-Japanese, and only 1.5% of that consisting of Westerners/Caucasians, there’s really no hope of blending in. So the best we can do is adhere to local customs and behaviors.

One of the first things Yuji-san and Naoko-san explained to us is that Japanese people may appear at first to be unfriendly or standoffish. If you pass a stranger on the street and smile or say hello, you will likely be ignored. While Americans see this as unfriendly, Japanese see it as a sign of respect. On such a heavily populated island—128 million people in an area the size of California and 35 million people in the greater Tokyo area alone—privacy is golden. It’s considered respectful to keep to yourself as much as possible.

That being said, Japanese people are extremely helpful. With a simple “sumimasen” (excuse me), you can easily find someone willing to stop and help you find the right train, a toilet or the best beef bowl joint in the area. This is especially true if you make even the most pathetic effort at speaking Japanese. Yuji-san—who speaks near perfect English—assured the class many times that Japanese folks love it when we make an attempt to learn and use their language.

Speaking of language, I am doing a superb job of being Kyle’s translator. Before you become too impressed with my Japanese speaking and listening skills, I should note that I’m not really translating Japanese into English for him. I’m translating English spoken with a heavy Japanese accent for him. Many of the civilian employees in the various offices and businesses on base are Japanese nationals, some of whom have pretty heavy accents. I seem to be able to understand them better than Kyle, but I’m confident his ears will adjust eventually.

We’ve both been able to practice our limited Japanese vocabulary in various situations with Japanese nationals on base, but the most extensive interaction occurred on the train ride into Tokyo. The “field trip” was part of our ICR class. The entire class took a bus from base to a nearby station where Yuji-san showed us how to purchase the PASMO (reloadable train/bus pass) and figure out the train lines. After a couple stops, we broke into smaller groups and began the “unguided” portion of the field trip.

Kyle and I paired up with a couple of young helo pilots, Jake and Chris. Once on the train, Kyle and I took our seats and began studying our pocket Japanese phrase sheet we’d gotten in class. An older woman sitting next to Kyle noticed and began speaking to us. We muddled through the phrases we knew and she helped us with our pronunciation, chuckling with her as we botched some words. We asked (in Japanese) if she spoke English and she responded “minus, minus, minus,” while holding her thumb and index fingers close together. She seemed impressed with our pronunciation for the most part. This was not surprising considering that Yuji-san and Naoko-san commented how well Americans pronounce Japanese, even when first learning the language. They told us that Japanese people marvel at how “flexible” Americans’ tongues are, specifically citing the letters R and L, since they don’t have these sounds in their language. Similarly, the F, V and TH sounds (or biting lip and tongue sounds as Yuji-san put it) don’t exist in Japanese so Mount Fuji is actually pronounced Mount “uji.” Now you know.

Back to the cultural differences, several things stuck out in my mind. Let’s start with Kyle’s favorite. The practice of tipping for services rendered never made it to Japan. Kyle loves this. Our instructors ensured us that if we left money on the table in a restaurant, they would run after us to give it back.

A couple of differences Kyle’s not so keen on also occur in a restaurant setting. The big kicker for Kyle is the size of the water (mizu) glasses. Tequila shots at El Maguey are bigger than these things…or so I’ve heard. In addition, once your order has been taken and food served, you probably won’t see your server again for a while. They see it as rude to interrupt your meal by asking if you need anything. So, the shot-sized H2O and infrequent visits by the server has resulted in Kyle perfecting the phrase, “Sumimasen. Mizu wo kudasai. Domo arigato gozaimasu.” “Excuse me. Water please. Thank you very much.” We won’t talk about the one time he accidentally said, “gracias.”

Before anyone asks, I’m going to wait to write extensively about the food until we have a few more “authentic” experiences under our belt. Needless to say, the food is infinitely better than the last Asian dining experience we had in Pensacola at Jin-Jin 38. This place is apparently named for the family who owns it and the number of ways it can give you diarrhea.

In ICR they talked about different stages of culture shock. For the most part, we’re definitely in the initial honeymoon phase. Things are still new and exciting and we’re easily able to laugh at our faux pas. I suspect eventually we’ll experience more frustration as we continue to venture off base—especially driving off base. Yikes…Until then, we’ll enjoy the honeymoon.



Top Left: Kyle blends in well among the Asians in Yoyogi Park. Those are sake barrels.
Bottom Left: More sake barrels in Yoyogi Park.
Top Right: A busy Tokyo intersection.
Bottom Right: My "tour guides" look lost.

Japan: First and Second Days

Okay, here's a synopsis of the first couple of days here in Japan, or Nihon as the Japanese call it.

I wish the very first encounter we had with the locals would've been more pleasant. But thanks to the swine flu, a team of Japanese health officials boarded the plane upon our arrival to collect our Questionnaires for Heath [sic] Status and issue us a verification of quarantine inspection. This process was about as effective and efficient (it took almost an hour to process the entire Boeing 777 aircraft) as the good ole TSA practices. Donning full surgical gowns, gloves, goggles, masks, and rubber boots, the health officials were much friendlier than they appeared. Nonetheless, the whole ordeal felt like a scene from Outbreak. I guess it's better than Snakes on a Plane...

Flashback to the actual flight from STL to LAX, LAX to Narita-Tokyo. Being a couple of hillbillies who've flown plenty of times but have done very little international travel, Kyle and I were in awe of the whole flight experience. First off, Kyle had never flown on a plane that had two aisles, so that was impressive. Secondly, we both made use of the personal touchscreens on the seat backs in front of us the entire way. We watched a couple episodes of 30 Rock and four different movies. I think Kyle even played a couple hands of blackjack. Finally, were fed two hearty meals during the 11.5 hour flight from LA to Tokyo. The one downer: Kyle's tray table was uneven which resulted in an unfortunate water spill into his crotch with over five hours remaining in the flight. I offered to spill water onto my crotch as a gesture of solidarity, a la Billy Madison, but he kindly declined my offer.

After deplaning and a quick and painless pass through customs, we arrived at baggage claim to find Elton sitting in his crate, trembling slightly, and extremely thirsty. It seems the A-holes--or AA-holes, since we flew on American Airlines--neglected to offer food and water to him during the hour layover in LA, despite the explicit instructions and food and water taped to his crate. It's frustrating when you follow the airlines instructions to the letter and they don't even bother to uphold their policy of offering food and water to the animal every 12 hours. We were irate, to say the least, and Kyle gave an AA supervisor an earful. We've since submitted a written complaint--beautifully written by Kyle, I should add--to American. We'll see what results from that. Bottom line, though: Elton arrived safely and was far less nervous throughout the whole process than we'd expected. Good job, buddy.

On to Animal Quarantine Services (AQS). We had heard from those who had been stationed in Japan before that the Japanese, though an honorable and generous people, have a penchant for inane and inefficient bureaucratic processes. We learned this first-hand at AQS. The whole process and paperwork drill involved with bringing a pet into the country is lengthy and cumbersome, but I was confident we had all our ducks in a row. The AQS official sorted through our paperwork and seemed to be satisfied. Then there was a pause as he conferred with his coworker. Already anxious to get Elton out of his crate (he had been in for almost 20 hours at this point), I started to freak out at the possibility of some sort of delay. Finally the official laid two forms in front of me: the one that I had filled out and a seemingly identical blank one. He pointed to the dates at the bottom of each form as he tried to explain. I then understood. The form I had completed was only good through 2005 (even though I downloaded this form directly from AQS website mere months ago). So I had to copy the information from the form I already completed to the blank form, which was identical except for the "good through" date at the bottom. Whew, good thing they caught that :) But, again, bottom line: Elton made it through inspection and only has 16 days remaining in his quarantine. Thankfully, he is able to fulfill his quarantine here on base. Hooray!

Like many "first times," my first experience with a Japanese toilet in the airport was exciting and confusing. The toilet bowl looked familiar enough, but the key pad adjacent to it had me guessing at first. How do I flush this thing? I recognized the bidet button and knew I didn't want that. I then decided that the button that said "flush" with a couple of musical notes underneath was probably my best bet. Unfortunately, that only made a flushing sound (a water-saving courtesy flush) and didn't actually rid the toilet of anything. In a flash of clarity, I decided to look where the flush handle is on every other public toilet and there it was! I was chagrined it took that long for me to figure it out but I'm chalking that one up to exhaustion.

After hardly having slept during the flight, Kyle and I were exhausted but wanted to take in every detail of our new surroundings. I was able to gawk out the window of the van during the two-hour ride from Tokyo to Atsugi. Kyle, however, was maintaining polite eye contact while talking shop to our sponsor/eye doc he'll be replacing on base. As most of you know, Kyle gets great pleasure out of gawking at things, especially city skylines, so I know keeping his focus on the conversation literally pained him. Every once in a while Kyle's eyes darted to the windows or windshield, trying to catch a glimpse. When we passed Disney Tokyo he gave in to his impulses and swiveled around in his seat to look.

We arrived on base and settled in to our spacious room at the Navy Lodge. We took Elton to the Harwood's, the family who generously offered to keep Elton the first night so we didn't have to drive him to the Camp Zama Army Base kennel. They live in base housing with a dog and a cat and said if Elton gets along with their beasts, he could stay there until we get our housing. So far, so good. The animals are living in harmony and Kyle and I are able to walk three minutes to their place to walk the hounds every day. What a HUGE blessing this has been. A huge thank you to the Harwoods :)

That's all for now. I plan on posting regularly so check back in shortly if you're interested.