Japan vs. America

Japan is very similar to America, just askew by about 10%. That is my prognosis after spending one week in country.

But that slight difference makes a huge impact on my daily life. It constantly reminds me that I am in a foreign country.

For instance, Japan is always noisy. The crosswalk chirps when people are allowed to cross. And the one outside of the Geos school talks. On the train platform there are constant announcements. And once you are on the train, well they don't stop. A constant stream of announcements the entire hour and a half trip I took. I just tuned them out because I speak no Japanese, but I wonder how the Japanese do it, do they also simply tune out the announcements? And if so, why even have them?

They drive on the opposite side of the road here. I am getting used to looking right then left instead of left then right. I have almost been hit more then once. And on top of being the opposite side of the road, you must remember these are all Asian drivers, and the stereotype.....well....


They have very few choices in food and drink. Where as we have 25 items on the McDonalds menu they have 7 (yes, I went to McDonalds today. I had less than a one hour break between my classes and didn't have time to go get real food. Good news, Big Macs taste the exact same in Japan as they do in America). Their soda selection consists of Coke and Calpis (which tastes exactly like it sounds). Gatorade? Lemonade flavor only. Luckily that is my favorite flavor so all good. Tea? Green or black only. The 7-11 drink cooler in America is an entire back wall of the store, here it is three sections.

Automatic doors. The sensor is about two feet from the door. You are forced to pause before going through the automatic doors. I don't know if that is on purpose or not. And they have automatic doors everywhere. Tonight I went to a bar that was above a store. And after you went up the steps but before you entered the bar there was an automatic "paper" door. Interesting.


Oh, and the packaging. I have never received more useless trash in my life. Everything is wrapped up. At the Dry cleaner, my jackets and pants came back individually wrapped in plastic, then put in a plastic dry cleaning bag. At the convience store I get a bag for my drinks and a seperate bag inside the bag for any food product I might buy. At McDonalds I recieved a paper bag for my burger and fries. A paper bag to hold my soda cup. And both were put into a plastic bag. It is amazing to me the number of bags this culture goes through. And I can't even use them as trash bags because they have special gov't issued trash bags that must be used. I basically do nothing with all these bags. And i feel like an asshole because of it.

Food. Food is generally served to the middle of the table and everybody eats from every dish. And of course chopsticks. Oh, and "American" food is just odd. I got some chicken nuggets the other night on the way home from work. And the "fry" part of the nuggets is so different from what I am used to in America. It isn't bad at all, just different.

Everything is just slightly different. It is interesting to me to experience all these differences and compare and contrast them with my embedded world view to see how it could be different or perhaps better.

And that is after one week. I can't wait to see what happens over the next month and year.